Deptford Dockyard - letter re. English Heritage

GIHS has received the following letter about Deptford Dockyard from Chris Mazeika:

As you may know an application to ensure statutory designation of the Deptford Royal Naval Yard was made to English Heritage in December 2009. The process has been described by EH as “complex” and has resulted in over two years passing, with EH admitting that their previous understanding of the site requires them to review the advice they had given to the DCMS in 2010.
With national bodies and amenity societies also recognizing the importance of the site, may I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the unusual lengthy process of designation by writing to EH for your letter to be forwarded to DCMS, in support of the statutory designation of the Deptford yard. Also could you forward this message to interested parties.

Substantial new information has come to light following further research by members of local organisation, Deptford Is and other specialists, which will shortly be sent to EH/DCMS. Given adequate notice from EH of the next submission to the DCMS this new information should be included in EH's future recommendation to the DCMS.

Recent Case History of Designation
In 2010, following our request made to confer statutory protection in 2009, EH commissioned a report by Jonathan Clarke that resulted in a recommendation not to confer statutory protection. However the research documents compiled by us in response to that decision (attached), when submitted to EH, were sufficient cause for EH to re-appraise the application. An enlightened decision was then made by Veronica Fiorato to re-appraise the earlier decision countersigned by by Emily Gee and Julian Heath. This re-examination of the case should have provided the opportunity for EH to correct their errors and to include new information. We now understand that the new EH report and recommendation which we have not had sight of has been sent to the DCMS.

Your assistance is required to add weight to this application for protection at Deptford. The Deptford site has many pressures on it and a planning application that was to be determined last Christmas has been withdrawn mainly due to heritage issues.
However this important site of British history needs to have protection if the assets are to be preserved for the future.
Your letter to DCMS at this stage could be critical in ensuring they have the mass of informed opinion to recommend designation of the assets.

For your information the factual research attached/below successfully challenged the 2010 EH designation recommendation not to list and enabled them to reopen the case for further consideration.

Here are a few extracts from the new information that will be submitted to DCMS.

Condition is not a major factor in listing or scheduling. FOr instance, a filled in mastpond at Chatham is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, clearly condition could not be determined in this case. Even where condition is determined, examples such as the GI listed slipway covers at Chatham have received substantial restoration. Also, docks at Chatham that have been substantially altered through the centuries are all listed. The docks, slipways basin and mastpond at Deptford all predate those listed and scheduled structures at Chatham.

Recent on-going archaeological explorations have confirmed earlier archaeological reports that stated,

In respect of Divers 2001, Hawkins 2000 Lowe 2000,
9.1.4
The evaluation showed that major dockyard features survive below ground level across much of the site, specifically near the River Thames, and that later activities on the site have had relatively little impact on these remains.
9.1.5
Not only had later activities on the site had relatively little impact on surviving Post-medieval features, but there was no evidence to suggest that Medieval and earlier deposits and features were absent due to later truncation. In fact it would appear that earlier horizons had generally survived undisturbed and that medieval features, if present would have survived.
9.1.6
The documentary and cartographic sources for the dockyard have been shown to be relatively accurate, and that the large features targeted by the evaluation trenches have been found in their anticipated locations, often at relatively shallow depths below the present ground surface.
9.4.2
The evaluation has established that the major features of the dockyard have survived in their predicted locations with little evidence for widespread truncation by later activities on the site.
(Divers 2001:69-71).


Dry dock
The stone entrance to the double dry dock, the only major excavation of this structure to date, was shown to be almost pristine save for a course or two of coping stone that had been removed. The image linked immediately below shows the extent of the depth of the excavation. Clearly, a more extensive excavation will be needed to accurately assess the survival of the double dry dock.
http://www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk/NewsProjects/ConvoysWharf.htm

Slipways
High quality survival of the dockyard slipways dating in construction to c.1855 is now also established.
http://www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk/NewsProjects/ConvoysStorehouseSlipway.htm


Basin (Wet Dock)
Since EH's earlier decision, drawings of the 1845 basin slipways have recently been unearthed in the archives establishing that Capt. Sir William Denison R.E. was the engineer. EH has cited sites such as this as "sites of collaborative genius" warranting a high grade of protection.
Evidence from the John Rennie drawings of 1814 determines that the majority of the river wall dating to pre-1840, and recent scholarly work published 2011 now asserts that Deptford was the first of the royal dockyards to have a wet dock (basin) and also the first to have a purpose built mast pond. Link to the academic article.
http://www.cairn.info/resume.php?ID_ARTICLE=DSS_114_0677

The John Rennie basin entrance (wet dock) has recently been determined to survive to coping level commensurate with the 1814 archive drawings, and whilst it was originally thought by EH that much of the basin wall had been robbed it and the John Rennie work destroyed, the coping level of the basin entrance now demonstrates that the ground level has actually risen by 4 to 5ft, indicating that only the uppermost courses of the basin wall or coping level may have been removed. That an example of the coping level exists and Rennie's specification and drawings can be consulted may make repair of the basin a more likely option than previously thought possible. This is important new information as the previous evidence cited as reason not to list the basin was the incorrect assertion that the John Rennie work was entirely destroyed c.1900 Whilst it may appear in photographs that their is partial survival it must be remembered that the majority of the basin structure is behind and beneath the visible stone and brick walling, with stone blocks of 7 cubic feet on beds of brickwalls and timber pilings.

EH Advice and Guidelines

“Docks and harbour walls pre-dating 1840 generally form the most impressive
engineering structures of their date and even where they have received alteration, as
nearly all have, will normally merit designation, with those displaying technical innovation or association with major developments in shipbuilding, warranting a high grade.”

EH Guidelines on Assessing Heritage Significance

:40-.80 Consistency of judgement is crucial to the public acceptability and fairness of the process



New publications by EH since the 2010 decision should also impact positively on the consideration for designation, particularly the October 2011 guidance on the Setting of Heritage Assets and Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide 2011. The recent EH upgrading to GII* of the Master Shipwright's House and Dockyard Officers' Offices, the SAM of the Undercroft of the Tudor Storehouse and the GII listed Basin Slipway Covers will all be enhanced by the 'presence' of the primary dockyard infrastructure, its docks, slips, basin and mast ponds.
We can also be encouraged by the precedence set by the listing of in-filled structures at Chatham where "the Great Basin and its three associated dry docks have been covered over " are now SAM II* (EH Lake/Douet 1998:42) The comprehensive listing and scheduling of dockyard structures in the other royal yards where alterations and changes have occurred to the structures throughout the centuries is considered in a contributive light and now viewed thus, "Docks and harbour walls pre-dating 1840 generally form the most impressive structures and even where they have received alteration, as nearly all have, most will merit serious consideration for designation." (EH M+NBSG 2011:9-10)

Whilst the majority of secondary resource material on the royal dockyards used by EH (Coad 1989/Lake and Douet Thematic Listing Programme 1998 and Maritime and Naval Building Selection Guide 2011) is now known to be insufficient to determine the significance of Deptford because the Deptford yard has remained immured from published EH research agendas and more recent efforts by EH such as the Clarke report have fallen woefully short of accuracy, nonetheless the Lake and Douet Thematic Survey of English Naval Dockyards (whilst it repeats several now contested conclusions made by Coad 1989) and the more recent Maritime and Naval Buildings Selection Guide 2011 are nonethelesss for their approach to the roayl naval yards in general they are important documents to take into consideration.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/thematic-survey-navy/thematic-survey-navy.pdf
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/dlsg-maritime-naval-buildings/
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/setting-heritage-assets/

Historic events, persons, innovations, global connections
Whilst I have concentrated on the material structures of the dockyard, it is anticipated that EH will pursue their own assessment of the wealth of historic associations of the yard with national and international significant events and historic figures, consider advances in maritime and industrial technology, the development of European architecture, the global significance of the Deptford Yard to the Commonwealth Nations of Australia, Canada and the United States, the setting of the yard as the very raison d’être of Deptford, its immediate geographical context of the neighbouring GII listed Victualling Yard buildings, and steam era GII listed Payne's Wharf, the dockyard church of St. Nicholas GI (described as "the Westminster Abbey of the British Navy" the high grade GII* listed Albury Street 'Captain's Houses'. the geographical, intellectual and functional proximity of Maritime WHS of Greenwich, the Deptford yard as the most significant site on the London Thames to witness to centuries of London shipbuilding and the yard as the signifier of the national and internationally renowned and historically related The Corporation of the Trinity House of Deptford Strand .

Once again, given the controversial history of designation in this case, it is vital that we all remain vigilant to a fair and equal access and application of national resources invested in the heritage agencies in order to ensure that Deptford does not suffer social exclusion from these resources and that further national funds are not risked through the lengthy and expensive legal process of judicial review.

Yours,
Chris Mazeika

BALLAST QUAY - HARBOUR MASTER'S HOUSE

This article is by A.G.Linney - author of a couple of books about the port of London before the Great War.  It is taken from Co-partnership Journal which was the house magazine of  South Metropolitan Gas Co. - the local gas company and appeared in 1910.

Following along the riverside path from near Point Wharf to Greenwich-Pier one day I was surprised to find, just across the street from Union Wharf, a solid and rather imposing building below the eaves of which was lettered the inscription, "Harbour Master's Office."

I knew quite well that the only Harbour Master's Offices in the Port to-day are at Tower Pier and at Gravesend, with sub-offices at Woolwich, Erith, Greenhithe, and Leigh-on-Sea. I knew that since the Port of London Authority was created there had been no Harbour Master at Greenwich. What, then, was the history of this once official edifice, now having houseroom for two families of private persons?

A Greenwich and District Directory for 1843 gives the name of Captain Rowlands as Harbour Master, resident at Park Street, Greenwich—the building in question.  Clearly that was at the time during which the Corporation of the City of London had administered the Port, and a document referred to later shows that Charles Rowlands was First Harbour Master during 1851-52, having started as Fifth Harbour Master in 1821, so that while he was moving up in the service he was for a while at Greenwich.

In 1857 the Thames Conservancy was constituted, and three years later that, body took a 76 years' lease of the Greenwich property, the area leased including Union Wharf (which was definitely a Thames Conservancy wharf), the house and a garden behind it. Captain James, transferred by the Corporation of the City of London, was the first Chief Harbour Master of the Conservancy. In 1890 the Conservancy agreed to surrender the lease of the estate in part, including the Harbour Master's Office house. It has been suggested that the surrender came about, through the Conservancy, which had hitherto divided the River Thames below Kew into Upper, Central and Lower Controls, deciding to abandon the central district as a separate division. None the less, for a while, one of the Conservancy's Deputy Harbour Masters continued to live in the house.

A Greenwich directory for 1895 shows a Captain Bowen residing at the Harbour Master's Office, and there is definite evidence showing when he had entered the Thames Conservancy's service. I have been able to handle an old, tumbling-to-pieces handbook, which this Captain Bowen started to write in while he was Master of the steamer Edinburgh Castle on a voyage from London to Penang in 1879. His notes regarding this voyage conclude,  " July 8th, 9 a.m. Anchor'd in Penang Harbour all well." At sea he ceased to use this notebook, apparently, for it switches over a page or two to this unmistakable entry: " Appointed D.H. Master under Thames Conservancy, December 19th, 1881." Quite natural, then, that Captain Bowen should be living at the Greenwich Harbour Master's Office—seemingly used as a residence, but no longer owned by the Conservancy in 1895 ; I believe that, between times, he lived for a. while at the Harbour Master's Office, Limehouse (Narrow Street), which was demolished in 1925.

Captain Defrates, formerly one of the P.L.A. Assistant Harbour Masters, who retired from the service in 1927, has recollection of the time previous to the Authority taking over from the Conservancy when there were two Harbour Masters—Captain Fitzgerald and Captain Marsden—and Captain Bowen was deputy to the first of these. The pair above named retired in 1898, and Captain Bowen then became Chief Harbour Master, with deputies at. Woolwich and Gravesend. He remained in office for about five years, retiring early in the present century. From that time to the establishment of the Port Authority, the Harbour Service work was divided into two sections, one with its office in London (Temple Pier, Old Swan Pier, and now Tower Pier) and one with its office at Gravesend. The Harbour Masters then appointed were Captain R. S. Pasley (Upper District) and Captain A. W. Wilson (Lower District).

In the 1890's—the Thames Conservancy being in charge of river responsibilities—T.C. Head Office was at 41 Trinity Square, but the Harbour Master had his quarters on the hulk Marlborough, moored, off the Tower Gardens. Then when the Conservancy moved its head office to the Thames Embankment, the Harbour Master operated from Temple Pier and the Marlborough was sent away into exile and became storeship to the T.C. Survey Department.

From a " Return of the Names and Emoluments of the Harbour Service 1851-1852 " (Corporation of the City of London) which was shown to me at the Guildhall, I am permitted to extract these details: " The Principal Superintending Harbour Master, Chief office, St. Katharine's," received, in addition to his salary, a house, £5 for a servant, £2 for candles, £l for wood, 10 tons of coal, and £25 for travelling allowance. It is in this document that the name of Captain Rowlands occurs. He and each of his deputies received also a boat cloak, minor assistants getting simply a greatcoat. Boat cloaks were served out every two years and greatcoats every three years, distribution always being in October. An assistant employed in the Greenwich Office was given " a pair of water boots," but they had to last him four years! The Clerk of Stores received quarters in what is now Port of London Wharf, occupied by Messrs. Gregson & Company, Ltd.

A..Linney

GLIAS NEWSLETTER AND GREENWICH

The March 2012 edition of the GLIAS newsletter just came through the door  - its most remarkable feature being seven and half pages of events.  These include - of Greenwich interest -

21st March - Deptford Dockyard, its history and archaeology. Duncan Hawkins - this is in the Willoughby Lecture Theatre, Charterhouse Square, Barts Medical School, EC1  18.30  02086928512

18th April  Maassey-Shaw Fireboat. Its History and Restoration. David Rogers. Willoughby Lecture Theatre, as above.

18th February Symposium on Thames Shipbuilding. Museum in Docklands, West India Quay, E14. £30 Booking necessary.  info@docklandshistorygroup.org.uk

21st February Ropemaking in Greenwich.  John Yeardley. GIHS Old Bakehouse, Blackheath Village, SE3 7.30

13th March Bricks and Brickmaking in Greenwich, David Cufley. GIHS (as above)

17th April. Sugar and Soap - Amylum site - Peter Luck. GIHS (as above)

Then there is a very considerable article about the Deptford Creek Railway Bridge:

The London and Greenwich railway and its locality is of great importance. As well as the threats to London Bridge station, the whole length of the original line will be upgraded in the near future. This swathe of South East London deserves special consideration. Although the present Deptford Creek railway bridge is not yet 50 years old it serves as a significant landmark for the Creek, proclaiming that the Creek is tidal and navigable. In a similar way Tower Bridge symbolises the Thames and even London itself. The Eiffel tower in Paris plays a similar role there.
At the National Maritime Museum to the east of the bridge in Greenwich, when a visitor was to come down by rail from London to the museum on business a tide table was consulted. Train services from London Bridge could be seriously disrupted around high tide and for whoever was meeting the traveller there might be a long wait on Maze Hill station before the important person finally made it.
The previous bridge of 1884 was replaced in December 1963, the present electric liftbridge being designed by A.H. Cantrell, chief civil engineer of BR Southern Region, and built by Sir William Arrol & Co of Glasgow. When the 1884 bridge was opened to allow a small ship to pass there was what now seems a ridiculous performance. Even the rails had to be completely removed and no less than twelve men were needed to do this.
Where the railway crosses, the Creek has a large tidal range with plenty of water at high tide. Nick Bertrand from the Creekside Centre still leads his ecological walks with everyone in waders to explore the bed of the Ravensbourne at low tide. It is well worth taking part in one of these Low Tide Walks if you get the chance. There is an important ecological aspect to this part of the creek which is also under threat. Bob Carr

AND not done yet.  Also there are little Greenwich notes:

- a note that Fieldwork on the Thames Foreshore is noted in the London Archaeologist as taking place in Greenwich.

-  a note to say 'Boris Johnson's cable car' is progressing 'at a fine pace'. 

- a note admonishing a previous writer on the Woolwich ferry for getting the date of the first London County Council wrong

- and in a book review on Psychogeography - a reference to a quotation about 'Greenwich not being the spirtual centre of the British Empire'.

(!!!)

Woolwich Western Ferry - a disaster

We mentioned a new book about Thames Ferries and promised to highlight some of the local ferries mentioned in it.  The book is by Joan Tucker and is “Ferries of the Lower Thames” (Amberley Publishing 2010) and is highly recommended

 
One ferry few of us will know about is Woolwich’s Western ferry:

Joan describes how in 1811 landowners and tradesmen set up the 'the Woolwich Ferry Company' to run boats between Woolwich and what is now called Silvertown.

This was for ’the conveyance of persons carriages and cattle and goods, wares and merchandise ... and for making proper roads and approaches to form a direct communication between Kent and Essex and to be of great public utility'.

It was to run from The Old Ballast or Sand Wharf and the Company was to alter highways between Green Gate, Plaistow and the river, and between Greenwich and Sand Wharf. They were to build houses for the ferryman and offices and the rent would be £5 a year. There were special clauses for military transports.   Tolls were to be levied to foot passengers, horses, two-wheeled chaisea, coaches with two horses, and sheep. The ferry must not to work before 4 a.m. or after 10 p.m. between 24 March and 29 September and they need not run in ‘times of ice or tempestuous winds’ and so on and so forth. However soon the local watermen and inhabitants of Woolwich were protesting that the ferry was 'prejudicial to divers of the watermen working on the river’ and the Act was superseded by another in 1816.

In 1812 a horse boat was ordered at £200 but before it arrived a wherry, bought from Gravesend for £35.35, was used, together with another from Greenwich costing £2 - although oars, sculls, etc., were paid for separately. There was only a small building on the south bank for collecting tolls and then passengers had to go down steep slopes to the water where there was a platform made from old ships' timbers. On the north bank a pub was built and weather boarded- this became the Prince Regent, after which much of the area is now named.  Initially it had neither a fireplace nor cooking facilities. On the south side the Company built the Marquis of Wellington pub usually known as 'The Duke' or the 'Ferry House'. Both made a loss, but they gradually became the only source of income.

Thus the ferry, as Joan says, ‘did not prosper’. It was in the wrong place - nearly on the Woolwich-Charlton parish boundary, and on the north side on marshlands in an isolated part of Plaistow.

There was soon after a row about road making and it also appears that the Company did not keep proper records. No dividends on shares were ever paid and eventually it turned out that the agreement made in 1811 to lease the land was invalid. Shareholders did not pay their share instalments and, following quarrels with shareholders, some directors resigned. The last set of minutes was taken in January 1828 and the company wound up in 1842.

This sad saga is just one among many local ferries which are described in the book – and – so – Joan – if you see this, please get in touch, we would love to hear more from you in person.

Royal visits to Greenwich Industry

Thanks to Brian Sturt who has sent us this amazing clip of the East Greenwich Coking plant being visited by the Duke of Gloucester  -  smoke and coal dust everywhere and all the Duke gets is an overall - which - please note - does not cover his bowler hat.   Great shots - including one of a collier vessel.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/mr-therm-gets-big-recruit

 

to add to the general local royal jollifications here are some more pictures:

 

The Duke of Edinburgh visits the Fuel Research Establishment at East Greenwich in 1952 - with apologies for quality (scan from a photocopy from a microfilm of a local press report)

 

Below - the King - in this case George VI - visits Harvey's metal fabricators in Woolwich Road - they were where Charlton fire station now is and there are a few bits of wall and so on remaining from their works. They specialised in perforations.

and - above the Duke of Kent visits the Telcom works on the Peninsula in the 1950s - the site which is now the Alcatel works.

BROTHERHOOD IN BUSINESS.

South Metropolitan Gas Co. 1889.



George Livesey: Chair of the Board, gas works manager, temperence activist, strike breaker, pioneer of worker participation and share ownership.





More info to come.

The Gas workers of South London

by Mary Mills

"One Wednesday morning in October 1889, Charles Tanner the head foreman ... said to me 'the stokers are all in the Union and we have lost all authority in the retort houses ... unless you do something to attach them to the Company we shall be completely in the power of the Union'... in a quarter of an hour the scheme was set out ... and the same afternoon it was offered to the workmen. The Union men refused it... and on December 4^th demanded that it be abolished ... then the memorable strike began; thus was our co-partnership born.'"

So George Livesey, then Chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, described events before the gas workers strike of 1889 and his Company's formation of a profit sharing scheme — afterwards known as 'co-partnership'. South Met. was the gas company which covered South, London in 1889 — it was innovative, ambitious and controlled by George Livesey.

He had arrived at the Old Kent Road works aged four when his father was appointed manager. He became office boy at 14 and Managing Director at 50. His background was not that of a 'capitalist' but a professional manager from a family background of small business- men. He had a reputation as a brilliant, innovative gas engineer, an involvement in gas politics which had changed the financial structure of the industry, and a proven flair for administration and negotiation. A life long temperance advocate, he achieved a precarious balance between pragmatism and idealism. He believed in partnership and brotherhood but he intended to stay in charge himself.

This piece is about his attempts to mould the lives of workers in his industry. He did this by using the strike and that is a different story. (In essence it followed a summer of industrial unrest which included the 'Great Dock Strike' and a series of disputes in provincial gas works, culminating in achievement of the 8 Hour Shift System through the Gas Workers Union, led by Will Thorne).

The quotation at the start of the page illustrates the atmosphere of confrontation in South Met. at the time, and there is little doubt the strike was 'really' about the rise of trade union power on the retort house floor. The trigger was the inauguration of a profit sharing scheme — the Company had already granted the eight-hour day in its retort houses. The scheme was introduced together with the condition that participants must sign an agreement which would have had the effect of making strike action impossible. Essentially it was a dispute about the right to organise. Because the Company was able to use enormous numbers of blackleg workers housed in siege conditions the strike and the Union in South London was broken.

THE COMPANIES AND THE WORKS

First we shall look at South London Gas workers and put them into the context of their everyday lives. Who were their employers? Where did they work? The first gas works to open in South London had been Bankside in 1814. Early works were very small — and probably workers there would have been adventurous people prepared to put up with bad working conditions to be involved in this glamorous new technology. Through the next twenty years many gas works were built — but to quote the title of a recent article — many promoters of the early gas industry were 'Rogues, Speculators and Competing Monopolies'. As Companies varied in their honesty towards the public so they varied in the treatment of their workers. Early companies were private concerns competing for custom with others. A constant debate — which persists to the present day — concerned the ownership and controls over this source of power. In the middle years of the century there was a movement towards 'consumer' companies which were to be owned by shareholders who were also customers of the company. This was followed by a movement towards public ownership where local authorities either acquired existing private concerns or started works of their own. The London local government was not powerful enough to overcome the private owners' lobby and gas remained in private hands. This situation persisted until the formation of the LCC in 1889 which re-opened the debate on ownership with the election of Progressives committed to municipalisation. It is no coincidence that industrial disputes erupted in that year as it is also no coincidence that George Livesey's solution included moves towards share ownership by the workers in the gas company in which they worked.

Where were the works? In the early 1820s the Bankside Works (on the site of the present Tate Modern gallery) belonged to the Phoenix Company which went on to build other works at West Greenwich (Creek mouth) and Vauxhall. In the 1850s the Surrey Consumers Company (Rotherhithe) was started. These companies bought out smaller ones — for example the Deptford Company itself a successor to the Greenwich Railway Gas Company was acquired by Surrey Consumers in the 1860s (its site, alongside the railway at Deptford, is still derelict). The Lewisham area was covered by the Crystal Palace (later South Suburban) Company at Bell Green and was only incidentally party to these events. The other – and ultimately dominant - gas company in the area was the South Metropolitan founded in the late 1820s and operating from its works in the Old Kent Road. In the late 1870's Government intervention forced gas companies to amalgamate with each other in the belief that larger companies would be more efficient. South Metropolitan took over the Phoenix and the Surrey Consumers, closed down two companies in Woolwich and built the East Greenwich Works as a new 'super' works to supply a much larger area, using new technology and incorporating a chemical works to handle by-products profitably (including the biggest gas-holder in Europe, demolished in 1986). Our view of work in the gas industry has been shaped by pictures like that by Dore of the Lambeth Gas Works (1872) or by Flora Tristan of her 1840 visit to Westminster gas works 'misery and apathy depicted on every countenance and apparent in every movement the poor wretches made'. In complete contrast to this are the almost lyrical accounts of life at the Old Kent Road written in the 1900s by retired workers. The works was near the countryside on the Surrey Canal; workers, they said, could bathe, fish and tend their gardens in slack periods. Children played in the works, and men's wives brought dinners in — hot in a basin. This rural atmosphere can still be sensed looking across the Chaffinch Brook to Bell Green works. Whatever conditions were really like there was a deterioration in working conditions throughout the century as encroaching urbanisation, an escalation in size and increasing mechanisation destroyed the domesticity of a suburban works like Old Kent Road - an element which had made the exhausting work and long hours more bearable.

THE WORK AND THE WORKERS

What did gas workers actually do? Labour historians have sometimes used the word ‘stoker’ as a synonym for ‘gas worker’.  ‘Stokers’ were some of the men employed in the retort houses. The number then employed changed with the time of year – a major feature of the industry was that many workers were only be employed in winter although they might well be seen as permanent employees albeit seasonal. A 1910 study cites about 1,000 stokers employed in June to about 1,500 employed in December in a total December workforce of about 6,000.

Stokers were those without whom the works could not function. It was a job with a measure of 'macho' glamour. Stokers needed to be big men at the peak of their strength. The work was heavy and undertaken in high temperatures. The basic tasks did not change in essentials until the 1900s. Will Thorne; writing about the 1880s could have been describing the 1820s. 'Ordinarily the work was agonising —12 hours a day in heat and steam and draughts, bending and straining the back and arms, taxing the muscles until they became numb'. Twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week, were usual and although work was not intensive throughout the shift, there was a fortnightly eighteen-hour changeover shift. Retort house work was not badly paid — a 1906 study reported 45/- a week as being usual in London (compare this with incomes described in Round about a pound a week for manual workers in the same area).

Retort House men were known as heavy drinkers and so was formed a strong link between temperance activists in both management and workforce. Management attempted to promote a strong Christian ethic — reinforced by the temperance movement deeply embedded in the local culture. This is the South London of Spurgeon's Tabernacle, of the Band of Hope, and the Good Templars.

Who were the other gas workers? Many were general labourers — like coal porters. These had much in common with other port workers — were often organised by the same unions. Gas Company minute books record more disputes with coal porters than with stokers. In addition there were general labourers doing a variety of jobs and specialist tradesmen — carpenters, blacksmiths, and so on together with numerous specialist gas workers with skills relating to the processes outside the retort house. They became more important in the 1900s with new processes, mechanisation and diversification into chemicals. Companies also employed storemen, watchmen, office workers, etc. All until the First World War were men.

About a quarter of gas workers were 'outside men' — many of them lamplighters. The great-grandfathers of the men in the SEGAS van with their pneumatic drills on the street comer were around and about with their cart and shovels. Indeed in the 'good old days' of competition in the gas industry, in the 1830s and 40s, they may well have been engaged in some activity involving another company's mains — like putting a lump of mud in them! A growing number of gas workers were engaged in work in customers' houses — fitters, meter readers etc — a group which an employer must keep happy for good customer relations.

Gas workers were ordinary people living in South London — and part of the great increase in population in the area in the last century. Men travelled to London to get jobs. Some of them had worked in the provincial gas industry — Will Thorne, for example, came from Salford to the Old Kent Road in the 1880s as an experienced gas worker. Many returned to the country in summer — links with the Newington, Kent brickworks are well established. In obituary and retirement notices the South Met. house magazine (published in the 1900s) outlines details of the lives of workers who migrated to London in youth, worked as labourers, retort house men, acquired a skill on the district or in the chemical works and perhaps made it to a supervisory grade. Often their sons followed — gas was a 'family' industry. They had become South Londoners and part not just of a culture of pubs, knees-ups and the Old Kent Road but of aspirations to 'better things' — education, Sunday Schools, Institutes, better housing through Building Societies, security through the Foresters or Buffaloes. It was to these aspirations that management reached out in 1889 and on which they tried to build a structure which they hoped would change the world.

THE UNIONS                               

Gas Worker unionisation is too often described as something that started with Will Thorne in 1889. There is plenty of evidence of unionisation before that. Major disputes in the 1860s and 1870s ended in debacle — then as in 1889 industrial action originated north of the river. South London workers do not seem to have been so ready either to join or to initiate action.

A history of the 1872 strike has not yet been published. A cross- London union started in North London led to a strike of stokers about the right to organise. Both strike and union were smashed by management, followed by prosecutions of strikers and sentences of hard labour. Among others workers at Rotherhithe and West Greenwich came out. What happened at Old Kent Road is perhaps more interesting. South Met. had given wage rises to match those through- out London in the year before the strike, and had in addition given workers double pay with the weeks holiday 'in order to attach them further to the Company'. They involved themselves no further in London-wide management discussions stressing that 'the men in this Company's employ have made no complaint'. Old Kent Road workers did not come out with the rest of London. It was usual in times of industrial dispute for the mains of gas companies in dispute to be connected to others who were not and there is considerable evidence that South Met. connected its mains to supply other Companies' areas during this strike. There is also evidence that they disconnected them because of pressure from their own workers. This incident is illustrative of South Met. methods and also shows the existence of workers' organisation within the Company.

WELFARE WORK

Employers' welfare provision in the last century is under-researched In the gas industry many companies provided welfare facilities and it was argued that workers should be encouraged to administer their own organisations - like sick clubs, "to render themselves independent of eleemosynary in their seasonal afflictions'. Employers financial support for these was sometimes necessary - for example the Phoenix Company were obliged in 1878 to supplement the workers sick fund during a flu epidemic. At Old Kent Road superannuation scheme had been set up in 1855 on management initiative which provided the initial finance and administration - 'the foundations of a superstructure'. A meeting was held with workers to discuss this - it is interesting that a similar scheme for company officers was turned down at a meeting set up for them. In 1860 a Widows and Orphans Fund was set up to support the families of dead employees. It has often been assumed that industrial workers did not get paid holidays until much later, in some cases in  the 1930s, but in 1881 when the three South London Companies amalgamated arrangements for holidays were standardised. Rotherhithe Consumers Co and the Phoenix had given in kind - double pay at Christmas and Easter; Phoenix had given clothes and gratuities worth about £3 each. and had paid for a beano. South Met. with its strong temperance policies abolished the beanos to substitute a weeks summer holiday for all workers 'who have conducted themselves well during the past year with double pay after three years on condition that the holidays were taken in a visit to the country or seaside - to encourage them to improve themselves and stay out of the Old Kent Road pubs. In the 1850s lectures were laid on by the Phoenix for workers at Bankside - but only one or two attended 'even when they weren’t religious' - more popular were the washing facilities and the lobbies equipped with papers and games materials. The standards of these facilities have been questioned by subsequent commentators.

Gas was a continuous process industry which meant Sunday working. In the name of religion, Livesey had tried to cut this at Old Kent Road. Before 1860 management there had tried to persuade workers to take time off to go to church although men were not paid for these Sundays off. By 1871 Livesey was working with the Lords Day Observance Society and was trying to find ways to abolish Sunday working.

Livesey believed in incentives to self-help and betterment. So the wage structure at South Met. included a system of bonuses. The best retort house gang of the week with the highest output, for instance, got a payment. He wanted to install a profit sharing scheme for workers, often speaking on his beliefs in a partnership of capital and labour. If men were treated well they would work well and they must be rewarded for that. 'The men must have the motive of self interest'. The Board were not impressed and refused to implement his ideas until in 1884 they agreed to a limited profit sharing scheme for officers and this was implemented.

The formation of the Union in 1889 was the chance which Livesey had wanted. The Board was persuaded that profit sharing might be the factor which would woo the men from the Union and the scheme was set up. The scheme was based on the relationship of Company profits to the price of gas. Gas companies could only put then- dividends up if the price went down — so too the bonus to the workers went up if the price went down. Those who joined first got a lump sum which they couldn't touch for a given length of time. Men had to sign a 12-month agreement (which implied they could not strike); if this was broken the bonus was forfeit. A meeting was held between management and those who had signed from the start to discuss the scheme. Many objected to punitive clauses but others said that the 12 months agreement also gave them much needed job security. One worker called for an extension of the scheme to cover share ownership. This was Henry Austin, later to become a worker director.

After the strike the scheme was extended and over the years altered considerably. A consultative process was set up by which Depart- mental Representatives met regularly with management to discuss complaints and matters in the workplace. Workers were able to buy shares. Five years later the Company put in hand a scheme to reserve three Board places for directly elected members of the workforce. This met with considerable opposition — not just from members of the existing board but also from government bodies and the LCC. The Company began to extend the scheme in such a way that the workers' lives were controlled by it. The scheme, described as a 14  'bulwark against socialism' ran as a snakes-and-ladder like system of rewards and punishments — over the years it became harder and harder for workers to get their hands on any of the cash held in their name unless they were prepared to invest it in property. A company building society was started in which workers were encouraged to invest. However a bad or uncooperative worker could lose his bonus and agreement, and soon be on his way to losing his job. Up the ladder lay the possibility of a directorship and property ownership, down was degradation.

The Company extended its range of welfare benefits until the pro- vision covered workers' lives 'from the cradle to the grave'. Pension and sick schemes multiplied and flourished to include convalescent homes, dental and maternity schemes and so on. Wide social provision was made with most works having an 'institute' complete with theatres and extensive sports facilities. Once in the South London gas industry — and it was a firm in which son followed father — workers' lives were taken care of.

The South Met. Share Register has never been released by the Department of Trade so it has not been possible to discover the extent of share ownership by employees by the time of nationalisation in 1947 but workers felt that it was their industry and that they had a chance of their views being represented in it.

THE PHILOSOPHY

Livesey was not involved in an intellectual debate on the future of the working class — but he was influenced by the general debate in the media of the time which saw many working class "people as 'the dangerous classes' and the conditions under which they lived and worked as morally degrading. Such ideas were influenced by Livesey's own ideological background in the Church of England (St Jude's, Brixton), the Band of Hope, the Lords Day Observance Society, etc. He said in 1888 that increasing urbanisation worked to the detriment of local workers — it was a process he daily witnessed.

Better paid workers were able to form institutions of respectability — Friendly Societies, Building Societies etc. By 1889 unskilled workers were being recruited into trade unions which also challenged workers' loyalties to their employer. This challenge was also being taken up in political life through the formation of the LCC. Livesey, living and working in South London, could not fail to be aware of workers' aspirations towards 'respectable' status. He wanted to mould workers to that Victorian ideal of 'Christian observance, sobriety and thrift, orderliness and cleanliness'. We must not assume that they did not want to be so moulded.

George Livesey saw socialism as a great evil and undoubtedly had links with some of the more unsavory elements in anti-union organizations.  He did have ideas which were more sophisticated than mere union bashing. His Anglican and temperance background was supplemented by his admiration of the Italian patriot, Mazzini In the years up to his death in 1908 - years in which copartnership spread widely in the gas industry - he wrote extensively on his ideas involving himself in the Labour copartnership movement. To quote some of his views:

"I do not think property is divided properly ~ the minority has nearly all the property and the majority are property less."

"the right to property is the foundation of liberty and if a man is not allowed to own the product of his labour he I not a free man.

"thousands of millions of capital are invested in joint stock companies from the middle classes - the twentieth century should do as much for the working classes as the nineteenth  for the middle Classes.

Eric Hobsbawn cited co-partnership schemes as 'outbidding' the unions. In truth they could offer in terms of material gain more than any union - what they took away was the freedom to organise on the shop floor. Management would have argued that they substituted a different freedom and it is this argument that has become a paramount on in 1987- A hundred years later these competing definitions of freedom are still with us; the quotation above will find many echoes today.

 This article first appeared in South London Record in 1988 (and ideas and my research has probably changed quite a bit since then)

Noakesoscope

The current Lewisham History Journal has an article as relevant to Greenwich as Lewisham - The Noakes family - tells the story  of a family, many of whom were majicians and some of whom lived in the Westcombe Park area.  The family also had a business in Nelson Road which seems to have varied from being the 'South London Optical Works' to a forage business.  

The article however draws particular attention to the Noakesoscope.......................... read all about it in Journal No.19
(can any kind officer of the Lewisham Society give us details of how to get copies)