The development of London's port and docks
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London’s port was originally centred on the Pool of London, the area just downstream from London Bridge. By the 16th century all imported cargoes had to be delivered to the quaysides on the north bank of the river for inspection and assessment by Customs Officers. This area was known as the ‘Legal Quays’.
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During the 18th century London and its international trade continued to expand, and by 1800 the number of ships entering the port increased by 400%. Thousands of coastal sailing ships entered the port each year bringing coal or grain to the capital. These ships had to compete for space in the crowded river with vessels carrying goods like sugar and rum from the West Indies; tea and spices from the East Indies; wine from the Mediterranean; furs, timber and hemp for rope from Russia and the Baltic and tobacco from America.
The heavy congestion in the Pool meant damage to goods and ships, theft, and delays. Merchants complained loudly about the effect this had on their costs and profits, and in the 1790s the merchants of the highly profitable West Indies trade began to campaign for better port facilities.
In 1799 the Government passed The West India Dock Act, enabling the building of a new off-river dock just for the produce of the West Indies colonies. Other schemes quickly followed leading to the opening of other docks like the London Docks in 1802 and the East India Docks in 1806.
By the mid-nineteenth century, London’s port was equipped with a number of docks owned by private dock companies. Some, like the West India Docks, relied on a monopoly over their area of trade. However, the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the development of Free Trade meant that these private docks were faced with more open competition within the port.
Housing, industry and commercial premises quickly surrounded the off-river docks, leaving little room for the expansion needed to take advantage of technological changes like bigger steam-powered ships and the railways. At the beginning of the 1850s a group of entrepreneurs formed a scheme for building a new dock on the north bank of the Thames opposite Woolwich. This opened in 1855 as the Victoria Dock, and with its hydraulically powered equipment and direct access to the railways system, the dock was an immediate success.
Other new docks followed rapidly. The Millwall Dock on the Isle of Dogs opened in 1868; the Royal Albert Dock in 1880 and the Tilbury Dock in 1886. However, the end of the dock company monopolies and the lifting of customs restrictions also encouraged the development of wharves and warehouses along the riverside.
Although the number of ships entering the port increased each year in the first half of the 19th century, the numbers began to fall after 1860. Within a few years there were simply too many dock facilities competing for trade, and by the 1890s nearly all the dock companies were in serious financial difficulty.
In 1900 the government was forced to step in and intervene with the crisis in the port. A royal commission identified poor management as the core problem and in 1909 the Port of London Authority (PLA) was established to take over from the private dock companies and take responsibility for the whole port.
Over the next forty years the PLA carried out extensive works improving dock facilities, dredging a deeper channel in the river and building a brand new dock; the King George V Dock, next to the Royal Victoria and Albert Docks.
Despite heavy wartime damage, the docks flourished during the early 20th century. However the port’s facilities were once again left behind by changes in technology. The use of larger bulk-carrying ships and the introduction of containers for carrying pre-packed cargoes meant that dock operations began to move down river where there was more space to build modern docks, purpose-built for the new container ships.
In the 1960s the older up-river docks began to close down. After the closure of the Royal Docks in 1981, most port operation had disappeared downstream, miles away from London.