Docklands History Group meeting Wednesday 2 November 2016 Industrial Discontent in the Thames Shipyards 1795 – 1802 By Chris Ellmers, our President
Chris started by saying that the popular view of Thames shipbuilding has been formed by contemporary paintings depicting East India and naval ships under construction, or ready for launching, but that these did not tell us anything about the story of the people who worked in the dockyards. He was going to concentrate on two disputes. For much of the period from 1793 to 1815 England was at war with Revolutionary France (1793-1802) and Napoleon (1803-1815). As a result of these, there were major naval shipbuilding programmes at both the naval dockyards and the private or merchant shipyards. The first industrial dispute was in 1795, when Thames sawyers went on strike, and the second one was in 1802, when sawyers, caulkers and shipwrights were all involved.
In the shipyards, sawyers sawed the logs and planks ready for the shipwrights, who put the frames of the ships’ hulls together, and then planked them up. The caulkers finished the hull and planking off by driving oakum between the joints and paying them with pitch to make them watertight. These were the three key groups in ship construction, although there were many other shipyard trades, such as blacksmiths and joiners, but he had not found records of the latter being involved in any big disputes.
Chris showed a Worshipful Company of Shipwrights painted banner, dated 1782, of which depicted an oak tree, as the main wood used was oak, and below it a shipwright, with an axe used for mast and trimming timbers, and a caulker with a specialist mallet in his hand. In the middle was a starboard side view of a 1st Rate naval warship, in excess of 100 guns, although members of the Company were not involved in the building of such ships at that time. Chris had had to look at recent books for illustrations of the essential working activities that actually took place in the yards. Sawyers, shipwrights and caulkers were skilled men who served seven year apprenticeships. These were all hand tool trades. He explained that the caulking mallets had a slot in them to take away the force of constantly hitting caulking irons, to drive in the oakum, so as to protect the wrists of the user from damage.
The larger Thames private shipyards were comparable to London breweries in terms of the level of capital investment that they required. Naval Dockyards were the most costly industrial sites anywhere. The larger Thames private yards concentrated on building East Indiamen, West Indiamen, and warships up to 3rd Rate 75 gun vessels. Other private shipyards around the country dealt with the more ordinary vessels, including bulk carriers and smaller naval vessels. Between 1793 and 1802, Thames private yards built 73 naval vessels (67,000 tons), 69 East Indiamen (around 70,000 tons) and 316 smaller vessels (27,000 tons). Thames yards also earned good incomes from shiprepair work.
Before detailing the disputes themselves, Chris outlined the ‘cast of characters’ involved with them. These included John Gast, the leader of the shipwrights in 1802 dispute. He was born in Bristol in 1772 and briefly worked in Portsmouth Naval Dockyard as a shipwright before coming to Deptford, where he worked for John Dudman, from 1795 to 1812/13, as a gangs man overseeing 13 or so other men. Gast died in 1837. He was intelligent and was involved in many radical groups. In 1802 he published a book, Calumny Defeated, as a counter to the critical versions of the strikes promulgated by the shipbuilders and in the press. The book also contained a petition asking shipowners to provide almshouses for old and injured shipwrights.
The Friendly Society of Shipwrights (known as the St Helena Benefit Society because they met at the St Helena Tavern, Rotherhithe) was formed in 1794 and collected a levy from its members so that it could provide benefits to injured men and the families of those who died. Gast was much involved with this Society, whose rules exist in an original manuscript. Although one rule was that neither religion nor politics was to be discussed, the Society provided funds for men during the 1802 strike. The Thames had six or seven major shipbuilders and they were part of a cartel which effectively decided prices. They had most of the work on the large contracts for naval warships and East Indiamen. They were very powerful. The Admiralty issued naval contracts through the Navy Board, which monitored building work at the private yards through overseers sent out from the naval dockyards. London’s naval dockyards were at Woolwich and Deptford. The other major players during the disputes were the magistrates, police, military, and the press.
Chris had found that adverts were placed in the Kentish Gazette and Reading Mercury, in late October and early November 1795, during the sawyers strike. The adverts were placed jointly by Perry & Sons (Blackwall Yard), Messrs Randall & Brent (Rotherhithe), William & John Wells, (Rotherhithe and Deptford), Frances Barnard (Deptford Green), John Dudman (Deptford) and Hill & Mellish (Limehouse Hole). The adverts offering work to pairs of country sawyers at very preferential rates. In September, these employers had managed to get the Admiralty to effectively blacklist any striking caulkers from seeking work at naval dockyards. In December 1795 Frances Barnard & Co wrote to the Navy Board stating that they had been delayed converting the East Indiaman, Royal Admiral, to the 64-gun warship, York, due to the dispute with the sawyers. Well before this, however, a settlement was reached with the strikers and another advert was placed stating that no further country sawyers were required, but that the terms for those already employed would be honoured. Sadly, Chris had not yet found any detailed record of what lay behind the dispute.
The brief Peace of Amiens (27th March 1802-18th May 1803) saw a reduction in shipbuilding and naval contracts ceased. Men were discharged from the naval yards and distress was caused at the private yards. The pay of shipwrights at the private yards had risen to 5s. 3d. a day during the war years and the employers wanted to reduce this. Given the spare capacity at the naval dockyards it became possible for the private yards to be lent naval men. The Combination Acts were in force at this date making it technically illegal for people to take action as a group. The 1802 dispute effectively started with the caulkers – who, like the sawyers, had their own benefit society – although the shipwrights had petitioned their employers against possible pay cuts back in 1801. Work effectively came to a standstill during the sawyers’ dispute, between the 10th May and 29th July 1802. Once the peace treaty was signed with France, naval contract work disappeared and the Thames shipbuilders combined to offer their 1 shipwrights 4.s 4 /2d. a day, rather than the 5s. 3d. The shipwrights unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with the owners and also petitioned the East India Company and other shipowners – again unsuccessfully – in support of their existing pay rate. John Wells tried to broker a deal with the men, but the other shipbuilders refused the men’s demands.
As the strikes of the caulkers and shipwrights took effect, the Court of Directors of the East India Company approached the Admiralty for men from the naval dockyards to work on East Indiamen in the private yards. One hundred caulkers were sent up from Chatham on the 28th July, but threatened by the strikers they went home. Some were then sent back on a naval sloop to Dudmans Yard. On the 3rd August a large crowd of striking caulkers gathered outside of Barnard’s Deptford Green yard, presumably because naval men were at work inside. The expected ‘tumult’, however, failed to happen. The men had been confronted by 3 Magistrates and 200 constables. When Barnard and Dudman had originally been promised caulkers from Deptford Dockyard the workers there refused to go. They were then threatened with instant dismissal and over 100 caulkers were sacked. On Saturday 21st August a small group of naval ship carpenters went to work the East Indiaman, Bombay Castle, at Randall & Brent’s Rotherhithe yard, at the Entrance to the Greenland Dock. Recognised as strangers they were persuaded by the dockyard’s own shipwrights to go home. The yard was then invaded by locals, shipwrights and caulkers and the shipbuilders panicked. By around 8.00 am, John Harriet, the Thames Police Magistrate, supported by the Marine Police, had appeared and read the Riot Act. John Dudmans’ yard also had its gates broken down and Chatham Dockyard caulkers working on the 74-gun HMS Sceptre were forced to leave. Many local shipyard workers assembled at Deptford Green, where William Goodhew, one of the Kent Magistrates, sensibly refused to read the Riot Act.
On Saturday morning a detachment of the 11th Light Dragoons and men of the Coldstream Guards arrived and were reinforced by 100 Bow Street Runners. Gast alleged that the Runners had already had been spying on the shipwrights. These men were barracked at Greenland Dock House, Rotherhithe, owned by the Wells. On Monday 23rd August, Aaron Graham, a Bow Street Police Magistrate, visited John Wells to get him to call the shipbuilders together with a view to arbitration. Before this could be convened, news was received of the tragic suicide of John Randall, a partner at Randall & Brent. Although Randall was found to be of unsound mind, the press claimed had been struck on the head at the yard after the storming of the gates. By the end of the evening, however, the dispute was mainly resolved. The St. Helena Benefit Society played an essential role in negotiating the 5s. a day rate that was agreed. The shipwrights returned to their yards, where some worked alongside men from the naval yards who continued to be supplied for some yards, including Dudmans. The caulkers were still out and the dispute continued for another month, and even then was not fully resolved. In November the naval workers returned to their own yards, although the naval sloop Diligence remained on stand-by until February 1803 ‘to enforce obedience.’ When naval contracts resumed after the end of the brief peace there was work for all and remaining tensions began to diminish.
Some of the supposed ringleaders of the disturbances on the 21st August were jailed for 2 years at the Surrey Gaol, Horsemonger Lane. Apprentices at Dudman’s yard were arrested for running off with their tool boxes but they were let off with a stern ticking off.
In 1811 Gast helped found the Hearts of Oak Beneficial Society which eventually built almshouses for Thames shipwrights in Ocean Street, Stepney. The Combination Acts were repealed in 1824 and Gast established the Thames Shipwrights Provident Union, which organised a Thames’ wide shipwrights strike in 1825.
Although naval dockyard men had not been directly involved in taking strike action in 1802, many had refused to go to the private yards and were dismissed. Earlier, in the Spring of 1801, 344 men – including 49 from Deptford Dockyard – men had been dismissed for involvement in disputes, petitions, ‘riots’ and for having supposed revolutionary leanings. In 1802 Admiralty officials visiting Deptford Dockyard, where many men had been laid-off due to the peace, claimed that they had ‘experienced much abuse from the enraged families of the workmen.’ Interestingly there is no evidence that there was any dispute at Blackwall Yard during the industrial unrest of 1802. Chris recommended that anyone interested in finding out more about the London politics of the time should read Artisans & Politics in early Nineteenth Century London - John Gast and His Times, by Iowerth Prothero, published in 1979. Sadly none of Gast’s extensive and informative diaries have been found.
Sally Mashiter 3 November 2016