Number 1 Warehouse
The legacy of Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade is all around us in London. From Jamaica Road to the Bank of England, from the merchant houses of Blackheath to the collections of the National Gallery, profits from this most lucrative trade have shaped the metropolis.
Many buildings created from the profits of the trade survive in London and Britain’s other major slaving ports such as Liverpool and Bristol, however one building survives that was built specifically to be an integral part of the chain of production in that terrible trade; the sugar warehouse on West India Quay in the heart of east London.
Today Number 1 Warehouse, fronting onto West India Dock, is the Museum in Docklands. It is a unique historic artefact that stands testament not only to this chapter in the development of British history but also to the history of the African Diaspora.
Warehouses No. 1. and No. 2, are all that survive of the original nine Georgian warehouses erected on the North Quay by the West India Dock Company to store sugar, rum and coffee - the produce of the slave plantations of the Caribbean. The other warehouses were destroyed as a result of enemy action during the Second World War in September 1940.
Between the opening of the West India Dock in 1802 and the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807, records show that 77 ships sailed from the Dock to west Africa where they purchased 24,962 enslaved Africans who were transported to the Americas and sold to work on the plantations. Of this number 3,136 did not survive the journey. The ships returned to the Dock with their cargo of sugar, destined for the boiling houses and consumption in the coffee houses and kitchens of Britain and the Empire.
The true overall statistics will remain unknown. We do know however that this forms but a fraction of the total number resulting from London’s 200-year involvement in the slave trade. At one time London was Britain’s leading slave port and it grew fat on the profits from trafficking up to 1 million Africans. But it was also the centre for the diverse coalition of men and women, both black and white, that worked towards the abolition of the trade.
Background
The West India Docks were built to serve the interest of the immensely powerful and wealthy sugar interest of late 18th century London. During the course of the 18th century the merchants, slave plantation owners and others involved in the sugar trade had lobbied together to form The Committee of West India Merchants and Planters.
In the last decade of the 18th century, war with France had highlighted the inadequacies of London’s port facilities, and the powerful West India lobby pressured the government to allow them to build an off-river dock system exclusively for their own use. The result was the West India Dock Act, of 1799, which enabled the formation of the West India Dock Company.
In 1800 the architects George Gwilt & Son were appointed to design the warehouses, and Fentiman, Loat & Fentiman were appointed to build them. The Brentford based company of William Trimmer & Co was contracted to provide 20 million bricks for the warehouses (and a further million for the dock walls).
Initially it was agreed that six tall (six storey) warehouses and three two-storey warehouses (including Warehouse No 1.) would be erected with single storey blocks between each one. Each warehouse building consisted of three bays, allowing for two West India ships to lie in front of each warehouse. The Western Bay of the building was designated for storing the personal baggage of ships officers and passengers; valuable small cargoes like Cochineal, ivory, tortoiseshell and Bullion; and ships stores.
The height of each Warehouse storey was dictated by the nature of the cargo to be stored. The Ground Floors were designed to store two tiers of hogsheads of ‘clayed’ sugar. The upper floors stored a single tier of the heavier hogsheads of muscovado sugar, whilst the top floors held the lighter cargoes - coffee, cocoa, cotton, pimento etc. The ground floor of the building is substantially unchanged from 1803 but in 1827 the building was raised to its present height, in anticipation of the Dock Company attracting new cargoes from the East Indies. Indeed, for most of the 19th century much of the warehouse was used for storing tea.
In 1901 the roofs and upper floors of part the building were destroyed by fire. The heavy double-iron doors which were installed to prevent the spread of fire in the future can still be seen. After the closure of the West India Docks in 1980 the building became derelict. In 2000 work began on restoring and converting the Grade 1 listed building for use as a museum. The architects for this project were Purcell, Miller Tritton, and the galleries were designed by Haley Sharpe Design.