Greenwich - maritime Greenwich - has been very much associated with the heroic days of sail bringing goods like ‘the spices of the east’ romantically into London and also with the Navy, Nelson and the great warships. The truth is that’s probably a majority of ships coming up London River until the 1970s brought coal from Durham and Northumberland to power of London’s industry. In the 17th century 200 collier ships were at work to supply London and by the end of the 18th century it was about a million tons of ‘sea coal’ a year was coming into London.[1] Greenwich and Woolwich would have had their share of this
‘Seacoal’ had been coming into London for at least a thousand years. Seacoal Lane in the City is first noted in 1228 and appears to refer to an established trade.[2]
In Greenwich in the 17th
the copperas works on Deptford Creek used 'Newcastle Coals' , It may be that
the patent granted to Thomas Peyton 'of Deptford' in 1636 was associated with
this, or maybe for use in glass works which were opening in this period. It was
fir 'charking sea coals', which sounds very much like the process which would
be needed to turn coal into coke[3].
Thomas Peyton may have been Sir Thomas Peyton of Knowlton in Kent who was known
to John Evelyn. By 1656 more coke was being made in Greenwich but by a
different Royalist entrepreneur. Evelyn, crossing the river by the Greenwich
Ferry 'saw Sir John Winter's new project of charring sea coale'. [4] Winter is better known for his exploitation
of coal and timber in the Forest of Dean. In 1655 Winter was actually
incarcerated in the Tower of London for his activities in Ireland in support of
the King – but, although his estates had been confiscated, he seems to have
been allowed out to further his business interests in Greenwich and Deptford.
Through this he gained a lucrative monopoly in coke manufacture.[5]
In 1670 after the Great
Fire of London a tax was levied on coal coming into London as a fund raiser to
pay for the rebuilding of St.Pauls.[6]
St.Alfege’s, the parish church of Greenwich, was to be a benifciary of this. In
1710, as the result of a storm, the roof of the
old church collapsed. The parishioners petitioned
Parliament for £6,000 to rebuilt. As a result the New Churches in London and
Westminster Act of 1711 proposed that a new church shuld be built in the parish
of Greenwich. Hence the commission to Nicholas Hawksmoor then the Clerk of the
Works at Greenwich Hospital and the designer of several other Commissioners
churches.[7]
As time went on more and more ships arrived
in the Thames with coal shipments, they gradually created an unregulated jam.
In the early 28th cenntury
there might be 90 colliers in the
Pool at any one time most of them unloading into a dozen or so barges. By the
end of the 18th century colliers made up three-fifths of the ships
entering the Thames and by 1850 3-6 million tons were being brought in, all by
sailing vessels.[8]
In 1852 the purpose built steamer, John Bowes, arrived in London from the Tyne,
to great acclaim. She could take 650 tons of coal and do the round trip in
seven days. She was the first of many,[9]
The job of regulating collier ships in the
Thames is long and complex but was eventually set up so that a series of
Harbour Masters between Gravesend and
the Tower would allow vessels to proceed up stream in rotation. These
Harbour Masters were appointed under the Port Act of 1799 following which a
series of by-laws determined specified moorings where not more than 15 ships at
a time must wait. [10] The original Greenwich Harbour Masters
Office was in High Bridge Place – probably adjacent to the still extant drawdock.[11] There
was a complicated system of paper work and flags which were raised to allow
boats to proceed or tell them to remain.
In the 1850s the original building was
replaced by the Harbour Master’s House which remains on Ballast Quay. It dates
from 1855 and was designed by local architect George Smith – who had already
designed and commissioned the surrounding housing.[12] It closed, along with the system of regulation, in the 1890s
and has been a private house ever since.[13]
There were many
wharves in Greenwich where coal was unloaded and several specialist firms. One
such was the wharf built in the 1840s in East Greenwich. In 1838 Morden College asked its
surveyor, George Smith,to evaluate their land holdings on Greenwich marsh[14].
Smith and Morden College
had a very clear pattern. Sites were
handed over to key tenants who 'improved' them and then sub-let to industrial
users – all of whom had to be approved by Morden College. Buildings to be erected were expected to be
of a high standard, and had to be approved by Smith. One of the earliest sites to be developed
under Smith's guidance was Dog Kennel Field.[15]
The developer was Coles Child and coal was his basic trade with a family
business, of coal, iron, cement and lime, based on the Lambeth riverside, at
Belvedere Wharf, near today's South Bank Centre.[16]
He thus approached Morden College for the tenancy of a portion of the 'Great
Meadow', which stretched, between The Thames, the Enderby works and what is now
Pelton Road. He wanted to 'form wharves,
and erect manufactories thereon'.[17]
Morden College’s archives contain abundant material about Coles Child's and what sometimes seems to be his nuisance value. The quality of the coal that he supplied to the College was a constant cause of complaint. Industrial development on the Greenwich riverside quickly went ahead, The river wall was rebuilt and by 1840 Coles Child had erected limekilns and coke ovens. Gravel from Morden College sites at Blackheath Point was used for these projects. He also considered building a tramway along the Willow Dyke - already taking shape as Pelton Road. [18]
In 1840 Child was 'pleased to announce' his facilities in the Kentish Mercury. Coals and coke could be supplied 'at a considerable reduction in price because of the facilities possessed by no other house' for 'purchase of coals at the pit's mouth'. In Greenwich coal could be 'loaded directly from the hold of the ship into the wagons' thus 'avoiding contingencies caused by severe weather and half the usual breakage'. He boasted that they were the 'largest manufacturers of oven coke' and that orders to 'railways, maltsters, ironfounders and consumers' would be 'executed with probity, punctuality and dispatch'.[19]
Most interesting were the houses built to Morden College’s specifications, overseen by George Smith, and which now form the East Greenwich Estate. Pelton Road itself dated from 1840 and followed the line of what had been Willow Wall Dyke.[20] The estate continued to develop until the 1860s – although clearly there have been 20th and 21st century additions. What is remarkable is that the original street and terrace names reflect mining areas and pits, mainly in the Durham coal field [21] and, presumably reflecting the source of much of the coal.
Pelton Road – the spine road to the estate and the earliest built is named for Pelton Main and Pelton West collieries. As with other pits in the area the stood along a huge network of industrial railways running down to the sea and staithes – mainly too Seaham. These are now cycle paths and some equipment stands as monuments to them. West Pelton pit is now a golf course. [22] Banning Street was originally named for Chester-le-Street, and Christchurch Way for Waldridge. Enderby Street was once Newcastle Street.
Coles Child clearly did not intend to continue managing his wharfage business in Greenwich personally and he passed into the hands of two managers - William Whiteway and Frederick Rowton.[23] Whiteway was a local man who had worked in the Greenwich coal trade since he was seventeen. [24]They announced an arrangement with a different Durham colliery 'Caradoc and Usworth' in order to meet the competition from coal which was by then being brought into London by rail. Rowton advertised that he was the sole London agent for 'Caradoc and Usorth' [25]- collieries which were owned by the Rt.Hon. Lord Howden and Messrs. D. Jonassohn and Co. These were two newly sunk pits in the north east of what is now Washington New Town in Co. Durham – the area is now all new housing but the pit sites remain as fenced off rough ground. ‘Caradoc’ was the family name of Lord Howden, a career diplomat and soldier.[26] Two sorts of coal from the pits were sold in Greenwich - 'Caradoc's Wallsend' and Jonasshon's Wallsend'. [27].
Later John
Waddell and Co. took on a lease for part of the wharf area. He was another coal merchant, supplying them
many domestic grates of the area. He had a local office in a prestigious area
where his customers in the nicer parts of Blackheath could be received at 14
Royal Parade in Blackheath.[28]
Coles Child's head lease on the whole site expired soon after the First World War and Morden College began a period of re-evaluation of the site. For most of the 20th century it was occupied by Shaw Lovell – metals transhipment and wharfage. [29]
It was in the late 1850s that one of the
most original coal transhipment systems was set up in the river off
Charlton. Cory’s are still known in
Charlton and have a yard where they service the tugs which pull barges laden
with rubbish containers. There were a
number of Cory companies in the coal trade [30]–
with even greater complexity now with major rubbish and other environmental
outlets. William Cory and Son as a firm date from 1838 but were in operation
long before that. Their Charlton barge works dates from 1873.[31]
Cory’s also built a small housing estate
– Atlas and Derrick Gardens – in Anchor and Hope Lane. It is named for Atlas
which was part of their river based coal transhipment system. In 1854 Cory’s
had installed a new lighterage sysem in
the Royal Victoria Dock using hydraulic cranes. Then they realised they could
avoid paying dues to the dock company by using the river itself as their
base. They bought Atlas, a floating raft
built to raise wrecks, from Thames
Ironworks in 1859. They moored Atlas off
Charlton, moved their hydraulic cranes onto it
and they could then unload two colliers at once – once either side and
also moor the barges into which the coal was being transhipped. Thames
Conservancy objected to this and took legal action, Corys took the case to the
House of Lords, and won.
In 1866 Atlas 2 was also installed, to a
special design for Cory’s by their engineers.
Together the two Atlases could shift a million tons of coal a year and
Corys were handling half the coal coming into London on the river. Cory also
had special steamers designed to transport the coal. The Cory fleet grew and
grew. In 1898 Atlas 1 was moved to
Erith and Atlas 3 installed at Charlton, specially built in Stephensons in
Hebburn-on-Tyne. This time workshops and
electrical generators were included. [32]
Atlas 1 & 2 were scrapped in 1914.
Atlas 3 was commandeered by the War
Office and sank in the Channel. Atlas
and Derrick Gardens remain and in 2018 have just been given Conservation Area
status,
Up and down the riverside there were
many other coal wharves, so common that most were unrecorded and we know very little
about them.
In the 20th century there
were many specialist vessels coming from the north east ports with coal for
public utilities. South Met’s gasworks supported a fleet of specialist
vessels. In the copies of
‘Co-partnership Journal’ South Met’s inhouse magazine, are several tales told
by innocent young workers who manage to wangle what they think will be a holiday
trip on one of the company’s ships to the Tyne and back. Inevitably they were subjected to a
demonstration of gung-ho seamanship and arrived home terrified. In one saga in the face of a terrible storm a
collier crew refused to turn back to port and describe how they were blown down
to the Thames, turned round quick as
they could to be blown back to the Tyne – and broke all records for speed of
delivery. In the Great War losses of
these vessels on the north east coast was terrible. South Met lost their entire
fleet twice, and in particular the brand new Ravensbourne – built to be able to
outrun the torpedos – was forced by the Navy to travel in convoy and at their
speed and was thus sunk on her maiden voyage.[33] Please remember that such merchant seamen
were routinely given ’the white feather’ when ashore and seen as too cowardly
to join the army.
In the 1850s about 3.6 million tons of
sea coal came into London by sea and by sail. By 1865 it was being handled
entirely by steam ships. In the 1950s
there were about 80 collier vessels supplying public utilities on the Thames
handling about 60% of the coal coming into the Port. This is for the whole
river, and it would be difficult to say how much of it went to Greenwich and
Woolwich. Beckton gas works was using 4,800 tons of coal a day – no doubt East
Greenwich was much the same. Barking
power station consumed 7,000 tons a day – and no doubt Deptford was similar.[34]
There is no coal coming up the river
now. This enormous and traditional trade died in the late 1970s. Fuel oil, which might be considered its
successor, is not allowed above Tilbury. All of that is a good thing and helps
cut pollution – but the River is deserted – and don’t we all miss the boats so
much.
[1] Bird. The Geography of the Port of London
[2] British History On line. City. Web site
[3] Patent 98. 26th July 1636. Sir Thomas Peyton of Knowlton would have been only 23 at the time.
[4] Evelyn. Diary 11th July 1656
[5] DNB
[6] British History online web site
[7] St.Alfege Church. Web site.
[8] Bird
[9] Keys & Smith., Steamers at the Staithes
[10] Smith. Sea Coal for London
[11] One reference (Dickensian London) says that it became the Three Crowns Pub – which seems reasonable given the site and the size of the building. The date from which the uyb was licenced (Pub History web site) is however considerably before the closure of the Harbour Master’s Office. It was demolished in the 1930s and replaced with office buildings.
[12] George Smith. Wikipedia page. Also notes in Kerney – below and London Topographical Record Vol. 25.
[13] Ballast Quay. Web site
[14] Morden College. Trustees Minutes
[15] This is the site now (2018) of the housing development of Riverside Gardens. It was previously Lovells and Granite wharves.
[16].Filmer, The Bromley Palace and Coles Child. Lord of the Manor of Bromley. 1846-1873, Bromley Local History, No. 5, 1980,. There is an archive of Coles Child material in the KCC Archive,
[17] Morden College. Surveyor’s Report 11th May 1838
[18] Kerney, The
development of an Early Victorian Artisan Estate in east Greenwich. Trans
[19] KM 1840
[20] The details of the building of the estate are given in an article dedicated to it by Kerney (above). He points out that the lack of gardens on one side of Pelton Road is because of the line of the dyke, later run into a sewer.
[21] The full list of names are given in the article by Kerney. Some he could not trace – Bradyll is a locomotive said to have been used at South Hetton, Caradoc is a pit name – but like Mr. Kerney I have been unable t trace Gibson.
[22] When we visited the site in the mid 2000s like at so many old pit sites there was no sign of its colliery past, and golfers seemed unaware of it. Now a colliery wheel and a plaque have been erected on the site.
[23] KM
[24] Rhind. Westcombe Park
[25] KM
[26] Durham Mines. Web site
[27] KM
[28] Rhind. Blackheath Village and its Environs
[29] Morden College. Archive.
[30] The Cardiff based Cory Brothers appears to be a different firm and a different family. I wait to be corrected on that!
[31] Smith. History of Charlton
[32] Smith
[33] Co-partnership Journal. Southwark Local History Libary and National Gas Collection. I would also like to thank Brian Sturt who has made a special study of the South Met. Collier fleet
[34] Bird
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