The Plimsoll Sensation
This article is based on a talk given by Martin Smith, a club member, at one of monthly Club Nights.
You might be wondering what all this is about – there can't be much to say about bit of white paint on the side of a ship. …. well …
This is a story about Samuel Plimsoll’s great whistle blowing fight for justice.
DO YOU KNOW It struck me yesterday that if you replace the word ‘banker’ for ship-
It turned out that the simple measure of a depth load line, took decades to implement, and it was opposed by ship owners and ship owning MPs who wanted at the very best to avoid the red tape, but at worst to load cargo ships as deeply as they liked in order make as much profit as possible, no matter how many sailors’ lives were jeopardised.
And in fact loading could be very deep indeed. One sailor’s widow reported in 1871 after her husband’s ship went down, that when she said her last farewell on her husband’s ship, she stepped up from the deck to a rowing boat that lay alongside.
It took more than 20 years of agitation to bring about Plimsoll’s package of safety measures, including the load line and the compulsory inspection of ships for seaworthiness, and during that time there was a decade of intense nationwide activism which made Plimsoll a national hero and a household name.
This is quite a big subject, so to tell this story I have decided to break it down into four parts
1. what events were happening in the world during Plimsoll’s time
2. about Samuel Plimsoll himself what kind of man he was
3. what was going on in the world of merchant shipping
4. what Samuel Plimsoll did about it
Here he is, Samuel Plimsoll
I am pretty much finished. Can I just finish with a poem from Arthur Mathison? This was read by its author at Exeter hall meeting in March 1873
In the great London Parlyment House, lads,
They’re a talkin’ about us Jack Tars;
‘Bout us, and the ships as we sails in,
Bolts, timbers, sails, riggin’ and spars.
An’ it’s pretty nigh time as they did talk,
Them big wigs as settles it all!
Tho’ I wish we could tell ‘em what we think,
In that lingo ship, Westminster Hall!
D’ye know what they calls them old hulks, lads,
As all on us know, and all curse?
“Coffin ships” is the name as they gives ‘em
An’ I don’t want to give ‘em a worse!
For, mates, we might just as well all be buried,
As sail in them thin ribb’d old craft!
As ain’t got a sound timber in ‘em
From the hold to the mast, fore and aft!
I shipp’d in a coffin myself, lads,
From a port in the North, years ago;
An’ back’d out -
“If else man, to prison you go!”
I went as if it ‘ad bin to the gallows;
But what can a poor fellow do?
Then -
A true salt ‘ud be drown’d in the blue!
You, most on you, know’d young Bill Severn,
The heartiest blue jacket afloat,
He was one of the crew of that ship, lads -
“Ship”! -
Her bolts wasn’t fit for a hencoop,
She’d a swamp’d in a breeze on the Tyne,
Though she look’d trim and seaworthy too, lads,
And as bold as a ship o’ the line!
Look’d so spick, and so span, and so new, lads,
They insur’d her for double her worth!
But them innocent chaps as insure ships
Thinks they’re safer at sea than on earth!
In a week comes a gale as we’d laugh at,
In the stout ship, as holds us all now;
It stove that in, as if the Great Eastern
Had struck her ‘midships with her prow!
She went down, lads, as quick an’ as easy,
As a bucket with holes in a pool!
Or as them little cockboats, all paper,
The land-
When sun rose there me and Bill Severn
Lay floating about on the mast,
Of the short muster roll of the living
In that doom’d bark, that man-
Poor shipmate! He was to bin married,
When the vessel came back, that same Spring!
An’ she’d giv’d him to wear for her sake, lads,
The half of a little gold ring!
And there he lay dying afore me;
For he’d hurt hisself bad, in the wreck;
An’ he takes off his half of the ring, lads,
As always hung round his brown neck.
And his big hand, now weak as a babby’s,
Tremblin’, plac’d the gold token in mine:
“Carry this -
Quick and dead were alone on the brine!
If the Owner, that minute, before me,
Had stood with his throat near my hand! -
But there -
Thank the lord, I aint mark’d with his brand!
I was pick’d up, going on towards nightfall,
By a lugger bound out from South Wales;
But the rest of the crew in that “Coffin” -
They can’t -
Mates, I’ve spun this yarn often and often,
Widows, mothers and sweethearts have cried.
But in vain to make old England listen,
England’s sea sons, and daughters, have tried!
Coffin ships they yet sail o’er the waters;
Death sneaks in his salt water den!
Ship Owners! -
And sea-
But they’re talking about us in London,
England’s big heart at last has bin served
An though we can’t speak for ourselves, lads,
Them as does talk, thank God! will be heard!
That is the end of my presentation
Acknowledgements
Nicolette Jones – ‘The Plimsoll Sensation’
Samuel Plimsoll – ‘Our Seamen’
Various public domain information on the internet