The West India Docks are about a mile and a-half from the London Docks.
The entire ground that they cover is 295 acres, so that they are nearly
three times larger than the London Docks, and more than twelve times
more extensive than those of St. Katherine’s. Hence they are the most
capacious of all the great warehousing establishments in the port of
London. The export dock is about 870 yards, or very nearly half-a-mile
in length by 135 yards in width; its area, therefore, is about 25
acres. The import dock is the same length as the export dock, and 166
yards wide. The south dock, which is appropriated both to import and
export vessels, is 1,183 yards, or upwards of two-thirds of a mile
long, with an entrance to the river at each end; both the locks, as
well as that into the Blackwall basin, being forty feet wide, and
large enough to admit ships of 1,200 tons burden. The warehouses for
imported goods are on the four quays of the import dock. They are well
contrived and of great extent, being calculated to contain 180,000 tons
of merchandise; and there has been at one time on the quays, and in the
sheds, vaults, and warehouses, colonial produce worth 20,000,000_l._
sterling. The East India Docks are likewise the property of the West
India Dock Company, having been purchased by them of the East India
Company at the time of the opening of the trade to India. The import
dock here has an area of 18 acres, and the export dock about 9 acres.
The depth of water in these docks is greater, and they can consequently
accommodate ships of greater burden than any other establishment on the
river. The capital of both establishments, or of the united company,
amounts to upwards of 2,000,000 of money. The West India import dock
can accommodate 300 ships, and the export dock 200 ships of 300 tons
each; and the East India import dock 84 ships, and the export dock 40
ships, of 800 tons each. The number of ships that entered the West
India Dock to load and unload last year was 3008, and the number
that entered the East India Dock 298. I owe the above information,
as well as that which follows, to the kindness of the secretary
and superintendent of the docks in question. To the politeness and
intelligence of the latter gentleman I am specially indebted. Indeed
his readiness to afford me all the assistance that lay in his power,
as well as his courtesy and gentlemanly demeanour, formed a marked
contrast to that of the deputy-superintendent of the London Docks, the
one appearing as anxious for the welfare and comfort of the labouring
men as the other seemed indifferent to it.
The transition from the London to the West India Docks is of a very
peculiar character. The labourers at the latter place seem to be
more civilised. The scrambling and scuffling for the day’s hire,
which is the striking feature of the one establishment, is scarcely
distinguishable at the other. It is true there is the same crowd of
labourers in quest of a day’s work, but the struggle to obtain it is
neither so fierce nor so disorderly in its character. And yet, here the
casual labourers are men from whom no character is demanded as well as
there. The amount of wages for the summer months is the same as at the
London Docks. Unlike the London Docks, however, no reduction is made at
the East and West India Docks during the winter.
The labour is as precarious at one establishment as at the other. The
greatest number of hands employed for any one day at the East and
West India Docks in the course of last year was nearly 4000, and the
smallest number about 1300. The lowest number of ships that entered the
docks during any one week in the present year was 28, and the highest
number 209, being a difference of 181 vessels, of an average burden
of 300 tons each. The positive amount of variation, however, which
occurred in the labour during the briskest and slackest weeks of last
year was a difference of upwards of 2500 in the number of extra workmen
employed, and of about 2000_l._ in the amount of wages paid for the
six days’ labour. I have been favoured with a return of the number of
vessels that entered the East and West India Docks for each week in the
present year, and I subjoin a statement of the number arriving in each
of the first fourteen of those weeks. In the 1st week of all there were
86, the 2d 47, the 3d 43, the 4th 48, the 5th 28, the 6th 49, the 7th
46, the 8th 37, the 9th 42, the 10th 47, the 11th 42, the 12th 131, the
13th 209, and the 14th 85. Hence it appears, that in the second week
the number of ships coming into dock decreased nearly one-half; in the
fifth week they were again diminished in a like proportion, while in
the sixth week they were increased in a similar ratio; in the twelfth
week they were more than three times what they were in the eleventh,
in the thirteenth the number was half as much again as it was in the
twelfth, and in the fourteenth it was down below half the number of the
thirteenth, so that it is clear that the subsistence derived from dock
labour must be of the most fickle and doubtful kind.