9. The Closure of the Docks

In the 1960s the amount of goods handled in the Port of London reached record levels. Yet in 1967 the East India Dock closed, followed one year later by the London and St Katharine Docks.

At the beginning of the 1980s the last of the upstream docks closed when the Royal Docks stopped operations in 1981.

To understand why this happened in such a short space of time we must look at important changes which had been taking place since the Second World War. The full force of these changes hit the docks in the 1960s and 1970s.

Changes in trade

Before the Second World War London was the centre of trade with the British Empire, drawing in food and row materials from countries all over the world and exporting manufactured goods in exchange.

After the war this pattern of trade changed. Many of the countries with which Britain had traded were developing their own manufacturing industries and finding new markets for their goods. For example, Australia which had sent most of its wool to Britain was, by the 1960s, sending more wool to Japan than Britain.

Europe grew as a large trading area, particularly after the Common Market was set up in 1957. Continental ports like Rotterdam, making full use of new mechanised dock technology, began to overtake London.

As Britain's trade with the rest of the world declined, she increased her trade with mainland Europe, but much of this went to coastal ports like Felixstowe rather than London.

These ports, with better access and shorter sea routes, were in a better position to take advantage of the new roll-on/roll-off traffic from the Continent to Britain. The Port of London found it increasingly difficult to attract trade.

Changes in cargo-handling

Although the docks had become increasingly mechanised, it was still the case twenty years after the war that many goods were handled in much the same way as they had been a century earlier.

Cargoes would be unloaded into lighters or on to the quayside where they would be moved by men to sheds ready for distribution. This was slow, inefficient and expensive. By the 1960s new methods of handling cargoes were forcing the docks to change.

A: Containers being unloaded, 1975.

Containerisation
A container is a large metal box 2.4 metres high, 2.4 metres wide and up to 12 metres long. It can be stuffed with cargo like putting clothes into a suitcase. It revolutionised dockwork. There is no need for sheds and warehouses since the container provides its own protection. All that is needed is a great deal of space to stack the containers ready for collection.

B: Straddle carrier placing container on a lorry, 1975.

Containers are mowed entirely by mechanical means from ship to shore and, by straddle carriers, to container parks or on to vehicles. They can then be taken by road or rail to their destination or to special depots outside the docks to be unpacked.