Part 2

Now returning to the north side of the river, I would ask you to bear in mind my reference to the petition of the London merchants in 1674. But anything like redress from a Privy Council of which King Charles II. was the president, was by no means easy of attainment. The king wanted money. As is well known, his favours generally went to the highest bidder. Moreover, the wharf proprietary consisted for the most part of the leading City magnates, and to conciliate them—or, rather, not to do anything to offend them—was obviously a great point with this most worthless of merry monarchs. So the merchants petitioned in vain. But in spite of these serious drawbacks the trade of the port steadily increased. An immense impetus was given to the manufacturing industries of the country by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. This measure had the effect of sending from 50,000 to 70,000 of the most skilled of the French artisans to this country, and some £10,000,000 of French money. The result was increased activity in the manufactures of the country, and a great accession in the trade of the port. Thus, while in the year 1613 the total value of the exports and imports had been a little over £4,800,000, in the year 1700 they represented a value of £13,272,891, of which London alone contributed £10,263,325. It will, of course, be readily understood that in the absence of easy and cheap means of internal communication, the only method by which the manufacturing districts could get their goods into the London markets would be by coasting-vessels. Hence this class of business constituted the bulk of the shipping frequenting the river. Thus, in the year 1728, while 1,839 British and 213 foreign vessels entered the river, the number of coasting-vessels, colliers, &c., was not less than 6,837. At this time most of the foreign trade was in the hands of the East India Company, the Russia Company, the Levant Company, the South Sea Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the African Company. With the exception of the cargoes carried by the ships of the East India Company, much of the business conducted by these great companies could be accommodated at the Sufferance Wharves, and did not present the inducements to plunder offered by the valuable productions of the East and West Indies. The conquests of Clive in the East Indies resulted in an immense augmentation of the shipping of the East India Company, and the acquisition of many of the West India Islands about the same time led to a vast increase in the importations of sugar and rum, which, from their value and the high duties to which they were subject, offered tempting baits to the organised bands of river thieves which the crowded state of the port and the unprotected condition of the shipping and merchandise gradually called into existence. The Legal Quays could accommodate 32,000 hogsheads of sugar only; whereas, so early as 1756, the annual importations reached upwards of 60,200, and over 5,000 puncheons of rum. The Sufferance Wharves could accommodate 60,200, and in the year 1793 the Government were compelled to sanction the landing and storage of sugar at these places, although laid out for, and principally used by, the coasting trade. In the year 1796, the Sufferance Wharves on the south side of the river were known as:

Chamberlayne’s, Cotton’s, Haye’s, Beale’s, Griffin’s, Symon’s, Stainton’s, Davis, Butt & Co.’s, Hartley’s, Pearson’s, Holland’s, Cole’s, Carrington’s Hoggarth’s, Scott’s, Merriton’s,

representing a river tonnage of 2,890 feet. Those on the north side of the river were:

Irongate, St. Catherine’s, Watson’s, Bryant’s, Down’s,

representing a frontage of 786 feet; or a total for both sides of the river of 3,676 feet.

In many instances, the charges at the Sufferance Wharves were even higher than those at the Legal Quays, to say nothing of the increased liability to plunder incurred by merchants in sending their goods there. And not only was this the case, but as Customs officers were only officially stationed at the Legal Quays, whenever they did duty at the Sufferance Wharves they were paid extra fees at the consignee’s expense; and when permission was given to land the whole of a cargo at these places, the consignee of each parcel of goods had to pay extra fees for his particular parcel, and those _pro rata_, in order that a separate sufferance might be taken out for them. If, therefore, after waiting four or six weeks to get his goods landed at one of the Legal Quays, a merchant, in despair, sent them to a Sufferance Wharf, it was like jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. Again and again the necessity of extending the Legal Quays was brought under the notice of Parliament, and in 1762 Lord Bute, then Prime-Minister, warmly supported a scheme for thus laying out a large tract of ground, including the Tower Ditch; but with all his influence, the parties interested in the maintenance of the then existing order of things were too strong for him, and the scheme had to be abandoned. Three years later another commission was appointed; but, after a bitter controversy, their proposition was rejected on the frivolous ground that the land which they proposed to acquire and lay out as Legal Quays was not an ‘open space’ as defined in the Act of Queen Elizabeth. From this time until 1793 various plans were suggested, but all of them were frustrated by the powerful combination of the wharfingers.

Thus the condition of things on the river went on growing from bad to worse, until we reach the years 1793-94, when the crowded condition of the river was declared to be altogether intolerable. Meanwhile, in spite of these drawbacks, the increase in the commerce of the port during the twenty-four years ending with the latter year had been as great as in the first seventy years of the century. In the year 1702, the shipping entered inwards, foreign and British, exclusive of coasting vessels, was 1,335 ships, with a tonnage of 157,035 tons; in 1751 it was 1,682 ships, with a tonnage of 234,639 tons; in 1794 it was 3,663 ships, with a tonnage of 620,845 tons. From a little over £10,000,000 in the year 1700, the value of the exports and imports had rushed up to £31,442,040. With Legal Quay accommodation for only 32,000 hogsheads of sugar, the annual importations had reached upwards of 140,000 hogsheads. During war time, the West India fleets only could more than trebly fill the warehouses. One fleet from the Leeward Islands brought 35,000 hogsheads; another from Jamaica brought 40,000: on the arrival of the latter fleet only 7,000 hogsheads could be warehoused at the Legal Quays; the rest had to remain in barges in the river at the mercy of the river thieves, or be left on board the importing vessels until it could be landed elsewhere. I may add that in five months in the year 1794 not less than 122,000 hogsheads of sugar arrived in the port. Indeed, at this period the Legal Quays could not accommodate one-fourth of the trade.

I need hardly remind you that in the absence of quays at which vessels could lay alongside and discharge, their freights had to be unshipped in the river and crafted ashore, and some arrangement existed as to those portions of the stream in which vessels from different parts took up their position for this purpose. Mooring chains extended from the Upper Pool to Limehouse, on both sides of the river. Each of these mooring chains was intended to afford anchorage for fourteen or sixteen vessels; but, sometimes, as many as thirty were moored to each. The moorings from London Bridge to the Tower were for the most part occupied by coasters; those at Blackwall were for East Indiamen; and West Indiamen and king’s ships moored off Deptford. Altogether there was mooring accommodation for 800 vessels, large and small. Now, as I have already shown, in the year 1794, 3,663 ships, British and foreign, with a tonnage of 620,845 tons; and 10,286 coasters, with a tonnage of upwards of 1,000,000 tons, competed for this limited anchorage. Of course, hundreds of vessels grounded with the tide, and in rough weather sometimes sustained more injury than accrued from two or three bad voyages. These figures will help to convey some impression of the crowded state of the river, although I am unable to say what number of vessels were, as a rule, in the river at one time. This condition of things was greatly aggravated by the exigencies of war, which, by throwing ships into large convoys, resulted in the river at times being completely blocked. To increase the confusion it would sometimes happen that as many as 300 colliers would come up the river at one time, and although a regulation existed that a fair way of 300 feet should always be preserved for vessels passing up and down the stream, the crowd of shipping has been so great that one might walk from the Middlesex to the Surrey shore over the decks of vessels. Here I may remark that, in the winter of 1794 coals reached the enormous price of six guineas the chaldron; for although there were hundreds of colliers in the river, the glut of shipping was so excessive that they could not be unloaded. Accidents and loss of life were matters of everyday occurrence: over 500 persons lost their life from drowning annually, three-fifths of these cases occurring in the Pool. But by far the most serious of the many evils arising out of this condition of things was the immorality which it generated amongst all classes of labour employed on the river. East Indiamen seldom came higher up the river than Blackwall, where they discharged their cargoes into decked lighters, or hoys, of from 50 to 100 tons; hence the pillage was, comparatively speaking, trifling. By far the greater bulk of the most costly and valuable merchandise, such as rum, sugar, wine, &c., was discharged into open lighters, punts, billyboys, lugger-boats; and, to say nothing of the plunder effected during discharge, and in the passage up the river to the wharf, these craft unprotected had to lie up, sometimes as long as six or eight weeks, before they could be unloaded, not a night passing without sustaining loss of some kind. Lightermen, labourers, watermen, the crews of ships—in some instances recorded, the officers included, and even the Revenue officers—combined in this nefarious system. The sides of the river swarmed with receiving-houses, many of them kept by persons of considerable opulence; and when it is borne in mind that the value of property floating on the river was estimated at £70,000,000 per annum, it will be seen what a rich harvest these rascals had to reap. The men engaged in the discharge of ships were under little or no control, and their depredations had come to be of so systematic a character that they were regarded as one of the taxes of the port. The several classes of thieves were even known by special designations to indicate the field of their operations. The body known as the ‘River Pirates’ were the most formidable of these marauders. Most of them were in open league with the marine store dealers. Reconnoitring by day, they made their attacks upon ships by night in armed boats, cutting adrift lighters and taking out their contents. The ‘Night Plunderers’—watermen of the lowest class—attacked unprotected lighters and made over the booty to the receivers. The ‘Light Horsemen’ comprised the mates of ships and Revenue officers. Then there were the ‘Heavy Horsemen,’ consisting of the porters and labourers employed on board ships, who wore dresses specially made with big inside pockets to secrete anything of value that was not too heavy to carry off; to say nothing of the ‘Mud Larks’, who picked out of the mud on the shore property thrown overboard by persons in concert with them at work in the ship. Some of these young thieves are said to have received as much as £5 a night for their booty. The losses sustained in wines and spirits were something enormous. Instances are recorded of lighters with double bottoms being employed; and by dexterously loosening two or three hoops of casks and turning them bung downward, hundreds of gallons of rum, wine, or oil—as the case might be—were deposited in the false bottom during transit from the ship to the wharf. The greatest sufferers were the West India merchants. Mr. Hibbert, one of the most eminent of our West India merchants, speaking in 1822 of this condition of things, gives a graphic description of the grievances of the trade. Both rum and sugar samples were drawn on board ship. The aggregate weight of the sugar samples drawn from each cask averaged 12 lbs. In breaking out hogsheads of sugar the casks were often knocked to pieces, in order that their contents might be picked up as scrapings, and claimed as perquisites. Sometimes whole packages were appropriated. Of a cargo of 120 puncheons of rum brought by one vessel 7 puncheons were thus _missing_. Mr. Lindsay, in his admirable work, ‘A History of Merchant Shipping,’ gives some interesting details of the method in which these transactions were conducted. He says:

‘Most of these infamous proceedings were carried on according to a regular system, and in gangs, frequently composed of one or more receivers, together with coopers, watermen, and lumpers, who were all necessary in their different occupations to the accomplishment of the general design of wholesale plunder. They went on board the merchant vessel completely prepared with iron crows, adzes, and other implements to open and again head up the casks; with shovels to take out the sugar, and a number of bags made to contain 100 lbs. each. These bags went by the name of “black strap,” having been previously dyed black to prevent their being conspicuous in the night, when stowed in the bottom of a river boat or wherry. In the course of judicial proceedings, it has been shown that in the progress of the delivery of a large ship’s cargo about ten to fifteen tons of sugar were on an average removed in these nocturnal expeditions, exclusive of what had been obtained by the lumpers during the day, which was frequently excessive and almost uncontrolled whenever night plunder had occurred. This indulgence was generally insisted on and granted to lumpers to prevent their making discoveries of what they called the “drum hogsheads” found in the hold on going to work in the morning, by which were understood hogsheads out of which from one-sixth to one-fourth of the contents had been stolen the night preceding. In this manner one gang of plunderers was compelled to purchase the connivance of another, to the ruinous loss of the merchant.’

Thousands of persons were employed simply to _watch_ goods until landed. Of 37,000 persons employed on the river, 11,000 were either professional thieves or receivers of stolen property. Over 1,600 Customs officers were employed on the river in the interest of the Revenue. To an East Indiaman of 400 or 500 tons thirty officers were attached, and to a West Indiaman from seven to ten. While on board these officers were generally fed at the expense of the ship. The value of property annually stolen on the river was upwards of £500,000, and involved a further loss to the Revenue of £300,000. The Marine Police—as the Thames Police were formerly called—in the first year of their existence recovered stolen property worth upwards of £100,000. So bitter was the feeling amongst the river thieves against the magistrates and members of this useful body when established in 1797, that they made a most daring attack upon the office, with a view to intimidation. In defending themselves the magistrates were compelled to use fire-arms. Several persons were killed, and a number injured in the fray. As a further illustration of the delays incurred under this condition of things, I may add that goods were often seized by the Customs though duly entered, and in some cases, even the duties paid. Wines were required to be landed within twenty-one days; rum and coffee were allowed thirty days; whereas sometimes vessels remained in the river two months before they entirely got rid of their cargoes. On one occasion 5,000 puncheons of rum in this way became subject to seizure, and would have been seized had not the Customs granted a special indulgence.

Before proceeding to call your attention to the various schemes which at this time (1794-96) were submitted to the Government for the improvement of the port, I wish to bring under notice the existence of a small private dock at Blackwall. This dock, commenced on March 2, 1789, and known as the Brunswick Dock in honour of the reigning royal family, was constructed by Mr. Perry, of Messrs. Perry, Wells, & Co., who owned the adjoining ship-building premises, and opened on November 20, 1790. Here I may observe that, from a very early period, Blackwall has been a noted place for ship-building yards. Pepys speaks of a visit which he paid to them in 1661, and again in 1665, when, much to his discomfort, he complains that he was compelled to pass a night in what he calls the ‘unlucky Isle of Doggs.’ I may also mention in passing that Mr. Perry built a small dock in 1783, just large enough to receive one whaling vessel. This little dock, of which I have not been able to obtain a view, was subsequently converted into one of the slips now occupied by Messrs. Wigram’s dry docks. The Brunswick Dock was built for the accommodation of the vessels of the East India Company, and was capable of receiving twenty-eight large Indiamen and a number of smaller vessels. This dock formed the nucleus of the existing East India Export Dock, and many of you remember the old Mast House, which, you will observe from its appearance here, was coeval with the origin of the existing dock. But the relief afforded by this dock was merely a drop in the bucket, and from the years 1793 to 1799, when the Bill for the construction of the West India Dock was passed, we find a number of schemes for increasing the accommodation of the port engaging the attention of the mercantile community and Parliament. These, I now proceed, as briefly as possible, to notice in the order in which they were reported upon by the Committee of the House of Commons appointed to take evidence and consider and report on them.

The first of these schemes, to which I would invite your attention, is what was known as Mr. Ogle’s scheme. Mr. Ogle was a wealthy ship broker and ship’s-husband. He was also Chairman of the Committee of Proprietors, Lessees, and Wharfingers of the Legal Quays, and, without doubt, one of the most intelligent and able men of his party. It is a fact, which should always be borne in mind, that the scheme submitted by this gentleman—who was, of course, deeply interested in getting it adopted—was the only plan before the public based on the theory that the river could be so deepened, and otherwise improved, as to answer the purposes of the commerce of the port. _All the other plans were founded on the one general principle of the necessity of docks or recesses being made out of, and clear from, the channel of the river._ I lay particular stress upon this fact, because it is the practice in some quarters to regard the origin of the docks of London as exhibiting something like an act of grace on the part of the wharf proprietors, and only tolerated by them on conditions from which the Dock Companies in a spirit of doubtful faith would now gladly be absolved. But I think I have already said enough to prove that no view of the question could be less in harmony with the facts. The docks of London were started, in the first instance, not so much as a profitable speculation to investors, as a response to an urgent national demand which the vested interests in the old order of things were no longer able to resist; not so much in a spirit of competition with the wharves, as the only means of saving the commerce of the port from utter ruin; not so much as wealthy grasping corporations, who, finding they have made a bad bargain, now wish to draw out of it, as the pioneers of the marvellous prosperity of the port, if not its founders, its liberators. Certainly, without its docks, the London of to-day would have been an impossibility; but of this I shall speak more fully presently.

Mr. Ogle, whose plan is before you (_see_ Appendix A), proposed to deepen the river, extend and improve the Legal Quays, and to increase the number of mooring chains. He further proposed that the moorings should be appropriated in proportion to the claims of the several classes of commerce, and that harbour masters should be appointed to see that vessels took up their proper position as they came up the river. The different colours on the plan represent the moorings. It was, however, the opinion of nine-tenths of the practical men of the port that under no scheme would it be possible so to improve the river and extend the Legal Quays as to obviate the necessity for wet docks.

The next scheme to which I would ask your attention was known as the Merchants’ Plan of Docks at Wapping (_see_ Appendix B). The desirability of having goods landed as near the City as possible is, of course, obvious. As a natural consequence, all the schemes for docks at Wapping were warmly supported by the City. The dock here represented was to be 39 acres in extent, with a smaller one of 2 acres for the accommodation of lighters. One of the entrances was to be by a canal 22 feet deep, 170 feet wide, and 2¾ miles in length, and navigable for ships of 300 tons: and, as you will see, communicating with the river immediately above Perry’s Dock, at Blackwall. The object of this canal was, of course, to avoid the circuitous and dangerous navigation round the Isle of Dogs, which was always a great difficulty with the early dock engineers. To get from the Pool to Blackwall when ‘kedging’ was the only means of getting a vessel along, sometimes occupied fourteen days, and it was felt that no scheme would be satisfactory which did not in some way enable vessels to avoid this obstinate bend in the river. The line taken by this canal was, as nearly as possible, that now occupied by the Commercial Road. This scheme was estimated to cost £1,000,000. While this plan is before you, I wish to call your attention to a small canal known as the ‘Bromley Cut,’ connecting the River Lea with the Thames at Limehouse. It is not generally known that this Cut was commenced so early as the reign of Elizabeth, in the year 1571. Before this Cut was made, the connection of the traffic on the Lea with the City was most difficult, inasmuch as barges had to leave the mouth of that river at Blackwall, and wind their way round the Isle of Dogs—a most hazardous undertaking. All this was obviated by the now despised and unsavoury Cut. This system of docks, although not accepted, was the basis of the existing London Docks.

The third plan was known as the ‘Corporation Scheme’ (_see_ Appendix C). This scheme, with the munificence which distinguishes every undertaking of the Corporation of London, was at once the most extensive and expensive of the many schemes which engaged public attention. The Corporation proposed to excavate one dock in the Isle of Dogs of 102 acres, and another at Rotherhithe of the same extent, with a canal to Vauxhall. They further proposed to extend the frontage of the Legal Quays by the acquisition of Billingsgate, and to provide for the construction of slips for the accommodation of lighters. They also intended largely to increase the warehouse space, by arching over the quays and constructing warehouses on them.