THE AGE OF STEAM
Back in 1698, Thomas Savery, a military engineer, patented ‘A new invention for raiesing of water and occasioning motion to all sorts of mill work by the impellent force of fire, which will be of great use and advantage for drayning mines, serveing townes with water, and for the working of all sorts of mills where they have not the benefitt of water nor constants windes.’ His innovative idea was noted by a French inventor named Denis Papin, who realised that steam might also be used to propel vessels through water. Papin developed a prototype vessel driven by large steam-powered paddle wheels similar to those used in mills and took his invention to London in the hope of obtaining funding to develop the prototype into a fully functioning craft. However, on his arrival in the capital, Papin soon realised that potential investors were unable to visualise the benefits his design could bring to shipping. He returned to France empty-handed and for the next 50 years the concept of a steam-propelled vessel was all but forgotten.
In the meantime, the potential of industrial steam power continued to be explored and during the first half of the 18th century several engineers grappled with how to harness the power of steam effectively. The major breakthrough came in 1765 when the Scottish engineer James Watt (who would later be responsible for the St Katharine Docks’ steam-powered lock) created the first successful steam engine. Watt’s invention was immediately modified by several marine engineers who tried to make the concept work on a vessel. Although the earliest models had a habit of sinking, by the 1780s, the design had been refined to the point where successful voyages on inland waterways were possible and in 1815 Pierre Andriel made the world’s first steam-powered sea crossing when he took his ship, the Elise, across the Channel.
Following Andriel’s successful voyage, the race was on to create a steam-powered ship capable of ocean-going voyages. In 1819, the North American vessel SS Savannah arrived in Liverpool having crossed the Atlantic using a combination of sail and steam and in 1838, the first purpose-built ocean-going steamship – the Great Western – was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Brunel’s ship was built in Bristol to controversially large dimensions, measuring over 230 feet long. Knowing that her predecessors were prone to sinking, many observers of her construction worried that she was too enormous to be seaworthy. However, Brunel remained convinced that her large size would ultimately make the Great Western more fuel efficient.
To the casual observer at the Bristol docks, the Great Western looked much the same as any other large ship apart from her tall steam funnel. She had a traditional oak hull and sported four masts for sails, which would help keep her on an even keel in rough seas in addition to aiding propulsion. However, after the main body of the ship had been finished, she was sailed around the coast to London, where she was fitted with the machinery that made her unique – two huge paddle wheels driven by steam engines concealed below deck, which were fitted by the engineering firm of Maudsley & Field. Work was quickly completed according to plan and on Saturday 31 March 1838, the Great Western began her journey back to Bristol, from whence she was due to set sail for New York the following Saturday.
The new steamship did not have a promising start. Shortly after stopping at Gravesend to allow passengers to alight, a fire was discovered in the boiler room and the attempts to put it out quickly descended into chaos. In order to access the engines, which were now engulfed in smoke, the captain ordered his crew to saw through the deck and douse the flames below with water from the fire pump. The resulting smoke and steam caused visibility to become so bad that when Brunel was called to take a closer look at the source of the fire, he lost his footing and fell nearly 40 feet through the hole in the deck. Now with two emergencies on their hands, the harassed captain ordered some of his crew to row to nearby Southend and Leigh-on-Sea in search of medical assistance. No doctors could be found in either town and eventually the crew decided to go to Holyhaven, where they found a surgeon. It transpired that Brunel was badly injured by the fall, breaking his shoulder and one of his legs. In addition to this, three of the crew were hospitalised after suffering severe burns while fighting the fire.
Once the flames were extinguished and the casualties taken off the ship, engineers from Maudsley & Field desperately searched for the cause of the blaze. It turned out that the fire was caused by a dangerous but easily rectifiable design flaw. Christopher Claxton of Lloyd’s (where the ship had been insured) was brought to inspect the vessel and reported that, ‘The felt, which had been put on the boilers having injudiciously been placed too near the chimney, took fire.’ Luckily, the engines themselves, although blackened by soot, were undamaged. Following the removal of any remaining felt and the completion of any necessary repairs to the boiler room and the deck, the Great Western completed her journey to Bristol and then voyaged, as planned, to New York.
On 23 May 1838, The Times reported that the Great Western had arrived back in Bristol, having departed from the North American port ‘with 68 cabin passengers at 35 guineas each (the greatest number of cabin passengers which ever came across the Atlantic in one ship), upwards of 20,000 Post Office letters, and a cargo consisting of cotton ..., indigo, silks, and miscellaneous articles. During her voyage home she encountered head-winds 9 days out of the 14, and on one occasion a severe gale, yet she accomplished 7 and a half knots during its greatest severity, with the wind directly in her teeth and completed her voyage … in 14 days and 17 and a half hours …with a consumption of less than a ton of coal per hour.’
The main benefit that steamships had over wind-propelled vessels was speed. The Great Western had travelled from New York to Bristol in less than 15 days. A sailing ship could take more than a month to complete the same journey. This extraordinary reduction in travelling time was noted with interest by a ship owner from Halifax, Nova Scotia, named Samuel Cunard, who for some time had considered the possibility of setting up a transatlantic steam packet company. The Great Western had proved that a fast, efficient service was now eminently achievable and Cunard wasted no time in persuading business contacts to invest in his proposal. In May 1840, the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was formed and, soon after, the steamship Britannia left Liverpool on the company’s first voyage to Cunard’s home town of Halifax. The steam packet service proved to be a huge success. The initial fleet of four ships was quickly enlarged to six and by 1848 demand was such that the British government agreed to subsidise the company so that the number of voyages made could be doubled. The steam packets rapidly developed a reputation for speed and safety and in 1878, eight years after the death of its founder, the company was reorganised and renamed the Cunard Steamship Company. The Cunard Line still operates today, although the steam packets have long since been replaced by luxury ocean liners.
While Samuel Cunard was busy establishing his shipping line, the now recovered Isambard Kingdom Brunel was busy refining the engineering technology used on the Great Western to create a faster and more cost effective steamship. The result was the SS Great Britain, a revolutionary vessel that transformed the shipping industry when it was launched in 1843. The ship was huge, measuring 322 feet long, with a cargo capacity of 1,200 tons. However, its real advantage was that it uniquely combined an almost impenetrable and sturdy iron hull with a screw propeller instead of paddle wheels, which not only enabled the ship to travel at high speeds but was also more compact, efficient and less easily damaged than its predecessor. Unfortunately, the Great Britain had an even more troubled early career than the Great Western. Construction of the ship took far longer than had initially been projected and when the finished vessel became stranded off the coast of Ireland in November 1846, the expensive salvage operation forced her owners into bankruptcy. Following her rescue, the Great Britain spent several years ferrying convicts and settlers to Australia before serving as an army troop ship. In the 1850s, she was remodelled as a sailing ship and spent the rest of her working life transporting coal before being abandoned at the Falkland Islands following a devastating fire. In 1970, the remains of this once great ship were salvaged and brought back to Bristol where she was painstakingly restored and opened to the public. Brunel’s most illustrious ship is now one of the city’s most popular visitor attractions.
Although the SS Great Britain’s early years were financially disastrous, the bad fortune had little to do with her design. The speed at which she and Cunard’s steam packets crossed the Atlantic forced the ship owners at the port of London to keep up with the competition by purchasing their own steamships. Soon the British shipyards were inundated with orders. In London, the construction of many new steam vessels was carried out by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company from its yard at Leamouth, close to the East India Docks. The company had been founded in 1837 by engineer Charles Mare and shipwright Thomas J. Ditchburn, who were determined to profit from the new craze for steam. At first, the Thames Ironworks specialised in the building of small paddle-steamers of no more than 100 tons, but by the 1840s they had begun to construct significantly larger vessels including a 12-gun brig for the Royal Navy. As the size of its commissions increased, the company realised that more space was required. Following the retirement of his business partner in 1847, Charles Mare purchased an additional site close to the Leamouth yard, on the opposite side of Bow Creek, which could handle the construction of much larger ships. This move initially paid dividends. Several commissions were received for large vessels and in 1853 the SS Himalaya left Mare’s shipyard with the distinction of being (albeit briefly) the world’s largest passenger ship. However, all was not well at the Thames Ironworks. The company had been in financial crisis since the late 1840s and in 1855 Charles Mare finally admitted defeat and declared the company bankrupt. For a time it looked like the shipyards would be forced to close, putting over 3,000 employees out of work, but in 1857, Mare’s father-in-law Peter Rolt took charge of the firm’s assets and transferred them to a new, limited company named the Thames Ironworks & Shipbuilding & Engineering Company. There followed a long period of prosperity during which the shipyard gained an international reputation for quality work and orders from as far afield as Prussia and Greece were received at the company offices. While many London shipyards were forced to close by strong competition from their competitors in the north, the Thames Ironworks continued building steamships until 1912. Sadly, the shipyards are now long gone, but the company left an enduring, if unexpected, legacy through its football team.
In 1895, at the suggestion of company foreman, David Taylor, the Thames Ironworks’ managing director Arnold Hills agreed to finance a football club for his staff. Thames Ironworks FC was duly set up and Taylor immediately began to search for a ground on which to train and play matches. He soon came across a good ground in Hermit Road, Canning Town, which had recently been made available due to the demise of a professional team called Old Castle Swifts. The ground was only a short distance away from the ironworks and so Taylor and his colleagues took it over and began trials for their team. Players from the defunct Swifts club heard about the new Ironworks team and four (goalkeeper George Furnell, full- and half-back Robert Stevenson, and forwards James Lindsay and George Sage) were eventually selected, the remainder of the team being made up of company employees and enthusiastic local players. The first match took place on 7 September 1895 against the Royal Ordnance FC, the final score being a disappointing 0-0.
Despite their inauspicious start, the Ironworks FC soon began winning matches and it became apparent that one of the Ironworks’ own employees was rapidly becoming their star player. Charles Ernest Dove, known to his colleagues as Charlie, had been born in Poplar in 1877, the son of a Cornish shipwright named George Thomas Dove and his wife Clara Ann. Like thousands of other families that earned their living from the London docks and its associated industries, the Doves lived close to the Thames, so the journey to work could be undertaken on foot, thus saving money. By the time he was 16, Charlie Dove cut an imposing figure, standing nearly 6 feet tall and weighing a muscular 12 stone, which was unusual for a teenager from a dock worker’s family. By this time, he was employed as an apprentice riveter at the Thames Ironworks, but spent many evenings and Sundays playing with local football teams. When David Taylor began recruiting for the company team, Dove’s innate talent for the game resulted in him being selected and over the following five seasons he proved to be a versatile and resourceful team member, eventually playing in every position, including that of goalkeeper. On 23 April 1898, the East Ham Echo wrote, ‘Charlie Dove, if not absolutely the finest right half-back in Essex… is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant men in the country in that position.’
Charlie was not the only talented player in the Ironworks’ team. By 1900, the club’s success prompted a committee decision to take it to the next level. The amateur club was duly closed and reopened as West Ham United. Just as the club was re-forming, its most talented player was making changes of his own. In the summer of 1900, Charlie Dove married a young woman called Eliza Crick whose family hailed from Canning Town, close to the football ground. Soon after, Charlie left the Thames Ironworks FC and, probably lured by money, joined their arch-rivals Millwall. Sadly, his football career was cut short in 1902 when an injury prevented him from playing professionally again. However, his old team continued to go from strength to strength. West Ham United eventually went on to win the FA Cup three times and currently play in England’s Premier Division. Although the club is much changed from its early days, its origins are still remembered in both its nicknames (‘the Hammers’ and ‘the Irons’) and its crest, which includes a crossed pair of rivet hammers – tools that Charlie Dove and his colleagues at the Thames Ironworks would have been very familiar with.
Meanwhile, at the port of London the introduction of steam-powered shipping was presenting problems for the docks. Many of these new vessels were too large to reach the shallower waters beside the legal quays and with the existing deep-water docks working at full capacity during the busy summer and autumn periods, it soon became clear that the port needed custom-built basins to accommodate these huge vessels. In response, a consortium of interested parties formed the Victoria (London) Dock Company. It set about drawing up plans to create a vast new dock on Plaistow Marsh specifically engineered to receive steamships and connect with London’s railway network which was stretching across the capital with extraordinary speed. Recognising the need for this type of dock, the government swiftly approved the proposal and building work commenced in 1853.
At the time of its construction the Victoria Dock was the largest man-made body of water in London. It was accessed from the Thames via enormous deep-water locks secured by hydraulically powered wrought-iron gates which were located on an area of the Thames known as Bugbsy’s Reach, a short distance away from the Thames Ironworks at Leamouth. These locks ran underneath a section of the East Counties & Thames Junction Railway which had been built in 1847 to connect North Woolwich with central London. In order to allow tall ships to pass through the locks, a swing bridge was incorporated into the railway line. A short distance north, a new station – known as Custom House – was built to directly serve the new dock.
Once they had passed through the locks, the ships entered a deep tidal basin, which in turn led into the main dock. This vast expanse of water was indented on its north side with four long piers interspersed with smaller jetties that extended out into the basin, allowing vessels of all sizes to moor alongside them. Railway tracks were laid along the length of these landing places so that goods could be unloaded directly onto trucks which were then conveyed either to the nearby station or long storage sheds that lay just beyond the quay. The company offices were built facing the centre of the north quay and were flanked by large tobacco warehouses, wine vaults and coal sidings; smaller warehouses lay on the south quay, storing commodities such as jute, salt and guano, which was extensively used in agriculture as manure.
The Victoria Dock Company was eager to attract shipments of valuable cargoes such as those handled at the St Katharine Docks but realised that the merchants dealing in these goods would be reluctant to store them on its relatively remote site. Consequently, it acquired the Hanseatic League’s old Steelyard site in Upper Thames Street with the intention of building high-security warehousing. However, this project proved unprofitable and the site was subsequently sold to the South Eastern Railway Company in preparation for the construction of Cannon Street Station, which opened in 1866. However, by this time the Victoria Dock was handling up to 850,000 tons of shipping each year – double that of the London Docks – and was the busiest dock in London.
The instant success of the Victoria Dock prompted speculative developers to search for other locations suitable for the construction of similar facilities. The massive wave of dock building in the first half of the 19th century had finally solved the problem of large ships being forced to wait in the Thames for space to discharge their cargoes. Indeed, during the quieter winter season, the new docks often found themselves competing for trade. Nonetheless, there was still a need for shipbuilding and repair resources and new sites were sought to fulfil this requirement. The land south of the West India Docks had long since been considered a prospective location for a new dock as although the riverside perimeter of this tongue-shaped peninsula already incorporated the small maritime settlement of Millwall, the land between was largely undeveloped.
The land on which Millwall sat was known as the Isle of Dogs. The story behind this odd name had been long obscured by the 19th century, but the most popular and plausible theory was that the area was once used as kennels for hunting dogs when the monarch resided in Greenwich. By the mid-18th century, the area had an altogether more gruesome reputation as a companion site to Execution Dock in Wapping. Roque’s 1746 map of the locality shows gibbets standing along the riverbank and it was rumoured that the pensioners at Greenwich Hospital operated a profitable sideline, hiring out spyglasses to members of the public wishing to watch the hangings from the south bank of the Thames.
The windswept landscape of the Isle of Dogs also attracted millers, who from the late 1670s built several windmills close to a riverside wall on the west bank of the peninsula, where grain and oil seeds were ground. The river wall was originally known as Marsh Wall, but following the arrival of the windmills the name was changed to Mill Wall. By the early 19th century, the name applied to the entire district and the mills had been joined by a series of independent wharves owned by shipwrights and associated maritime traders.
In the centre of the Isle of Dogs the land was almost entirely rural save for a few farm buildings and an old medieval chapel dedicated to St Mary, surrounded by footpaths and fields. For centuries, cattle and sheep had been put out to graze in the meadows as it was thought that the pastureland was particularly nutritious and some even believed it had curative properties. However, this rural idyll was soon to be shattered.
In 1859, Nathaniel Fenner, an oil merchant who owned a wharf at Millwall, came up with the idea of constructing a series of non-tidal wharves behind his premises that connected with the Thames on both sides of the peninsula and led up to the West India Docks. Convinced that his idea would appeal to several local shipwrights keen to expand their operations, he consulted an engineer named Robert Fairlie and asked him to draw up a set of plans. Fairlie came up with a scheme that incorporated a wide canal-type waterway shaped like an inverted ‘T’, which was accessed by two locks on either side of the Isle and had a central branch that led up to the West India Docks. This waterway was bordered by space for quays and warehousing, but Fenner and Fairlie decided not to build any of the structures themselves. Instead they opted to let the land in plots to private businesses which could then develop them as they saw fit.
The two men’s plan seemed to be workable but they had neither the finance to fund construction themselves nor the connections to go about obtaining the necessary approvals to commence work. Consequently, they contacted a well-known engineer named William Wilson who, after looking at their proposal, agreed to oversee the project. After making some minor alterations to Fenner and Fairlie’s scheme, Wilson submitted the plans to parliament under the title ‘The Millwall Canal, Wharfs and Graving (Dry) Docks Bill’ and promptly severed all contact with its originators, reasoning that they were now surplus to requirements. Now believing that he could move on with the project unencumbered by two naïve and inexperienced partners, Wilson began discussing the plans with wealthy engineers and contractors who had sufficient clout both financially and socially to push the Bill through parliament and finance the initial stages of the scheme. His discussions attracted the interest of two developers – John Kelk and John Aird – who had previously worked together on the construction of the Metropolitan Railway and the development of Victoria Station. The two men agreed to offer financial assistance and with their monies in place, an influential engineer, Sir John Fowler, was retained to add weight to their proposal.
While Wilson recruited his eminent team of engineers and contractors, word got back to Nathaniel Fenner and Robert Fairlie that they were being sidelined in favour of wealthier and more prominent individuals. Understandably, the two men were infuriated by Wilson’s duplicity. They energetically opposed the Bill and succeeded in causing sufficient problems for Wilson to reluctantly pay them off to the tune of £5,000 and offer Fenner a seat on the board of the company. It transpired that Fenner and Fairlie were the only opponents of the Bill and once a tentative cost of works had been agreed at just over £500,000, an Act was passed that incorporated the Millwall Canal, Wharfs and Graving Docks Company, and granted permission for the construction of ‘Accommodation for Shipbuilding and other Businesses requiring Water Frontage.’
Although the company had now been given the green light to proceed, the raising of the necessary finance proved more difficult than initially expected. In December 1864, John Kelk approached the directors of the East and West India Docks, reasonably confident that they would be interested in investing in the scheme, but his proposal was rejected. By this stage, the company had agreed to purchase a large amount of land on the Isle of Dogs and the board were now faced with the monumental task of raising over half a million pounds purely through public subscription. Optimistically worded advertisements were placed in the press, but it soon became clear that the target was never going to be reached. Eventually the company was forced to employ the services of one Albert Grant, a financier of dubious reputation, who agreed to fund the scheme in return for a majority share in the company and an astronomical ‘arrangement fee’ of £100,000. The board were in no position to refuse his offer and new papers were drawn up, renaming the company the ‘Millwall Freehold Land and Docks Company.’
The payment of Albert Grant’s fee combined with the costs incurred while the project was delayed meant that the projected construction sum of £500,000 was now woefully inadequate. Nevertheless, Grant used his creative skills to present his network of investors with an opportunity that seemed too good to pass by. However, as time went on, doubts about the financial viability of the project began to spread and several shareholders bailed out, forcing the company to apply for bank loans. To make matters worse, the banking firm of Overend Gurney and Co went bust in 1866, sparking a period of turmoil in the City as investors lost confidence in the markets and cut back on investments. The resulting recession inevitably affected all sectors of manufacturing, including shipbuilding. Realising that it would take years for confidence in the market to be fully restored, the Millwall Docks Company was forced to rethink its scheme and the plans for the wharf-lined canal with shipbuilding facilities mutated into the only type of development the company had a hope of succeeding with in the short term: deep-water docks that could accommodate both sailing vessels and steamships. The downside of this change of plan meant that the company would now be in direct competition with the Victoria Dock. Undeterred, the board pressed on with their revised scheme and in a small coup, managed to lure the superintendent and clerk of works from the Victoria Dock to come and work for them.
Construction recommenced using the revised plans in late 1866. The original plan of a ‘T’-shaped canal was shelved and only two channels were excavated. The new deep-water basins were drained using steam-powered pumping engines, which disgorged the marshy water into the Thames, and the soil removed was used to build up land on which the quays would stand. Determined not to waste any more time, the board employed up to 3,000 workers at the site and, consequently, work progressed quickly.
By the beginning of 1868, the development contained two long docks laid out in a reversed ‘L’-shape, accessed from the Thames via a hydraulically operated double lock which at the time of its construction was the largest in London. In addition to the two wet docks, a huge dry dock was constructed on land once occupied by the ancient church of St Mary. The site was named the Millwall Docks and on 14 March 1868, they finally opened to shipping in a partially completed state.
The saga of the Millwall Docks proved to be a cautionary tale for speculative developers at the port of London as it showed that not all schemes came with a guarantee of success. Had it not been for the tenacity of the board, the project might well have ended in financial ruin. In the event, the economic crisis that prevailed during the docks’ construction eventually passed. Trade improved and thanks to the people that worked within it, the Millwall Docks developed a solid reputation, handling a range of cargoes, particularly wool, grain and timber. However, London’s dock building boom was most definitely over for the time being.
While the board of the Millwall Docks Company were desperately trying to keep their troubled scheme alive, the ancient royal dockyards across the water at Woolwich and Deptford were struggling to build the huge ships now required by the Royal Navy. For centuries, the shipyards had been at the forefront of new shipbuilding techniques – in 1698, even the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, had visited the Deptford yard to see first hand how the British Navy’s enviable fleet was constructed. However, as the size of ships steadily increased, the relatively shallow waters surrounding the yards became very difficult for vessels to navigate. Realising that this was a problem destined only to get worse, the Admiralty began to open more accessible dockyards at Portsmouth, Plymouth and the Kentish town of Chatham.
The royal dockyards in London experienced a brief but glorious renaissance when the advent of the Napoleonic Wars prompted a surge in demand. Huge crowds lined the banks of the Thames to see the unveiling of great warships such as HMS Nelson, which was launched at Woolwich in 1814. However, once the wars with the French ended, the demand for new warships came to an abrupt halt. In an attempt to find an additional use for the two sites, the Admiralty expanded its victualling yards and over the following 40 years many of the old workshops were converted into breweries, bakeries and slaughterhouses serving the Royal Navy. Many of the resident shipwrights found that they either had to retrain in a completely different trade or seek employment elsewhere. The majority chose the latter option and the community living in and around the yards began a slow but inexorable change of identity.
The arrival of steamships finally signalled the end for the Woolwich and Deptford shipyards. At first, they attempted to update their facilities to cope with the new engineering techniques and for a few years it looked hopeful that the yards might survive by supplying small steamships to the navy. However, as Brunel had discovered, size was crucial to the cost-effectiveness of steam-powered vessels and the Admiralty began to favour its own yard at Chatham, which had more space and better resources. Despite this, the skilled workers at the London yards managed to produce some impressive vessels during their final years of existence, notably HMS Royal Albert, a 121-gun steam-powered warship launched at Woolwich on 13 May 1854 in a lavish ceremony presided over by Queen Victoria. Four years later, the monarch also visited the Deptford yard and the Admiralty wasted no time in renaming their converted workshops the Royal Victoria Victualling Yard, which brought a certain cachet but no new orders for ships.
By 1860, the yards’ royal status could no longer disguise the fact that they were a constant drain on the Admiralty’s resources. After much discussion over possible alternative uses, the decision was made to close the Deptford and Woolwich shipyards and their workers walked out of the gates for the last time on Saturday 18 September 1869. The Times reported, ‘It was feared that there would be a disturbance of the men leaving the yard for the last time, a strong feeling showing itself, and it was said that an effigy of the First Lord of the Admiralty, after being paraded through the town, would be burnt; but the weather turning out wet frustrated this intention.’
The closure of the royal shipyards ended a shipbuilding tradition that had existed in Woolwich and Deptford for over 300 years. It also left 2,431 men and women jobless. The unemployment problem in Woolwich was exacerbated when job losses were also announced at the nearby arsenal. That said, the majority of redundant workers managed to avoid the workhouse. Figures published at the end of 1869 revealed that following the royal dockyards’ closure, a total of 1,235 employees were transferred to other naval shipyards, 249 received pensions from the Admiralty valued at an average of 10 shillings a week, 171 people were given a lump sum of money on discharge and 42 were either sacked, died or were retained on a temporary contract. A ‘Relief and Emigration Fund’ was set up and this helped 342 workers to settle in either Canada or Queensland. Little is known of the fate of the remaining 392 workers who left with no form of support. Although some no doubt found work at private yards along the Thames, at least two men from the royal shipyards were driven to suicide after concluding that their situation was utterly hopeless.
The closure of the royal dockyards combined with the fraught construction of the Millwall Docks and the recession sparked by the collapse of bankers Overend Gurney & Co in 1866 resulted in a hiatus in dock construction for much of the 1870s. The Commercial Docks Company opened its Canada Dock in 1876, but this new facility was an alteration of its existing site rather than an exercise in speculative construction. However, across the river, a large tract of land east of the Victoria Dock lay ripe for development.
The struggle to survive the lean years of the late 1860s and early 1870s had prompted a merger between the St Katharine and London Docks Companies and the amalgamated firm had gone on to purchase the Victoria Dock and the adjoining undeveloped site. At first, the board of the new company were dismissive of any schemes to build a dock on the vacant land, but international events were soon to influence their mindset on this particular matter.
By the 1870s, the industrial revolution and a boom in world population had resulted in demand for consumer goods reaching unprecedented levels and quick international transportation methods were essential. In November 1869, the Suez Canal had opened, revolutionising trade between Europe and Asia and cutting travelling times for vessels trading between the two continents dramatically. Coupled with these two factors was the fact that advancements in steamship engineering meant that vessels were now only limited in size by the places at which they docked. British ports such as Liverpool saw the direction in which marine engineering was heading and developed their facilities accordingly, but the port of London once again began to struggle to accommodate the largest vessels, which found it very difficult to navigate around the multitude of ships, lighters, barges and pleasure craft that were perpetually in and around the docks.
On 3 September 1878, matters came to a head when a paddle-steamer named the Princess Alice made her way up the Thames after collecting revellers from Rosherville Pleasure Gardens in Gravesend. As the ship crossed the river ready to dock at Woolwich Pier, her crew were horrified to see a 900-ton coal steamer, the Bywell Castle, heading straight for them. The crew of the two ships made desperate attempts to avoid one another and when collision seemed inevitable, the Bywell Castle threw her engines into reverse in a last-ditch attempt at damage limitation. Sadly, this was not enough to avert a disaster. The captain of the coal steamer recorded in his log, ‘The two vessels came in collision, the Bywell Castle cutting into the other steamer with a dreadful crash. We took immediate measures for saving life by hauling up over our bows several passengers, throwing overboard ropes’ ends, life buoys, a hold-ladder, and several planks, and getting out three boats, at the same time keeping the whistle blowing loudly for assistance, which was rendered by several boats from shore, and a boat from another steamer. The excursion steamer, which turned out to be the Princess Alice, turned over and sank under our bows.’ The Bywell Castle and the rescue boats managed to save around 100 people from the Princess Alice, but up to 550 others were drowned. Many of the victims were never identified, their remains being buried in a mass grave in Woolwich cemetery.
Unfortunately, steamship collisions in the Thames were all too common, particularly in Woolwich Reach. While families were still grieving for loved ones lost in the Princess Alice disaster, the SS Canada ploughed into a pier just yards away, causing the whole structure to collapse into the Thames. On learning of these terrible events, George Chambers, the chairman of the London and St Katharine Docks Company, surmised that the safety of the Thames in this area could be significantly improved if large steamers like the Bywell Castle could moor east of the treacherous Woolwich stretch of the Thames. The redundant land next to the Victoria Dock could easily provide such a resource and there was sufficient space on the site to create a basin large enough to accommodate even the most immense steamships, some of which had already outgrown the Victoria Dock. Chambers put his idea to the board who, after considering the proposal at length, agreed that plans should be drawn up for the new dock complex. The resulting scheme combined vast size with the latest technology. The dock that formed its centrepiece was to be 490 feet wide and one and three quarter miles long, while the wood-planked quay surrounding it would be laid with railway lines along which steam engines would operate, conveying cargo-laden trucks to a series of warehouses clad in corrugated iron. As the tracks approached these warehouses, they would be sunk 3 feet 3 inches below the floor, thus enabling unloading to be accomplished with the minimum of effort. On the western edge of the south quay, two dry docks were to be excavated in which ironclad steamships could be repaired and updated. Crucially, all vessels would enter the site via a lock on its eastern edge, thus removing the need for them to travel down Woolwich Reach. Even ships destined for the Victoria Dock would enter it via the new lock system and access their final destination through a connecting canal.
The company decided that its proposed dock would not only be used for cargo ships. The speed of steamship voyages – particularly after the opening of the Suez Canal – meant that international travel was becoming increasingly accessible to the general public and so the board decided to include a passenger terminal at the entrance basin, complete with a hotel and a railway station (to be named Manor Road), providing connections to central London. Two further stations – Central and Connaught Road – were to be built for the transportation of goods and workers. Two additional innovations were also included in the scheme that would be unique to the site. Firstly, drinking water would be available to all ships via 36 hydrants built along the quayside and the complex would be illuminated by electric lamps, each of ‘6,000 candle-power’, mounted on tall poles up to 80 feet above ground level. This artificial light would allow vessels to be loaded or unloaded at any time of day or night, thus dramatically reducing turnaround times.
The plans for the new dock were quickly approved by parliament and on 23 April 1879, the company received royal assent to name the development the Royal Albert Dock in memory of the queen’s beloved spouse, who had died in December 1861. Queen Victoria also gave her consent to rename the Albert’s sister dock the Royal Victoria. On 24 June 1880, the Royal Albert Dock was opened by the Duke and Duchess of Connaught (after whom the station was named). By this time, the board were unanimous in agreeing that their initial reservations about creating another enclosed dock in the port of London had been unfounded. By the time the duke and duchess arrived at the opening ceremony, all the quay and warehouse space on the north side of the basin had been let to private enterprise along with approximately one-third of the space on the south quay.
The immediate popularity of the Royal Albert Dock inevitably took trade away from other docks further along the Thames. In response, the East and West India Docks Company, which had been formed following the amalgamation of the two separate organisations some years previously, opened a site at Tilbury in Essex in the hope that shipping would be lured away from the central London docks altogether. However, the new development was not an immediate success and in fact was barely used for many years following its opening in 1886. The sight of the empty quays and barren warehouses prompted the writer Joseph Conrad to remark with great prescience, ‘From the first the Tilbury Docks were very efficient and ready for their task, but they had come, perhaps, too soon into the field. A great future lies before the Tilbury Docks.’