Workers in Deptford Dockyard

 

“Artisanal skilled, literate, dissenting, democratised and independent minded’.   This is a description given of Royal Dockyard workers in Deptford in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.  It comes from a work which I wish I had seen before I wrote my history of Deptford Creek a couple of years ago.  I knew that The Royal Commission for Historical Monuments had done a survey of Deptford High Street in the 1990s and seen the resulting short book about the buildings - and as I was writing about the Creek and not the High Street I didn’t look at it.  Then a big box of books was given to me and there was the whole Report, which was never published, and which is a huge great spiral bound volume.

In the Report, in addition to the description of the High Street houses, there is an introductory essay which says some important things about Deptford, including a great deal about the dockyard and its workers.

These articles in the Report say that Deptford was an ‘exceptional place’ which expanded around the Royal Dockyard ‘as an early industrial facility at the heart of the rise of British sea power’. It’s obviously important that in Deptford the main employer is the State, as it is in Woolwich with its Royal Dockyard and military establishments, - and also Greenwich with the Palace and Royal Hospital. -In the 17^th and 18^th centuries Deptford had a huge population but it was not like towns of a similar size - Bristol and Norwich which were- then the biggest provincial towns. Although Deptford was near London it was not a suburb but an independent town with its own local economy-. It had a population of shipwrights who' walked to work from the town to the Dockyard' and were paid wages and were ‘independent minded’. 

In the early days of Greenwich Industrial History Society we had as a speaker, Rodney Dobson, who had written and researched industrial action before 1800.  I had done ‘Labour History’ as an undergraduate at Thames Poly and then it was being said that trade union history before around the late 19^th century was all about craft associations for skilled workers. ‘Real’ militant trade unions were later. Which led to a lot of nonsense which I will go on about some other time.

I thought readers might be interested not just in Deptford itself but in the shipwrights whose work there, and in Woolwich were the mainstay of the local economy.  I know there are people out there at RMG and elsewhere who really know about shipwrights – and so I must apologise for what is intended to be no more than a brief impression.

The shipwrights who worked at the Royal Dockyards were skilled workers  but I also find the word ‘shipwrights’ quite difficult because it seems to cover many grades of workers from the top man in charge of the while dockyard right down to barely skilled labourers.  Some other dockyard workers were named after their trades - for example carpenters and caulkers – (and I’m pleased to find out today that there is a New Jolly Caulkers pub in Rotherhithe).

 Also of course many other shipyard workers who lived in Deptford could have worked in one of the numerous local private shipyards.

Looking for information about ‘shipwrights’ I found a newspaper report of 1730 about a Mr Holt ‘a shipwright belonging to his majesty’s yard of Deptford who was robbed in a field by two foot pads who knocked him down. They took from him a silver watch half a Guinea and three shillings. That was hard luck on Mr Holt and I don’t want to sound like him supporting the foot pads but somebody who goes around with a silver watch and that much money is not hard up.  But I have no way of telling from a description of ‘shipwright ‘if he was a typical dockyard worker, or, more likely, an official.

Dockyard wages were frequently paid in arrears with long delays between payments.  Men must have supported their families during this time without regular wages and clearly had means of doing so - which says a lot about their relative prosperity. With some irony it appears in 1679 that men who were found smoking were fined 6 days pay but this could not be enforced because their wages were in arrears.

Much has been written about dockyard workers and the issue of the ‘chips’ and I I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here because several people seem to have written entire books about the chips issue – and  I have space for one paragraph only!. Over two centuries the dockyard authorities, and indeed the government, tried to find a way of controlling the ‘chips’  issue and as fast as new regulations were made so  workers found ways round them.  ‘Chips’ had nothing to do with fried potatoes – they were scraps of waste wood which workers had originally been allowed to take home for firewood. They were to do with what you might have on your shoulder and they were the reason why many dockyard workers were not allowed to wear trousers to work.

‘You are to suffer no person to pass out of the dock gates with great coats, large trousers, or any other dress that can conceal stores of any kind. No person is to be suffered to work in Great Coats at any time over any account. No trousers are to be used by the labourers employed in the Storehouse and if any persist in such a custom he will be discharged the yard.

On the whole press stories about the shipwrights at Deptford are positive and they come over as hard working and honest patriots. In 1768 a spokesman said.’ there is no man amongst us who would not freely die for King and Country but we will not suffer ourselves to be slaves ... for we are free born subjects’. 

We learn of urgent work undertaken by the dockyards over the centuries.  For instance in 1755  because of ‘Rumour of War’ ‘Orders were received from the Lords Commissioners to get ready the following Ships, which lay in Ordinary up the Harbour, viz: Mary and Tilbury, each of 60 Guns, Oxford and Isis, each of 50 Guns, Chesterfield and Lynne, each of 40 Guns, Ferret Sloop-of 12 Guns and Deptford Storeship. The “Shipwrights, Caulkers, Rope-makers, Joiners, &c. belonging to the Dock, worked last Sunday, which they did not for two Sundays ; the King’s Bakers likewise worked. :

But for many shipwrights if conditions in England didn’t suit them they could always work abroad. In 1779 it was reported that “more than two thirds of the Spanish navy have been built by English workers ‘.  Which was ok as long as it wasn’t the enemy’s yards they were working in.

Sometimes things were more leisurely. In 1782 it was reported that ‘The manner that men were employed in the yards was absolutely scandalous.  they were bound to work till 12 and yet they  left off at 11:30 and though the bell rang for them to begin again at 1:00 not a stroke of work ever was begun before 3:00’. 

They will also not averse to striking. For instance in 1802 ‘the shipwrights and caulkers of Deptford Dockyard have struck for an advance of wages’. Also less peaceably “On Friday afternoon mutiny of a very alarming nature took place at Deptford amongst the shipwrights. As we are given understand it arose about the perquisites of chips. About four o'clock, they were got to such pitch, desperation that the whole town was in the utmost, consternation imaginable, Peace was restored by a body of Guards’.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that dockyard workers were so highly organised that in case of industrial action all Dockyards could be got ‘out’ in 24 hours - that’s not just Deptford and Woolwich but also  Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth and Milford Haven.

Things could be very difficult but shipwrights could find a way round it. On another occasion when the master joiner decided to abolish chips without wage increases, carpenters and joiners stopped work, ‘occupied the yard and placed pickets armed with axes at the gates.... A battalion of the First Regiment of Guards was sent but at six the next morning none of the workmen came in’.  When that happened war with Spain had just been declared putting the workers in a very strong bargaining position. There was nothing like a good way to get increased advantages for dockyard workers.

One aspect of the ideas among them was the setting up of the earliest recorded co-ops. Something I would like to write about in future.

So – as I said above this has been a very quick look at the shipwrights of the Deptford dockyards.  who were  “Artisanal skilled, literate, dissenting, democratised and independent minded’.  

And there were always surprises: There is now living at Deptford a Woman, who served as a Shipwright in our different Dock-Yards fourteen Years without Suspicion or Discovery; at the Expiration of this Time had a Pension granted, when the has married and had several Children.