The Thames Ironworks: A History of East London Industrial and Sporting Heritage
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The Thames Ironworks: A History of East London Industrial and Sporting Heritage
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780750965798 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 09/07/2015 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
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The Thames Ironworks
A History of East London Industrial and Sporting Heritage
By Brian Belton
The History Press
Copyright © 2015 Brian BeltonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6579-8
CHAPTER 1
DITCHBURN, MARE AND ROLT
In a corner of today's Canning Town underground station there is a memorial, reputedly fashioned using original iron from a nineteenth-century warship, clad in numerous concrete panels. These are inscribed with a eulogy that commemorates the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company which was located in close proximity to where the memorial now stands.
Along with the Thames Ironworks, there were a number of other shipbuilding companies along the course of the River Thames. None of them survived to the modern era. In fact, Thames was the last major shipbuilding company based on the rambling old waterway to fade into history. However, this great industrial phenomenon did not appear out of the blue; it was no sudden incursion of the industrial age. The development and growth of the Ironworks represented much of the character of the Victorian age, the force that brought the company into the world, to be part of what would sustain that world.
In 1837 Queen Victoria succeeded her uncle, William IV, to the throne of England. She was the same age as 'painter of ships' John Poyser would be sixty-four years later, although 'Vicky' was not born east of the Thames and, even in 1819, she would not be subjected to the fact that infant mortality accounted for 25 per cent of all deaths at the time that John and his brothers came into the world over half a century later.
Three years prior to Victoria coming to the throne of the British Empire, the shipwright Thomas Ditchburn, who had been involved in shipbuilding at Rotherhithe, and naval architect Charles J. Mare joined forces to found the first iron shipbuilding yard on the Thames. Unsurprisingly, they called it 'Ditchburn and Mare'. The modest location was laid out on the south side of the River Thames at Deptford. After a fire gutted the yard they transferred to the northern bank of the Thames, taking over a 5-acre, disused shipbuilding premises along Orchard Place, between the East India Dock Basin and the mouth of the River Lea. This area is often referred to as Bow Creek and it is where the Thames cuts a majestic curve away from the Isle of Dogs at Blackwall.
There had been shipbuilding at Blackwall since 1587, but the confined nature of the spit meant that only ships of less than 1,000 tons could be built there. At that time there was no convenient rail links and this made the cost of bringing in iron plate from the north prohibitive. This also caused delays in the delivery of raw materials. Mare saw that these difficulties could be alleviated by smelting wrought iron plate and building rolling mills on site. However, if this ambition were to be made a reality the company would need to relocate to allow an appreciable expansion of plant.
Charles Mare identified a site with the potential to facilitate what he saw as the necessary growth of the company. It was an area of open land, just across Bow Creek on the eastern bank of the River Lea where it melds with the River Thames in (what was then) the borough of West Ham, Essex. However, Mare's partner, Thomas Ditchburn, didn't feel secure about this location as it would be subjected to flooding from spring high tides. In those days, the River Lea at Silvertown Way was 50ft wide at low water, but over 200ft wide at high tide. For all this, Mare was so keen to undertake this new venture that he changed the nature of his partnership with Ditchburn and purchased around 10 acres of marshland for a new, larger yard on the northern, Canning Town bank of the Lea.
Mare staked out the site personally, aided by a young apprentice, Clement Mackrow, who was to become Naval Architect to Thames Ironworks. By 1843 two new slipways, capable of taking four ships each, were staked out for the purpose of building small iron steamers for the Citizen Ship Company. However, the first site of the Thames Ironworks, that was also to continue to be known as Ditchburn and Mare for much of the rest of the century, was also to produce several innovative iron racing yachts, including the most famous of these, the Mosquito, which was built in 1846. She was an impressive 70 footer with a 15ft 2in beam. She is included in the Guinness Book of Yachting Facts.
The second half of the nineteenth century saw a revolution in communications. In 1840 Samuel Morse patented his invention of the code that bears his name. The telegraph spread rapidly in the next ten years. It was also a time of colonial expansion and struggle. The Battle of Blood River in Natal, South Africa took place in 1838 which resulted in the defeat of the Zulus by the Boers. The British occupied Aden in 1839 and the Opium War between Britain and China began, which was to last until 1842. Britain was also involved in protracted and bloody hostilities in Afghanistan (a conflict that, as we know, never really ended). Turkey invaded Syria and was heavily defeated in the Battle of Nesib (part of the Turks' lack of enthusiasm to openly intervene in more contemporary conflicts in and with Syria). There were rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada, whilst New Zealand was in the process of becoming a British Crown Colony. The latter was ratified in 1840 under the Treaty of Waitagi. At around the same time the Treaty of London was signed whereby Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria agreed to limit Egyptian expansion. The British Navy bombarded Beirut and the Penny Post was introduced in Britain.
The Metropolitan Building Act of 1844 was a defining event in the history of East London as it introduced a raft of legislation that included the banning of toxic and noxious industry within the boundary of London. The County Borough of West Ham, wherein the new ironworks was situated, was located just outside the metropolitan area. Thus the eastern bank of the River Lea was encompassed in the immediate positive impact on manufacturing businesses (if not for the throats and lungs of local inhabitants) drawing development and relocation of industry to the area as a result. Mare's move from the Blackwall side of the Lea to Canning Town was part of this.
The situation caused a huge increase in the local population which made for cheaper labour. In 1841 the borough had fewer than 13,000 residents; by 1901 the area had a population of 267,000. This made West Ham the ninth most populous town in England. This influx put a massive strain on what facilities there were and on those that could be created over a few decades. Housing and concomitant sewage systems were by no means even close to adequate at any stage during this period of time. Indeed, much of the housing that was huddled within the vicinity of the Ironworks from the 1850s on would have been blatantly unfit for human habitation by even the most primitive standards.
Nevertheless, the situation made for a good time for the shipbuilding industry on and around the banks of West Ham's patch of the Thames and throughout the 1850s and into the 1860s, East London firms in Limehouse, Millwall and Blackwall flourished as they were the first to have adjusted to the demand for large, iron vessels.
ARGO
By the mid-1800s Thames Ironworks had moved into crafting large scale ships like Argo. This was the first steamship to intentionally circumnavigate the world, as the New York Times of 19 November 1853 reported:
'A Short Voyage Around the Globe'
The iron screw steamer Argo, recently arrived at Southampton, Eng., has been round the globe in 128 days. She was 64 days on her passage from Southampton to Melbourne, via the Cape of Good Hope. She is completely shipped rigged, and has an auxiliary steam power of 300 horse, to be used in adverse winds and calms. She has used 2.105 tons coal, about 17 tons a day, and has averaged 230 miles a day, about 91/2 miles an hour during the entire voyage. In fair winds under canvas, the Argo made 13 and 14 knots an hour for successive days; and 11 and 12 knots, close hauled, with the screw feathered ... Our Yankee clippers must look to their honors, if John Bull has got to building such vessels as the Argo. (Boston Traveller) Argo was launched on 24 December 1852, constructed for the General Screw Steam Shipping Company, a British concern established in 1848 by James Laming which has an interesting history of its own. In the late 1849 it inaugurated a service between Liverpool, Gibraltar, Malta and Constantinople, deploying the new 500ton Bosphorus, also an iron screw steamer. A few years later GSSSC were operating a mail service between the UK and Australia and, like many others, their ships were chartered as troop transports during the Crimean War.
Argo was an early incarnation of a screw-propelled vessel but she had a sail rig. Her screw could be feathered so she was able, if necessary, to become a totally wind-powered ship. In testing she achieved up to 10 knots under sail only, which was about the same speed she could make under steam. The transition from stopping the engines to sail could, remarkably, be effected in under seven minutes. Innovatively, and probably usefully, the screw could be raised for inspection while at sea.
With her four decks weighing in at 1,815 tons, Argo was nearly 245ft long, with a beam of 39ft and cost £75,000 by the time she went to sea. Argo had a complement of 120 and was made to accommodate 210 passengers.
Argo, being ahead of her times, adventurous and, in the worst case scenario, continuing to look to those who put faith in her, reflected the future character of the Ironworks and West Ham United. Her biography can be understood as an archaeological footprint in the history of the organisation and the football club that the following pages chronicle. That said, as you will read later, her crew were not always the best behaved.
On 8 May 1853 Argo set sail for Australia from Southampton, under Captain George Hyde. With 55 passengers and a full cargo of 375 tons, including jewellery to the value £11,500, there was just one stop planned to take on coal at Cape St Vincent. This was in response to steamships making the Australian run having a problematic reputation. As such, the single stop was part of an effort to provide a speedy passage.
After her sixty-four days at sea, on 14 July 1853 Argo arrived at Sydney, Australia only to be detained at her mooring in the harbour for a week due to the mutinous conduct of her crew. On arrival at, what was then, a British colony, they had immediately attempted to leave the ship. Acting on instructions given to him prior to leaving Britain, the ship's skipper, Captain Hyde, had the crew taken into custody and detained on board a convict hulk until the ship departed for its return to Britain.
Argo left Australia on 27 August 1853 carrying 100 passengers and 103,766 ounces of gold, the value of which at that time was £567,777 (£7.5m nowadays). She had been scheduled to sail two days previously but Captain Hyde had to find new crew members, as he wanted to leave some of the men who had mutinied to serve out their sentences. They had physically assaulted him, even though the police had been present when he was attacked. However, it seems that the offenders found the food in custody relatively good and preferred their comparative idleness to the prospect of rounding the Horn under the command of their victim; this was completely rational and, as such, understandable.
Argo arrived back in Britain in October 1853 to substantial acclamation, having become the first steamship to deliberately circumnavigate the globe. One passenger had died en-route, which was not bad going for the period. She had made the return voyage, rounding Cape Horn, in one day less than the outward journey.
Later, a month after transporting from Australia to England a huge amount of cargo for the Paris Exhibition, Argo was requisitioned by the government as a transport vessel and was fitted for cavalry in April 1855. In the same month Argo set course for the Crimea, transporting 190 horses, a troop of the Royal Horse Artillery and a battery of artillery that consisted of four brass 9lb guns, two 24lb howitzers, one 12lb rocket tube and ammunition.
On 7 March 1856 Argo left Southampton with C battery of Royal Artillery and horses, plus 210 tons of freight, which included guns and gun-carriages. She was heading once again for the Crimea.
Following hostilities, under Captain H.B. Benson, Argo was occupied shipping cargo and passengers across the Atlantic. However, in December 1857 she sailed from Spithead for India with detachments of troops, an event to warrant recording at the time:
The European and American Steam Navigation Company's splendid ship Argo, under Captain Benson, will receive her troops this day alongside Portsmouth Dockyard jetty. Captain Benson had barely eight clear working days to metamorphose the Argo from a first-class Transatlantic passenger packet into a Government troop-transport, rendering necessary an entire revolution in the whole interior of the ship except the state saloon. This has been done in an able and masterly manner. The Argo is an iron ship, of 2,249 tons burden, 300-horse (screw) power, and the height between decks is 7ft 2in. She prepared for berthing 850 troops and about 50 officers. Her ventilation is unequalled. She has 68 port holes or scuttles on the troop deck, which is a clean sweep of space fore and aft, uninterruptedly presenting a line of benches and hammocks like a vista of stalls. She has also 11 ventilating shafts and a number of rotary ventilators in various parts of her, rendering the below berths as cool as the saloon deck. She is a good sailer, having Cunningham's patent self-reefing topsails and every other modern improvement; she steams on an average nine knots, and only consumes about 35 tons of coal per day. It is estimated with such advantages, and most experienced officers, she must make at least as good a passage out to India as the Company's other steamer, the Golden Fleece.
On New Year's Day 1858 Argo arrived at St Vincent. An extract from a letter from the ship told how:
Every one on board is in excellent health and tiptop spirits, and I think I may say that there is not a discontented man in the ship out of nearly 900. Yesterday (the 2nd inst) we astonished the natives by having a cricket match, which went off very successfully – tents pitched and band playing. The Australasian, with the head-quarters of the 68th, and the Medway, which takes home this mail, arrived here yesterday afternoon, and we are consequently quite a party in this desolate island. Coaling is very slow here, labour being extremely scarce, and Captain Benson thinks the 6th about the time we shall get away.
However, the journey back from India was a different story. On 12 May 1858 Lieutenant R.G. Bell, of the 37th Regiment (who had left England in December 1857 in the Argo) died on board. He had been invalided home with consumption immediately on arrival at Calcutta, and re-embarked on her leaving in April. It was on 6 June that Lieutenant D. Hay, who took a prominent part in the defence of Lucknow1, died. He had also been sent back to Britain with consumption, said to have been caused by 'fatigue and privation'. Later that month, arriving at St Vincent, four men had died among the invalid troops on the passage from the Cape, the ship had embarked from there at the end of May. By the time Argo reached Plymouth in early July the majority of the troops had contracted diseases from those who had embarked carrying disease. Three days later she arrived in the Thames with the invalid troops from India. They were landed at Gravesend and forwarded to Fort Pitt Hospital, Chatham.
From mid-1858 Argo returned to her transatlantic duties, having been chartered to the Galway Line. On her first homeward voyage for the Galway Line, sailing from Newfoundland on 28 June 1859, she ran onto a reef in thick fog, which thankfully involved no loss of life. The New York Times of Monday, 13 July 1859 reported:
'Loss or the Steamer Argo - Personal Narrative of one of her Passengers.'
The Atlantic Royal Mail Steamship Navigation Company's steamer Argo, Capt. Halpin left New York on Thursday, June 23rd, with two hundred passengers; her officers and crew amounting to about one hundred and twenty men. The voyage up to the time of the loss of the ship was as favorable as could be desired; the weather was fine, and the comfortable accommodations of the ship together with the attentive and gentlemanly deportment of the Captain and officers, elicited universal approbation. On Tuesday, morning, at about ½3 o'clock, Cape Pine was made, being about twelve mile distant. The ship's course was altered, so as to clear Cape Race twenty miles. At about 4 o'clock a dense fog set in, the weather having been previously perfectly clear. A few minutes before six a fishing schooner was hailed, and we were informed that we were on the eastern side of Trepassey Bay, a mile and a half or two miles from land. The helm was put hard to port, and the course of the ship altered.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Thames Ironworks by Brian Belton. Copyright © 2015 Brian Belton. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title,Foreword by Iain Dale,
Introduction,
1 Ditchburn, Mare and Rolt,
2 Expansion,
3 The Warrior,
4 'How He Ploughed the Raging Main',
5 1895/96: The First Season,
6 The Fuji,
7 All Things Bright and Beautiful ...,
8 The London League: 1896/97,
9 The Albion,
10 The Boys from the Memorial Ground: 1897/98,
11 Professionalism and the Southern League: 1898/99,
12 The End of the Beginning: 1899/1900,
13 Readying for War,
14 Lifeboats,
15 Frank Clarke Hills,
16 The Hills Boys,
17 Ironworks Fade, Hammers Appear,
Appendix 1 With the Iron Workers: A Visit to the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company,
Appendix 2 Results,
Bibliography,
Plates,
Copyright,