WAPPING.
How does one get to Wapping? It is not, I believe, generally known that
there are trains which take the explorer to this secluded hamlet. They
are the same trains which go under the Thames Tunnel. Before entering
upon that half-mile of danger, the engine stops at a station, dark and
uncertain, deep down in the bowels of the earth, and unprovided with a
lift. It is a fearful climb to the top of those stairs, but when you do
arrive, you find yourself in the very heart of the quarter--in fact,
in Wapping High Street itself. This is one way of getting to Wapping.
Another, and a much better way, is to walk there from Tower Hill,
past St. Katherine’s Docks, where you may drop a tear over the wanton
destruction of what should have been Eastminster, the Cathedral of East
London, the House and Church of St. Katherine by the Tower, with its
Deanery, its Close, its gardens all ready for promotion, and even, like
Westminster, its adjacent slums. The traveller then enters Nightingale
Lane, wondering when the nightingale was last heard here, and presently
finds himself in a long riverside street. Tall warehouses and wharves
are on the south side; on the north side, offices. North of the offices
are the Docks. Between the warehouses are stairs. Here are Hermitage
Stairs, and since there is a Hermitage Street, there was probably at
one time or other a hermit established on this spot. A most desirable
spot it must have been for a hermit of a gloomy turn, being then a
moist, swampy, oozy, marshy, tidal kind of place, most eligible for any
hermit who desired all the discomforts of his profession.
In those days the place was Wapping-in-the-Ouse: afterwards it became
Wapping-on-the-Wall, and a dry place, without even a frog or an evet,
or a single shake of ague. And then the hermit fled in disgust to
Canvey Island, and only the memory of him now remains. Then one comes
to Wapping Old Stairs; a name for ever for the sake of the Faithful
One; and Execution Stairs, where they drowned people, tying them to a
stake up which the rising tide gradually crept--oh! how gradually,
how slowly!--till it came to the chin and the lips. Then the bargee,
going up with the flood, saw above the surface of the lapping wave,
half a face, white, with staring eyes that took their last look of the
sunshine and the ships and the broad river, while the water rose a
half-inch more, and life indignant fled!
Then one saw a black, brown or red lump above the water, with floating
hair--for sailors wore it long; then this too disappeared, and there
was nothing left but the top of the stake and the quiet whisper of the
water as it flowed past. For three times, ebb and flow, that criminal
remained upon his stake; the first for the doing unto death; the next
two for an example unto the young and a terror unto evil-doers. After
that they took him up and buried him, or hung him in chains, tarred but
not feathered. Gruesome are the memories of Execution Dock; many are
the ghosts who haunt, all unseen--because there is nobody in wharf or
warehouse after business hours to see them--the spot where they were
done to death. It was, however, lower down the river, round the Isle
of Dogs, that they hung up the black body in creaking chains until it
dropped to pieces.
If you want to see the river--the view of the river was the pride of
Wapping until the warehouses replaced the old gabled timber-houses--go
down one of the lanes which lead to the Stairs. Then you will obtain a
panoramic view set in a frame--a tall, narrow picture, a section of the
busy river, across which pass all day long up or down the great ocean
steamer, the little river steamer, the noisy tug, the sailing-ship,
the barge laden with hay, or iron, or casks, down to the water’s edge,
the wherries, with which this part of the Thames is always crowded.
What they do; what makes them so full of business and zeal--no one can
discover.
Beyond the river are the mills and granaries and warehouses of
Rotherhithe, with the white steeple of the church. The lane in which
you stand is, in fact, a much finer kinetoscope than Mr. Edison has
invented; it presents you with a picture of ceaseless, changeful
motion; of restless activity; of ordered purpose.
Then go back and resume your walk along the street. It is, like the
river itself, a busy highway of trade; the tall warehouses were built
for trade; the cranes are out on the topmost floor, conducting the
trade; men are swinging out heavy bales of goods and lowering them
into waggons, which will distribute the trade among other hands. The
street, indeed, is full of waggons loaded and waggons unloaded; waggons
standing under the cranes, waggons going away loaded and coming back
empty. You would not believe there were so many waggons in London.
Except for the drivers of the waggons and the men in the upper stories
tossing about the bales, there are no people to be seen in the street.
Passengers there are none. Nobody walks in Wapping High Street except
to and from his warehouse or his wharf. He goes there on business. Of
shops there are but two or three, and those not of the best. And this
is Wapping. It seems at first to be nothing but a narrow slip between
the river and the docks. This is not quite true, however, as we shall
presently see.
I entered the cradle of my race, fortunately, by the best way, the
Tower Hill way. It seems a cradle to be proud of; all ancient crafts
are honourable, but some are more honourable than others; surely
boat-building is a very honourable craft. Consider: Noah was an
eminent boat-builder; the finest example of his work has never been
surpassed; we are all descended from Noah, therefore we ought all to
have boat-building instincts. As to the antiquity of boats, it goes
back beyond the time of Noah. The first boat, if you think of it--the
only way to get at prehistoric history is to think of it--was a cradle,
a wicker basket cradle, lined with soft fur; there was a baby in
it--an antediluvian Patriarch baby. The cradle--I am giving away quite
a new Archæological discovery--was placed by the child’s mother by
the riverside, and left, but only for a few minutes; then the waters
suddenly rose and swept the cradle away; the agonized mother saw it
in the midst of the flood, pursued by a hungry crocodile. She looked
to see the cradle sink; it did not, it quietly drifted into a bank or
haven of refuge, the baby unhurt, and the baffled crocodile sullenly
sank to the bottom. Hence arose the building of the first boat, the
shape of which, and of all boats to follow, was copied from the
cradle. The first boat-builder, I believe, was named Burnikel, whose
grand-daughter married Noah’s father. However, it was not so much out
of pride in the boat-yard that I came to Wapping as from the desire to
see more of this strange, strong, resolute, ambitious cousin of mine.
Of course, I had never been here before. Men of my upbringing know
nothing, hear nothing, and understand nothing, of the busy life, the
productions, the exports, the imports, the enterprise, the risks, the
fluctuations, the skill, the courage, which belong to the trade of our
great ports. The merchant adventurer is unknown to us. We ignore, or
we despise, the men by whose enterprise we actually live. Not that we
understand this; yet it is a hard fact that the gilded youth depends
upon the trade of the country as much as the merchant who directs, the
shopkeeper who distributes, the very waggoner and the bargee, and the
man who slings the bales upon the crane. Money, you see, can no longer
be carried about in sacks of gold. It must be invested: and every
investment, whether gas, or water, or railways, or mines, or trading
companies, or municipal bonds, or even consols, depends upon the
success of a venture. And since agriculture is dead or dying, there is
nothing left except these ventures. Should they fail, should disaster
suddenly overtake the British industries, then the whole wealth of the
country would vanish at once, and the youth of Piccadilly would be as
penniless as the poor fellows of the warehouses, thrown out of work.
But this the youth of Piccadilly knows not. I know these things because
I have been made to learn them.
For the first time, therefore, I found myself in the midst of trade,
actual, visible, tangible--fragrant, even. It was a kind of discovery
to me. I walked along slowly revolving the thing. Exports and imports
one reads about: they are words which to me had then little or no
meaning. Here were people actually exporting and importing with
tremendous zeal. The street was a hive of industry. Not one face but
was full of business; not one but was set, absorbed, serious, observing
nothing because it was so full of thought. No one lit cigarettes; no
one lounged; no one talked or laughed with his neighbour. All were
occupied, all wrapt in thought. All walked with a purpose: no less a
purpose, indeed, than the winning of the daily bread, or the creation
of a pile on which the children--which would be the very greatest
misfortune for them--could live in idleness.
Presently I came to the mouth of the London Dock, where a swing-bridge
crosses the narrow entrance, and is rolled back on hinges to let the
ships pass in and out. It was open when I reached the place, and a
ship was slowly passing through: a three-masted sailing-ship, of which
there are still some left. I watched the beautiful thing with the
tall masts and shrouds--man never made anything more beautiful than a
sailing-ship. Looking to the left, I saw the crowded masts in the dock;
looking to the right, I saw the ships going down the river, and heard
the dulcet note of the Siren. All this meant, I perceived dimly, buying
and selling. The ships bring immense cargoes to be sold in London and
distributed everywhere. All the selling must be at a profit, otherwise
these waggons would not be employed, and these warehouses would be
closed, and Wapping-on-the-Wall would be as silent and as solitary as
Tadmor-in-the-Desert. All this buying and selling meant the employment
and the maintenance of millions. Trade, I began to understand, is a
very big thing indeed--a thing which demands enterprise and courage;
which requires also knowledge and skill; which abounds with chances and
changes and perils and hopes.
The ship passed through: the bridge swung round: I passed over it
and continued my way. At this point Wapping widens and becomes a
right-angled triangle, whose hypothenuse is the river and whose
altitude is the East London Dock. This triangle, with the riverside
street, is all that the docks have left of old Wapping village. On this
occasion, however, I did not discover the triangle; I walked on, the
street continuing with its warehouses and its wharves and its river
stairs.
A little beyond the bridge I came to a house which would have arrested
my attention by its appearance alone, apart from the name upon its
door-plate. For it was a solid red brick, eighteenth-century house.
The bricks were of the kind which grow more beautiful with years. The
door, with a shell decoration above it, was in the middle, and there
was one window on each side of it. In the two stories above there were
three windows in each: the roof was of warm red tiles. There were
green shutters to the lower windows: a solid, comfortable old house.
It was well kept up: the paint was fresh; the windows were clean; the
steps were white; the brass door-plate, which was small, was burnished
bright, and on it, in letters half effaced, I read the name of Burnikel.
‘The cradle!’ I thought. ‘Here was born the ancestral builder of boats.
But where is the yard?’
On the other side of the street stood a huge rambling shed--two
sheds side by side, built of wood and painted black. Through the
wide-open door I saw the stout ribs of a half-built barge sticking up
in readiness to receive the planking of her sides. And there was the
sound of hammers. And, to make quite sure, there was painted across the
shed in white letters the name ‘Burnikel and Burnikel, Boat and Barge
Builders.’
I stepped in and looked round. There were one or two unfinished boats
beside the big barge; wood was lying about everywhere, stacked on the
low rafters of the roof, in heaps, thick wood and thin wood; there were
tools and appliances--some I understood, some were new to me. Men were
working. At the sight of all this carpentry work, my spirits rose.
This was the kind of work I loved. A beautiful place, such a place, I
thought, as I would like to work in myself. Even in those early days,
you see, I had a soul above a lathe in a study. A lathe is a toy; this
yard was for serious work. And picturesque, too, with its high roof and
its black rafters, and its front open to the river, commanding a noble
panorama, wider than is afforded by any of the stairs in those narrow
lanes.
Nobody took any notice of me. The men just looked up and went on
hammering. A well-ordered yard, apparently.
At that moment the master came out of a little enclosed box in the
corner, called ‘Office,’ which was big enough, at least, for a high
desk and some books.
At the outset, in the evening, I had remarked the curious resemblance
of my cousin to myself. By daylight the resemblance was not so marked,
partly because the man was so much bigger. He was one of those men
with whom a simple six-foot in height makes them tower over all other
men. He looked tall and broad, and strong above any of his fellows. So
looked Saul. He looked around him quickly as he came out, as if to see
that his men were all working with zeal and knowledge. Then he stepped
across the yard and greeted his visitor gravely.
‘I saw you come in,’ he said. ‘I only half expected you, because, I
thought, why should you want to see the old place?’
‘Well, I did want to see the old place. And I wanted to see you again.’
‘Here it is, then, and here I am. Not much of a place, after all, but
there’s a tidy business done here, and always has been, and no change
in the place since it was first put up, and that’s two hundred years
ago. Just the same; the yard is the same, the beams of the roof are
the same, if the tiles have been removed, and the work is the same.
If your ancestor was to look in here, he’d see nothing changed but
the workmen’s clothes. They’ve left off aprons, and they’ve left off
stockings. That’s all.’
‘Good. We are thus in the last century.’
‘Yes. The river’s changed, though. The Port of London was a much
finer place formerly, when there were no docks, and the ships were
ranged in double line all down the Pool, and all the landing was
done by barges--Burnikel’s barges--and the river was covered with
boats--Burnikel’s boats--cruising about among the ships. We’ll go for a
cruise if you like, any day, in my boat. It is the old boat; here she
is.’ The boat was lying in the river, made fast to the quay pile. ‘We
used to board the ships as they came in for the repair of their boats.
Now there’s no need. They all go into dock. There are some pictures
over the way of the river in the last century. You shall see them
presently.’
‘Thank you.’
‘We can’t make better boats now than they made a hundred and fifty
years ago; we can’t put in better work nor better material. They knew
good work. Everything except steam things they knew how to make, then,
far better than we do now. Burnikel’s barges are built after the old
pattern. This barge, for instance’--he laid his hand on a rib of the
unfinished craft--‘she is built on eighteenth-century lines.’
‘She looks substantial enough.’
‘She is. Well. Look around you, Sir George. This is where your
great-grandfather worked, and your great-great-grandfather, and so on,
ever so far back. This is where you came from.’
He took his visitor over the little yard, pointing out something of the
craft and mystery of boat-building.
‘All this,’ I said, ‘interests me enormously. You know I’ve got a
lathe, and I know a little how to make things--useless things. It is
all I can do--my one accomplishment.’
‘There’s not many of your sort who can do so much. Well, there’s
not much here to make a show, but there’s a good deal to learn in
boat-building, let me tell you.’
‘I ought to have boat-building in the blood,’ I observed. ‘The mystery
seems familiar to me. Don’t you think that so many generations of
boat-building--with this little break of just two lives, one a Judge,
and one a--nothing--ought to make me take to the trade naturally, as a
duck to water?’
Robert Burnikel answered seriously. He was a very serious young man.
Besides, light conversation is unknown at Wapping.
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Natural aptitude must come with generations of
work. There is a kind of caste in every trade. I know a succession of
carpenters, from father to son; and a succession of watchmakers; and
a succession of blacksmiths. These men of mine are all the sons of
boat-builders; they grew up in the trade. I don’t think they could have
done anything else so well. As for you--well, your grandfather was a
Judge.’
‘For the first time in my life, I am ashamed to say that he was.’
‘Not that you need be ashamed, I suppose, but, still, he broke the
succession. All the rest of us have always been boat-builders or
sailors.’
‘For the moment I feel an enthusiasm of boat-building. The only
practical work worth considering is this. I am convinced it is the
hereditary instinct.’
‘Well, you can’t know anything about it, instinct or not.’
‘I suppose, now, that you could make a boat yourself, with your own
hands, from keel to gunwale, from stem to stern?’
‘He would be a poor kind of master who couldn’t do anything better
than his men. I used to work, hammer, and saw, and plane, with the men
when I was a prentice.’
We talked about boats and boat-building till the subject was exhausted.
The Master Craftsman looked at his watch.
‘Four o’clock,’ he said. ‘Now come over the way. I live in the old
house built by the first of them who came here. We can talk for an hour
or so before tea. I told them you might be coming to tea.’