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A Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the degree of M.Phil. by FETER WILLIAM GALLIVER, B.A. (Oxon) M.A. (Lancaster) CXMrnsTTS nfTRDDUCTION Chapter Page Nurttoer 1. THE DOCKYARD WORKING ENVIRONMENT 1 2. THE DOCKYARD SHIPWRIGHTS, THE S.C.A. AND THE A.S.S. 4&2 3. THE PETITIONS OF 1911. WD? 4. THE ENGINEERS AND THE DOCKYARD UNREST OF 1913. 123 5. THE SAILMAKERS. 165 6. THEJUMXXIKERS. 176 7. THE DOCKYARD, LEISURE, SELF-HELP AND EDUCATION. 197 8. CONSERVATIVES, LIBERALS AND LABOUR: Z%5 DOCKYARDMEN AND POLITICS. 9. CONCLUSION - DOCKYARDMEW, THE MAKING OF THE 294 WORKING CLASS AND THE LABOUR ARISTOCRACY. BIBLIOGRAPHY UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF ARTS HISTORY Master of Philosophy THE PORTSMOUTH DOCKYARD WORKFORCE, 1880-1914. by Peter William Galliver. The Portsmouth Dockyard workforce, 1880 to 1914, represents a community of state employees in an overwhelmingly capitalist econony and society. The core of this study is an examination of the conditions of work provided by the state, via the Admiralty, in this period, and the response of the Dockyardmen to these. However, the relation- ship between the Dockyardmen and movements affecting the working class nationally, particularly the Trade Union movement and the emerging Labour Party, is also considered. The overall argument of this work is that 1880-1914, from the various perspectives of Admiralty-irtposed employment conditions, and the workers' trade union, political and cultural responses, was a formative period in Dockyard history. Moreover, this was a period which saw a closing of the gap between Dockyardmen and the wider labour movement. The opening section focuses on the key features of Admiralty employment as they developed 1880-1914: the function of the establish- ment system, pay, demarcation, the petitioning process and management structures. The response of the workers to this, enccnpassing Admiralty, worker interaction, the internal dynamics of the Dockyard workforce and contacts between Dockyardmen and the wider labour movement, is pursued through studies of trade union development amongst trades, the shipwrights, engineers and Sailmakers, and the Labourers. Supple- menting this is a chapter on the Dockyard as a focal point for a distinctive workplace-based culture. From this the political responses of the Dockyardmen are considered; the nature of Dockyard-based, working - class Conservatism, Liberalism and the emergence from this of independent Labour politics. Finally, there is a discussion of Dockyard findings in a national context, with particular reference to the utility of the labour qfistocracy concept. INTR3DUCTICM This study is concerned with the experience of the men onployed in Portsmouth Dockyard from 1880 to 1914. The choice of place was 1 dictated partly by personal connexion and interest, but, more importantly because of the range of historical questions raised by Portsmouth Dockyard as a major irdustrial centre, probably the largest single industrial unit in the land during the period of this study, and its status as a state-owned, and administered, enterprise in a capitalist ecancrny. The choice of period was decided hy the welter of changes apparent in British working- class history from 1880 to the outbreak of the Great War; the extension of the trade union movement, the proliferation of the institutions of collective self-help, the emergence of a distinctive working-class-based popular leisure culture, and the creation of independent labour politics. The challenge was to see how the Dockyardmen with their virtually unique status as state industrial employees (Woolwich Arsenal workers and, in a slightly different working envirorment. Postmen, apart) coped with this period. In an ideal historian' s world, the pursuit of this theme would generate a ccmprdiens ive work of social history, analysing the conditions of employment offered by the Admiralty at the start of the period, subsequent alteration in these, and the response of the Dockyardmen to their working envircnment. From this the Dockyardmen should be set in their wider social context, with an examination being made of patterns of residence, inter-marriage and occupational mobility between generations as it affected the internal sub-divisions of the Dockyard workforce, and the interaction between Dockyard families and those of Portsmouth's Non-Dockyard working-class, ard its bourgeoisie. However, in the real world such a ccmpr^ensive study has to remain, for the time being at least, an unattainable ideal. Study of the relationship between the Dockyard ccrrmunity and other social groups in Portsmouth on a quantitative basis depends tpon access to census enumerators' data, and the records of the Registrar General. The only Census data available relevant to the period of this study is 1881, and a single year is of liinit«3 utility without the opportunity to examine later years and the nature of changes made over time. Moreover, the R^istrar General will no lorger permit access to marriage, birth and death certificates en masse, so the prospect of making quantitatively-bas«3 historical-sociological studies, such as have been produced for other British industrial towns, principally concerned with the mid-nineteenth century, in a Portsmouth context is precluded. Given this, the focus of this work has narrowed from its original aim, and has concentrated on the interacticn between the Admiralty and its employees. Where the interaction between Dockyard- men and mon-Dockyardmen, v^ether working class or middle class, has been touched on it has been en a qualitative rather than quantitative basis. The thane, and structure, of this study has been largely dictated by the available source material, principally the local press and Admiralty records; both rich, albeit inconsistently so, sources for the developing conditions of Admiralty employment imposed on the Dockyardmen and their responses, formal and informal, to these. The opening chapter deals with the Admiralty's structuring of its workforce, its management techniques, and its pay policies. Subsequent chapters cover the response of the workforce to these conditions as they developed from 1880 to 1914. These chapters concentrate on the development and practice of trades unionism amongst the principal trades, the shipwrights and the engineering trades, with something of a ooda on a minor trade, the sailmakers, occasioned by the survival of the Federation of Sailmakers records. There are also chapters on trades unionism amongst the Dockyard labourers, and on the range of issues animating the Dockyard workforce against its Admiralty employers as shown in the petitions sent to the Admiralty in 1911. This groijp of chapters concludes with an examination of Dockyaaxhnen's or Dockyardmen-based, non-trade union organisations, ranging from formally organised friendly societies, and sport clubs, to less formal leisure pursuits such as gambling. The remaining chapters deal with the political responses of Dockyardmen, and the relationship between the findings here, and published work dealing with other working-class ccmnunities of the period. Footnotes to Introducticai 1. Ihe Galliver family has worked in Ftortsmouth Dockyard for four generations. The first Galliver to work in the Dockyard was my great-grandfather, William Galliver, a shipwright from Barry Dock vAio came to the Dockyard via Harland and Wolff Belfast. He appears in the A.S.S. Annual Report of 1900 by virtue of having taken 15 days sick leave at 12/- pw sick pay. He was a member of Portsmouth C Branch, number 18471. List of Abbreviations P.P. Parliamentary Papers. E.N. Portsmouth Evening News. H.T. Hampshire "Telegraph. P.T. Portsmouth Times. P R O PuGHC RECoRb OFFICE . MODERN S-ruDiCJ CENiTRt - UN WER OP WARWICK WesB weafe con-ec-now - L S E. L&B —1— THE KXZKYARD WORKING EHVIRDNMENT Chapter I The Structure of the Dockyard Workforce. The number of men anployed in Portsmouth Dockyard each year is given in the Health of the Navy Reports of the Mmiralty. ITie structure of this workforce, its breakdown by occupation, is less well docimented. Itiis occupational structure, however, can be seen for 1891 and 1900 in an Admiralty dcxzunent. In 1900 the Admiral Superintendents of the Heme Dockyards were required to make a return to the Cfcntroller of the Navy listing the categories, and numbers of workmen employed in their 'yards at the end of April 1891, and their proposed employment figures for 1900. Examination of this return provides a statistical background against vJiich to set the development of Dockyardmen' s attitudes, as these existed towards the Admiralty and fellow workers, and organisations. The Dockyard workforce came under five departments, the Staff Captain's, the Chief Constructor's, the Chief Engineer's, the Storekeeper's, and the Yard Craft. Overall responsibility for the Dockyard rested with the Admiral Superintendent; the principal departmaits for shipbuilding and ship repairing operations were those of the Chief Constructor and the Chief Engineer. The Chief Constructor was a quasi-civilian, a member of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors whose ranks were supplied by promoted Dockyard shipwright apprentices who had risen through the Dockyard apprentice schools to 1 Greenwich.