E: Out-of-work labourers at London Dock, 1855.
The Dockers
Who were the dockers?
Dock work drew people from many different backgrounds. In the early days of the docks some would have been recruited from the porters who worked on the riverside quays.
Many were newcomers who had helped build the docks and stayed on, men from different parts of England and from Ireland.
Some were given regular employment by the dock companies; but the numbers of such men were small and as the trade coming into the docks grew so did the demand for casual labour.
As a large part of the work was unskilled, requiring brute strength to fetch and carry goods, it was open to any seeking employment.
F: 'Dock labour [is] a casual employment, only fit for the failures of society, or men whom a revolution in their own trade has forced into taking any precarious work they can find...
But there are others who swell the crowd at particular times of the year. With the summer depart from the dock gates the painter, the harvester, and the agricultural labourer.
The tailor and the coster are visitors in bad times, and each skilled trade contributes its quota of men temporarily unemployed.'
The Times, 29 August 1889
G: 'Dock work is precisely the office that every kind of man is fitted to perform, and there we find every kind of man performing it
Those who are unable to live by the occupation to which they have been educated can obtain a living there without any previous training. Hence we find men of every calling labouring at the docks.
There are decayed and bankrupt master-butchers, master-bakers, publicans, grocers, old soldiers, old sailors, Polish refugees, broken-down gentlemen .., servants, thieves - indeed, everyone who wants a loaf, and is willing to work for it.'
Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, 1861.
E: Out-of-work labourers at London Dock, 1855.
Home |
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Introduction |
Glossary |
The Origins |
Building the Docks |
In Operations |
On the Waterfront |
The Dockers|
The Strikes of 1889 |
In the 20c |
In the WW2 |
The Closure |
Contact
Nigel Sagar
Design and Technology
London Borough of Barking
and Dagenham
Email: nigel.sagar@lbbd.gov.uk
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