London's Docklands

A History of the Lost Quarter

Fiona Rule

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780750990998
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Seeverkehr

Do you remember the docks? In its heyday, the Port of London was the biggest in the world. It was a sprawling network of quays, wharves, canals and basins, providing employment for over 100, 000 people. From the dockworker to the prostitute, the Romans to the Republic of the Isle of Dogs, London's docklands have always been a key part of the city. But it wasn't to last. They might have recovered from the devastating bombing raids of the Second World War – but it was the advent of the container ships, too big to fit down the Thames, that would sound the final death knell. Over 150, 000 men lost their jobs, whole industries disappeared, and the docks gradually turned to wasteland. In London's Docklands: A History of the Lost Quarter, best-selling historian Fiona Rule ensures that, though the docklands may be all but gone, they will not be forgotten.

Chapter 1

Ad Initium

London’s docks are as old as the city itself. The city’s first harbour, founded by the Romans, grew up around the foot of an ancient river crossing on the north bank of the Thames, roughly where London Bridge stands today. At first, the dock was relatively small but as Roman Londinium increased in size and importance, so did its port, with ships arriving from all over the Roman Empire bearing a plethora of goods, from silks to olive oil, to be consumed by the prosperous populace. The Port of London represented an essential facet of London’s economy and its location at the heart of the city reflected its status.

For centuries, Londinium’s port boomed but when the Roman Empire went into inexorable decline, so did the docks. Following the Romans’ departure from the British Isles in c. 410, the first incarnation of the Port of London was left to slowly disappear along with the sophisticated way of life that had previously dominated the city. For well over 100 years, the old Roman dock lay disused and deserted until the Anglo-Saxons, fleeing attacks from aggressors, sought sanctuary within the crumbling remains of the old city walls. Thus, Roman Londinium became Saxon Lundenburh and the city and its docks entered a new period of prosperity.

By the dawn of the eighth century, the port of Lundenburh had once again established itself as an international trading centre with vessels from distant lands arriving at the riverside, their holds laden with exotic cargo. As the centuries passed, prosperous Lundenburh and its busy dock began to attract the attention of acquisitive noblemen from the European mainland, and following his victory against King Harold in 1066, the Duke of Normandy finally succeeded in taking the coveted city. Lundenburh became London and its port entered a new era that would prove to be both long and fruitful.

Throughout the ensuing centuries, the Port of London played a vital role in the financial, commercial and social life of the city, attracting wealthy merchants and ship owners from Europe and beyond, most notably the mighty Hanseatic League – northern Europe’s most powerful trading alliance. The League established their London headquarters in the heart of the port and built a forbidding, high-walled fortress known as The Steelyard on the north bank of the Thames within which they lived and worked. For centuries, their grand trading centre stood as a symbol of the Hanseatic League’s international power and status but, like the Romans before them, the alliance’s stranglehold on northern European trade gradually loosened and today the once-magnificent Steelyard lies forgotten beneath the foundations of Cannon Street Station.

The growing importance of London throughout the Middle Ages meant that its thriving port was often at the epicentre of battles for control of the coveted city. In the mid-thirteenth century, the docks were at the heart of Simon de Montfort’s valiant bid to wrest control of the kingdom from Henry III. One hundred years later, the people of the port struggled with a threat of a very different kind as the city was ravaged by the Black Death – a frighteningly contagious and ruthlessly fatal plague that was spread by flea-ridden rats living on board the ships that made their way up the Thames. But despite these and countless other challenges, the Port of London continued to expand and the men and women who traded there became hugely influential. Taking inspiration from the Hanseatic League, the English merchants gradually formed a coalition, first known as the Merchant Staplers and later the Merchant Adventurers – a group of individuals who were to play a vital role in the formation of the British Empire.

By the end of the 1400s, London was handling over 60 per cent of the kingdom’s overseas trade and the shipyards that had gradually grown up on the south bank of the Thames to serve the busy port caught the attention of the great Tudor monarch, Henry VIII, who developed the yards into majestic royal docks where state-of-the-art warships such as the Henri Grace à Dieu were built. Simultaneously, the Merchant Adventurers embarked on a lengthy search for new international markets. Under the direction of Sebastian Cabot, son of the great mariner, John Cabot, they set forth on expeditions to the east, opening up lucrative markets with the vast Russian Empire. The resulting increase in trade at the docks and the sheer amount of vessels jostling for position at the ancient waterfront prompted Elizabeth I to restructure the way the port was run and resulted in the introduction of ‘Legal Quays’ – a series of landing stages along the north bank of the Thames through which all imported goods had to pass under the watchful eye of customs officials. Each quay specialised in a particular commodity and the system proved so effective that they remained at the centre of London’s overseas trade for centuries. Today, virtually all trace of them has been erased.

Throughout the sixteenth century, the Port of London played a fundamental part in the development of Britain as a world power. The Merchant Adventurers extended their expeditions into Asia where they found lucrative markets offering great riches. In order to finance return voyages, they formed the East India Company, which was destined to become the most powerful commercial organisation in modern history, governing immense territories in addition to overseeing all trade with the region. The Merchant Adventurers also journeyed south to the west coast of Africa where they embarked on the Port of London’s most shameful enterprise, transporting human cargo to plantations in the Americas where the unlucky prisoners were subjected to a life of slavery.

The questionable activities of the East India Company and the dreadful trade of the slave merchants only served to increase the prosperity and status of the Port of London. Throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Legal Quays heaved with ships waiting to discharge their goods, and the Thames was a teeming mass of vessels jostling for position along the ancient waterfront.

However, the landscape of the docks was about to be changed forever. In September 1666, a fire broke out in the premises of a ships’ biscuit maker in Pudding Lane, close to the docks. The resulting conflagration totally destroyed the port and much of the city beyond it. With no insurance against this catastrophe, the owners of the ancient quays that lined the north bank of the Thames ploughed their life savings into rebuilding this most essential part of the city. Amazingly, it took just six years to rebuild not only the docks but also much of the city. Grand plans to create a new port were mooted but the complex pattern of land ownership that had existed for centuries rendered any wholesale redevelopment impossible. By the mid 1670s, the newly rebuilt docks traced much the same footprint as they had done before the destructive conflagration. However, the landowners vowed to protect themselves financially from such a catastrophe ever occurring again and thus the concept of fire insurance was born.

Soon the dock merchants began to devise ways of applying insurance to their businesses, and summits to discuss this novel idea were held in the new coffee houses that had recently sprung up on the city streets. Several of these establishments became regular meeting places for dock merchants and ship owners, and the coffee house proprietors found themselves privy to valuable intelligence involving the shipping industry. The owners of Lloyd’s Coffee House seized the opportunity to disseminate the information they gleaned and began to publish newssheets detailing the safe arrival of ships. These sheets ultimately evolved into Lloyd’s List, which is still today the leading daily newspaper for the maritime industry. Some of the coffee house’s regular clientele also capitalised on the demand for maritime insurance and became the first Lloyd’s underwriters, skilfully marrying investors with ship owners and merchants to great profit.

As trade in the docks became more organised throughout the eighteenth century, the city gained strength as the country’s centre of commerce. During the 1700s, the population of London doubled from 400,000 to 800,000 as thousands of families relocated from the countryside to the city, where the manufacturing industry was rapidly becoming a major source of employment. As manufacturing increased, the docks thrived as all manner of products arrived at the port for export to mainland Europe and beyond. The old Legal Quays struggled to cope with the sheer volume of shipping arriving in the Thames, and the merchants and ship owners began to discuss potential solutions to the problem of congestion. Thus, the model for London’s first enclosed docks – leviathan structures that were to dominate the perimeter of the Thames in London for over 150 years – was devised. The first of these new maritime innovations, the West India Docks, was built on land at the northern tip of the Isle of Dogs in 1799. The complex provided a template on which all future enclosed docks in the city would be built, comprising massive basins in which ships could berth, accessed via huge locks leading from the river. The basins were surrounded by warehousing in which goods could be stored and were cut off from the outside world by towering walls running the entire length of the site’s perimeter.

The success of the West India Docks and the effect it had on easing traffic on the perennially congested Thames prompted a wave of imitations throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. First came the London Docks in the ancient seafaring district of Wapping, then the East India Docks at Blackwall followed by the (later amalgamated) Surrey and Commercial Docks across the river at Rotherhithe. Each of these developments proved financially successful and were quickly followed by a further development close to the Tower of London known as the St Katharine Docks. Later in the century, the vast size of the new steam ships plying their trade at the Port of London prompted speculative developers to create even larger basins further east, where they could be more easily accessible to the huge vessels. The Port of London acquired the Victoria and Royal Albert Docks on the Plaistow Marshes, the Millwall Docks on the Isle of Dogs and the Tilbury Docks on the Thames estuary in Essex. These colossal waterside developments were complemented by (and were in direct competition with) numerous wharves that lined both sides of the river from London Bridge to Silvertown, occupying a staggering 3,000 acres of land.

Unsurprisingly, the docks and wharves became the major employers in Rotherhithe, Deptford and the whole of East London adjacent to the river. Literally thousands of Londoners worked at the port in a wide variety of jobs. Demand for housing in the dock areas was such that entire districts – for example, Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs – were built specifically to accommodate dock workers. However, despite the never-ending supply of work and the unceasing, frenetic activity that surrounded the docks, there was trouble afoot. Poor pay and extremely tough working conditions prompted the workers to collectively rise up against their avaricious employers and the docks became inextricably linked with the embryonic trades union movement that was beginning to gain momentum by the 1880s. As the twentieth century dawned, the dock owners were becoming overwhelmed by strike action by their increasingly militant workers. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that as ships increased in size, the ancient Port of London was gradually becoming inaccessible. In addition to these two problems, competitive warehousing rates offered by the Thames wharves meant that many of the enclosed dock companies faced bankruptcy if the situation was not improved. In a dramatic move, the government resolved to nationalise all of London’s enclosed docks and in 1909, overall control of these gigantic structures was given to the newly-formed Port of London Authority, otherwise known as the PLA. This drastic measure initially paid off and despite the disruption of two world wars, by the late 1950s, the Port of London had entered its final boom period.

In the end, the ultimate cause of death for London’s docks was not unionisation or competition from the wharves, but containerisation. As container ships began to replace smaller, more traditional vessels, it became impossible for the Port of London (with the exception of Tilbury) to accommodate them. The River Thames was simply not deep enough for these giant vessels to safely navigate. What had originally been the deciding factor in the docks’ location – the river – now proved to be the Port of London’s downfall. As ship owners eschewed the historic port in favour of the great seaports, the docks gradually closed. One by one, these hives of industry shut down, leaving desolation in their wake. Families who had earned a living at the waterside for generations moved out to the new towns of the northern Home Counties in search of alternative employment. By the mid 1980s, the docks were a wasteland and any visitor to the deserted streets that surrounded them would have been hard pressed to imagine how the areas had once played such a key role in the development of one of the world’s most celebrated cities.

***

The events that led to the foundation of the great city of London and its docks are shrouded in both mystery and myth. One of the first accounts appears in the Historia Britonum, an ancient tome attributed to a ninth-century Welsh monk named Nennius who took it upon himself to assemble a collection of historical stories for posterity. Once he began his research, the scholarly monk quickly realised that he had set himself an onerous task. For centuries, myriad tales of the history of Britain had been handed down orally from generation to generation, gradually becoming embellished and altered along the way. Finding proof or even a vague provenance for these tales was virtually impossible and no doubt tantalising and frustrating in equal measure. Nennius himself admitted, ‘[I], pupil of the holy Elvodug, have undertaken to write down some extracts that the complacency of the British cast out; for the scholars of the island of Britain had no skill … I have therefore made a heap of all that I have found.’ That said, Nennius’s ‘heap’ of information survived the test of time and his account of the foundation of London was retold over 200 years later by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his Historia Regum Britanniae.

According to the two texts, the name ‘Britain’ was coined by Brutus, a Roman consul and descendant of the legendary hero Aeneas. In true classical fashion, Brutus was banished from his homeland after accidentally killing his father. He fled to Greece where he recruited a crew of Trojan ex-slaves and from thence sailed to a Mediterranean island where he discovered an abandoned temple to Diana, goddess of hunting. Brutus was exhausted after his voyage and after making a sacrifice to the deity, he fell asleep at the foot of her statue where he dreamt of a far-distant land inhabited by giants – the place in which he was destined to settle. Following this premonition, Brutus and his men continued on their journey westward. After briefly settling in Gaul, where they fell out with the King of Aquitaine, they escaped across the channel to Albion (the ancient name for Britain) – an island, so legend has it, populated by a race of giants. Convinced that this was the land in his premonition, Brutus renamed the island Britain and declared himself king, bequeathing the land covering present-day Cornwall to his second-in-command, Corineus.

Life in the new kingdom proved difficult, not least because the Trojans were constantly harassed by the resident giants, but after a series of bloody battles, they managed to slay every one of the creatures except for their leader, Gogmagog, who was challenged to wrestle Corineus. The ensuing fight resulted in the last giant of Albion being thrown from the Cornish cliffs into the sea. This legendary event was later immortalised in the magnum opus of the poet Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion (1613):

Amongst the ragged cleaves those monstrous giants sought:

Who (of their dreadful kind) t’appal the Trojans brought

Great Gogmagog, an oake that by the roots could teare;

So mighty were (that time) the men who lived there:

But, for the use of armes he did not understand

(Except some rock or tree, that coming next to land,

He raised out of the earth to execute his rage),

He challenge makes for strength, and offereth there his gage,

Which Corin taketh up, to answer by and by,

Upon this sonne of earth his utmost power to try.

Having defeated the enemy, the Trojans turned their attention to establishing settlements throughout the country and their leader Brutus chose the site of today’s City of London as his headquarters, naming it Troia Nova or New Troy. A royal palace was built where the Guildhall now stands and a temple to Brutus’s guide and protector Diana was built on the site now occupied by St Paul’s Cathedral. The London Stone, an ancient piece of masonry now sited at 111 Cannon Street, is said to be part of the temple altar, and legend has it that ‘so long as the stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish.’ When Brutus died, he was buried in a temple on Tower Hill and his lands were divided between his three sons – Locrinus taking what is now England, Albanactus Scotland and Kamber Wales.

Sadly, there is no evidence that the heroic characters in Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s stories ever truly existed and archaeology has as yet yielded no signs of Brutus’s royal palace, temple or tomb. Curiously though, the giant Gogmagog makes an appearance in another piece of British folklore, this time specifically concerning London. From c.1500, huge 14ft effigies of two giants named Gog and Magog were paraded at the head of the procession during the annual Lord Mayor’s Show. According to legend, these two giants were descendants of the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s daughters, who were banished to Albion after killing their husbands. The original model giants were made from wicker and plaster and stood guard at the Guildhall when not in use. Over time, the figures began to rot and were finally destroyed during the Great Fire of 1666. In the early 1700s, they were replaced with two wooden effigies, but these proved too heavy to be paraded around at the Lord Mayor’s Show and the yearly ritual ceased. However, nearly 300 years later, basket maker Olivia Elton Barratt took on the challenging task of re-creating the two figures and, in 2006, the leviathans once again took their place at the head of the parade.

If Brutus’s New Troy ever did exist, all evidence of it had been lost by the time the great Roman Emperor Claudius arrived on British shores in AD 43. At the time of his arrival, there were no major settlements on the marshy flood plains of the River Thames. The site of the modern city was occupied by just a few humble farmsteads and, as one archaeologist pointed out, the entire population of ‘London’ would probably have fitted inside a double-decker bus.

The sparsely populated banks of the first-century Thames are described in Cassius Dio’s account of the Roman invasion, written over 100 years after the actual event in about AD 175. In the first known reference to the area, Dio describes how the native Britons were chased to ‘the River Thames at a point where it empties into the ocean and at flood-tide forms a lake’ by Roman soldiers, and were attacked ‘from several sides at once’ resulting in many casualties. Some of the Britons managed to escape, with the Romans in hot pursuit. However, the invaders’ inferior knowledge of the terrain proved to be their downfall and ‘they got into swamps from which it was difficult to make their way out, and so lost a...