Abraham Dalton and Mutiny on the Bounty

 

I keep thinking  I am about to finish these articles about Deptford but I  still have a list of sites and employers I haven’t looked at yet and many of these are on the last stretch of the Creek before it reaches the Thames.

 

Not all the sites at the northern end of the Creek were related to shipbuilding.  It has been noted by many researchers that there was a pottery on what was later the site of Deptford Power Station.  This was apparently described, in the unobtainable archaeological report on the site.  I understand the archaeologists found some pottery in the backfill of a wharf and this consisted of pieces of things like sugar moulds and kiln props. They reported that the pottery itself was on the north east corner of the Power Station site with access via a lane running north from Stowage.  On the ‘Evelyn’ map of 1623 that area seems to contain the East India Company’s gunpowder store – and I wonder when that closed and if it and its buildings have any relation to the pottery.

 

There is what I think is a description of the site in 1795 Abraham Dalton, the pottery owners’s will. I have struggled a bit with this because it is written in 'Secretary’s hand' and a bit smudged - and so a lot of what I think it says is guesswork. ‘Secretary’s hand’ was a sort of script used for official documents in the eighteenth century, and like all of these things it’s only easy if you use it all the time. Which isn’t me.

 

Abraham Dalton's will describes a site with a wharf and frontage onto the River Ravensbourne, with an orchard and a garden. It also lists coal sheds, a mill house, stables, warehouses and outhouses all with extra storeys built above them.  There is also a ‘dwelling house’ in a different part of the access lane.

 

The pottery was apparently owned in 1737 by a John Westcott and later in 1751 by a George Westcott. I know nothing about either them but from 1751 it was operated by Abraham Dalton who was still active there until he died in 1795.  Can I stress - because it’s open to confusion - that these potters are called ‘Dalton’ spelt with an ‘a’. They are nothing to do with the major Lambeth company Royal Doulton, which was started around the same time by John Doulton in Fulham and Vauxhall. 

 

In Deptford .Abraham Dalton died in 1795 and apparently left the pottery to William Dalton. William however seems to have petitioned for bankruptcy almost immediately and was declared as such before 1800. Abraham Dalton came from a local Greenwich family, but, interestingly, his father and some others all describe themselves as ‘gardeners’.  Abraham, although later described as a ‘potter’ had served an apprenticeship as a gardener  They were also members of the City Livery Company, the Worshipful Company of Gardeners. In fact Abraham is listed as Master of the Company in 1772.  I think that sounds like a very prestigious position.

 

However we need to go back some 15 years to 1784-5 for what must have been a massive order for the Dalton pottery.  We also need to take ourselves into a lot of swashbuckling from Hollywood.  Three major films with Oscars all over the place- your hero can be Clark Gale or Marlon Brando, and your villain Trevor Howard or the very, very, very wonderful Charles Laughton.  None of it is true of course – all based on a fanciful American novel - and I bet the Deptford made pots don’t get mentioned at all.

 

There are so many websites about the Mutiny on the Bounty that I hardly know where to start.  Why were they out at sea anyway, where were they going and why?    I think the 1935 film might have included some of this - it has always been acknowledged as the best of the three. However I am also very aware that this a subject on which a lot of people have made very serious studies   - and I can only pick up on a few of them so hope I don’t get too much wrong here.

 

Like most people I had no idea that the voyage concerned in our famous Mutiny was part of a British Government move to prop up slavery in the West Indies – and involved some of the most distinguished figures of the late eighteenth century.  It appears that slaves on the West Indian sugar plantations war often hungry and it was thought that introducing the breadfruit tree there would provide them with cheap and nutritious food.

 

Breadfruit grew in the Pacific islands where it was a stable commodity. Easy to grow, easy to maintain, produces 100s of fruit annually all high calorie and versatile.  So – easy – plant them in the West Indies and feed them to the slaves – cheap, nutritious and problem solved.  As it turned out the slaves weren’t that keen, although, I understand, today breadfruit has become ubiquitous.

 

All of this was backed by the cream of the British scientific establishment. It was also proposed to bring specimens back to Kew – and many writers today describe Kew’s plant collections as a sort of index of colonisation.  I am aware that locally the Deptford Museum of Slavery  and Freedom are onto this as yet another example of how the slave trade penetrated our culture.– albeit often unconsciously.

 

So the Bounty was kitted out. She was an old commercial coal ship refitted at Deptford in June 1787. The captain’s cabin was converted to house the potted breadfruit plants, and gratings were fitted to the upper deck. William Bligh was appointed and it should be noted he had previously sailed with Cook and he was the only commissioned officer on board but that he did not hold the rank of Captain. The crew included two civilian gardeners. They took with them 800 or so pots for the plants in varying sizes – and they came from ‘Mr Dalton, potter, near the Creek at Deptford  ... he is the person that made the pots’.

Bounty was to go first to go to Tahiti to collect the plants – and we all know what happened next.

Following a heroic voyage – again well documented – William Bligh eventually made it back to England – I remember finding his grave in Lambeth years and years ago. It’s on the site of what is now the Tradescant museum – another link with professional gardening...  He was however for a while Governor of New South Wales in Australia, appointed to clear up the illegal rum trade.

 

Bligh had later undertaken another voyage to Tahiti and taken breadfruit to the West Indies in 1793.  Two thousand one hundred and twenty-six breadfruit plants left Tahiti, and, 678 survived it to the West Indies.  They were taken to the botanic garden on St. Vincent where a sucker from an original breadfruit tree still grows. They also went to botanic gardens at Bath and Spring Garden and other locations in Jamaica. And subsequently flourished.

 

And of course others went to Kew. Today breadfruit can be seen growing in the North Wing of the Palm House at Kew and the Kew authorities are apparently now fretting about their role in colonisation. There are web sites which discuss these issues in great detail and every other aspect of the Bounty and her voyages.  I am not aware that anyone has looked at a link between the Gardeners Company and the pots.

So – as this article is all about the pottery and the pots perhaps we should ask if any of actual pots are still around. They’re not things that are going to rot. Is there any way we can find from out from Kew Gardens and/or the various West Indian botanical gardens??

 

I have noted above that the Deptford pottery didn’t last much longer than the breadfruit and by 1800 seems to be defunct.

 

I have another strange little story which may, or may not be contingent to this.  I found it on various old newspaper sites and although it’s nothing to do with the pots or the bread fruit it has some very strange coincidences in it. It concerns one, Abraham Dalton, who in 1808 was working for Goodhew the distiller at Deptford Bridge.  He was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to transportation. I have no reason to believe that he was anything to do with the potter, Dalton, except, of course, the names are similar.  There is some is some interest in him on the net because there are various projects which look at the fates and the backgrounds of many transported convicts

Anyway Dalton was transported and arrived in Australia on the convict transport ship- Admiral Gambier. He was immediately handed a pardon apparently ready prepared and waiting for him.  It was said he never saw the country of his transportation because he got back on the ship and came back to England. Naturally he faced enquiries because people thought he had been transported and here he was back, and questions were asked. There was in fact apparently a government enquiry into who pardoned him and why – but unfortunately I can’t find its conclusion.

In London officials pressed the Governor of New South Wales to investigate this since he was ultimately responsible for such actions.  The Governor concerned was William Bligh.