White Hart Depot 2000

November 3, 2019, 8:25 pm

≫ Next: Deptford Shipbuilding in the 17th century

≪ Previous: Letters from March 2000

$

0

0

White Hart  Depot 2000

A VIEW FROM A STRANGER

In February a party from GIHS visited the Plumstead White Hart Depot. GLIAS’s Bill Firth comes from  Golders Green and knows nothing about Plumstead - here is his report on the site:

White Hart Road Depot was the site of the Woolwich municipal electrical generating station fuelled by domestic rubbish. This ended in the 1920s when the main power station in Woolwich was opened but incineration of rubbish continued in the 1970s. There have been many other activities at the depot until last August when everything except the laundry closed.

At the depot Ian Hornsby who has worked there for some 28 years was a knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide.

The visit started at the main building which is a typical example of end 19th century municipal pride. Its status is uncertain but it seems English Heritage is considering it for listing.  It has been mutilated with partitions, the filling in of doors and electric cables around the walls but enough remains to be able to appreciate what it must have been like in its prime.  At the back we were able to peer into the generating hall and appreciate its immense size and the coloured glazed brick walls from which it is referred to as the ‘tiled hall’.Later when some problems with keys had been solved we were able to get inside.

We went on to as storage building where the useful materials, such as copper and aluminium which had been removed from the rubbish by women known as scratchers, were sorted before being sold to dealers.

Round to the front again we went up the ramp up which the dust carts were driven into the unloading area.  The rubbish was fed on to moving belts which went past the scratchers and was then tipped for loading into the boilers.

On the way to the tiled hall we stopped at the one functioning activity at the depot - the laundry.  Here laundry from the elderly of the Borough, and others unable to do it themselves, is washed and dried in massive machines.

We were now able to get into the tiled hall and were able to really see its extent and the attractive coloured glazed walls.  The whole complex has had many uses since closure and has been a storage, or should one say dumping, site.  In the hall we had a discussion about its future. If it is listed it is a good example of a structure for which it will be found difficult to find re-use.

We went outside again to view the full extent of the whole depot.  This seems to be

a candidate for the brownfield housing which Mr. Prescott seems keen to promote.

Lastly Ian wanted to show us the weighing mechanism of the weighbridge but we found it had all been boarded in.

This was a fascinating visit to a site which has long since lost its original purpose but one could still visualise what it had been.

WHAT WE FOUND

Volume 3, Issue 1m of this newsletter contained some remarks about the White Hart Depot - and a further report was promised.  This is not it!  I felt that some background to the miserable story behind some of the artefacts referred to earlier - and seen on our visit - might be appropriate. In particular the barracks which figure in it.  Red Barracks was (or were?) erected in 1819 as an infirmary to serve the Royal Marines, a Division of which was created in 1805 and eventually quartered in Frances Street in 1847, staying until 1869, co-incidentally the year of the Royal Dockyard closures in Woolwich and Deptford.   On their departure the two barracks were named ‘Red’ and ‘Cambridge’.  A complete history since those times is not called for in these notes but is available on request.  Suffice it to say that both barracks were Listed Grade II.

The history of buildings in Woolwich has always been a red rag to a bull and, in 1973, application for listed building consent top demolish was made by the Council. Permission was refused, whereupon the buildings were ‘let to rot until not recoverable’ , and consequently a second application to demolish was made in 1975. Following a Public Enquiry in 1976 the Inspector recommended consent be granted for the Red Barracks buildings to be demolished but consent for the external railings, gates, gate lodge, and two gun ports at the entrance should be refused. These findings were agreed by the Secretary of State.

Demolition followed, but needless to say, the policy of ‘deliberate neglect by delay’ of the ‘refused’ items continues to this day. The results were evident during the White Hart Road visit.

We have campaigned for some action in this matter since October 1975, the date of our opening shot. 

The time since then has been peppered with half promises, never even half carried out, up until the latest situation following on twenty five years of evasion and neglect is that the Red Barracks items and the ‘Entrance Screen’ of Cambridge Barracks (i.e. the Main Gate to Frances Street) are now on the English Heritage list of Buildings at Risk.

The Campaign Continues!

       

ADDITIONAL NOTES FROM SUE BULLIVANT 

The area appears to have acquired its name from The White Hart Tavern which was in a meadow approximately 100 yards from the road near the centre of Kentmere Road. The tavern was burnt down in 1814. Until 1885 the land surround the then White Hart Lane was not built on (from Vincent’s Records of the Woolwich District).

In June 1901 work was started on the generating and refuse destruction works at White Hart Road and were formally opened by the Mayor, Councillor J.J.Messent in October  1903. The cost was £40,000, £2,600 being spent on direct labour. In 1919 the generation was concentrated at the Woolwich Electricity Company near Woolwich Ferry. (from Jefferson. The Woolwich Story).

A recent correspondent to the Shooters Hill Society lives in a house in Brent Road, SE18 formerly occupied form 1904-1907 by Frank Summer MICE Woolwich Borough Council Engineer who designed Plumstead Baths, Library and Combined Dust Destructor -Electricity Station (other occupants were military officers).

LETTER FROM PLANNERS ON WHITE HART ROAD DEPOT

A reply has been received from the Planning Department in reply to our letter to them raising concerns about the site. For a number of very boring reasons this letter can’t be reproduced in full here.  The gist of it was that - the Council has no immediate plans for the site but intends to develop it in due course - that English Heritage had already shown an interest in the buildings.  We have also been contacted by people who would like to look further at the site and perhaps photograph it in detail.

---

Deptford Shipbuilding in the 17th century

November 3, 2019, 8:32 pm

≫ Next: More of John Day's Memories of a ROF apprentice

≪ Previous: White Hart Depot 2000

$

0

0

DEPTFORD SHIPBUILDING IN THE 17TH CENTURY                              
 further extracts from Christopher Philpott’s study

In 1788 the lease on an area of Deptford riverside once used by the East India Company was taken on by William Barnard. It became known as  Deptford Dry Dock.Late in the eighteenth century Barnard extended the dry dock to the north and the south and demolished houses on the south side of Anchor Smith Alley, replacing them with an oval garden and a plank yard.  Anchor Smith  Alley is shown in the wrong orientation on Roque’s map of 1741-5.  Here the Barnard’s built naval warships and East Indiamen until c.1834.    On Deptford Green the family had a three storey mansion house. The property was still in their hands in the 1840s, but by the 1850s was in a ruinous condition. The trenches of an archaeological  SOA 96 evaluation in the central north side of the Power Station site found the timber revetments of two seventeenth or eighteenth century docks at 2.2.mOD and 3.19 MOD, surviving evidence for this dockyard. 

A dock was re-built to the west of this dockyard at Deptford Green in 1781; it was occupied by Mr. Wells. Gordon and Co. built ships there early in the nineteenth-century. Another firm of ship builders called Colsons, worked at Stowage Yard from the early eighteenth century until 1835.

The Stowage had a wharf 104 feet ling beside Deptford Creek in 1737. Joseph Carter, ship-breaker and timber merchant, was based at the Stowage in 1790.

To the east of this dockyard there was a ropeyard operating in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, stretching  northwards from the Stowage to the Thames bank.  Other ropeyards were established to the west of the study area. An acre of land, called Ropemakersfield had formerly been part of the Skinners’ Place property in 1608.  This is probably to be identified with the 530 foot ropewalk which lay to the west of the Flaggon Row burial ground in 1733.  Another ropewalk stretching north from Flaggon Row in 1705 was 99 feet long, with various attached sheds and tar houses.

By the early sixteenth century the Skinners Place property contained a dock, a wooden wharf and a shipwright’s yard .  There were wharves in Deptford Strand, to the west of the study area in 1553, 1567 and 1608. From the seventeenth century onwards other shipbuilders operated in this area, including Edward Snelgrove late in the century, John West from early in the eighteenth century to the 1750s, Stacey from 1719 to 1734; John Buxton Junior from 1739 to 1757, and Adams and Co., from 1773 ro 1785. Off Grove Street, Bronsden and Wells had their shipyard from the early eighteenth century to the 1780s, and John Winter built Dudman’s Dock in 1704. William Barnard was based here in the 1770s and it continued working into the nineteenth century.

Shipbuilding also took place in the Norway Wharf area on the Thames frontage to the east of Deptford Creek. There was a ship building shed and slipway at Wood Wharf at the north east corner of the study area in 1777.  Eighteenth century  redware sherds and a fragment of Spanish amphora have been recovered from the foreshore in this area.

This article was in the March 2000 GIHS Newsletter

More of John Day's Memories of a ROF apprentice

November 3, 2019, 8:38 pm

≫ Next: Massey Shaw

≪ Previous: Deptford Shipbuilding in the 17th century

$

0

0

MORE OF JOHN DAY’S MEMORIES

................... .........................OF A ROF APPRENTICE

One morning when I came in, there was a terrific row going on in the foreman’s office. The barrel of a 3.7 inch gun is about 14 feet long and during production has about an extra foot each end to enable it to be held, this couple of feet is sawn off near the end of manufacture. It was done on night -shift  and on this occasion the two feet had been sawn off the same end. The foreman had said, amongst other things,” What are we going to do with that gun now ?” to which the reply was “You can always put it a foot nearer the enemy”.

Another month or two, between term times, was spent in the Shell Toolroom doing odd  jobs that included the design and manufacture of a lathe sliderest. All the toolrooms had a blacksmith for odd bits of forging and lathe tool making. The one in this shop had been apprenticed to an ornamental smith and one day he showed me a rose that he forged as his test-piece.  It was beautiful, even down to the veining in the petals and leaves.

The months over one Christmas were spent in the Forges with another apprentice, who’s name I forget. We had a hearth next to the south wall and near the door. The first thing each morning was to light the fire with paper and wood and put some coal on top to roast into coke which produced the clean fire. Then, being winter, the tools were warmed since a sudden blow on cold thin steel would find it shattering. There is something fascinating about forming red hot steel which has about the consistency of cold lead. The two main occupations were forging pairs of tongs and making templates. When there was a complicated forging to be done, it needed a template of thin plate to check the shape against and an apprentice was the stooge to make it. If one was clever, one did one's best to avoid this. We made ourselves a toaster comprising a 4” square slab of steel about ½ “ thick with a long handle. This, heated to red heat in the forge, was the best and most even toaster I have come across for cooking toasted cheese. At Christmas we decorated the forge and extended our menu to include kippers cooked the same way. 

In-front of our forge was a small steam hammer worked by a rather dour individual. Working under this we soon discovered that it was not as easy as it looked to take down a square section, keeping it square. With the slightest provocation, it would go into a diamond shape and it needed strong wrists to hold the diamond edge on to get the metal back to square. High speed steel, worked at less than near white heat would split like bamboo.

Being Christmas and, as usual short of cash, we collected a number of old files and forged them into scrapers and screwdrivers for some of the awkward jobs we knew existed in the fitting and assembly shops. We went round these shops selling them and taking orders for other special tools. 

One day I went to the heavy forge and sat up on the crane gantry watching the forging of a part of a big gun barrel. To see  a lump of red hot steel, some four feet square and ten feet long, being squeezed to shape under a huge hydraulic press is something never to forget. Just behind our forge was a 1000 ton hammer made by James Nasmyth; it was dusty  and neglected even then - what a lot of our treasures have been lost.

This article was in the May 2000 Newsletter

Massey Shaw

November 4, 2019, 1:24 am

≫ Next: Reviews and snippets July 2000

≪ Previous: More of John Day's Memories of a ROF apprentice

$

0

0

In early June the TV has been full of the last return of the ‘little ships’ to Dunkirk.  A few days earlier a number of Greenwich people had stood on the London Fire Brigade pier in Lambeth to see Massey Shaw set off down river to join the rest of the fleet at Dover.  The Fire Brigade gave her a good send off with officials, dignitaries - and the pumps - all there to see her go.  Those of us who never saw her on the TV coverage were told by Reg Barter ‘ it was her the TV crew were on’.

MASSEY SHAW

The following notes on Massey Shaw are taken from an information sheet compiled by John Furlonger.   

The historic fireboat MASSEY SHAW is named after Sir Eyre Massey Shaw (1830-1908),  first Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade. She  was ordered by the London County Council for the London Fire Brigade for  £17,000 from J Samuel White of  Cowes Isle of Wight, and commissioned on  July 1935. Her first major "shout' was in September when she attended a huge fire at Colonial Wharf, Wapping. At the outbreak of war she  was stationed at Blackfriars Pier as flagship of the fleet.

In May 1940 the Admiralty asked for a fireboat to be sent to Dunkirk and a crew of 16 LFB River Service volunteers were selected. With a compass bought from a local ships chandlers and brasswork painted grey Massey Shaw proceeded to Ramsgate. On 31st May, navigated by a Royal Navy Sub Lieutenant, she left for Dunkirk - not to fight fires, as  first thought, but to pick up soldiers from Braye Dunes. Although there was no time to swing and correct the new compass against the massive deviation caused by the steel hull, the young sub-Lieut. navigated minefields and treacherous sandbanks following the  smoke rising from Dunkirk.

Massey Shaw ferried over 600 soldiers from the beaches to larger vessels which lay offshore. She made three round trips to return 106 soldiers directly to England. During one of these trips she rescued 40 survivors of the French auxiliary vessel 'Emil de Champ' which had struck a mine and sunk off North Foreland.

Massey Shaw arrived back in London on 5th June 1940. ‘The Thames on Fire’  describes how ‘she was cheered all the way up the river by firemen from the various fire stations and the Brigade’s commanding officer collected the wives and mothers of the crew for a reception at the Lambeth Head Quarters’. She was the only civilian vessel to be 'Mentioned in Dispatches' and several of her crew were honoured including the coxswain, Sub.Officer A.J. May, who was awarded the Navy's Distinguished Service Medal.

On resuming her normal duties she was the first fire appliance to be fitted with wireless.  She played a major role during the Blitz pumping water ashore for the land appliances when mains had been destroyed by bombing.  In 1947 a secret meeting was held on board her in  the Thames Estuary between Herbert Morrison, MP, Chairman of the LCC, and Aneurin Bevin, MP - this would eventually result in the formation of the National Health Service.

Massey Shaw retired in 1971. Her last major 'shouts' were to a huge fire at Tate & Lyle Silvertown and to the steamship 'Jumna' ablaze in the Royal Albert Dock. She was then   moored to a pier at Woolwich  and abandoned. Later she was towed to St. Katharine's Dock as a convenient walkway during dock rebuilding. The GLC, her  owners, proposed to put her on a stick in an ornamental lake in   Thamesmead.

In 1980 Philip Wray, an ex LFB member, was so appalled that he formed a Charitable Preservation Society. He leased  her from the GLC and set about long term working preservation  So, 65 years after her launch, her two massive 8 cylinder Gleniffer diesel engines coupled to pumping machinery made by Merryweather's of Greenwich, are both still in working order.

She was present at the opening of the Thames Flood Barrier, escorted The Queen on VJ Day and HMY Britannia on her final visit to the Pool of London. The last surviving member of the crew of wartime Dunkirk volunteers R.W.J ‘Dick’ Helyer BEM  is President of The Massey Shaw & Marine Vessels Preservation Society Ltd.  - a charity that is entirely dependant upon the support of its members,  sponsors and public donations in ensuring the long term preservation of this unique and historic vessel.

SOME FACTS AND FIGURES

                      LOA  - 78ft                                                                     Beam 13ft 6 ins                           

                      Draft 3ft 9 ins                                                                 Air Draft 15ft

                      Gross Tonnage 50.54 tons                                              Speed 12 knots

                      Monitor 1 x 3 inch                                                          Endurance 30 hours

                      Deliveries 8 Surelock Couplings                                    Salvage Heads - 2 twin 5 in

                      Engines - Twin 8 cyl Glenniffer DC8 165 bhp (each) Diesel)

                      Pumps Twin Merryweather 4 stage 8 in Centrifugals 1,500 gpm each

                      Foam - 40 x5 gal. Pails 1 x Pyrene mechanical foam generator and knapsack tank.

                      Auxiliary Power - Russell Newbury D2 2 cyl. Diesel driving 110v generator 12v                                dynamo - 2 cyl. Compressor for radial main engine air starters.

                      Bunkers - 500 gallons diesel

GLIAS VISIT

On a pouring wet day GIHS & GLIAS members visited Massey Shaw at Wood Wharf.  A GLIAS members who went was Peter Skilton - here is some of his report from the GLIAS Newsletter:

‘In spite of a drizzly cold morning we had an excellent visit to the Massey Shaw fireboat ....  members of the preservation society welcomed us aboard, fortified us with hot drinks and biscuits and told us the fascinating history of this boat and her valiant crew. Space on board was at a premium (as on most vessels) and as we sat huddled together listening to the story of this craft's part in the evacuation of British and French troops from Dunkirk, we could only wonder at the cramped conditions those poor wet souls endured as they were brought hack to the relative safety of England

Such stories brought the vessel's past to life for me.  There are sites and projects that I have visited and upon leaving have thought: 'That is worthwhile’... when I stepped ashore from the Massey Shaw, I felt she was a very special project and deserved as much assistance as possible. I can  promote this good cause at every opportunity and recommend GLIAS members visit the Massey Shaw when visits are available ‘ 

Peter Skilton

Reviews and snippets July 2000

November 4, 2019, 2:00 am

≫ Next: Tom Cribb

≪ Previous: Massey Shaw

$

0

0

Reviews and snippets July 2000

Domesday Industry

At a recent lecture at the Maritime Museum, Andrew Butcher of the University of Kent  pointed out that Greenwich was an important industrial centre in Norman times. He pointed out that in the Domesday book there were 4 mills in Greenwich and 11 in Lewisham.

We can assume that most of these were on the Ravensbourne and that probably the ones listed for Greenwich were in the Deptford Bridge area, What sort of mills were these? How did they work? Did they mill corn for flour - or something else? This is not a subject we should ignore.

Pensioner's News 

Kay Murch has sent a copy of  British Gas Pensioners’ News  which covers the ‘New Home’ for the ‘War Memorial’ on the Greenwich Peninsula to employees of the South Metropolitan Gas Comany based at East Greenwich Gas Works, Phoenix Wharf and Ordnance Wharf, who died in the War.    It also records that the Memorial is recorded on the Imperial War Museum Database.

PS. Congratulations on the MBE, Kay.

Sir Joseph Bazalgette

‘The Great Stink of London’ by Stephen Halliday .  I recently came across this most interesting book which might be worth mentioning in the Newsletter.  It tells the story of why and how London’s 19th century sewage system (including the Crossness and Deptford Pumping Stations) was built, focussing on Bazalgette’s role.

Alfred Baluch

Alfred Baluch has sent us a some pictures of himself and his involvement in pensioners’ demonstrations  and with Jack Jones at the opening of the Working River exhibition at Age Exchange.   He attended our meeting on Mumford’s Mill and contributed some of his reminiscences of the mill in work.

He also says ‘ I collected and delivered sacks (bags) of flour to small bakers shops in and around London in 1940-41 for around eight years.  This was bags of flour of 140 lbs in weight, Australian flour at 150 lbs of weight or sacks of wheat at 252 lbs in weight. Sacks were always used when collecting from shop or granary for delivery to the mill’.

Swiftstone 

The new Swiftstone Trust says... ‘We are an environmental and  educational  charity  concerned  with  the improvement of the environment in London.  We preserve and run the vintage Thames Tug, The Swiftstone, donated to us by Cory  Environmental,  who  have  operated  her commercially since 1953 . So what has an old tug got to do with improving the environment?

The Thames has a long history of working for London.  For centuries it was the only way to bring goods into or out of the capital.  Thousands of tons of coal, sugar, ballast, all manner of foodstuffs, exotic or ordinary, anything and everything that London needed came up the Thames in barges ..pulled by tugs (oh, and the stuff we didn't want -thousands of tons of rubbish - went out by the same route)

Sadly this happens less and less. Wharves are being lost to housing development, more and more transport is being diverted to the roads as companies and local authorities switch their contracts from river to road. But what can we do about it?  Ask your local councillor if your rubbish is transported the clean,  or the dirty way.  

General Sir Martin Farndale

We have been sent a copy of the Times obituary of General Sir Martin Farndale who inspired the project to build a Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich.  The article describes Sir Martin’s distinguished army record  up to his retirement in 1988 finally in command of BAOR.   He then published a number of works on the History of the Royal Artillery and was appointed as Master Gunner of St.James’ Park.  He went on to Chair the project to house the regimental collection in a new museum on the Arsenal site. He died on May 10th.

Shipwright's Palace

Devotees of ‘The Weasel' on the back page of the Saturday Independent Newspaper will know that he has often shown an interest in Greenwich and its more ‘out of the way’ attractions. On 6th May the Weasel took himself to the Shipwrights Palace in Deptford and had a look round.

‘Probably the last great Thameside House’ .. was described by our furry friend as ‘distinctly unpalatial'. However, William Richards, one of the owners who is attempting to renovate this important and semi derelict building with no funding, seems to have done his best to talk up industrial Deptford to the newspaper.  He mentioned ‘the first double dry-dock in the world’ .. ‘Henry VIII’s great storehouse’ .. and the clocktower ‘ now in Thamesmead Shopping Centre, and we want it back’.

   Crossness Sludge Incinerator

Visit to Crossness Sludge incinerator. The current edition of the Newcomen Society Bulletin includes three pages on the visit to the incinerator - which we have already reported on twice, so no more details.  The article adds however that the sludge ship ‘Thames’ was sold to a West African republic last year and that ‘Hounslow’ and ‘Bexley’ still await disposal.  Is this still true? Are they still there? Would anyone like to report on this important piece of our past - while they are still afloat?

Blackheath Guide -

In their May 2000  edition Peter Kent’s ‘Riverwatch’ article started off by saying that ‘London may no longer be a world port.. but there’s still life on the River’... he mentions.. the Global Mariner, 12,778 cargo vessel with an exhibition condemning flats of convenience, ... the Massey Shaw, off to Dunkirk, the Swiftstone, and the new Dixie Queen owned by Livetts which, says Peter has come from Stockholm and has the same manoeuvrability as the Woolwich Ferry.

In June 2000 was a wonderful double page spread drawing of the river by Peter Kent.  Peter has based it on the ‘String of Pearls’ Millennium Festival which brings (or strings)  together a whole host of events along the river, including some in Greenwich. Most of these are in June so are too late for our events column - but others are covered elsewhere.

Industrial Heritage

In this edition Phil reproduced our article on Robinson’s Flour Mills. Deptford Bridge - and was brave enough to reproduce the picture which went with it, which was more than I was!

Bygone Kent. The latest issue (Vol.21 No.5.) includes Mary Mills’ article on ‘What happened to the Fountain’. Strictly speaking this is neither Greenwich, or industrial history, since it is about the, now missing, drinking fountain in Telegraph Hill park. The article asserts that the fountain, which commemorated George Livesey, was a monument to strike breaking!

GLIAS 

Newsletter. No.188 Some items from this are reproduced elsewhere.  One smaller item concerns ‘The Great Wheel at Earls Court’ - Michael Bussell and Paul Calvocoressi have pointed out that this is described in Vol. CLII of the Survey of London (South Ken. Athlone Press.1986).  The wheel was made in Greenwich by Maudslay, Son and Field. under the direction of Walter B. Basset as part of the exhibition of 1894/5.  It was near what is now West Kensington Station, was 300 feet in diameter, weighed 500 tons, had 8 inclined columns which supported the axle, adding another 600 tons. It was powered by 2 50hp steam engines taking 20 minutes for each revolution,. There were 40 cars with 40 passengers. It was demolished in 1906/7 having carried over 2,500,000 passengers.

New walk

Mary Mills - in association with Peter Kent - hopes to bring out a booklet describing a Walk from Wood Wharf to the Dome.  

Labour Relations in the Royal Dockyards 

A History of Work  and Labour Relations in the Royal Dockyards is being advertised.  It is edited by Kenneth Lunn and Ann Day Anyone who has a copy of this and who would be prepared to write us a review ... - please do so and just send it in! Thanks.

It includes: Roger Knight, (NMM), ‘Strikes and Disruption in the Royal Dockyards 1688-1788’... and articles by Roger Morris (UCL & Univ.Exeter), Philip MacDougall, Neil Casey (Univ. Plymouth), Mavis Waters (Ontario Univ.), Peter Galliver (Ampleforth Coll.), Kenneth Lunn, Ann Day and Alex Law (Univ. Abertay).

Millennium Dome 

The Millennium Dome by Elizabeth Wilhide and Simon Jenkins.

‘As a structure the Dome is amazing. Whatever your views on the political and monetary aspects the engineering and tight time schedule to bring it into being is almost unbelievable. With government indecision on site and budget eating away at the millennium deadline final design ideas for the structure could not be finalised.  Once those decisions were taken it became a race against time to complete the structure. The book covers this race with chapter titles such as 'The birth of the Dome's’ ‘Running the project''Siteworks' and many more. As well as text, some 210 excellent photographs of the work in progress are included.  Every part of the construction is followed photographically - 8,000 piles were driven in 13 weeks, all masts were erected in two weeks. The very special relationship that developed between the various contractors was evidently unique. 

The book is full price still at the bookshop in the Dome - but is remaindered for £4.90 everywhere else!

White Hart Depot

Jack Vaughan writes: I understand from a Council contact that some items from the Red and Cambridge Barracks, formerly in Frances Street, Woolwich, are in fact not lost. They are:

Red Barracks

The gates are still at White Hart Depot (we saw them!)

The missing panel of railings is in fact still in custody, probably at the new Birchmere Depot.

Funding has been applied for for the restoration of the Gate Lodge.

English Heritage is encouraging this as the gate is on the list of endangered species!

Cambridge Barracks

The missing pedestrian gate is currently at the Depot but is damaged and some parts are missing.  A council approved metalwork contractor has confirmed that it can be repaired.  Funding for the work has been applied for.

The Clock on top of the gate - of which the dial and hands remain - has lost its movement and nobody knows where it went.

Royal Artillery Library

In their March Newsletter Woolwich Antiquarians reported on a talk given to them by Mr Paul Shaw on The Royal Artillery Library.

Mr Shaw is the first archivist at the library, which is situated in the Old Royal Military Academy. There are also libraries in the Officers Mess of the Royal Artillery barracks, the Rotunda, various regimental collections, and elsewhere.  None of them is open to the public. 

There have been 'gunners' since the 13th century, but it was not until about 1722 that four companies of the Royal Regiment of Artillery were formed by Royal Warrant. ‘Artillery’ includes guns, engines, machines of war and, latterly, guided missiles. Their motto is 'Ubique'  - ‘Everywhere’.  The official repository of their records is at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst - originally set up in Woolwich on what is now known as the Arsenal site. The collection includes students' notebooks from 1826  to 1856 - the  curriculum included mathematics, water colour drawing,  French, German or Hindustani.

The collecting of material on the history of the Royal Artillery has been rather haphazard. An Historical Committee was set up in 1923 to co-ordinate the various collections but it lapsed, was resumed in 1966 and lapsed again.  The opportunity has now arisen to open an Artillery Museum in the place where the Royal Regiment of Artillery was born and where its guns were designed, developed and produced. It is hoped to house the collection of documents, drawings, photographs, uniforms, medals - and the guns themselves - where the public can see them, together with a proper library with research facilities.

Silvertown explosion

The current issue of ‘GasLight’ (Newsletter of the North West Gas HS) includes a number of cuttings about the 1917 explosion contributed by Bob Darkin of Orpington. Bob also describes his own family’s memories.

‘My father remembered seeing a flow reflected in a kitchen mirror. He would have been four years old at the time and the family lived in Armitage Road. His mother was not at home - being the lone parent supporting a family of 4 children she was out working as a cleaner at the gas works when the explosion occurred. She was in one of the offices when the gasholder went up,. She rushed to the door to escape but was trapped; something had fallen across the other side. Luckily her cries for help were heard by someone who managed to release the door allowing her to get out.

North Woolwich

One of the most important parts of Greenwich’s industrial history was that part of Woolwich across the water.

No one has interpreted North Woolwich better than Howard Bloch and his new book on ‘Germans in London’ paints a vivid picture of industry in that area.  Most of the book concerns the treatment of German nationals - or those thought to be such - at the hands of local English people. And a very shocking record it is too.

Alongside the smashed bakeries, and the ‘jute factory converted to internment camp’ is the story of immigrant workers in an industrial heartland - and this includes many details about the works themselves, glass, sugar, chemicals, shipbuilding and everything else.

This is probably a very important book - and a good read - and Howard should be congratulated on it

Docklands History Group. 

At their April meeting the Docklands History Group heard a talk, by Capt. Christopher St.J.H,.Daniel on Sundials. This might not appear to be a particularly industrial subject but, like everything else, sundials had their uses!

‘From Saxon times Sundials played a fundamentally important role in regulating the daily life of mankind throughout Europe a - ‘The art of dialling’ was an integral part of every scholars’ education.

In May the group heard Captain Chris Burls talk about his work as Hydrographic Officer for the Port of London Authority.  He defined this as ‘the art of converting to paper sufficient information to allow a vessel to navigate safely.  The Thame Estuary is notorious with constantly shifting shoals - someone has to provide charts.

The service once had three sections - Upper, Docks and Lower and a survey could take six weeks so long as the weather was good. A team as made up of two surveyors and nine crew.

Today, inevitably, there are only 5 surveyors and 6 support staff in total. Their vessel is ‘Chartwell’  - which can reach the seaward limit from Gravesend in 30 minutes. Side-Scan Sonar will survey the river bed to near photographic quality.  POLAPLOT and Global Positioning have revolutionised everything and 95 miles of the busiest tidal waterway in the world can be surveyed to digital standards. Today the survey of a Reach which once took six weeks takes one week in any weather.  Satellite scanning will cover the whole river bed producing a model to virtual reality resolution. The biggest ships can be guided up river by showing the keel and the river bed on screen.

Visitors

On the afternoon of Friday 1st September a large party of foreign industrial historians will be arriving in Greenwich - we don’t know how many yet or exactly what time - for the Millennium Conference of The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage. They will be given the choice of going to the Maritime Museum, the Observatory  or going for a guided walk from Cutty Sark to Enderby’s Wharf.  If they all come on the walk we will be in a lot of trouble!  

Heritage Experience

A new ‘heritage experience’ has opened at the Tourist Information Centre at Cutty Sark Gardens. We would be delighted to receive a report on this from any visitor who has been inside

Tom Cribb

November 4, 2019, 2:52 am

≫ Next: Letters July 2000

≪ Previous: Reviews and snippets July 2000

$

0

0

TOM CRIBB

Although the life of the boxer, Tom Cribb, is hardly industrial history we have had so many requests for information about him through the internet - several from Australia and New Zealand - that we are publishing these notes by Sue Bullevant:

The House where he died at 111 Woolwich High Street is still here, now a sandwich shop and his son lived there after him. The Public House which he owned, (and sometimes fought in) in Oxenden Street, near Panton Street Leicester Square, London, was called ‘The Union’. It is now called ‘The Tom Cribb’ and had some of his old fight bills, etc. there. 

Several people locally have heard the story of Queen Victoria’s message to Tom Cribb asking him never to fight again.  There is also a Tom Cribb Road in Woolwich.

His tomb is still in Woolwich churchyard although the railings went in 1940 when scrap iron was 

collected for the war effort. Otherwise the statue is in good order. The words on the urn are:’Sacred to the memory of Thomas Cribb. Born July 8th 1781, Died May 11th 1848. At the base ‘Respect the ashes of the dead’ The words were recut by the Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society in the 1980s as they were becoming indistinct.

Extract from Records of the Woolwich District, p.158: ......... Tom Cribb - it was under Mr. Greenlaw’s tolerant rule that the lion monument was erected to Tom Cribb, the pugilist, who died in 1848.  He was proprietor of a baker’s shop in the High Street, much respected by his neighbours for his peaceful character and has left us his posterity to keep up his good name.

{Mr. Greenlaw was the Vicar of St.Mary’s Church in 1851}

Fistina’s record of Tom Cribb’s ‘war services’ is as follows: Born at Hanham Gloucestershire July 8th 1781. Weight 14 stone, 3 lbs. (champion and presented with a belt).  Died in High Street, Woolwich, May 11th 1848. Monument erected to his memory in Woolwich Churchyard May 1st 1851. George Cribb Tom’s brother, fought and was beaten with unvarying monotony five times.

Beat Maddox near Highgate Jan 7th 1805,       

Beat Tom Blake at Blackheath, February 13th 1805,         

Beat Ikey Pig at Blackheath  May 21 1805      

Beaten by George Nicholls        

Beat Richmond at Hailsham, October 8th 1807    

Beat Jem Belcher £200 a side at Moulsey, April 8th 1807  

Beat Horton October 25th 1808        

Beat Jem Belcher, £200 at Epsom February 1st 1809    

Beat Molyneux (a black man) £200 a side and £100 Copthall Common December 10th 1810        Beat Molyneux £2,600 a side at Leicester  September 28th 1811 (presented with a cup value 80 gns)  Beat Carter (room turn up) Oxenden Street, February 1st 1820.

A lot of more detailed local information about Tom Cribb can be found at http://www.readysnacks.mcmail.com/cribb.htm.  Those who patronise Woolwich cafes might think the web address ‘readysnacks’ has a familiar ring.  Also on site is their recipe for bubble, photographs of customers and a really smashing article, plus pictures, about Woolwich Power Station, the ferry  and the legendary autostacker.  The day will come when we can order their sausage sandwiches electronically.

(not sure if this info on Readysnacks is still available in 2019 - if Chris sees this, can he give us current correct info - plus more about the bubble??)

-------------------------------------

Chris from Readysnacks (as was) sent us additional information on Tom Cribb (in November 2019).  Its appended below, as its too long to go in a comment. 

"Tom Cribb was born the son of Thomas and Hannah Cribb  on July 2nd 1781. He  lived his early life with his brothers George, Abraham and Daniel and his sisters Ann, Ester and Elizabeth, in the township of Hanham, Gloucester, near Bristol. He was Christened on the 8th July in Lawrence hill church.

 He left his home for the city of London when he was only thirteen years old, and for a time worked as a Bell hanger, under the guidance of a relative.  This work did not suit Tom who was a strong outdoor type of lad and before too long he got a job as a porter at the wharves, unloading barges. During this time he suffered two accidents which could well have ended his life, let alone any future ideas of boxing.

On one occasion whilst stepping from one coal barge to another, he fell between the two and was trapped  . On another occasion he was carrying an enormously heavy package of oranges when he slipped and fell with the whole weight of his load crushing his chest.  This caused him to spit
blood for several days afterwards. Luckily Tom had an iron constitution and was soon fit again.

Tom Cribb also served a term in the kings navy which probably helped to further toughen his already hardy constitution. He returned from the navy in 1804

Tom Cribb won his first public fight which was against George Maddox at Wood Green near Highgate on 7th January 1805.   The following month he beat Tom Blake to win a purse of forty guineas, quite a small fortune in those days.  In July of the same year, Cribb suffered one of his rare
defeats at the hands of George Nichols In the following years Cribb had fights with such names as "Ikey Pig" ,  "Jem Belcher" and several others. Full, round by round, commentaries on Cribbs most important fights can be found in a book published at the time , called "BOXIANA", by Pierce Egan, published in 1812.  You may be able to find a copy in a good reference library, or you can buy a
reprinted edition from Nicol Island publishing in Canada. You will find a linI to then further down the page. much of the information in this article has come from the said book.

Tom became British champion in 1809 after the retirement of the previous champion "John Gully"

Also in 1809 on the 12th of December, Tom Cribb married Elizabeth Warr, at St Pancras old church. The couple eventually went on to have seven children.

Cribb will best be remembered for his two fights with the Black American champion Tom Molineux, In 1810 he fought Molineux for 32 rounds and in the end his opponent had to retire from sheer exhaustion.  The following year they met again and this time Cribb was able to dispatch Molineux in
the 19th round, after breaking the Americans jaw.  Before embarking on this second battle with Molineux,  Cribb was taken away to Scotland with a Captain Barclay to improve his stamina and lose some weight.

The Champion arrived at URY on the 7th of July 1811, weighing sixteen stone. The good life in London had made him fat and breathless.  He spent the first two weeks with nothing more energetic than long walks and a little shooting. On the third week his walks were lengthened and sessions of running and exercise were introduced.  Cribb spent about nine weeks in training and by the time of his second match with Molineux at Thistleton gap, he was in the peak of condition and almost three
stone lighter. Molineux later confessed that when he saw the condition of Cribb he completely despaired of winning the fight.

During his time in Scotland, Tom Cribb was occasionally employed in a little sparring at Stonehaven, he also gave lessons in the "Pugilistic arts" . It should also be mentioned that at all times Cribb showed a most charitable, gentle and amiable disposition, he was not one to brag of his achievements.  On one occasion whilst walking in Aberdeen, he was accosted by a women in great distress, Tom was so moved by her sad tale that he gave her all the silver in his pockets. She rrmarked "Ye are surely not an ordinary man".

After the Molineux fights, Tom Cribbs place in Boxing history was assured. During the following years there were more fights and many exhibition matches before the rich and famous.

On July 19th 1821 George IV was crowned King at Westminster Abbey and 18 of the leading boxers of the day, including Cribb were chosen by the King to be ushers and pages

Tom Cribb  had a less famous brother, also a boxer, his name was George Cribb.  He is known to have had about five fights, but lost them all .

Did you know, that bare knuckle boxing was illegal in england, even though it was patronized by the rich and royal ..

In Vincent's records of Woolwich & district, another Woolwich fighter is briefly mentioned.  His name was Joe Burke, a butcher from Woolwich. apparently he lost a fight with  the Champion Jem Belcher in November 1801.

After Cribbs retirement he led a quiet life returning to his old trade  as a coal merchant and then as Landlord of the Kings arms, which was on the corner of King street and Duke street, London.  There is also documentation of Cribb running another pub called the "Union Arms" on Panton street
Piccadilly, I am not sure if he ran both or if one of the records is incorrect, apparently he ran into financial difficulties and had to hand over the pub to his creditors sometime in 1839

Tom Cribb Spent the last years of his retirement living with his son and daughter in law above their Bakers Shop at 111, Woolwich High Street......This building still stands to this day and the upper floors have changed little since Cribb's time. The ground floor is now a Chinese takeaway.

On his death bed, Tom was visited by a fellow pugilist, Tom Spring. It is said that with his dying breath Tom suddenly sat up in bed and punched the air, uttering his last words "The actions still there but the steams all gone".    His death certificate gives cause of death as diseased Pylorus and Marasmus.

Tom Cribb died on the 11th May 1848 and was Laid to rest in St Mary's Churchyard, Woolwich. A large stone lion monument was erected in his honour which can still be seen today, Although it has been relocated to a different spot in the graveyard .."
by Chris Mansfield.

Thanks Chris - and how about the recipe for bubble?

Letters July 2000

November 4, 2019, 3:13 am

≫ Next: Locomotive Woolwich

≪ Previous: Tom Cribb

$

0

0

From Angela (

I have a copy of the following local history book and wondered if you could advise me how I can find out if it is of value, please:

Thankfull Sturdee - Reminiscences of Old Deptford. Reproduced from old prints. H.Richardson. 1895.  Many Thanks.

From John and Jan Drabwell (in sunny Queensland Australia.)

I have discovered my great great grandparents (John STEVENS, his wife Jane, nee. KNOTT) lived in Frances Street in 1881 and 1891.  On one of the censuses John worked at The Royal Arsenal.  One of his older sons (Henry) also workedthere.  I have a picture book, which came to me through my mother's line, of the Arsenal....lovely photos of people working in all areas . They brought the book back when they went for a trip there in 1914.    My problem with joining the Society is that I live in Australia... so I will join when we're in England at the end of October. Thank you for a very interesting newsletter.

From Phil Hudson,  .   

Hi All. A quick note to inform you that we have re-launched the journal INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE, the May issue, Vol.26 No. 1 is now available. Cheers!!!

From Stephen Selby, Crowborough, Sussex

I would like to say how much I have enjoyed reading the GIHS  newsletters.  Although I do not live in the area I do appreciate the enormous industrial heritage of Greenwich and the surrounding area, and the efforts of your Society in recording and passing on your knowledge. The main reason for writing, however, is to ask if you know if there are any records existing of the people who worked at Woolwich Arsenal, and if they are accessible. 

From Julie Tadman

I eventually plugged in "Greenwich Industrial History" on my search engine and got the Goldsmiths pages, which included issue 13.  I printed out all 19 pages, and continue to read about all the wonderful meetings and discussions, lectures etc. which the Society holds. Is there any way I can get hold of reports or copies of any lectures etc. which are of interest?

I picked up a copy of "The Illustrated London News" of September 9 1854 in Canberra, of all places, for $20.  The shop owner  had seven at the same price, which I thought was a bit rich.  This particular issue has an article about the Victoria London Docks, with an artists impression of the works. Interested?  I would have loved to have purchased all of them, just to get an idea of the times.

From Aroha Cribb

Kia ora,   Tom Cribb being a Great Great Grandfather.  As a child I was given the story of him being challenged on his deathbed to a boxing match,  which he did.  He won.   Queen Victoria made him promise that the Cribb family would never fight again in the Boxing Ring.  The story goes that a Monument has been erected in his Honour  with the wording that he "died with a Lions Heart". I am unsure as to the validity of this story, however, am excited at the prospect of further information, as my family of New Zealand have not had confirmation over the years or seen a photo/postcard of such.  Your help and any assistance appreciated.

From Iris Bryce

Re: Robinson’s Flour Mills. I wonder where the Sewing Shop was - no mention in the write up. When my mother left British Ropes, Charlton, in the early 1940s, she went to work at the mills, sewing and repairing the flour sacks. I have a photo taken of her on her last day at work in May 1953, dressed in the wrap-round overall and mop cap.

From Philip Binns

I thought you might be interested in details of the planning application at Wood Wharf.  It shows proposals by Richwood Developments, the current owner, for a potential future use of the site. I have no idea what use Richwood intend to make of the building (perhaps luxury housing over a ground floor and mezzanine of retail) but what is clear is that the present buildings between Wood Wharf and the river would be cleared to make way for a so-called ‘board walk’ as  an extension of the present river path in front of the Meridian Estate leading directly to the Fairview Homes site.

(Since Philip wrote this letter things have moved on very considerably.  He has telephoned to say that, following a public meeting attended by many people from the Meridian Estate as well as other locals, historians and conservationists, that this planning application has been withdrawn.  He promises to keep this newsletter up to date with events).

Locomotive Woolwich

November 4, 2019, 3:15 am

≫ Next: Arsenal Steam Hammers and Research Dept

≪ Previous: Letters July 2000

$

0

0

LOCOMOTIVE ‘WOOLWICH’

In our last issue we reported on efforts to get the Locomotive ‘Woolwich’ returned to its native town.  Jack Vaughan reports further....

‘Readers may recall that we set out in an ambitious attempt to bring the locomotive ‘Woolwich’ home to its rightful place in the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich.  At that time the Bicton Gardens Railway, which consisted in the main of ex-Arsenal components and rails, had been put up for auction.  Of course, several locals were interested ....

The following organisations were contacted, some by letter, some by legwork.  The following catalogue of indifference demonstrates an old story once again

Greenwich Borough Council - Letter to the leader. No acknowledgement or reply.

English Partnerships - Owners of the site.  Refused to have anything to do with the idea.

The Royal Artillery Museum Project, Woolwich Arsenal. No reply.  On the grapevine they said they would approve, but they made no offer of any help.

English Heritage. Replied to our letter but the writer said the letter would be passed on to another official, who would reply. It didn’t happen.

The Heritage Lottery Fund ( a trip to Chelsea). They listened patiently and explained that the fund did not deal with individuals or Societies, and that in this case application for grants would have to come from the site owners, eg. English Partnerships. In any case I perceived that action would be painfully slow (my interpretation). The system was up for auction and could disappear at any moment.

So this was obviously the wrong track.

But, discouraging as it is - all is not gloom. 

The system has been sold to Waltham Abbey Powder Mills.  This was one of the five original Royal Ordnance Factories.  The others were:- Small Arms Factory, Enfield, Royal Laboratories, Royal Gun Factory, Royal Carriage Deptford.  The last three were all within what became the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich in 1805. (ed. note - they all started off in Greenwich, anyway)

At least the Woolwich is a lot nearer to home and perhaps the matter of her future could be resurrected when the dust has settled.

Jack Vaughan

Since this was written - see other postings - Woolwich was taken to Crossness.

---

Arsenal Steam Hammers and Research Dept

November 4, 2019, 3:31 am

≫ Next: Hoskins, Greenwich Boat Builder

≪ Previous: Locomotive Woolwich

$

0

0

ROYAL ARSENAL STEAM HAMMERS

                                                            by Jack Vaughan

Read on...... this is not about the ‘beautiful game’! We have in previous newsletters, said a few words about the giant steam hammer of 40 tons which struck its first blow in the Royal Arsenal in 1874 for the benefit of the Czar of Russia. It was not alone -although it dominated forging activities.

Walford in Vol II, of Greater London refers to ‘East Forge’ as having several hammers varying from 30 cwt to 60 cwt for welding iron bars together to form long bars which were coiled to form parts of heavy gun barrels.

‘West Forge’ held two further hammers of 12 tons and 10 tons.

Recent excavations have revealed parts of the foundations of some of the hammers. These were, of course, extremely massive and deep. The area of discovery is part of the so called ‘Master Plan’ which means that it is planned to put something new there and that that can’t be changed. However, English Heritage recognises the importance of the hammer bases to industrial history and would like them to be preserved in situ. Once again Royal Arsenal heritage is at risk!

ROYAL ARSENAL EX-RESEARCH DEPARTMENT                                                                              

 by Jack Vaughan

The above was located  adjacent to Plumstead Bridge and a large part now houses Belmarsh Prison.   A substantial area still survives but the Prison Service is aiming to acquire it, flatten every one of the remaining buildings and substitute a young offenders prison for 600 inmates.

One of the buildings, known as E1, was the principal feature of the Department and I recall during my own apprenticeship in the 1930s it houses a giant Avery Machine for testing  materials in tension and compression.

E1 has no listing, is not very old, but is described in Greenwich Council’s Planning Guide for Royal Arsenal East, in February 1996 as the ‘only building of interest’ on the site and is Neo-Georgian in style. 

Appeals have been made for its survival to the Council, to the Member of Parliament for the area and directly to the Prison Service as applicant.

Guess what? Refusal all round!

So another part of the honourable history of the Borough of Woolwich will vanish - disappearing without trace.

These articles appeared in the September 2000 GIHS Newsletter

Hoskins, Greenwich Boat Builder

November 4, 2019, 3:35 am

≫ Next: Reviews and Snippets September 2000

≪ Previous: Arsenal Steam Hammers and Research Dept

$

0

0

SEARCHING FOR HOSKINS, GREENWICH BOAT BUILDER

- Karen Day discovered that her family were Greenwich boat builders - here she describes her search for them ....

First, I tried the Kent County Archive at Maidstone. They said that, as they hold the wills of Greenwich inhabitants within the time

I was interested in (1700s- 1800s), if I could find the death of Workman Hoskins then they could search for a will for me. This might reveal some important details about his business.  Unfortunately this was easier said than done! After painstaking searches through burial registers and indexes, Workman appears to have slipped away.

However, I did find out that he had attempted to do a waterman’s apprenticeship first, in his late teens, and had lied about his age by seven years.  Needless to say he didn’t finish his apprenticeship - perhaps because his master found out. This information came from the indexed watermans' records by Rob Cottrell. Workman next appears on record in 1799, baptising three sons at St. Alphege - and stating his occupation as a boat builder.

I have since found out through baptism and marriage registers at the same church, that Workman’s elder brother, Samuel Hoskins (born 1746) was a qualified shipwright. Samuel had done his apprenticeship with a man called Tarry, at Greenwich from 1760- to 1786 - an extremely long apprenticeship. He paid quarterage fees from 1789 until 1798 and during this time he apprenticed his own two sons, Samuel David and Workman (a popular Christian name in my family).

The shipwrights’ apprenticeship information was given to me over the phone by a librarian at the Docklands Museum. It was taken from a book called ‘Records of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights and their Apprentices’ by C.H.Ridge and A.C.Knight in two volumes. These books are obviously out of print now but the Guildhall Library also holds copies of them - and also the actual shipwrights’ records.  The Docklands Librarian was extremely knowledgeable and interested in early boat building. He thought that my family would have worked from the foreshore and possibly made waterman's skiffs and barges - however he did reprimand me for not taking more information from the rate books that I had looked at!

From the burial registers at St.Alphege I was surprised to see that Samuel had died in the workhouse in 1813. Although I went through the Poor House Minutes I couldn't find out why he had been admitted. I can only presume that he had a long term disability or was in debt.

Also from the burial registers I noted that all the descendants of Samuel, Samuel David and Workman died at Wood Wharf, while all the descendants from ‘my’ Workman died at Ballast Quay and Marlborough Street, ‘My’ Workman's youngest son, George James Hoskins appears to have run the business from Ballast Quay from the 1820s until 1852.

I looked through the rate books for Ballast Quay to try and pin point the dates when either George or his father started there. I could not believe how elusive they were!  George only appeared once in the rate books - in 1825 when he paid ‘£10.00 a quarter for house and shop’. A librarian at Greenwich Local History Library thought that George probably had an ‘arrangement; with someone - which is a disadvantage for me - and of course I didn’t take a note of who he paid the money to on that rare occasion. However, in the Census returns, George is down as a boat builder at Ballast Quay until 1851 and is also in Pigot's Directories until 1852 at Union Wharf.

Another little interesting thing I noticed was that whilst looking through the marriage resisters, I saw a John Hoskins (Waterman) who married an Ann Corbett in 1765. I noted that the Corbetts were also boat builders, so I wondered whether boat builders and watermen did indeed have many advantageous ‘arrangements’.

I am descended from Workman's eldest son, Thomas, who was a waterman in Marlborough street. The last person to work on the river in my family was my grandfather, who was a lighterman at Erith.

Karen Day

This article appeared in the September 2000 Newsletter

                .......  and then of course there's Hoskins Street.

Reviews and Snippets September 2000

November 4, 2019, 3:51 am

≫ Next: Letters September 2000

≪ Previous: Hoskins, Greenwich Boat Builder

$

0

0

 Reviews and Snippets September 2000

ACTUAL WORK

For those who want to do an action re-creation of actual traditional work - Woodlands Farm can give you a farming experience any Sunday morning! Or any day, really. Heavy horses -  hay making - mending fences - pulling ragwort - all the fun of real work with none of the wages!  

-----------------------

A bit of Greenwich’s Industrial past has now been recognised by the trendy incomers - Enderby's Restaurant has now opened on Blackheath in one of the houses reputed to be an old Enderby home.

------------------------- 

The Big Dip

Peter Gurnett was clever enough to get hold of a number of copies of ‘The Big Dip - Archaeology and the Jubilee Line Extension’ - produced by the Museum of London Archaeology Service and the Jubilee Line Extension Project.   This glossy booklet - the sort of thing that locals rarely see - gives pictures and details of archaeological finds all the way down the new line.  However, it never really seems to get to Greenwich - does this mean to say they didn’t find anything at all down on the Dome site (that’s not what I heard!).  

-------------------------

GLIAS JOURNAL

A new GLIAS Journal is now available.  This contains two articles of great interest to Greenwich readers -  

First, a definitive article on Greenwich, London Underground, power station written by English Heritage’s (and local resident) Peter Guillery.  This covers the history, architecture and technical background to the power station. This building is often derided as a blot on the Greenwich riverside but the article reveals it as an important piece of architecture in its own right.

The Journal also contains a set of stunning photographs by Bob Carr taken at the closure of the great ship repair works of R.H.Green and Silley Weir Ltd. in the 1980s. This works was in North Woolwich - originally in the Borough of Woolwich.  They reveal the size and scale of industry which was undertaken locally until very recently   - this is very, very heavy industry!

There are also articles on milling machinery at Three Mills - only a short journey on the 108 bus from the Greenwich borders, and on Hopewell Yard in Camberwell, B.Young’s Gelatin Works in Bermondsey, and the first railway station at Kings Cross.

------------------------------

LEWISHAM LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

The newsletter includes an article about Chiltonian Biscuits  in Hither Green (is it true that they - heroically - invented the Chocolate Digestive?).

------------------------ 

BLACKHEATH GUIDE

The September issue .. Peter Kent outlines and illustrates maritime visitors to Greenwich. - HMS Invincible - Anastasis  - Burgundy - Balmoral - Royal Clipper - and so on . 

It also carries the news that a blue plaque is to be unveiled at 47 Bennett Park, Blackheath - as a tribute to the use of the Blackheath Art Club at the GPO Film Unit between 1933-43.  This is the place where all those wonderful Humphrey Jennings films  - Nightmail  and so on - were made

The August issue  ...... Contains an article by Peter Kent on the Royal Docks ‘Wise Men from the East’ plus his usual wonderful drawings of the docks. today and in 1906. ..... and  .... 

.............An article by Neil Rhind discusses the life of John Gilbert who lived in Westcombe Park Road, Gilbert was the principal artist for Illustrated London News - drawing an estimated 30,000 ‘cuts’; for them. Every historian of the Victorian period will know that the ILN provides a vital source document of accurate pictures of industry of the period.

The July issue .. Peter Kent writes on the ‘Maritime Connection’ - includes news of the riverside walk, Peter the Great's statue, Sun tugs, Suzanne Hatchling’s rowing prowess, the Millennium Coat and Badge Race... etc. etc. etc. 

---------------------------- 

CROSSNESS RECORD

Another sparking edition arrived in July from the team at Crossness Engines Trust.

In this month: report on a visit to the Wick Lane Sewers  - the work of the Trust in education (school visits, student projects, etc etc) - News of work underway (position of the boiler, work on ‘Prince Consort’, Museums registration, security, etc.) - opening of the riverside path on 21st June by the Mayor of Bexley - repairs to engines in 1897 - and a report of the return of ‘Isaac newt-on’.

---------------------------

The Changing Face of the Greenwich Riverside - A Journey into the past....

In Issue 25 of ‘Archive’ Pat O’Driscoll has given a vivid description of  revisiting the Greenwich riverside after many years. Her article is illustrated with her riveting pictures of the 1950s - first of all SB Pretoria airing her sails outside the Cutty Sark pub - as dramatic a picture as I have ever seen!  Pat compares the riverside she knew at a time when she was mate on Olive May with what she saw sometime towards the end of last year - and the riverside has changed dramatically since she did her journey.

At ‘Mudlarks Way’ she ‘winced - it was wider than it used to be and surfaced with red bricks’ - Pat would wince even more now because Mudlarks Way is gone, there is a wide walk way and soon the river will be out of sight behind a belt of trees!

Pat has captured a moment in time - and compared it to the past. That moment is also past now but without this record, what would we have of it?

Thanks, Pat, for your memories of the past - and the wonderful pictures. 

PS - yes, they did spare the Pilot, but only just.

------------------------------------ 

BYGONE KENT

The August 2000 issue of Bygone Kent  contains yet another article by Mary Mills. Entitled ‘Two Vanished Greenwich Pubs’  it mainly describes the Sea Witch pub which stood on the Greenwich riverside on the site which is now the Amylum Company’s laboratories - and explores the industrial background to the pub and its name.

--------------------------

REINIKENDORF, BERLIN

 - by Alan Mills           

             

I recently visited the Berlin Borough of Reinickendorf with the Town Twinning Association - it has been a twin town of Greenwich for some 35 years.  Reinickendorf shares some similarities with Greenwich - leafy suburbs, water facilities and industry - past and present.

Present industry includes a large Siemens factory (does this have links with Greenwich?) and Tegel airport. 

Past industry includes the Borzig locomotive factory - now a shopping complex contained within the shell and proudly featuring much of the structural ironwork of the former engineering works. The water (mentioned above) is the Tegel See - a huge lake linked to Berlin’s extensive canal network.  The canal is used for goods transport as well as by pleasure craft. I saw two strings of canal barges loaded with coal from Poland being pushed along it.

It occured to me that it was worth exploring some contact between industrial history enthusiasts in the two boroughs and I have  begun to investigate  the possible existence of an organisation like GIHS in Berlin.  

----------------------------

  

SHTANDART

In early August Greenwich was visited by a replica of the first ship designed and captained by the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great in 1703 - based on what he had learned at Deptford Dockyard in 1698.  Shtandart was built in St.Petersburg by volunteers who used the original shipbuilding techniques. She was named by Prince Andrew and Vladimir Yakovlev (Governor of St.Petersburg) and launched in September 1999.

SS Shtandart has a 220 tons displacement, 3.05 metres maximum draft. 34.5 metres from bowsprit to stern, and 7.5 metres maximum beam.  She has 16 sails  of 820 sq metres and a maximum mast height of 34 metres. She has a crew of 20 (half trainees) -  and - oh - two 600 hp Volvo engines (did Peter the Great learn about them at Deptford?)

A second ship - Royal Transport - is now under construction. she will be a replica of the ship built in Britain in 1695 for King William III and presented by him to Tsar Peter in 1698.

------------------------

ENGLISH HERITAGE

ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW UPDATE

The review notes digs in Greenwich:

Royal Naval College site - discovery of 16th/17th century wall and foundations.  18th century culvert, and dump layers

Dreadnought Hospital site - 16th structures, perhaps the King’s Barn. Traces of other buildings, dumps, walls, foundations of Helpless Ward and others, culverts and cast iron settling tanks.

Woolwich Arsenal - report of dig by MOLAS - found 4 battleship guns - they were not complete and thus unique.

------------------------ 

ARSENAL HERITAGE

We had hoped to bring news of the heritage centre being built for Greenwich Council on the Arsenal Site. Hopefully this will be available for our next issue.

The new Heritage Centreis planned to open in the autumn of 2001 in part of New Laboratory Square. The buildings which date back to 1806 were used for cartridge and bullet making up to the First World War.

It will tell the stories of Greenwich and of the Arsenal from earliest times to the present day. In bringing together the Council’s Museum and Local History Library it is planned to create a resource available to all.  By using a wealth of artefacts, archives and documentary sources it is aimed to offer visitors an engaging, ejoyable and instructive experience.

The Arsenal stored or made ordnance from 1671 to 1967 and the fortunes of Woolwich have ebbed and flowed withthose of the Arsenal.  An exhibition will tell a small  part of that long story covering the years 1914 to 1918. This was the period when the Arsenal was at the very peak of its greatness.

--------------------------

ANOTHER GREENWICH BUILT SHIP?  

In September 1998 a cargo ship, Kaptan Sukru was burnt out in Pazar (Anatolia). Was she the Sahilbent, built at East Greenwich in 1872 by Maudslay Son and Field - and supplied to Turkey as a ferry boat?  More on this later - once it becomes possible to get through to the Turkish maritime history web site!

-----------------------------

 GREENWICH RIVERSIDE WALK INTERPRETATION PANELS

You can’t actually read them  .... but .... thanks to Groundwork and Alcatel there are now steel information panels on Enderby’s Wharf  giving information about the history of industry on Greenwich peninsula and cable making at the Alcatel/Telcom site. 

Hope that Alcatel opens the jetty up soon so that the hundreds of passing tourists can read it!

------------------------------

Listing old industrial sites in Greenwich and Deptford

We have been approached by David Eve, Greater London Sites and Monuments Record Manager to help him strengthen the list of industrial sites on his list - which is used to alert Planning Authorities to possible archaeological and other remains on site.  A letter from David explaining this can be found on page 6.  We intend to hold a special meeting with David on 12th October to set about this process. 

These articles appeared in the September 2000 GIHS newsletter

Letters September 2000

November 4, 2019, 4:16 am

≫ Next: Mumford's Mill

≪ Previous: Reviews and Snippets September 2000

$

0

0

Letters September 2000

From Dept. Culture, Media and Sport

Lovells Wharf Cranes

Two Cranes on Lovell’s Wharf.  As you know a request was made for these two cranes to be listed. English Heritage has advised that the cranes would be more suitable for consideration for scheduling under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. Monuments to be scheduled are being considered in the context of the Monuments Protection Programme - but the MPP has not yet reviewed commercial dockyards and transportation systems.

In the absence of a national overview it is difficult to argue that these modern structures in isolation can be considered to be of national importance and thus merit scheduling.  I am sorry to send you a disappointing reply  but hope you will be assured that the case for scheduling will be considered in due course.

From David Eve, English Heritage

Sites and Monuments Record in Greenwich

I seem to remember talk of a GIHS database. Did you make any progress on that? I would be very keen to have sight of any records you might have as we really need to add on a full set of basic records to the central Sites and Monuments Record. At the moment we have just 169 Industrial Archaeology records for Greenwich and I’m pretty sure most of them are Listed Naval (rather than commercial) buildings and stuff from the Thames Foreshore Survey. The latter mostly consists of bits of timber that may have been bits of a boat or a slipway.

I have made copies of the 1916 OS 23” map series. The mapped area covers Deptford Creek and the waterfront towards Surrey Docks as well as Greenwich/Woolwich proper and much of the hinterland areas of Plumstead, Eltham, etc. It would be an immense help if sites could be noted on the maps. We are only really looking, at this stage. for an index - what was there, when and where it was - and what you and your colleagues will know about but we are also interested in industries that were founded on the same site later as well as those which preceded 1916.

From Ian McKay

Siemens Factory in Dalston

I have read with interest "Setting Up Siemens' Industrial Museum in Woolwich"  by Iain Lovell  in your newsletter.  I am researching the Siemens Factory at Tyssen Street, Dalston, E8 for a book due for publication in 2001. If in any way anyone knows of any connection with the business carried out at the Siemens factory in Woolwich and the factory in Dalston I would be exceedingly grateful if you could let me know. Although your work in GIHS has done much to publicise the Siemens role in Greenwich's industrial history, sadly there is (or seems to be) very little information available regarding the Dalston operation.

From Judith Parr

Lovibonds

I am researching my family history and believe that my grandfather may have worked for Lovibonds. Any information and help you can give me would be great.  I know that they were taken over by Courage in 1969 and that Greenwich Local History society holds files of the company.  I am unsure where in Greenwich they had their brewery? My grandfather drove Drays.

From Niclas Dahlvang

Perkins Steam Gun

Hi, I am studying history at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, USA.  I was wondering if you could help me find a picture of the Perkins Steam Gun .  My history professor wanted to have more information about it than just the name, so we did appreciate finding your page--it was the most useful of any search results I found.

From Bill Firth

Great Globe at Swanage

Is there proof positive that the Great Globe was made in Greenwich for shipment  to Swanage? The reason I ask is that I have just come across a probably not  very reliable mention of it being made in Swanage for erection in London  and then never shipped there! The thought does occur to me that shipping stone to  Greenwich, making the globe and shipping it back to Swanage involves double  movement of stone. However ships returning to Swanage would need ballast and  the globe would provide it. It's all very intriguing

From Julie Tadman

Bracegirdle - Greenwich fisherman

I have been having some success with my researches into my great grandfather, Captain Frederick Bracegirdle. I recently found him as chief officer on board the "Star of England", which arrived in Moreton Bay on the 11th June 1866 with four hundred and fifty immigrants and fifty crew.  The "Star of England" left London on March 8th 1866, which begs me to ask the question - which wharf and area would they have departed from?

It is interesting to realise how the fishing industry changed from the early 1800's to the 1850's and 1860's with the introduction of the railways and fast transport from the coast.  I do not know enough about it at that time to say with certainty that it vanished from the area, but I suspect that I am correct in assuming that any fishermen of the area who did not move to the coast would have found his trade slowly dying.

The effect on the fishing industry in the 1850's and 1860's, as I see it was a huge increase in fresh fish consumption (with chips!) and no doubt a cheaper product as well.  There must have been  changes in the type of fish product, with less salted fish being consumed, perhaps one should not assume this as fact although I would be interested to know if this was so.  And if prices did change for particular fish products.

From Linda Dobinson

Blackwall Tunnel

My friend and I live on the Isle of Dogs and use the Tunnel a lot and this has set us to asking questions about it.  How was it kept clean if it was used by horse and cart - it must have smelt terrible? And how was it built. Nowadays we have lots of sophisticated equipment and in those days they only had horse power - or was there some sort of steam equipment?

 From Frank Lockhart

Roof of the Dome of Discovery

We are fairly certain that some of the roof sections of the Dome of Discovery from the South Bank Exhibition went to Kidbrooke School.  The original dome was 365 feet in diameter but the school hall is somewhat smaller.  As you rightly say, the school was new in 1952.  Both before and after the Festival there was outrage that raw building materials and skilled labour were, what was seen as wasted on the Festival.  In an effort to reduce the possible political backlash, as much of these materials were re-used on public buildings.  The main difference today is the covering.  Originally it was skinned with aluminium sheeting.  This, as a valuable commodity was all re-used in other projects. 

An associate of mine, also very keen on local history, went to Kidbrooke School from new and still lives in the area.  

From Anita Higginson

Francis Street, Woolwich.

During the 1950's  the houses, which I think were mainly local authority accommodation, were pulled down, and the residents re-housed.  I would be interested to hear from any body who lived there before the demolition, and would like to know where these people were re-housed.  Thanks.

From Carrie Hawkins

British Empire Medal at the Arsenal

Can you tell me where I could find information on a person who received a British Empire Medal for Arsenal workers?  My great-grandfather, William Henry Pym, who lived at 22A Fairthorn Avenue, Charlton, England, received one at age 71. 

From Michael Stretton

Jabez West

Jabez West is my Great, Great, Great-Grandfather. He was a champion in the Temperance Movement and a granite drinking fountain was erected in his honour in Southwark Park, London. He was involved in the Temperance Movement in Station Road, Bermondsey from 1875. As far as I know his father was William West from Princes Risborough, in the county of Buckinghamshire. He was a blacksmith and a strong politician who lived on Duke Street. 

From Frances Poole

Arsenal Tailor

I came across your newsletter on the web and am wondering whether anyone can help me. My great-grandfather was Frederick Gedlich, who I understand was a military tailor at Woolwich Arsenal.  I do not know when Frederick came from Germany, or why.

From A. Ward

Cubow

Cubow shipbuilders: Can you help us? We are trying to trace photographs of ships. We carried out the Electrical design and installation at Cubow Shipbuilders. The ships we are interested were built between 1972 to 1982. I believe in 1972 the Yard was called Fairmile Marine but I may be wrong. I do not know the Ships names but I do have a list of Yard numbers. Will you be able to help or point me in the right direction ?

From  Stephen Hinds

Woolwich Cables

Hi.  My grandfather or possibly his father was apparently a cablemaker in Woolwich in the latter part of the 1800's. Is there any way that I can find out what businesses there were and how to get hold of their archives such as a list of employees?

From Richard Haughey

Thames Ironworks road vehicles

Hi there. Just came across your very interesting web site and was just wondering if you have any information on Thames Ironworks? I started doing some research on this company a few years ago but for various reasons did not carry on with it. I have a number of photographs of the vehicle which were made by the Thames Ironworks and can point you in the direction of the negs

From Laurie Carpenter

Stones of Deptford

I ran across the Greenwich Industrial History Society web page while doing a  search for Deptford,Kent. In your online journal, Volume 1, Issue 2, June 1998, was the following  reference:

12th January 1999 STONES OF DEPTFORD by Peter Gurnett. I am unsure of the meaning of "Stones" in this title.  I wondered if you  would  know. "Stones" meaning rock or "Stones" meaning family surname?  I'm asking this because this is the family line I am researching, and I have  only recently learned of the family Stone being in Deptford in early 1600s. 

From Norman Bishop

Barbara Ludlow, the researcher and lecturer, had a very interesting article "Fishermen of Greenwich" published in the June 1993 issue of the Woolwich & District FHS magazine; this has much more detail about the fishing community of Greenwich.    We were both at scho ol together before the war, at Invicta Road junior school, Blackheath (near the Standard); unfortunately it was completely destroyed by a parachute mine.

One of my seafaring Bishops, Robert Reuben Bishop, was an apprentice seaman aboard the SAMUEL ENDERBY sometime during 1846 - 1850.  

 /

Mumford's Mill

November 4, 2019, 12:01 pm

≫ Next: Easington Collieey

≪ Previous: Letters September 2000

$

0

0

MUMFORD’S MILL

A couple of months ago GIHS welcomed Jonathan Clarke of English Heritage who spoke about Mumford’s Mill in Greenwich High Road. At the time we promised to publish extracts from his Survey Report on the mill.  We now understand that Lewisham Local History Society intend to publish the whole report - nevertheless we reproduce here the summary to the report and some highlights:

‘Throughout Europe and beyond, the late 19th century witnessed a revolution in flour milling, involving a radical transformation in the technology, work organisation and location of one of the oldest of industries. This changeover from traditional stone milling to roller milling was accompanied by an increasingly ambitious approach to architecture that matched the escalating sophistication and ingenuity of the machinery within; technology and architecture were parallel mediums to be exploited in an ever fiercer commercial environment.  By 1897 Mumford’s Mill boasted a visually arresting and technologically sophisticated grain silo designed by Aston Webb, one of the most renowned and accomplished architects of the era and fitted by Henry Simon, the leading roller milling engineer in the country.

The site of Mumford’s Mill on the south bank of Deptford Creek - the tidal stretch of the River Ravensbourne - represents over two centuries of complex accretive development.  Allegedly built in 1790 as a tidal-powered, timber built flour mill, the earliest surviving components are of brick, comprising an early 19th century site office and two early 19th century three storey stone grinding flour mills, here called the East Mill and the West Mill.   Documented build dates of 1802, 1817, and 1821 may relate to these three blocks. The East Mill which was originally of 11 or 12 bays length, was subsequently raised a future storey and a southern end bay partially rebuilt as a tower possibly housing a steam engine.  The West Mill was also raised a further storey bringing the yard elevations in line with one another. The last of these alterations, which probably relate to the partial changeover to roller milling may tie in with Webb’s first recorded involvement with the mill

The most dramatic change to the complex came in 1897 when a huge grain silo was built to the elaborately Italianate designs of Aston Webb.  Facing the creek and probably relating an earlier granary this edifice exploited advanced techniques of internal metal framing, comprising a grid of rolled steel beams supported at their intersections by cast-iron columns to produce robust ‘fire-proof’ structure. Although little direct evidence of the mechanical plant survives, this was equally progressive: manufactured and fitted by Henry Simon Ltd., whose firm was responsible for the greatest number of roller installations nation-wide.  The construction of the silo was probably accompanied by the insertion of steel-framed doors in the East Mill for the support of heavier roller-milling machinery, and the creation of a larger wheat-cleaning wing, also internally supported by steel members. Twentieth century changes include the raising of the wheat cleaning wing, the adoption of electric power and the construction of ancillary building, including a mess room, smithy and garage.

Mumford’s Mill is of considerable interest for a number of reasons. In the context of industrial history, it provides a palimpsest of structures that document the impact that the late 19th century revolution in roller milling had in traditional practices,. Late 19th century flour mills are an obsolete, properly understood and fast disappearing class of building. From an architectural historical perspective the interest resides not only in relations to the formative development of Sir Aston Webb but as an example of  how the field of industrial building design could attract leading architects more typically associated with ‘polite’ buildings.  Allied to this, from a construction history view point, Mumford’s Mill is illustrative of an emerging narrative which places the take-up of increasingly sophisticated techniques of internal steel framing in the late 19th century anticipating the full steel framing of the early 1900s.

This article appeared in the September 2000 GIHS Newsletter

Easington Collieey

November 4, 2019, 12:05 pm

≫ Next: Memories of a ROF Apprentice

≪ Previous: Mumford's Mill

$

0

0

EASINGTON COLLIERY

In the 1980s Greenwich Council ‘twinned’ with Easington - then an area known for its coal mines. Much of the coal mined in County Durham had come to London and for years collier ships lay stacked on stands off the Greenwich riverside.  In a world now largely forgotten Greenwich and Easington were twin towns long before such municipal celebrations were thought of. Now no coal is mined anywhere in County Durham - but, inevitably, a heritage centre is now under way.   The following is an extract from material published in the Sunderland Echo on Wednesday 16th August, 2000.

A poignant reminder of an East Durham village's industrial heritage has been unveiled.  It once used to plunge hundreds of miners into the dark depths of Easington Colliery, the pit cage is now perched on the crest of a hill overlooking the former pit site and coal-blackened beaches.  The 30ft-high structure was restored after being rescued from the scrapheap and has been reinstated as a piece of art above the surface of its original location. But the 12-tonne pit cage is only part of a major transformation of the old colliery site.  Turning The Tide, an ambitious £10m  project to restore the Durham  coastline after decades of colliery waste tipping, has landscaped the old pit site -  and the area will be a public park.

Only seven years ago, Easington Colliery employed 1,100 man and the area is still struggling to recover from the huge job losses.  The colliery was the scene of one of the worst mining tragedies the area had seen when dozens of workers perished in 1951.  But despite its chequered past, community chiefs are keen to remind the close-knit community of its rich mining heritage and the cage plays a large part in this. Easington District councillor, Dennis Raine said: "This is only the first phase - we are hoping to gather pieces of mining equipment to create a kind of outdoor museum. "Eventually, we hope to lay a length of rope which will measure the depth of the shaft so people can walk along it and see just how far down we had to travel to go to work.

“We now have bairns starting school that have no memory of the colliery.  We want to preserve this piece of heritage for generations to come."  Coun Raine was one of dozens of people who gathered at the site to see the unveiling of the cage yesterday and said the occasion was particularly moving because he worked in the pit from the age of 14. "I used to use the very same cage when I worked in the pit," he said. "It was a bit of a shock to see it - although I had used it for years and realised it was made up of three decks - I hadn't seen it out of the shaft. "It was found in a council yard at Horden and was in a very sorry state so it was very good to see it in mint condition again."  A cage which once carried pit men down to the dark dank seams of a coastal colliery has become the focal point of a project for the future. The cage at Easington Colliery carried thousands of miners to their grim place of work each day for years. But after the pit closed it stood neglected until it was decided it should be a monument to the mine. And so the large lift was packed off to Sheffield where the 12-tonne  transporter was shot-blasted and painted ready for its return to the transformed pit site.  Under its new guise as a 30 ft work of art, the cage has not only been given a pride of place on the hillside, but is also to be a receptacle for historical items. Every one of the pit community's 1,800 houses has been provided with a small plastic container, and residents are invited to donate an item which will help preserve the village's history. Photographs will be transferred on to CDs and all the pieces of memorabilia will be enclosed in vacuum-sealed time capsules and placed in the cage. A spokesman for the project said: "It will mean that future generations will be able to see what went on in Easington at the turn of the century. The newly-restored cage was dedicated by the Rector of Easington, the Reverend Neville Vine.  Pupils from Easington Colliery Primary School led a procession up to the new landmark. The site of the colliery is undergoing a transformation into a public park as part of the Turning the Tide Project. The £3m clean-up scheme has been funded by One NorthEast, the Millenium Commission, British Coal and the EU.

This article appeared in the September 2000 GIHS Newsletter

Memories of a ROF Apprentice

November 4, 2019, 12:13 pm

≫ Next: White Hart Depot and Frank Sumner

≪ Previous: Easington Collieey

$

0

0

MEMORIES OF A ROF APPRENTICE

                            - MORE FROM JOHN DAY

Six months were spent in the Mechanical Engineering Department drawing office. Then I went out on my own doing installation drawings of machine tools. One installation was a large vertical slotting machine to go in the Light Gun shop, where there were already three such machines.  It seemed a good idea that the new machine should be in line with the existing three - so I did the drawing accordingly. Several weeks later I was surprised to see the new slotter was two or three feet in-front  of the older ones - not where I had wanted it  put.  The ganger told me that when they had put it where I suggested the counterweight at the back had clumped a piece of shafting so they had moved it forward. He said that he had seen my name on the drawing and, as my father was the manager of the department and the gang had had double time for moving it, it seemed silly to mention it.

 An interesting bit of plant layout that came my way was the installation of an autofrettage plant. This is a process which increases the strength of a gun barrel by subjecting it, internally, to a  hydraulic pressure which exceeds the elastic limit of the metal. It consisted two bed plates, one with the pressure generator and the other just a support and stopper for the other end. As there were two lengths of barrel to be processed, I did a drawing showing two sets of studs cemented into the floor so that the other bed plate could be picked up by the crane and set down over the appropriate studs. The chief draughtsman looked at my drawing and said “ Fine, sooner or later somebody will trip over the spare studs, put in a suggestion, get £5 and they will be sawn off”.

I was also involved in a session in the North Mill un-mothballing the gun lathes. This was a mucky job since they were coated in a thick oily varnish that had to scraped off - not one of  the modern soluble coatings and it had had twenty years to harden out. At least we were beginning to get ready for WW II in 1938!

The Tinman’s Shop made a change. I was  setting presses for stamping out ammunition containers.  The top and bottom tools had to be very accurately set, both for position and material thickness, as when the presses ran there was quite a large force involved. The presses worked with a one revolution clutch with a latch coupling  the big flywheel to the crankshaft - and controlled with a pedal.  When this was depressed the clutch engaged but  releasing this  pedal, even momentarily, meant that the flywheel did at least two revolutions for one of the crank. Unfortunately some operatives thought they were faster feeders than they actually were. This resulted in a jam - up as the second piece of metal arrived before the first had cleared. Clearing this came to me , and there was a way to rectify the tools by gently peening (hammering) the edges and then using an oil stone to restore the proper clearance.

The Tinman’s Shop was also responsible for making tin ammunition boxes such as were used to keep detonators and fuses dry in humid atmospheres. These were often nearly two feet long and it was an education to watch a seam,  the length of the tin, neatly made with one stroke of a soldering iron. The irons used were heavy copper with a blunt end; thin irons like the ones tending to be used for D.I.Y  were known as “winkle pickers “.  During my stay I made that “Brooklands” silencer from sheet steel and had it dipped in tin on the night shift for a packet of cigarettes. The neighbours of Locke King, who built the Brooklands  motor racing circuit on his land, complained about the noise, so the circuit officials designed a special silencer that was obligatory for use at the track. Needless to say a Brooklands silencer was the thing to be seen

This article apperd in the September 2000 GIHS Newsletter

---

White Hart Depot and Frank Sumner

November 4, 2019, 12:22 pm

≫ Next: North Woolwich Pleasure Gardens

≪ Previous: Memories of a ROF Apprentice

$

0

0

WHITE HART ROAD DEPOT

 FRANK SUMNER, WOOLWICH BOROUGH ENGINEER AND SURVEYOR

by Dave Ramsey

White Hart Road depot - which has featured in this newsletter on several occasions recently - was built and designed by Frank Sumner, MICE. The following gives some details of his career:

Frank Sumner, MICE, lived at ‘The Gables’, Brent Road,  Plumstead. 1904-1907

Born 17th May 1865. Son of John Sumner of Coleshill nr. Birmingham (a chemist)

Education: Received a scientific training at Atherstone, and privately between 1879-1881. Pupilage under Mr. Sidney G.Gamble, Assoc. M.Inst.C.E. and under Mr. J.A.Gotch, Architect, 1881-1887. Trained as assistant to Mr.Gamble, Mr. Gotch and Mr. O.Claude Robson, 1887-1892 at Grantham.

Professional. Assoc. Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 9th August 1892,  Member ICE 2nd March 1904.

Career: At Grantham - resident engineer on extension to sewage works, and laid out new roads, sewers, and water mains  on the Harrowby Estate.  At Kettering - Assistant Surveyor to the Local Board - extensions to sewage farm. laid out several miles of new roads, reconstructed several miles of new sewers, and assisted with plans for an isolation hospital.  Willisden - Assistant Engineer to Mr.O.Claude Robson, MICE - constructed several miles of sewers, extended the sewage farm, constructed filter beds, assisted with plans for a steel girder bridge.  Bermondsey Vestry - Chief  Engineer and Surveyor - work on sewers and paving, alterations to the Council Chamber, controlled 200 Men.

Career in Woolwich and Plumstead

Appointed Borough Engineer and Surveyor at Plumstead Vestry (later amalgamated with Woolwich) 10th May 1899. Left in 1905.  At Woolwich he constructed 20 miles of sewers, 8 miles of streets. Prepared plans for and supervised the erection of the combined electric light station and refuse destructor at Plumstead, White Hart Road, - this cost £6,000 with a well, and hydraulic machinery for making clinker bricks and flags. He prepared plans for a new library at Plumstead and plans for public baths and wash houses at Plumstead. Late he also drew up the plans for a coroner’s court and a mortuary. He planned the widening of Well Hall Road between Eltham and Shooters Hill to 60 feet and paving for the tramway at a cost of £27,000.  He designed street improvements to £30,000. Certified annually general works to the cost of £80,000. Controlled 600 men and passed plans for 1,500 buildings per year.

Later Career. City Engineer to the City of London 1905-1914. Inaugurated central lighting in the City, and was responsible for the Fleet Street widening scheme.

Died 22nd December 1914

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COMBINED DUST DESTRUCTOR/ELECTRIC LIGHT GENERATING PLANT, WHITE HART ROAD, PLUMSTEAD MARSHES.

Background

The Woolwich and Plumstead areas had a history of radical thinking, self help and questioning officialdom. The Woolwich Building Society was founded in 1847, the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society (RACS) was founded in 1868 and the Woolwich Polytechnic in 1890. It was against this background  that a period of imaginative municipal construction and acquisition took place in the early 1900s.

Attempts by Queen’s College Oxford in 1871 to enclose Plumstead Common, extinguish free access and grazing rights, led to the establishment of the ‘Commons Protection League’. In 1876 fences on the Common were torn down in what was described as the ‘Plumstead Common Riots’ and the  leader was imprisoned. An Act of Parliament in 1877 authorised the purchase of Plumstead Common, Bostall Heath and Shoulder of Mutton Green, by the Metropolitan Board of Works.

Workers from the Royal Arsenal set up their own buyer’s co-operative in 1868, operating at first from members houses in Plumstead and then as RACS from 147 Powis Street.

There was therefore a solid record of local achievement for radical thinkers.  In the election for Woolwich Council in November 1900, of the 36 Councillors, just 11 members of the Woolwich and Plumstead Progressive Association represented radical thinking on the Council.  The area was thought to be a bastion of support for the Conservative Party.  In July 1901 the Labour Representation Committee’s candidate defeated the sitting MP in a by-election for the Borough Council, St.Mary’s Ward. In another Council by-election the following year the Rev.Jenkins Jones won St.Margaret’s Ward for Labour and in a Parliamentary by-election in March 1903 Will Crooks became the Labour MP for Woolwich - the fourth Labour MP to be elected.  In November 1903 Labour won a majority on Woolwich Borough Council, which it held until 1906.  During this period the vexed issue of a public baths for Plumstead was settled with a decision to build. During the period also Labour built the first council houses, in North Woolwich.

The Events

Local Government in the Metropolis was to be reorganised. Eltham, Plumstead and Woolwich were to be amalgamated into the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich, Civic Pride would have dictated that Plumstead vestry would have wanted to hand over an administration with good civic amenity.

The problems of disposing of urban waste were difficult and getting worse as urban building continued apace. Gas street lighting was expensive to run and out of the control of the Vestry, as the gas had to be bought from a private gas company.  Civic buildings needed bricks and paviours were needed for highway work.

It was in this context that Plumstead Vestry investigated the possibilities of building its own power station to supply electricity. Visits were organised to electricity station in Leyton, Shoreditch, St.Pancras and Brighton.  It was decided to proceed with a Station at Plumstead.

It was felt that the most important action to be taken was the appointment of really able professional staff. It was decided to appoint an Engineer-Surveyor and an Electrical Engineer.  These staff could advise on issues of best practice from around the country.  The Committee wanted to investigate the benefits of building a combined refuse destructor and electricity station. Professor Robson recommended that the waste heat from the burning of rubbish could be used to supplement that produced by the coal burning electricity station. Frank Sumner was appointed Engineer-Surveyor and Arthur Wright, Surveyor-Electrical Engineer.  

In May  1900 the Committee looked at Sumner’s draft plans. Technical details were discussed as was the need to cater for future expansion in demands.  In late May of that years four other stations were visited, two at Liverpool, one at St. Helens and one at Darwen. The Committee thanked Sumner for his careful planning of the visit.  The main conclusion was that the combined station was as good idea as they wanted to maximise the energy capture,. To this end it was decided to load the refuse boiler manually, rather than the cheaper top loading by tipping. This method was more labour intensive and slightly m,ore costly, but gave much better rates of burn efficiency. All of the boilers were to be of a compatible type.

Once the plans had been adopted specifications were to be printed so that the tendering progress could begin. Plumstead Vestry Rules insisted that a ‘schedule of hours of labour and rates of wages’ should be included in all tender documents.  The new Woolwich Borough council moved diligently to give effect to the plans it inherited from Plumstead.

This article appeared in the September 2000 GIHS Newsletter

North Woolwich Pleasure Gardens

November 4, 2019, 12:27 pm

≫ Next: Merryweather Steam Trams in New Zealand

≪ Previous: White Hart Depot and Frank Sumner

$

0

0

EXTRA EVERYTHING

         AND EVERYTHING EXTRAORDINARY

- more from Howard Bloch on the history of the North Woolwich Pleasure Gardens

At North Woolwich the number of visitors increased in 1870 following an agreement with the Woolwich Steam Packet Company to bring passengers there from all its piers. The most significant boost however came from the passing of Sir John Lubbock’s Bank Holiday Act in 1871.  On the first Bank Holiday -7th August 1871 - unprecedented numbers of people took advantage of the closure of factories and offices to enjoy a day out.  Many of them travelled by railway and steamboats flooded to capacity to visit the North Woolwich Gardens.

The merrymaking was disturbed by a violent incident in the evening of 13th July 1817.  A Party including Elizabeth Barnett and William Lowe visited the gardens somewhat the worse for drink. Barnett became separated from Lowe and danced and drank with several men. When he found her again he was heard to say that he would ‘give her a poke in the eye and shortly afterwards took her aside then poked her in the eyes with the point of his umbrella. Realising what he had done he called for a doctor and pulled his handkerchief out and put it into the wound. Later she was taken to hospital where she died. At his trial at the Old Bailey it was said that they lived together was man and wife and that he had often ill treated her. Although acquitted of murder Lower was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eighteen months hard labour.

Holland’s genuine concern for the welfare of working people was shown by the number of benefits which he organised. On 3rd October 18171 he granted free use of the gardens to about 4,000 people, mainly engineers and their families, for a benefit in aid of the striking Newcastle engineers.

The gardens were cleared and lights turned out on the evening of 3rd September 1879 after Holland had received news of the disaster which had occurred nearby when the pleasure steamer Princess Alice collided with the collier Bywell Castle and sank with the loss of about 650 lives. A few days later he organised a benefit for the families of the victims many of whom had lived in East London.

One of Holland constant worries was the rain god ‘Jupiter Pluvious; who seemed to have made a habit of ruining his outdoor events and causing him considerable financial loss. Between 1872 and 1883 London experienced some of its wettest years and it as also during this period that man  of London's other pleasure gardens closed down, Soon the North Woolwich Gardens was left was “the only place of out-of-door amusement in this vast metropolis”.

A number of journalists visited the gardens as a result of this new claim to fame and wrote about the curious behaviour of its visitors. Marcus Fall, disguising the name of North Woolwich. said “The North Tilford is not a very aristocratic lounge although here cannot be less than three thousand to four thousand men, women and children in the grounds, there is not one whose name you can find in Debretts.  The majority of the men are artisans,  clerks, shops hands and small tradesman. There is no absolute rudeness but a good deal of horseplay. The humour is of the simplest order and takes the form of practical jokes. ...........A steam merry-go-round with lads and lasses on the horses and in the coaches .. the lads are gallant, hilarious and festive, the lasses timid, coy, confiding, apprehensive of display of ankles and bewitching. Into one of the coaches had got a very stout women with a very fat face and very blue ribbons in her bonnet - alas, poet disguise it how you will, but we write prose and are compelled to say that the motion has made her very green and sea-sick

The expense of engaging artists and providing the wide range of entertainments in the gardens placed Holland under a very heavy financial burden. In 1877 after he had signed a new 21 year lease with the North Woolwich Land Company he spent a considerable amount in building a new pavilion and a steam roundabout which was estimated to cost him about £1,000.  Surviving papers relating to the North Woolwich land company for the late 1870s include a number of references to their unsuccessful attempts to collect debts from him. Writing in 1879 their agent commented ‘the gardens rent has always been difficult to get and the disputes and actions against their tenants give me plenty of work”.

Despite being in debt Holland advertised in April 1881 that he had spent several thousand pounds on improvement in the gardens. This was however to be his last season. In September after a far from successful straw hat exhibition he was declared bankrupt having liabilities of £10,176 and assets of £27.  A year later he was discharged and his debt of £1,165 to the North Woolwich land company written off.

This article firt appeared in the September 2000 Newsletter

Merryweather Steam Trams in New Zealand

November 4, 2019, 12:31 pm

≫ Next: Billingsgate

≪ Previous: North Woolwich Pleasure Gardens

$

0

0

Merryweather Steam Trams

by John Garner

The following article has been sent to us from Wellington, New Zealand

Wellington, with a population of only 19,000 people, launched its steam-trams in August 1878 with the new trams that had arrived from Merryweather & Sons Limited, of Greenwich, London, England. It was claimed to be the first steam-worked street rail system in the Southern Hemisphere.

Eight locomotives had been ordered and given the names of Florence, Wellington, Hibernia, Zealandia, Victoria, Anglia, Scotia and Cambria. These locomotives cost £975 each, the last being placed in service 8 November 1879.

FleetNameBuilder’s Arrived

Number                         Number        in  Wellington

  1   Florence60/1877  1-7-78

  2   Hibernia61/1877  5-7-78

  3   Wellington62/1877 13-7-78

  4   Zealandia63/1877 22-8-78

  5   Victoria64/1877   -10-78

  6   Cambria85/1878   -11-78

  7   Scotia87/187821-12-78

  8   Anglia86/187831-12-78

Specifications as built: Track gauge: 3 feet 6 inches.  Wheel arrangement: 0-4-0.  Wheelbase: 4 feet 6 inches.  Length over buffers: 6 feet 7 inches.  Wheel diameter: 2 feet.  Cylinders: 7 inches with 11-inch stroke.  Firebox: 2 feet 2 inches x 2 feet area, 4.33 square-feet of grate.  Firebox surface: 24.5 square-feet.  790 flue-tubes, 1-3/4 inches diameter outside, 3 feet 6 inches long.  126.6 square-feet of heating surface.  Total heating surface: 151.1 square-feet.  Water tank condensers on the roof.  Diameter of barrel of boiler: 2 feet 6 inches. The engines were resplendent in claret livery and gold lining and each one pulled a four-wheel trailer.

Jibbing and restive horses soon brought the steamers into displeasure with the public.  Citizens had been advised to have their grooms walk the horses quietly down to the tramline to get them accustomed to the snorting puffer.  A few of the horses took little notice of the steamers but others took fright and dashed their buggies against the locomotive.  Despite this the steamers continued their service, but accidents followed because drivers were unable to control the reaction of horses to the steam trams.The drivers of the horse-drawn hansom cabs, of the time, also objected to the steamers, as they no longer had control of the urban transportation business.  They commenced driving two or three abreast in front of the trams, or would cut across the tracks in order to make the tram driver pull up.

Shying and bolting horses became less frequent, but the tramway’s noisy cinder-spraying machines were never really accepted by Wellingtonians.  After another embarrassing accident, the steam operation closed in January 1882 and the trams locomotives were sold.

By then, two locomotives, Anglia and Scotia, had been sold to the Dunedin, Peninsular & ocean Beach Railway Company Limited in December 1880. Of the remaining six locomotives, one was retained to drive a chaffcutter for the horse trams (either Zealandia or Florence), the Hibernia was purchased by the Foxton-Sanson Tramway in 1884 who on sold it to a flaxmiller, E.S. Thynne who used the engine for driving the mill’s machinery on the banks of the Rangitikei River at Parawenui, near Bulls.  According to reports, the Hibernia was lost when the river flooded and is probably still buried under the river shingle.  The Wellington went to a sawmill in Taranaki, the Victoria to the Tamaki Sawmilling Company in Woodville in 1886, then on sold to the Napier Harbour Board in 1896, becoming NHB No. 2, and the Cambria to the New Zealand Timber company, which became the Kauri Timber company in 1883.  The Zealandia was sold to the Kauri Timber Company to haul logs (date unknown) and the Florence to the Kauri Timber Company in 1897. Florence operated until c1923, Zealandia until sometime around 1918, Cambria until 1911, Victoria sometime about 1896 and Anglia in 1915.  None of these locomotives exist today.

John Garner

This article appeared in the September 2000 GIHS Newsletter

Billingsgate

November 4, 2019, 12:35 pm

≫ Next: People Spirit -- Massey Shaw at Dunkirk

≪ Previous: Merryweather Steam Trams in New Zealand

$

0

0

BILLINGSGATE

                                 - Greenwich’s ancient harbour

                                                                                  by Herbert Dickson

Just by the Cutty Sark and alongside the entrance to the Greenwich foot tunnel are some railings overlooking the river. Tourists stand there all the time - but how many of them know that this stretch of bland riverside was the heart of old maritime Greenwich. There are no signs to tell you about the great fishing fleet which once sailed from here, or about the ancient and mysterious name which the area has - Billingsgate!

The fishing fleet which was based in this area went out into the North Sea to catch cod - no river fish for them!  When things got too difficult, and steam trawlers came along, then they took themselves up to Grimsby and started the fishing industry there. We have records of Greenwich fishermen going back to the fourteenth century, and certainly they were there before that.

Today ‘Billingsgate’ is a place name which goes all round the world - all of them places with fishy associations. These places are all called after the famous fish market on the banks of the Thames in the City of London.   Archaeologists have now found that the Romans were there - and perhaps sold fish there too.  There has been endless speculation about the source of the name ‘Billingsgate’ ; was it a Saxon fishmonger called ‘Biling’? Or was it the mysterious King of the Ancient Britons ‘Belin’.

What has all this got to do with Greenwich?   It is the only place called ‘Billingsgate’ which is just as old as the one in Central London - and it too was a fishmarket!. In ‘A History of Greenwich’ Beryl Platts suggested that perhaps King Belin was based here, rather than in London and that our’s came first!  Even stranger, as she points out, the area of the London Billingsgate was owned by the same Saxon queen who owned Greenwich in the Dark Ages. Was London’s Billingsgate founded by Greenwich fishermen?

Whatever the truth is about Greenwich’s Billingsgate the fact it that this part of today’s Cutty Sark Gardens is the area of a very ancient port. It was here that mediaeval fishermen, boat builders and sailors jostled - it is the real heart of Maritime Greenwich.  There is absolutely nothing to see and nothing to tell people about the areas exciting past. Could the History Society ask why not?  It would be wonderful to turn it into a harbour again - with little boats coming and going and with a real atmosphere for tourists to enjoy. 

People Spirit -- Massey Shaw at Dunkirk

November 4, 2019, 12:39 pm

≫ Next: Fish and Billingsgate Dock

≪ Previous: Billingsgate

$

0

0

PEOPLE SPIRIT

In our last issue we featured the historic fire boat - Massey Shaw. Here is John Furlonger’s description of her historic trip to Dunkirk in May 2000.

When in May 1940 the Admiralty asked for a fireboat to be sent to Dunkirk, the London Fire Brigade was overwhelmed by the volunteers who came forward. And so it was also with the Thames small boat owners - rudely interrupted as they were by the summary requisitioning of their beloved weekend pleasure craft, the snatching away of their cabin cruisers. Some boats taken were even smaller, hardly ships at all - these ‘Little Ships of Dunkirk. They too came forward, not as would-be heroes but as ordinary people in whom this Dunkirk Spirit had long since earlier already taken up residence. This was to the the people themselves, hands-on, bringing the boys back home to fight another, ultimately victorious, day.

Over 800 ‘Little Ships’ took part in ‘Operation Dynamo’ as the Dunkirk evacuation came to be known. Not all came from the Thames, not all were small. The London Fireboat Massey Shaw was 78ft long with a beam of 13ft 6inches. She had draft of only 3ft 9ins being specially designed for the London River and to be able to manoeuvre under all the Thames bridges and to navigate all the innumerable creeks, backwaters and gullies at all states of the tide. She had only every been to sea once before, on her delivery in 1934 from her makers at East Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Fortunately the Great God of the Sky and Deep looked kindly down upon the ‘Little Ships’, in early June 1940. In flat calm seas Massey Shaw  took off some 600 soldiers from the Dunkirk beaches to larger vessels lying offshore. She returned directly to England with a further 102 souls on  board.

60 years later the spirit is still manifest in ordinary people. Over the first weekend in June this year, more than 55 ‘Dunkirk Little Ships’, including Massey Shaw, took part in a commemorative pilgrimage back to the beaches of Dunkirk. The last remaining member of the 1940 volunteer crew of Massey Shaw, R.J.W. ‘Dick’ Helyer, BEM, was feted, rightly so, at a send off for the fireboat from the London Fire Brigade River Station Pontoon at Lambeth. The return coincided for the very last time with the old solders reunion, the Dunkirk Veterans Association, on the beaches of Dunkirk. Royalty saw fit to attend. Grown men, including the fireboat crew, wept.

Although the Old Solders Association will no longer return to Dunkirk, the Little Ships intend to do so, again and again. After all Trafalgar Night is still celebrated! Despite both Neptune and the Great God of the Sky and the Deep doing their very best to deter the fireboat and the other ‘Little Ships’ from ever reaching Dunkirk this year, the proud guardian of Massey Shaw, The Massey Shaw Preservation Society, are determined to be on the next pilgrimage, probably in 2005.

The Woolwich Ferry, not noted for being inclined to give way, actually stopped in both directions when Massey Shaw, returning from the Dunkirk commemoration to her home at Wood Wharf hard by c.s.Cutty Sark, hove into view. A tremendous salute followed as Massey Shaw glided between both stopped ferries - not only from their horns but also from the massed ranks of vehicles lined up on the decks. People Spirit.

This article appeared in the September 2000 GIHS Newsletter