Christies riverside timber

 

I have copies of railway magazines of the 1920s and 1950s which feature the Angerstein railway – which is still running between the Blackheath rail tunnel and the river and which I have written about in several previous articles here.  They tell us that the freehold of 16 acres of the wharf area was acquired in 1912 by “William Christie Sand and  Gravel.Co., Ltd,” who were “large sleeper importers and creosoters.”  They built a “large creosoting works and sawmills” and thus “the district has become a very important timber centre”.  Local directories say this was Christie's Wharf Ltd incorporated in 1929. Later they were Christie & Vesey Ltd. Vesey’s Wharf is a block of houses jutting out into the river at the end of Anchor and Hope Lane and with any luck I’ll get to them later.

 

The magazine articles describe the jetty which Christie’s built in Charlton and says it is still there.   Alhough they had bought the freehold in 1912 the works itself was not completed just after ‘the war’ – that’s the Great War - so in the early 1920s. It is described as “one of the finest ferro-concrete piers of its type on the Thames”. They say it can take larger steamers than any other wharf in the Reach with 26 ft. 6 in. of water at high tide spring tides, and 6 ft. at low water with a “proper chalk bed where steamers may lay in safety”. It is “equipped on the most up-to-date lines, 15 400 ft. in length” and is “a very good example of what might be done on the Thames banks” and the wharf handles “over 30,000 tons of sleepers and 30,000 tons of timber, deals and telegraph poles” and this is done with “steam travelling cranes, which run on 4 ft. 8in. roads from the wharf back into the works”. Christie's Wharf they say can “give steamers loaded with timber quicker dispatch than any other place in the Port of London”. It is difficult to know how much of this structure remains, and is even used.  In 2017 it was reported that ‘the foundations and deck remain substantially as built with redundant and cranes and davits still in situ’.

 

The works internal rail system joined to the Angerstein Railway north of the tram depot.  Maps from the 1950s show an internal tramway network looping round between jetties and buildings. Nine steam travelling cranes were employed in the handling of sleepers and timber – and ten steam cranes operated on the standard gauge lines”. The 1920s railway magazine notes that “60,000 tons of timber....  annually… passes over the Southern Railway Company's rails…. and during the Baltic season it is not an uncommon sight to see train after train leave the wharf composed entirely of timber traffic”.

 

So – this was clearly a large and important works which employed a lot of people.  Yet we seem to know very little about it. William Christie & Co.was a large Scottish firm.  Christie himself was married and living in Stirling in 1873 and he may have founded the firm there although he may actually have come from Perth. He is also said to have had sites on the Clyde in the Glasgow area, and in particular in Ardrossan.  Although the family are said to have lived n Ardrossan most of their six children were born in Stirling –although one particular official reference shows William and one of his sons staying in a boarding house in Ardrossan.  In 1912 William and his wife donated a stained glass window to a church in Ardrossan in memory of their daughter Jane Helena who had died at the age of 32.

 

In 1891 the census shows that they had briefly moved out of Scotland and were living in Streatham and I wonder if this is anything to do with setting up a works in London.  It might also be noted that the company which owned the business was changed frequently and that the registered company address is in the City of London.  After that they returned to Scotland and eventually seemed to have settled in Peebles and this was where William's, wife Jane died eventually in 1934.

 

William died in 1923 described as ‘a timber merchant of Peebles’ leaving `£318,000.  His sons Andrew and William seem to have taken the business over but again this is not really clear.   Perhaps it was divided between them.

 

A list of wills from the 1930s has the headline “Timber Importer Leaves £69,059.”   This refers to Andrew Charles Christie ‘Chairman of Christies Wharf Ltd’   but William's son Andrew is also said to have died in 1910. To confuse things even more when I first did some research into Christies I found an obituary to ‘Charles Christie’ who had died at the age of 54 and which gave his addresses as “Warning Camp House, " and “5, Royal Crescent, Brighton”.  He was apparently the chairman of Christie's Wharf – and had come from Stirling where his father was a timber importer. I was later contacted by the current owners of “Warningcamp House” which is on the outskirts of Arundel.  They said that while the Christies had lived there they and turned a Victorian Gothic house into an 'Arts and crafts’ style house. They had also installed a generator in the garden.   

 

It is also clear that the firm had several sites in England but they hardly seem to get a mention.  At the same time that our Charlton works was opened the Ardrossan works also had a new site – which is described in a newspaper article in enormous detail. At the same time I have been unable to find any mention of the Charlton works although clearly a lot of money was spent on setting it up.

 

So what were Christie’s actually doing in Charlton, as well as Ardrossan and elsewhere.  Much of it seems to have been to do with the preparation and transit of railway sleepers. All works seem to have had creosoting plant and a sawmill.  And they all seem to have been the site of major fires in the course of their histories. There was a particularly bad fire at Ardrossan in 1914 and said to have been 'started by suffragettes'.  In 1934 there was a big fire at the Charlton works which involved involving thousands of railway sleepers – “with one enormous stack soon a mass of flames”. Workmen made efforts to check the fire, but were driven back by the heat, and the fire service was called and a ‘district call was circulated’. Soon over 25 fire engines had rushed to the scene. ‘Clouds of smoke rose into the air and drifted across the Thames …. ‘A gas mask tender with six men equipped with masks was sent to the scene …. the firemen got sheets of corrugated iron and used them as shields ….. 50 workmen formed a bucket chain, and were busily engaged on throwing water on to surrounding stacks in case the fire should spread.  Happily the firemen had the situation under control within an hour..

Much of what we know about these works comes from the occasional court case and they are not always that comprehensible - set in Scotland where the terminology is unfamiliar to people in England. In 1879 a case involved demurrage.  It involves an ‘interlocutor’ and a pursuer.   The case seems to involve various sums of money and when it should be paid and to whom and took place in South America. In 1960 a boat was subject to an ‘arrestment order’ coming into Aberdeen with a cargo of maize.  This had been sent by Christie and Vesey of Charlton but ‘not for debt’ but for a different sort of debt, and not explained.

 

At some time in mid-twentieth century there were massive losses in the company and it became Christie and Vesey.  I know nothing about Vesey and a descendant of William Christie who contacted us from Spain describes them as ‘unwelcome’.  I have no ideas what had happened and why this apparently successful firm needed this input.

 

Vesey (or is it Vaizey?) had their own Charlton Wharf andyopefully by the time I get to that bit of the Charlton riverside I will have found something!

 

The works continued through the 1950s, 60s and 1970s. In 1951 they advertised for ‘hands’ aged under 45. In 1976 the following advertisement appeared   which speaks of very different attitude to the works ‘CHAUFFEUR (SE) Required for Managing Director with offices in Woolwich.  Must be local to Ightham. but with knowledge of London area. Personal lock-up garage would be an advantage to enable applicant to travel home to Ightham using one of our cars. SALARY: f2.000 according to knowledge of car engines etc. Uniform provided”.

 

I wonder if this is the sort of advert you get with companies which are actually on the way down. With management and owners living in their own rather well upholstered world.  I also see that the address of the firm is now Riverside House in Woolwich – nice clean offices some way from the actual site.

 

In 1988 they were still expanding with a new works site opened in Inverness.   The company still exists now but is said to have finished trading in 1998. I wonder what happened to the Inverness works?