West India Docks

“ Under this Act, which is known as an ‘Act for rendering [Pg 45] more commodious and better regulating the Port of London,’ the Corporation of London were authorised to construct a canal in the Isle of Dogs, with power for fourteen years to levy tolls of from 1d. to 31⁄2d. per ton on all vessels using the port, fishing and passenger craft excepted. The incorporation of the West India Dock Company immediately followed. The West India Import Dock commenced on February 3, 1800, was completed at a cost of £17,000 per acre, and opened on August 27, 1802, by William Pitt, the Prime Minister. ”

“ These docks are now amalgamated with the East India Docks Company, formed some years afterwards, and have a united capital of upwards of 2,000,000l., their management being vested in a board of thirty-eight directors, who are elected by the shareholders. Their business is no longer limited to that of the East and West Indies, and ships to and from all parts of the world receive and discharge their cargoes there, though they naturally retain a very considerable proportion of those descriptions of produce for the reception of which they were originally constructed. ”

“ When it is borne in mind that sometimes at the West India Docks—taking one for example—as many as 2,500 hands can be taken on in the morning, it will be easily understood that the chance of employment draws an immense concourse of men daily to the gates. ”

“ The docks on the Middlesex side of the river, which are used for the reception and unlading of timber-ships, are the West India and the Regent’s Dock, or the entrance to the Regent’s Canal.
The number of wood-laden ships that have entered the three principal docks for the last ten years is given below. I am informed by Mr. Jones of the Commercial Docks, that for every ship above 100 tons six men are required to sort and pile away. Rafting from ships of the above burden requires one or two men daily, according to circumstances. ”

“ When the India merchants created the West India Docks they had a capital of half a million pounds sterling. Enormous is the capital that has now been sunk on the estate. At one time, when the owners had made a larger profit than they were permitted by Act of Parliament to divide, they bought a quantity of copper and roofed their warehouses with that expensive material. ”

“ This at 9d. per ton, which is the price usually given by the Dock Companies, would give 5,155l. 1s. 9d. as the gross amount paid to the contractors. The master-lumper derives little or no profit out of this sum directly. This will be evident from the subjoined statement. A gentleman at the West India Docks, who has been all his life connected with the timber trade, informs us that twenty men will discharge a wood-laden ship in seven days. Now,—
This statement is fully borne out by the fact that the master-lumpers will often agree to discharge a ship for 10l. ”

“ So little do men really change. They always leave their temples, whether they lived in Poplar or Nineveh. Only the names of their gods change. The Chapel at Poplar it was then, when this shipping parish had no docks, and the nearest church was over the fields to Stepney. Our vessels then lay in the river. We got our first dock, that of the West India Merchants, at the beginning of last century. A little later the East India Dock was built by John Company. ”

“ Is a landing place by the side of a river, for the convenience of boats, barges, or ships. At these wharfs many casks of fruit, plums, currants, figs, oranges, and lemons, are brought on shore, to be taken away in carts to grocers, fruiterers, and orange-merchants. It is the business of a merchant to bring over these things for our use, and for which we are obliged to him. The West and East India Docks receive now, most of the shipping used to and from those countries, and are considered more secure from robberies, than the open wharfs by the sides of the river Thames used to be. ”

“ There are spacious dockyards, patent slips, &c., both at East and West Cowes: at the latter, excellent dry docks. The naval builders have long held a high reputation for skill: several men-of-war were built here during the last century; and of late years numerous beautiful pleasure-yachts, merchantmen, sloops of war, and other vessels—including the Medina, a first-rate steam-ship (lost on the West India passage) , and some large steamers for various foreign governments. ”

“ What we witnessed on board the vessel in the East India Docks awakened no painful feelings, for they were not people actually compelled to leave their country because they were unable to obtain a living in it, like the many thousands who covet but the common necessaries of life, and cannot obtain them. ”

“ Why are we told, that the East India Docks will be left empty, and the Proprietors be reduced to apply to Parliament for an indemnification? Can it possibly happen, that all these calamities, so heavily denounced, should arise out of a permission to be granted to private ships, returning from India, to proceed to certain ports to be designated; more advantageously situated for their trade than the Port of London? A permission, which the Directors themselves are of opinion will not long be made use of to any great extent ”

“ The dockyard is lighted by electricity, so that work can be carried on by night as well as day. Bombay is the only important place near the sea in India where the rise of the tide is sufficient to permit docks on the largest scale. The highest spring tides here reach 17 ft., but the average is 14 ft. Prince’s dock, of which the foundation-stone was laid by the prince of Wales in 1875, was opened in 1879, and is 1460 ft. ”

“ By the end of the eighteenth century it had its dry and wet docks and every facility for careening and repairing ships, being of great utility to the Company’s merchant ships and its navy as well. Its dockyard was furnished with all kinds of necessary stores. Here there was always on hand plenty of timber and planking, here anchors could be forged, here new cables and ropes were made of all kinds. The cables were of hemp, but for the smaller ropes the external fibres of the cocoanut, so abundant in India, were made up into that inferior type of rope known as kyah or coir. ”

“ The sea does not change, and seamen are what they were if their ships are not those we admired many years ago in the India Docks. It is impossible for those who know them to see those moody streets of Dockland, indeterminate, for they follow the River, which run from Tooley Street by the Hole-in-the-Wall to the Deptford docks, and from Tower Hill along Wapping High Street to Limehouse and the Isle of Dogs, as strangers would see them. ”

“ The three islands built out into the river serve to carry the railway across the front of the city, and form a long series of quays. On either side are the large East and West docks (1825–1834) , and beyond these stretch the long quays at which the American and East Indian liners are berthed. On the west of the West dock is the timber dock, and east of the East dock is another series of islands joined together so as to form basins and quays, one of which is the State Marine dock (1790–1795) with the arsenal and admiralty offices. ”

“ The West India drogers, being constantly obliged to work out in creeks and coves, and contend with head winds, are generally fast vessels; but although, during the war of Independence, the Americans had been brought by necessity to build sharp vessels to prey upon British commerce, and escape from their men-of-war, the great majority of the American vessels employed in the West India trade were of the old English model, built after the fashion of the colonial period. ”

“ H.M.S. Sea is getting all steam up. The privilege of leave cannot last for ever: it is “All aboard!” Whither bound? In the archipelago of the West Indies there are so many points of interest, and so many ports which the sailor of [pg 183] the Royal Navy is sure to visit. There are important docks at Antigua, Jamaica, and Bermuda; while the whole station—known professionally as the “North American and West Indian”—reaches from the north of South America to beyond Newfoundland, Kingston, and Jamaica, where England maintains a flag-ship and a commodore, a dockyard, and a naval hospital. ”

“ A good system of stone and cement docks impresses the visitor. Ships are so numerous at this port that some of the vessels have to remain in harbor for days, and even weeks, before docking room is available. A large dry dock was under course of construction at this time, and other important improvements were in evidence all along the water front.
Trucking is done by oxen; horses are never seen drawing heavy loads. The Bombay truck is a two-wheeled cart, thousands of these, loaded with cotton bales and various merchandise, slowly moving about the city all the while. ”

“ A more immediate development of commercial enterprise cannot fail to result from the opening of a Ship Canal through the Isthmus of Panama; viz., a direct trade between the West India Islands, English, French, and Spanish, and the countries which have been named. From this consideration, the West India proprietors and merchants, whose property in those colonies has been of late years so much depreciated, are deeply interested in the success of this undertaking. ”

“ The Brunswick Dock is larger than any of the preceding, and receives p. 79vessels laden with timber. Prince’s Dock is 500 yards in length, with spacious quays, and along the west side is a beautiful marine parade, 750 yards long, and eleven wide, defended by a stone parapet wall, from which is a delightful view of the river and the shipping: it is much frequented as a promenade. To the westward of these are the Clarence Dock and Basin, appropriated solely to the use of the steam vessels trading to and from the port: there are several smaller docks, and considerable additions are contemplated. ”

“ There was no lack of energy on the part of Indians of old in utilizing to the full the opportunities presented by nature for the development of Indian maritime activity—the fine geographical position of India in the heart of the Orient, with Africa on the west and the Eastern Archipelago and Australia on the east, her connection with the vast mainland of Asia on the north, her possession of a sea-board that extends over more than four thousand miles, and finally the network of rivers which opens up the interior. ”

“ The most common form, however, of failure is the sliding forwards of a dock wall, with little or no subsidence, on a silty or slippery stratum under the pressure imposed by the backing. Thus the Kidderpur dock walls furnish an instance of sliding forwards on muddy silt, and part of the South West India dock walls on two underlying, detached, slippery seams of London clay. ”

“ If the East India trade was a monopoly, commerce with the West Indies was unfettered by any such condition. Not unnaturally, therefore, competition was keen on this route, and as a result a number of excellent cargo-carrying ships were built, able to endure the trying conditions of the Atlantic without being deficient in the virtue of speed. The illustration in Fig. 72, taken from a print dated 1820, in the British Museum, will give some idea of the appearance of a contemporary West Indiaman. ”

“ The opening of the Suez Canal, in 1869, gave renewed vigour to the company. While producing an entire revolution in the shipping trade of India, it afforded facilities for its economical conduct, hitherto unknown. Of these the directors at once took advantage, and their steamer India, requiring new boilers, was the first vessel to arrive in London with a cargo of Indian produce, through the new maritime highway, which the genius and energy of Lesseps had constructed across the barren isthmus of the land of the Pharaohs. ”

“ Great Britain, though a large builder and the principal designer of floating docks, does not possess very many; possibly the number and excellence of the dry docks scattered round her coasts may be the explanation. But as dry docks are costly to make or alter, the British Admiralty has ordered the construction at Wallsend of a floating dock which will take the largest battleship afloat or likely to be built for some years to come. In anticipation of the possible needs of the mercantile marine, plans have been prepared for a floating dock with a lifting power of 45,000 tons. ”

“ Steps and slides are provided at convenient places at the sides to give access for men and materials to the bottom of the dock; and culverts and drains lead the water to pumps for removing the water from the dock when the entrance has been closed, and to keep it dry whilst a vessel is under repair. Culverts in the side walls of the entrance enable water to be admitted for filling the dock to let the vessel out. Graving docks are generally closed by ship caissons; but where they open direct on to a tidal river, and there is some exposure, gates are adopted, or sometimes sliding caissons. ”

“ This is a place to enter more reverently than the Bengal Legislative Council, for it controls the direction of the uncertain Hugli down to the Sandheads, owns enormous wealth, and spends huge sums on the frontaging of river banks, the expansion of jetties, and the manufacture of docks costing two hundred lakhs of rupees. Two million tons of sea-going shippage yearly find their way up and down the river by the guidance of the Port Office, and the men of the Port Office know more than it is good for men to hold in their heads. ”