Nor are the returns from St. Katherine’s Dock of a more cheerful
character. Here it should be observed that no labourer is employed
without a previous recommendation; and, indeed, it is curious to
notice the difference in the appearance of the men applying for work
at this establishment. They not only have a more decent look, but
seem to be better behaved than any other dock-labourers I have yet
seen. The “ticket” system is here adopted--that is to say, the plan
of allowing only such persons to labour within the docks as have been
satisfactorily recommended to the company, and furnished with a ticket
by them in return--this ticket system, says the statement which has
been kindly drawn up expressly for me by the superintendent of the
docks, may be worth notice, at a time when such efforts are making to
improve the condition of the labourers. It gives an identity and _locus
standi_ to the men which casual labourers cannot otherwise possess, it
connects them with the various grades of officers under whose eyes they
labour, prevents favouritism, and leads to their qualifications being
noted and recorded. It also holds before them a reward for activity,
intelligence, and good conduct; because the vacancies in the list of
preferable labourers, which occur during the year, are invariably
filled in the succeeding January by selecting, upon strict inquiry,
the best of the extra-ticket labourers, the vacancies among the
permanent men being supplied in like manner from the list of preferable
labourers, while from the permanent men are appointed the subordinate
officers, as markers, samplers, &c.
Let us, however, before entering into a description of the class
and number of labourers employed at St. Katherine’s give a brief
description of the docks themselves. The lofty walls, which constitute
it in the language of the Custom-house a place of special security,
enclose an area of 23 acres, of which 11 are water, capable of
accommodating 120 ships, besides barges and other craft; 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. Katherine’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
1200 tons burden, while 8 days were necessary in the summer and 14 in
the winter to unload a ship of 350 tons. At St. Katherine’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: there have been occasions
when even greater despatch has been used, and a cargo of 1100 casks of
tallow, averaging from 9 to 10 cwt. each, has been discharged in seven
hours. This would have been considered little short of a miracle on the
legal quays less than fifty years ago. In 1841, about 1000 vessels and
10,000 lighters were accommodated at St. Katherine’s Dock. The capital
expended by the dock company exceeds 2,000,000 of money.
The business of this establishment is carried on by 35 officers,
105 clerks and apprentices, 135 markers, samplers, and foremen, 250
permanent labourers, 150 preferable ticket-labourers, proportioned
to the amount of work to be done. The average number of labourers
employed, permanent, preferable, and extras, is 1096; the highest
number employed on any one day last year was 1713, and the lowest
number 515, so that the extreme fluctuation in the labour appears to
be very nearly 1200 hands. The lowest sum of money that was paid in
1848 for the day’s work of the entire body of labourers employed was
64_l._ 7_s._ 6_d._, and the highest sum 214_l._ 2_s._ 6_d._, being a
difference of very nearly 150_l._ in one day, or 900_l._ in the course
of the week. The average number of ships that enter the dock every
week is 17, the highest number that entered in any one week last year
was 36, and the lowest 5, being a difference of 31. Assuming these to
have been of an average burden of 300 tons, and that every such vessel
would require 100 labourers to discharge its cargo in three days, then
1500 extra hands ought to have been engaged to discharge the cargoes of
the entire number in a week. This, it will be observed, is very nearly
equal to the highest number of the labourers employed by the company in
the year 1848.
The remaining docks are the Commercial Docks and timber ponds, the
Grand Surrey Canal Dock at Rotherhithe, and the East Country Dock. The
Commercial Docks occupy an area of about 49 acres, of which four-fifths
are water. There is accommodation for 350 ships, and in the warehouses
for 50,000 tons of merchandise. They are appropriated to vessels
engaged in the European timber and corn trades, and the surrounding
warehouses are used chiefly as granaries--the timber remaining
afloat in the dock until it is conveyed to the yard of the wholesale
dealer and builder. The Surrey Dock is merely an entrance basin to a
canal, and can accommodate 300 vessels. The East Country Dock, which
adjoins the Commercial Docks on the South, is capable of receiving 28
timber-ships. It has an area of 6-1/2 acres, and warehouse-room for
3700 tons.
In addition to these there is the Regent’s Canal Dock, between Shadwell
and Limehouse, and though it is a place for bonding timber and deals
only, it nevertheless affords great accommodation to the trade of the
port by withdrawing shipping from the river.
The number of labourers, casual and permanent, employed at these
various establishments is so limited, that, taken altogether, the
fluctuations occurring at their briskest and slackest periods may be
reckoned as equal to that of St. Katherine’s. Hence the account of
the variation in the total number of hands employed, and the sum of
money paid as wages to them, by the different dock companies, when the
business is brisk or slack, may be stated as follows:--
At the London Dock the difference }
between the greatest } 2000 hands
and smallest number is }
At the East and West India Dock 2500 „
At the St. Katherine’s Dock 1200 „
At the remaining docks say 1300 „
Total number of dock labourers } ----
thrown out of employ by the } 7000
prevalence of easterly winds }
The difference between the highest } £.
and lowest amount of wages paid } 1500
at the London Dock is }
At the East and West India Dock 1875
At the St. Katherine Dock 900
At the remaining docks 975
-----
£5250
From the above statement then it appears, that by the prevalence of
an easterly wind no less than 7000 out of the aggregate number of
persons living by dock labour may be deprived of their regular income,
and the entire body may have as much as 5250_l._ a week abstracted
from the amount of their collective earnings, at a period of active
employment. But the number of individuals who depend upon the quantity
of shipping entering the port of London for their daily subsistence is
far beyond this amount. Indeed we are assured by a gentleman filling
a high situation in St. Katherine’s Dock, and who, from his sympathy
with the labouring poor, has evidently given no slight attention to the
subject, that taking into consideration the number of wharf-labourers,
dock-labourers, lightermen, riggers and lumpers, shipwrights, caulkers,
ships’ carpenters, anchor-smiths, corn-porters, fruit and coal-meters,
and indeed all the multifarious arts and callings connected with
shipping, there are no less than from 25,000 to 30,000 individuals who
are thrown wholly out of employ by a long continuance of easterly
winds. Estimating then the gains of this large body of individuals at
2_s._ 6_d._ per day, or 15_s._ per week, when fully employed, we shall
find that the loss to those who depend upon the London shipping for
their subsistence amounts to 20,000_l._ per week, and, considering
that such winds are often known to prevail for a fortnight to three
weeks at a time, it follows that the entire loss to this large class
will amount to from 40,000_l._ to 60,000_l._ within a month,--an
amount of privation to the labouring poor which it is positively awful
to contemplate. Nor is this the only evil connected with an enduring
easterly wind. Directly a change takes place a glut of vessels enters
the metropolitan port, and labourers flock from all quarters; indeed
they flock from every part where the workmen exist in a greater
quantity than the work. From 500 to 800 vessels frequently arrive at
one time in London after the duration of a contrary wind, and then such
is the demand for workmen, and so great the press of business, owing
to the rivalry among merchants, and the desire of each owner to have
his cargo the first in the market, that a sufficient number of hands is
scarcely to be found. Hundreds of extra labourers, who can find labour
nowhere else, are thus led to seek work in the docks. But, to use the
words of our informant, two or three weeks are sufficient to break the
neck of an ordinary glut, and then the vast amount of extra hands that
the excess of business has brought to the neighbourhood are thrown
out of employment, and left to increase either the vagabondism of the
neighbourhood or to swell the number of paupers and heighten the rates
of the adjacent parishes.