A lighterman is a worker who operates a

lighter A lighter is a portable device which creates a flame, and can be used to ignite a variety of items, such as cigarettes, gas lighter, fireworks, candles or campfires. It consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable liquid or ...

, a type of flat-bottomed

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. ...

, which may be powered or unpowered. In the latter case, today it is usually moved by a powered tug. The term is particularly associated with the highly skilled men who operated the unpowered lighters moved by oar and water currents in the

Port of London The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary (since 1968, a line drawn from Foulness Point in Essex via Gunfleet Old Lighthouse to Warden Point in Kent) with the North ...

Lightermen in the Port of London

History

Lightermen were one of the most characteristic groups of workers in London's docks during the heyday of the Port of London, but their trade was eventually rendered largely obsolete by changes in shipping technology. They were closely associated with the

watermen A waterman is a river worker who transfers passengers across and along city centre rivers and estuaries in the United Kingdom and its colonies. Most notable are those on the River Thames and River Medway in England, but other rivers such as t ...

, who carried passengers, and in 1700 joined the Company of Watermen to form the

Company of Watermen and Lightermen The Company of Watermen and Lightermen (CWL) is a historic City guild in the City of London. However, unlike the city's other 109 livery companies, CWL does not have a grant of livery. Its meeting rooms are at Waterman's Hall on St Mary at H ...

. This is not, strictly speaking, a livery company but a "City Company Without Grant of Livery", formed in 1700 by Act of Parliament. The Guild continues to license watermen and lightermen working on the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

. Watermans' Hall is located at 16 St Mary At Hill, in

Billingsgate Billingsgate is one of the 25 Wards of the City of London. This small City Ward is situated on the north bank of the River Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge in the south-east of the Square Mile. The modern Ward extends south to the ...

. It dates to 1780 and is the only surviving Georgian guild hall. The construction of the docks was bitterly opposed by the lightermen and other vested interests, but went ahead anyway. However, they did win a major concession: that became known as the "free-water clause", first introduced into the

West India Dock The West India Docks are a series of three docks, quaysides and warehouses built to import goods from and export goods and occasionally passengers to the British West Indies on the Isle of Dogs in London the first of which opened in 1802. Foll ...

Act of 1799 and subsequently written into the Acts governing all of the other docks. This stated that there was to be no charge for "lighters or craft entering into the docks ... to convey, deliver, discharge or receive ballast or goods to or from on board any ship ... or vessel." This was intended to give lighters and barges the same freedom in docks that they enjoyed on the open river. In practice, however, this proved highly damaging to the dock owners. It allowed ships to be loaded and unloaded overside, using barges and lighters to transfer their goods to and from riverside wharves rather than dock quays, thus bypassing quay dues and dock warehouses. This significantly reduced the docks' income and harmed their finances, while boosting the profits of their riverside competitors. Not surprisingly, the dock owners lobbied vigorously—but unsuccessfully—for the abolition of this damaging privilege.

Operation

The lightermen were a vital component of the Port of London before the enclosed docks were built during the 19th and 20th centuries. Ships anchored in the middle of the Thames or near bridge arches transferred their goods aboard or in respect of a few exports from lighters. Lightermen rode the river's currents — westward, when the tide was coming in, eastward on the ebb tide — to transfer the goods to quay-sides. They also transferred goods up and down the river from quays to riverside factories and vice versa. This was an extremely skilled job, requiring an intimate knowledge of the river's currents and tides. It also demanded a lot of muscle power, as the lighters were unpowered; they relied on the current for motive force and on long oars, or "paddles", for steering. The lightermen's trade was eventually swept away by the docks mentioned, as well as economic and technological changes, particularly the introduction of

containers A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The ter ...

, which led to the closure of London's major central docks in the 1960s. Few written accounts of the process of becoming an apprentice now exist, though the best-known is ''Men of the Tideway'' by Dick Fagan and Eric Burgess. (Fagan worked as a lighterman for more than forty years). In the book, Fagan mentions the exploitative nature of lighterage and expresses his disdain for what he called a "free-for-all capitalist system". The term lighterman is still used for the workers who operate motorised lighters to access a vessel which is too large or due to conditions unable to moor at a dock and the phrase '' to alight goods'' is used in the goods trade widely compared to the phrase 'alighting of passengers' which has become archaic across most of the English-speaking world except in formal contexts and on some railways, having been generally replaced with the terms 'exit', 'leave', or 'depart'.

Lightermen in Hull

The

Humber Estuary The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the ...

causes similar problems to the Thames plus vast shifting sandbanks. For centuries the

Port of Hull The Port of Hull is a port at the confluence of the River Hull and the Humber Estuary in Kingston upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Seaborne trade at the port can be traced to at least the 13th century, originally con ...

took much of its traffic in transfer of cargoes between vessels as Hull was cut off from safe land routes for much of the year. Lightermen were experts in these transfers and also in guiding vessels to safe moorings away from the sandbanks. By the 19th century, enclosed docks were being built but only with the arrival of steam barges late in the century did the Lightermen's expertise become redundant.Wikitree ; John Colley and his son in law Dickinson Tate A sub-category consisted of ballast lightermen, specialising in transferring rubble, bricks, and cobbles to and from the lower holds of vessels to keep them upright even in severe storms.

Notes

External links

Watermen's Hall Official Site

by Fagan and Burgess (Chapters 1 & 2 available only)
Waterman's Hall

Company of Watermen and Lightermen
* http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/conMediaFile.1397/A-London-lighterman-c-1910.html

Website dedicated to history of Lightermen

Bibliography

*Stephen Dobbs, ''The Singapore River'', Part 1 - 3 Lightermen: Migration and destiny. This book devotes a chapter to Indian lightermen in the Singapore River. Marine occupations Economy of London Transport on the River Thames Port of London