The Morning Chronicle Survey of Labour and the Poor

The Metropolitan Districts Volume 2

Henry Mayhew, Peter Razzell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315470436
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

In the years 1849 and 1850, Henry Mayhew was the metropolitan correspondent of the Morning Chronicle in its national survey of labour and the poor. Only about a third of his Morning Chronicle material was included in his later and better known, publication, London Labour and the London Poor.

First published in 1981, this series of six volumes constitutes Henry Mayhew's complete Morning Chronicle survey, in the sequence in which it was originally written in 1849 and 1850. It addresses a wealth of topics from cholera in the Jacob's Island area to the food markets of London. The publication of this complete survey represented the first time in which the whole of Mayhew's pioneering work was available in one place. The set is introduced by Dr Peter Razzell, who was co-editor of the national Morning Chronicle survey. This second volume contains letters from November 1849 to January 1850.

This series will be of interest to those studying the history of social welfare, poverty and urbanisation.

LETTER XXII
Tuesday, January 1st, 1850

Having finished with the different classes of Coal-labourers in London—the whippers, backers, pull-backs, trimmers, and waggoners—I purpose now dealing with the Ballast men—including the ballast-getters, the ballast-lightermen, and the ballast-heavers of the Metropolis. My reason for passing from the Coal to the Ballast labourers, is because the latter class of workpeople are suffering under the same iniquitous and pernicious system of employment as that from which the coal labourers have recently been “emancipated;” and the transition will serve to show not only the present condition of the one class of men, but the past state of the other.

After treating of the ballast labourers, I propose inquiring into the condition and income of the stevedores—or men engaged in the stowing and unstowing of vessels—and of the lumpers and riggers—or those engaged in the rigging and unrigging of them. It is then my intention to pass to the corn labourers—such as the corn porters, corn runners, and turners—touching incidentally upon the corn-meters. After this I mean to devote my attention to the timber labourers engaged at the different timber docks—as, for instance, the “Commercial,” the “Grand Surrey,” and the “East Country” Docks. Then, in due course, I shall come to the wharf labourers and porters, or men engaged at the different wharfs of London; thence I shall digress to the bargemen and lightermen, or men engaged in the transport of the different cargoes from the ships to their several points of destination, up or down the river; and finally I shall treat of the watermen, the steamboat men, and pier men, or those engaged in the transit of passengers along the Thames. These—with the dock labourers, of whom I have before treated—will, I believe, exhaust the subject of the long-shore labourers; and the whole will, I trust, form, when completed, such a body of facts and information, in connection with this particular branch of labour, as has never before been collected. I am happy to say that, with some few exceptions, I receive from the different official gentlemen not only every courtesy and consideration, but all the assistance and co-operation that it lies in their power to afford me. Every class seems to look upon the present inquiry as an important undertaking, and all—save the Clerk of the Coal Exchange and the Deputy-Superintendent of the London Docks—appear to be not only willing but anxious to “lend a hand” towards expediting the result.

Before quitting the subject of the Coal Market, let me endeavour to arrive at an estimate as to the amount of wealth annually brought into the port of London by means of the “colliers,” and to set forth as far as possible the proportions in which it is distributed. In my last Letter certain statistics were given, which—notwithstanding the objection of a “Coal Merchant,” who, in a letter to this Journal, states that I have reckoned the number of ships at twice the real quantity—have been obtained from such sources, and, I may add, with so much care and caution, as to render them the most accurate information capable of being procured at present on the subject. The statistics of the number of tons of coals brought into the port of London in the year 1848, the number of vessels employed, of the voyages made by those vessels collectively, and of the seamen engaged in the traffic, were furnished by the Clerk of the Coal Exchange at the time of the opening of the new building. Had the “Coal Merchant,” therefore, made it his duty to devote the same time and care to the investigation of the truth of my statements as I give to the collection of them, he would not only have avoided committing the very errors he condemns, but would have displayed a more comprehensive knowledge of his business.

In 1848 there were imported into the London coal market 3,418,340 tons of coal. These were sold to the public at an average rate all the year round of 22s. 6d. per ton. Hence the sum expended in the metropolis for coal in that year was £3,845,632 10s.

There are 21,600 seamen engaged in the coal trade, and getting on an average £3 10s. per man per voyage. Each of these men makes between four and five voyages in the course of the year. Hence the average earnings of each man per year will be £15 18s. exclusive of his keep; calculating this at 5s. per week, or £13 per year, we have £28 18s. for the expense of each of the seamen employed. Hence, as there are 21,600 sailors in the trade, the total yearly cost would be	£624,240
There are 170 coal-meters, earning, on an average, £2 per week, or £104 per year each man. This would make the total sum paid in the year to the coal-meters	17,680
There are 2,000 coal-whippers, earning 15s. 1½d. each per week, or £39 6s. 6d. per man. Hence the total sum paid in the course of last year to the coal-whippers was	78,650
There are 3,000 coal-porters, earning, on an average, £1 per week, or £52 per year, per man, so that they receive annually	156,000
Hence the total amount paid per year to the working men engaged in bringing and delivering the coals in the London market is	£876,570

The area of all the coal-fields of Great Britain has been roughly estimated at 9,000 square miles. The produce is supposed to be about 32,000,000 tons annually, of which 10,000,000 tons are consumed in the ironworks, 8,500,000 tons are shipped coastwise, 2,500,000 tons are exported to foreign countries, and 11,000,000 tons distributed inland for miscellaneous purposes. Near upon 4,000,000 tons were brought to London by ships and otherwise in the year 1848; and it is computed that about one-eighth part of this, or 500,000 tons, were consumed by the gas works.

The price of coals, as quoted in the London market, is the price up to the time when the coals are whipped from the ships to the merchants’ barges. It includes—1st, the value of the coals at the pit’s mouth; 2nd, the expense of transit from the pit to the ship; 3rd, the freight of the ship to London; 4th, the Thames dues; and, 5th, the whipping. The difference between the market price and that paid by the consumer is made up of the expense incurred by the coal merchant for barges, wharfs, waggons, horses, wages to coal-porters, etc., together with his profit and risk. In 1836 the expenses incurred by the merchant from the time he bought a ship-load of coals to the deposition of them in the cellars of his customers, amounted, on an average, it was said, to 7s. per ton. These expenses comprise commission, lighterage, porterage, cartage, shootage, metage, market dues, land metage, and other items. At the present time the expenses must be considerably lower, the wages of the labourers and the meters having been lowered full 50 per cent., though the demand for and consumption of coal has increased at nearly the same rate—indeed the law of the Coal-market appears to be, that, in proportion as the demand for articles rises, so do the wages of the men engaged in the supply of it fall.

As the ballast-heavers are under the thraldom of the same demoralizing and oppressive system as that which the coal-whippers recently suffered under, it may be as well, before entering upon the immediate subject of this letter, to lay before the reader the following concise account of the terms on which the latter were engaged before the Coalwhippers’ office was established.

Until within the last few years, the coalwhippers suffered themselves to be duped in an extraordinary way by publicans and petty shopkeepers on shore. The custom was for the captain of a coal ship, when he required a cargo to be whipped, to apply to one of these publicans for a gang; and a gang was thereupon sent from the public-house. There was no professed or pre-arranged deduction from the price paid for the work; the captain paid the publican, and the publican paid the coal-whippers; but the middleman had his profit another way. The coal-whipper was expected to come to the public-house in the morning; to drink while waiting for work; to take drink with him to the ship; to drink again when the day’s work was done; and to linger about and in the public-house until almost bedtime before his day’s wages were paid. The consequence was, that an enormous ratio of his earnings went every week to the publican. The publicans were wont to rank their dependents into two classes—the “constant men,” and the “stragglers;” of whom the former were first served whenever a cargo was to be whipped; in return for this, they were expected to spend almost the whole of their spare time in the public-house, and even to take up their lodgings there.

The captains preferred applying to the publicans rather than engaging the men themselves, because it saved them trouble; and because (as was pretty well understood) the publicans curried favour with them by indirect means. Grocers and small shopkeepers did the same; and the coal-whippers had then to buy bad and dear groceries instead of bad and dear beer and gin. The Legislative tried by various means to protect the coal-whippers, but the publicans contrived means to evade the law. At length, in 1843, an act was passed, which has placed the coal-whippers in a far more advantageous position.

The transition from coal labour to ballast labour is gradual and easy, even if the labourers were not kindred in suffering.

The coal ships, when discharged by the whippers, must get back to the north; and as there are not cargoes enough from London to freight them, they must take in ballast to make the ships heavy enough to sail in safety. This ballast is chiefly gravel or sand, dredged up from the bed of the Thames, in and near Woolwich Reach. The Trinity House takes upon itself this duty. The captain, when he requires to sail, applies to the Ballast-Office, and the required weight of ballast is sent to the ship in lighters belonging to the Trinity House, the captain paying so much per ton for it. About eighty tons on an average are required for each vessel; and the quantity thus supplied by the Trinity House is about 10,000 tons per week. Some of the ships are ballasted with chalk taken from Purfleet; all ballast taken from higher up the river than that point must be supplied by the Trinity House. When the ship reaches the Tyne, the ballast is of no further use, but it must not be emptied into that river; it has therefore to be deposited on the banks of the river, where huge mounds are now collected, two or three hundred feet high.

New places on the banks of the river have to be discovered for this deposit, as the ballast mounds keep increasing, for it must be recollected that the vessels leave these parts, no matter for what destination, with coal, and may return in ballast. Indeed, a railway has been formed from the vicinity of South Shields to a waste place on the sea-shore, hard by the mouth of the Tyne, where the ballast may be conveyed at small cost, its further accumulation on the river bank being found an incumbrance. “It is hardly something more than a metaphor,” it has been said, “to designate this a transfer of the bed of the Thames to the banks of the Tyne.” We may add another characteristic. Some of the older ballast mounds are overgrown with herbage, and as the vessels from foreign ports, returning to the coal ports in ballast, have, not infrequently, to take soil on board for ballast, in which roots and seeds are contained—some of which struggle into vegetation—Italian flowers not infrequently attempt to bloom in Durham, Yorkshire, or Northumberland, while of these plants some have survived the climate and have spread around, and thus it is that botanists trace the history of plants which are called indigenous to the ballast hills.

Before treating of the ballast labourers themselves, I shall give a brief history of the ballast laws.

Ships are technically said to be in ballast when they sail without a cargo, having on board only the stores and other articles requisite for the use of the vessel and crew, as well as of any passengers who may be proceeding with her upon the voyage. In favour of vessels thus circumstanced it is usual to dispense with many formalities at the custom-houses of the ports, and to remit the payment of the dues and charges levied upon ships having cargoes on board. A foreign vessel proceeding from a British port may take chalk on board as ballast. Regulations have at various times been made in different ports and countries determining the modes in which ships may be supplied with ballast, and in what manner they may discharge the same; such regulations being necessary to prevent injury to harbours. Charles I published a proclamation in 1636, ordering “that none shall buy any ballast out of the river Thames but a person appointed by him for that purpose,” and this appointment was sold for the King’s profit. Since then the soil of the river Thames has been vested in the corporation of the Trinity House, and a fine of £10 may be recovered for every ton of ballast taken out of the river without the authority of the corporation. Ships may take on board “land ballast” from any quarries or pits east of Woolwich, by paying 1d. per ton to the Trinity House. For “river ballast” the corporation are authorised by act of Parliament to make other charges. The receipts of the Trinity House from this source were £33,591 in the year 1840, and their expenses were £31,622, leaving a clear profit of £1,969. The ballast of all ships or vessels coming into the Thames must be unladen into a lighter, and if any ballast be thrown into the river, the master of the vessel whence it is thrown is liable to a fine of £20. Some such regulation is usually enforced at every port.

Before proceeding further with my present subject, it is proper that I should express my acknowledgement of the ready courtesy with which the official information necessary for the full elucidation of my subject was supplied to me by the Secretary of the principal Ballast-office, at Trinity House, Tower-hill. I have always observed that when the heads of a department willingly supply information to go before the public, I find in the further course of my investigations that under such departments the claims of the labourers are not only acknowledged but practically allowed. On the other hand, if official gentlemen neglect (which is to refuse) to supply the returns and other information, it is because the inquiry is unpalatable to them, as the public in those departments will find that the fair claims of the labourer are not allowed. Were the poor ballast-heavers taken under the protection of the Corporation of the Trinity House (something in the same way that Parliament placed the coal-whippers under the guardianship of a board of commissioners), the good done would be great indeed, and the injury would be none, for it cannot be called an injury to prevent a publican forcing a man to buy and swallow bad drink.

By charter of Queen Elizabeth, in the thirty-sixth year of her reign, “the lastage and ballastage, and office of lastage and ballast-age” of all ships, and other vessels betwixt the bridge of the city of London and the main sea, I am informed by the secretary of the Trinity Company, was granted to the master, wardens, and assistants of the Trinity House of Deptford Strond. This was renewed; and the gravel, sand, and soil of the River Thames granted to the said master, wardens, etc., for the ballasting of ships and vessels, in the fifteenth year of Charles the Second; and again in the seventeenth year of the reign of that Monarch. This last-named charter remains in force, and has been confirmed by acts of Parliament at different times; by which acts, also, various regulations in relation to the conduct of the ballast service, the control of the persons employed therein, and the prices of the ballast supplied have been established. The act now in force is the sixth and seventh Victoria, cap. 57.

The number of men employed in lighters as ballast-getters, or in barges conveying it from the dredgers, is 245, who are paid by the ton raised.

The number of vessels entered for ballast in the year 1848 was—

Colliers	6,480
British merchant-vessels	2,690
Aliens	1,054
Total vessels	11,224

The total quantity of ballast supplied to shipping, in the year 1848, was 615,619 tons, or thereabouts; such ballast being gravel raised from the bed of the River Thames, and delivered alongside of vessels, either lying in the different docks, or being afloat in the stream between London Bridge and Woolwich.

The number of craft employed in this service is 69, viz:—

		Men.
3	steam dredging-vessels, having 8 men in each	24
43	lighters, having 4 men in each	172
9	lighters, having 5 men in each	45
14	barges, having 2 men in each	28
69	Total	269

The ballast is delivered into the vessels from the lighters and barges by men called ballast-heavers, who are employed by the vessel, and are not in the service of the Trinity House.

I now come to the nature of the ballast labour itself. This is divisible into three classes—the ballast-getters, or those who are engaged in raising it from the bed of the Thames; the ballast-lighters, or those who are engaged in carrying from the getters to the ships requiring it; and the ballast-heavers—or those who are engaged in putting it on board of such ships. The first and second of these classes have, even according to their own account, “nothing to complain of,” being employed by gentlemen who, judging by the wanton neglect of the labouring men by their masters, so general in London, certainly exhibit a most extraordinary consideration and regard for their workpeople, and the change from the indifference and callousness of the coal-merchants to the kindness of the Corporation of the Trinity-house is most gratifying. The ballast-heavers constitute an entirely different class. They have every one to a man deep and atrocious wrongs to complain of—such as I am sure are unknown, and which, when once made public, must at once demand some remedy.

I must, however, first deal with the ballast-getters. Of these there are two sub-classes, viz., those engaged in obtaining the ballast by steam power, and those who still procure it as of old, by muscular power.

Of Steam Dredging-engines employed in the collecting of ballast from the bed of the Thames there are three—the “Hercules,” the “Goliath,” and the “Sampson.” These are now stationed respectively in Barking-Reach, Half-Reach, near Dagenham; and the bottom of Halfway-Reach, off Rainham. Most persons who have proceeded up or down the Thames will have perceived black unshapely masses, with no visible indications that they may be classed with steam-vessels, except a chimney and smoke. These are the dredging-vessels. They are of about 200 tons burden. The engines of the Hercules and the Sampson are of 20-horsepower; those of the Goliath are of 25. When the process of dredging is carried on, the use of the dredging-vessel is obvious to any spectator; but I believe that most persons imagine the object to be merely to deepen the river by removing inequalities in its bed, and so to render its navigation easier by equalising its depth, and in some degree checking the power of cross current. Few are aware that an ulterior object is attained. I visited one of these steam-dredgers, and was very courteously shown over it. The first feeling was an impression of the order, regularity, and trimness that prevailed. In the engineers’ department, too, there was an aspect, as well as a feeling, of extreme snugness, the more perceptible...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Letter XIII : Friday, November 30, 1849
• Letter XIV : Tuesday, December 4, 1849
• Letter XV : Friday, December 7, 1849
• Letter XVI : Tuesday, December 11, 1849
• Letter XVII : Friday, December 14, 1849
• Letter XVIII : Tuesday, December 18, 1849
• Letter XIX : Friday, December 21, 1849
• Letter XX : Tuesday, December 25, 1849
• Letter XXI : Friday, December 28, 1849
• Letter XXII : Tuesday, January 1, 1850
• Letter XXIII : Friday, January 4, 1850
• Letter XXIV : Tuesday, January 8, 1850
• Letter XXV : Friday, January 11, 1850
• Letter XXVI : Tuesday, January 15, 1850
• Index