Orinoco

 

Following after Granite wharf – and walking on what is now still Riverside Gardens – we come to the eastern part of the parcel of land, once called the Great Meadow, which Coles Child had leased for development from Morden College. 

 

This area was for a long time a brickfield and continued as that into the late 1870s.  By the 1880s the wharf adjacent to Granite Wharf had become a depot for the District Board of Works – which would have meant that in effect it was the depot for the local Council.  Boards of Works were abolished in 1889 when the Metropolitan Boroughs were set up but the Depot remained next to Granite Wharf until the Council moved down to what became Tunnel Avenue Depot around 1904.  The entrance to the yard was from Chester Street (now Banning Street) and there was a ramp, leading from the centre of the yard to a jetty and wharf – probably that was used by dustcarts which had to get to the jetty where rubbish was tipped into barges. This ramp remained there until the site was cleared and rebuilt by the current developer.

 

From about 1914 this area of riverside was called Badcock's Wharf.  John Badcock seems to have built and maintained barges and lighters there.  There had been Badcock family members in Greenwich and also with works on wharves north of the river for a long time.  One of the difficulties of writing riverside history is well illustrated by Badcock. There were many of firms like them, building barges and small boats, maintaining and building lighters and all sorts of other River related activities.  They seem to have left very little in the way of evidence about their past- the historian can put together bits and pieces from official records and sometimes, if you are very lucky, a family historian will emerge with stories about great granddad and his barge yard. But mainly they are just names.

The wharf which came after Bad cocks was rather smaller than the others. It was called Providence Wharf.

Years ago I had an old friend, Jim.  He was a sailing barge enthusiast and when he died he left a pile of papers behind of research he had done on a local barge builders – some of them were about a barge called Orinoco and her builders.  In 1990 Jim had written. '… a few months it ago it came to my knowledge that the sailing barge 'Orinoco' was built at East Greenwich by a barge builder of the name of HUGHES. From the local history library I discovered that Frederick Augustus Hughes & Co, had been in business as a barge builder at Providence Wharf, River Bank, East Greenwich from 1887 until 1905.'   So, I copied out what he had written about Orinoco and added some bits in. I went down to see the barge, which was then at Hoo Marina and the resulting article was published in Bygone Kent.

Jim had found a Frederick Augustus Hughes, living in New Cross in the 1850s.  He was lighterman, who had later become a Custom House Agent while his four sons all went into lighterage. In 1863 his son Frederick was apprenticed to Augustus Edmunds who lived at Carisbrooke Villa, Westcombe Hill, which was on the site of what became Broadbridge Close. Edmunds had a barge building business on the Greenwich peninsula

 

By 1887 the Frederick, the father, had set up as a barge builder and leased Providence Wharf from Morden College - one of the riverside sites developed by Coles Child. Although the business was owned by the father, it the sons were actually in charge.  The younger Frederick lived just round the corner in Commerel Street, and later moved to Glenister Road – both very unpretentious addresses.  His brother Augustus George lived in Glenluce Road.

 

At Providence Wharf Hughes were known to have built two spritsail barges. One of these was called Combedale – an evocative name for residents of Westcombe Park and East Greenwich.  Combedale was built in 1887 probably on the bottom remains of a wreck called Triumph – a common enough practice.  Once built Combedale was owned by Tilbury Lighterage and Dredging - company which was owned by the Hughes family and operated out of Providence Wharf.  They sold her in 1906 and apparently in 2001 some of her remains could still be seen at Higham Bight

 

In 1895 Hughes built spritsail barge Orinoco. Jim had started to research the Hughes because of Orinoco and he had found out quite a bit about her. According to him she was commissioned by Masons cement for their fleet based at Waldringfield on the River Deben. The records say she was sunk in collision in the Thames in the 1950s and raised and bought by Laurie Tester of Greenhithe Lighterage co who restored and then rerigged her at Faversham. Since then she has been in a number of hands as a leisure vessel.   She is descried by Richard-Hugh Perks as a ‘big bulky barge.... and enormous contraption’ but he also says she was very fast and describes races which she won.  I understand she is still at Faversham but I don’t know who now owns her.

 

In1898 Tilbury Lighterage bought three barges, so were no longer building barges themselves. They were Wyvenhoe, Niagara and Atrato and all three of these vessels are survivors.  That is remarkable since at the losses of barges have been enormous. At the start of the 20^th century about 2000 sailing barges were registered on the Thames, while today probably less than 50 survive.

 

The Hughes family continued to run the business and Frederick, the father, was still alive in 1905, aged 94.  Edmund Hughes remained at Providence Wharf  and in 1932 'The Lure and Lore of London River', recorded a 'small lighterage business' was carried on there by a 'freeman, Edmund Hughes'  but that also he was the Managing Director of London and Tilbury Lighterage which was based at 'far larger Dreadnought Wharf'.   Dreadnought Wharf – which I mentioned in my article on Thames Street in west Greenwich.  The wharf had been used by Rennie, ship builders until 1915 when they firm left Greenwich for Wivenhoe – and Hughes took it over after that. Pictures from the 1920s show London and Tilbury's vessel Tilburnia, described as fitted with a 'Hughes rotary cutter' – was this a device developed by Edmund?

 

The Hughes family prospered.  In January 1924 an Arthur Mumford Hughes was listed among the Freemen and Apprentices of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights and described as the son of Edmund Hughes of Blackheath. In 1946 he was admitted to the Court of Assistants and was living in Chislehurst.

 

When I wrote up Jim’s notes we knew no more than that. Jim had mainly been interested in Orinoco as the last Greenwich built spritsail barge still in sail and on the river.  We knew nothing more about the Hughes family other than they had moved from Providence Wharf to Dreadnought Wharf in West Greenwich and become Tilbury Dredging and Lighterage . What we didn’t know is that Tilbury Dredging grew and grew and grew.  They went on to become a huge great big multinational called Interserve.  The Hughes family remained in charge until the 1970s and –how I impressive it is that a small Greenwich barge repair business has gone so far in the last hundred years. 

That’s the thing about Greenwich industry – you research what you think is just another yard or factory, a bit dirty, maybe a bit dodgy – and it turns out to be something important and amazing.  Sadly we usually go on ignoring it.

 

 

Most of this article was originally compiled from the notes left by Jim, and lent to me by his wife, Elsie, with thanks.  Jim was no relation to the Hughes family described in the article.

I would however like to thank a family history researcher, Mr. Hughes, who is one of the family for additional notes.

My article ‘Jim Hughes and the Orinoco’ appeared in Bygone Kent Vol 22 No.2. February 2001. It is digitised at https://greenwichindustrialhistory.blogspot.com/2011/06/orinoco-sailing-barge-built-on.html

Also in Bygone Kent 22/2 is an article by Richard-Hugh Perks ‘The barges of Frederick Hughes of East Greenwich’

Interserve’s web site gives a brief company history https://www.interserve.com/about-us.  

Orinoco https://thamesbarge.org.uk/boats/orinoco/

Wyvenhoe http://www.wyvenhoe.co.uk/

Niagara https://thamesbarge.org.uk/boats/niagara/

Atrato https://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/register/191/atrato