London Docks Research Articles

Reviewing Developments in London's Docks and Docklands

Reviewing Developments in London's Docks and Docklands

The Police and the London Dock Strike of 1889

The Police and the London Dock Strike of 1889

British Labour and the Cold War.

Introduction Part I. Trade Union Diplomacy: 1. Forming responsible trade unions 2. Refounding the international trade union movement Part II. Working-Class Politics and the Cold War: 3. The breakup of the world federation of trade unions 4. British intervention in the Greek trade union movement 5. The revival of the German trade union movement Part III. The Politics of Anti-Communism: 6. Manufacturing consensus 7. The London dock strike of 1949 Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index.

Media and Money: The London Dock Strike of 1889 and the Australian Maritime Strike of 1890

historians have concentrated their attention on the media and in most histories of Australia the media appear only peripherally. The raising of funds in Australia to aid the dockers in 1889 has been examined by P. F. Donovan in a valuable article,1 but the financial aspects of the unions' struggle in 1890 have not been studied. Indeed, Coghlan's Labour and Industry in Australia2 still provides the most detailed account of the course of the strike and it is not always reliable. This article attempts to demonstrate the interconnection between media and money in 1889 and in 1890, and it concludes by examining the characteristics and impact of the various media at this time. I In 1889 most newspapers simply headed their cables Trom our own correspondent' and Reuter did not require its subscribers to publish under the Reuter name. Cables were still expensive although by 1889 the original press rate of 10s. a word had been reduced to 2s.9d. for a message between London and Sydney.3 Newspapers formed syndicates so as to share the cost, and the members of each syndicate may be ascertained by a careful comparison of the cables on any particular day. The three main services were:

Urban birth not urban blight

I remember some ten years ago taking my children north across the Woolwich ferry, making for the highest tower block of flats we could see, and taking the lift to the top floor as this was the only way to get a good view into London's docks. Stretched out below were the oblongs of water, holding the ships etched in black and white with vivid bands of colour round their funnels, overhung with the tracery of cranes and derricks. Today there is no need for such complications: one can drive straight through Gate 19 into King George V docks, along the wide empty roads to the waterfront. I saw two ships moored on the north side, “Bunga Orchid”, carrying containers which were handled by the traditional cranes, and “El Flamingo”, carrying timber. Each was some 6,000 tons and each was importing — historically the trade was either import or export at one berth, not both, for congestion precluded the double operation. Today there is no congestion. The great sheds and lines of grey cranes are still there, and with them the small brick block offices of the shipping companies who have long gone. In one such block on the south side, a small firm, Advanced Battery Systems (Pb) Ltd, has taken up residence, having started originally in temporary accommodation at what was once the Medical Centre of the National Dock Labour Board. From the upper floor of the company's new home the skyline of tower blocks, chimneys, cranes and the occasional church spire is bright on a sharp December morning.

The Peculiar Pattern of British Strikes Since 1888

Strikes are like certain bitter-sweet varities of sin. However frequently and violently they are denounced and however painful the consequences to those who indulge, they continue to flourish. V. L. Allen noted this curious role of strikes in industrial society some time ago. “Strikes,” he wrote,take place within a hostile environment even though they are a common every-day phenomenon. They are conventionally described as industrially subversive, irresponsible, unfair, against the interests of the community, contrary to the workers' best interests, wasteful of resources, crudely aggressive, inconsistent with democracy and, in any event, unnecessary.Strikes have become so common in modern society that they seem to be a normal part of the social landscape. This is perhaps one reason why historians have tended to ignore them and their history. Upon reflection, it is indeed surprising how little attention the history of industrial conflict has received from historians. Of course, certain dramatic events, like the General Strike of 1926 or the London dock strike of 1889, are relatively well chronicled, but even these are sorely under-analyzed. There are not even competent narratives of other episodes, like the explosion of militancy just after the First World War; and we know still less about the persistent dynamics of strikes throughout British industry. In this respect, historians lag well behind other social scientists who have been studying industrial strife for many years, but whose work is unfortunately limited by their frankly ahistorical or even anti-historical approach. It is time for historians to remedy this deficiency, and this essay is intended as a first, very small effort in that direction.

London's Docks: Up or Down The River?

The nature of urban historical and geographical studies encouragescareful pf?ysical description and analYsis. Almost every academic observer is either working from documentary records or from current observation. Interviews and correspondencewith persons or bodies responsible for decision making) or able to provide the all important (angles') are not usuallY a major feature of such papers. This paper is a much shortened) modified version of a working document produced in the debates and discussions immediatelY following the announceJnent by the Port of London AuthoriD' (PLA) in Mcry I978 that they wished to close the West India) Millwall and Royal Groups of Docks. That first document unashamedlY took a particular viewpoint) both concerning the administration of the PLA and the potential of the Thames and the docks of Greater London) all of which would have be~n closed if the original PLA proposals had been accepted. My thanks are due to the PLA for checking or providing the statistics used. It mcry be indicative of new attitudes that they quoted one of my passages most critical of their stewardship in their Discussion Paper No 2. (JulY 1978). Officials of the PLA) and the Trade Unions) togetherwith large' numbers of persons involved in all rypes of Port activiry have directlY or indirectlY contributed to this paper. Without their help and stimulation it would not have been written. The views expressed are entirety those of the author) but are of a provisional nature.

London's Docks: Up or Down The River?

London's Docks: Up or Down The River?

Injunctions and the “Right to Demonstrate”

Injunctions against pickets and demonstrators are not common. There appear to be no reported cases in England between 1899 (when Llandudno Urban District Council tried to stop a clergyman from preaching on the beach) and the disputes in the London Docks in 1972. In Hubbard v. Pitt, the use of injunctions again came to the fore, when a firm of estate agents obtained interlocutory injunctions restraining members of a tenants' campaign from picketing their premises as a political protest.

PORT IN A STORM

The Port of London's reputation for labour disruption and poor productivity is challenged by Leslie Reynolds, director of studies at the Port Transport Division. Replying to a report in the June issue of Industrial Management that London's docks were threatened by another strike, Reynolds — an ex‐docker, who is now a member of the National Ports' Council — gives his version of what is happening at this vital export outlet.

PORT IN A STORM

Britain's exports are threatened by another London dock strike. Dockers who last stopped work in April are angered by what they regard as further delay in legislative plans to give them the right to pack and unpack containers, and their former leader, Jack Dash, steps out of retirement to deliver the warning: “This time, the issue will be settled once and for all.” In this background account of the dispute, Derek Coomber — Editor of Freighting World — tells of labour‐management intransigence and Government inertia.

Labour Women: A Study of Women in the Bexley Branch of the British Labour Party (1945-50

At the present time women are attracting more political attention than at any other time since the days of the suffragettes. This is due to the campaigning of the various movements for the social liberation of women which have sprung up fairly recently. It is not that women have been politically inactive during the period between the suffragettes and modern 'women's lib'. Instead their activities have taken place within organizations composed of both sexes. In particular, the British Labour Party has placed great emphasis on organizing women for political work. It is the purpose of this essay to examine the result of the party's policy, during a period of Labour government (I945-50), as it was manifested at local level in the Bexley district of London. A local study is especially useful in tllis respect because the primary unit of women's organization in the Labour Party is in the local party branches. First, a few words about Bexley and its Labour Party in the years of the Attlee government will help to provide a setting in which to examine the material on Labour women in the area. Bexley is a dormitory suburb of south-east London. Between I945 and I950 it had a population of approximately 9go,ooo. About 25 per cent of occupied people commuted to work in central London each day, whilst others were employed in engineering factories on the fringe of Bexley or in the London docks.2 In the

The Liverpool Dock Strike of 1890

The strike of stevedores and dock labourers in the Port of London in 1889 has come to symbolise that ferment and upsurge of labour activity, in favour of combined action, which found expression in the “new unionism”. Indeed the great spread of union organisation in the London area at this period has usually been regarded as the main phase of new unionism. It is true that labour historians have long been aware that widespread agitation and union recruitment were also afoot among both provincial dockers and other groups who had been either unorganised, or whose previous attempts at unionism had proved sporadic and abortive. The Liverpool dockers, in particular, became engaged in 1890 in a protracted struggle involving almost as great a number of strikers as on the London docks in the previous year. This Liverpool strike had all the makings of a “labour war”, and it resulted in a profound impact upon industrial relations on the Mersey waterfront. However, the events and consequences of this dispute together with the activities of the National Union of Dock Labourers which organised it have so far received less detailed attention than either the dock strike in the metropolis or the London dockers union.

On the History of Recording Tide Gauges

SynopsisRecords of water levels date from the first hydrospheric observations. The levels of inland and coastal waters are recorded with the use of tide gauges of various types and construction. The float-level gauge, however, is by far the most frequently used.The oldest self-recording tide gauge was constructed by Henry R. Palmer, civil engineer of the London Dock Company, in 1831. A float resting on the water is placed in a well communicating with the river. The motion of the water surface is transmitted to the recording machine by wheels and shafts which act on a pencil rack. As the water level rises and falls, by the combined motions of a clock and the tide the pencil produces a line as a function of time.Even today this principle is still used for float-level gauges. It represents the basis of the modern tide gauges for observing sea levels and their variations.In 1831 we find another construction by Mitchell, which was erected in the Sheerness dockyard. A few years later Thomas G. Bunt developed a tide gauge, which was used on the eastern bank of the river Avon near Bristol from 1837 to 1872.In 1834 the first self-recording gauge was erected in France, near Le Havre. On the other continents the first installations were established in Algiers (1834), in the United States and in India (1846), and in Australia (1858)An installation in Hamburg (1861), which was developed by F. H. Reitz the engineer, is identified as the first German construction.In 1870 fifteen tide gauges were known on the shores of the European continent (except the British Isles). By 1883 Carlos Ibañez was using information from approximately 67 tide gauge stations for the determination of the mean sea level around the European mainland. Today we find more than 300 installations in Europe, about three-quarters of which are working in north-western European waters and in the Baltic.

Australia and the Great London Dock Strike: 1889

Australia and the Great London Dock Strike: 1889

Human factors in the P.L.A. meat handling automation scheme. A case study and some conclusions

Abstract This study involves the human sciences aspects of the scheme for the automation of meat handling in the London Docks. The automation system has been created by the joint work of the Port of London Authority, the Blue Star Line, Thames Stevedoring Ltd., Fisholow Ltd., and E.M.J. Electronics Ltd., based on the system design of Fisholow Ltd. The existing methods for meat handling and the concept, aim and design of the new system are outlined, The role and work of the EMIE Ergonomics Laboratory is described, embracing :(1) review and comments on the system design ;(2) much detailed equipment design :(3) applied research project to solve serious problems ;(4) simulation, selection and other aspects ;(5) comprehensive training programme. Based on this work, some deductions and suggestions are made about the applied human sciences in relation to such system projects. Finally, some general conclusions are offered about the place of men in this type of system.

Ergonomics in the Automation of Meat Handling in the London Docks

Ergonomics in the Automation of Meat Handling in the London Docks

COMMERCIAL SUPPLEMENT

Manufacturers of radio sets agreed to sell a certain quantity to buyers in Persia. They made a contract with carriers for the radios to be carried to London docks. A large number of the radios were loaded into a van belonging to a sub‐contractor of the carriers at the manufacturer's premises. The van was then parked in a near‐by street, out of sight and unattended. It had been locked but not immobilised. While the driver was assisting in loading another van the van containing the radios was stolen and only a small number of the radios was subsequently recovered. The manufacturers sued the carriers for their loss alleging negligence. There was evidence that the manufacturers and the buyers had agreed to insert a fake low price in the invoices in order to defraud the Persian Customs. The carriers denied negligence and alleged in any event the manufacturers could only recover the price shown in the invoices since there was no evidence as to the exact number of sets loaded into the van. Held: (i) that the carriers had been negligent by not immobilising the van when it was left; (ii) that the measure of damages was prima facie the value of the goods at the time of their loss and the contract between the manufacturers and the buyers was irrelevant.

The First London Dock Boom and the Growth of the West India Docks

In the course of the i8th century, the trade of the Port of London trebled, whether measured by official values of imports and exports or by number and tonnage of ships using the Port.' More and ever larger merchantmen entered the Port, but nothing was done to adapt it to the growing trade. As the draught of vessels increased, the shipping channel in the centre of the River which they could safely use became narrower. Once arrived in the Pool, they moored wherever they could find room. While thus immobilised, they blocked the shipping channel for other vessels; navigation up the River and in the Pool of London became ever more perilous as congestion grew worse. Complaints rose to a high pitch at the outbreak of the French wars, when foreign trade, hitherto one of the chief mercantile activities of the country, became a matter of national survival. Of the various branches of overseas trade using the Port of London, the West India trade was the most important as regards both volume and value of merchandise.2 Even before the war rendered a convoy system necessary, prevailing winds determined sailings in such a manner that all West India ships reached London between July and October and left again before the end of November. Figures calculated by the Port Committee of the Court of Common Counci1P in I798 showed the average amount of shipping in the Pool at any one time to be 689 ships of I4I tons (total tonnage 97,I49) whereas West India shipping usually in the Pool

New Medical Centre at London Docks

New Medical Centre at London Docks