The History of the Port of London by Peter Stone

The History of the Port of London by Peter Stone

Author:Peter Stone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General
ISBN: 9781473860391
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2017-08-30T04:00:00+00:00


Cargoes are raised into the warehouses out of the hold of a ship without the goods being deposited on the quay. The cargoes can be raised out of the ship’s hold into the warehouses of St Katharine’s in one-fifth of the usual time. Before the existence of docks, a month or six weeks was taken up in discharging the cargo of an East Indiaman of from 800 to 1,200 tons burden; while eight days were necessary in the summer, and fourteen in the winter, to unload ships of 350 tons. At St Katharine’s however, the average time now occupied in discharging a ship of 250 tons is twelve hours, and one of 500 tons two or three days, the goods being placed at the same time in the warehouse … This would have been considered little short of a miracle on the legal quays less than fifty years ago.

The original cranes were manual, powered by treadmill pulley systems, but were later replaced by steam and then hydraulic lifts. On the ground level facing into the dock were quays, covered by part of the upper floors of the warehouses, which were supported on cast-iron Tuscan colonnades. To the streets the tall warehouses, windowless in their lower parts, formed the impregnable walls of the complex, providing the necessary security for the goods within. A Dock Master’s House was constructed beside the entrance lock, with an impressive Dock House office in the Grecian Doric order in the north-west corner facing Tower Hill.

The West Dock of St Katharine’s opened in October 1828 and the East Dock the following year. Unlike the opening of earlier docks, there seems to have been only a modest ceremony, with no state officials of note attending. Taking part on that occasion was the Mary, a ship that traded with Russia. On its deck were forty veteran sailors who had served under Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, collected from the Greenwich Hospital.

Around 500 staff were employed in the docks, warehouses and offices at St Katharine’s, including 225 permanent men and 200 preferred labourers, in addition to some 1,700 casual workers hired as required. There were regulations regarding the honesty and sobriety of workers, who were strictly prohibited from carrying any kind of vessel capable of containing a liquid and could be searched by their foreman or at the dock gates.

St Katharine’s specialized mostly in importing tea from India and wool from Australia, New Zealand and the Falkland Islands. The warehouses could accommodate 600,000 bales of wool. Both the wool trade and the importation of marble were shared between St Katharine’s and the London Docks. Seven hundred thousand chests of tea passed through each year, repacked on site before being distributed to wholesalers. There was also a large range of luxury and exotic items from around the world, including spices, ivory, china, ostrich feathers, tortoiseshell, oriental carpets, mother of pearl, raw materials to manufacture perfume (with an on-site extraction facility), guano (used as a fertilizer) and tallow (used in soap manufacturing and cooking).



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