Thames watermen and ferries

The earliest known record of Thames watermen is a statute of 1514 during the reign of Henry VIII to regulate fares. In that same, year a group of eminent seamen formed Trinity House at Deptford. Amongst other responsibilities, Trinity House was authorised to license sailors between sea voyages to ply as watermen on the Thames in order that they refrain from idleness and for the relief of their families. That put these sailors at odds with regular Thames watermen, who termed Trinity House men as ‘hog-grubbers’. There were also regular brawls between the watermen of Gravesend and those of East London regarding their respective rights.

The Company of Watermen was formed by Act of Parliament in 1555 to both regulate and represent passenger-carrying watermen operating between Gravesend and Windsor. It is still recognised as a City guild but is not a Livery Company. The Act also introduced an apprenticeship of one year. An Act of Parliament of 1603 censured watermen because, it stated, people travelling between Windsor and Gravesend

have been put to great hazard and danger and the loss of their lives and goods, and many times have perished and been drowned in the said River through the unskillfulness and want of knowledge or experience in the wherrymen and watermen.

Thereafter apprentices under eighteen years of age were no longer allowed to carry passengers and the period of apprenticeship was extended to seven years. When an apprenticeship was completed, the waterman became a freeman of the Company. From at least 1626 pensions were distributed to poor freemen of the Company.

Self-government within the Company of Watermen evolved, and not without difficulty and controversy. At the end of the 17^th century a Court of Assistants was created, consisting of 55 watermen representing each of the towns and stairs at which they plied. The system of popular election sometimes fell into disuse and ended in 1827. Watermen also formed very localised societies during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, such as the ‘Friendly Society of Watermen usually plying at the Hermitage Stairs, in the Parish of St. John, Wapping’. The purpose was to guard against non-members working from their stairs and they were therefore known as Turnway Societies.

With the formation of the Thames Conservancy in 1857, the Watermen’s Company’s area of responsibility was curtailed to the tidal river below Teddington Lock. However, in an Act of Parliament of 1827 the Company became an independent body corporate with its own seal. The Company’s powers were extended by a further Act in 1859. During the 19^th century it took on responsibility for fixing fares and appointing plying places, the registration of boats and barges, and control of watermen and lightermen. Most of those responsibilities, other than apprenticeships and the examination of applicants for licenses to become watermen and lightermen, were transferred to the Port of London Authority upon its formation in 1908.

There was continuous objection by watermen against anything that threatened their livelihood, such as the introduction of carriages on London’s roads. Together with the City of London, for decades the Watermen’s Company fought against any proposals to build new bridges across the river. During the 17^th century the watermen’s spokesman was John Taylor who distributed verses about how their income was being taken by land transport.

Carroaches, coaches, jades, and Flanders mares,
Doe rob us of our shares, our wares, our fares

Taylor was unusually well-educated compared with other watermen. He was born in Gloucester in 1580, where he attended grammar school and learnt Latin. He came to Westminster to be apprenticed to a waterman but was press-ganged into the Navy on seven different occasions, making a total of thirteen voyages. He returned to the Thames after the siege of Cadiz in 1596. His prose, poetry and doggerel brought him patronage from the playwright Ben Jonson and he had success arranging water pageants and triumphs for the pageants of Lord Mayors. In 1630 he published All the Workes of John Taylor, the Water Poet. On behalf of the watermen he fought against the introduction of sedan chairs and hackney carriages. Together with the Watermen’s Company, Taylor achieved the restriction of all carriage journeys unless they ended at least two miles from the Thames, a regulation that lasted for 35 years. A portrait of Taylor continues to hang in Watermen’s Hall.

A major source of income for watermen during the latter part of the 16^th century was the carrying of passengers to and from the City and the various playhouses at Southwark, such as the Globe and the Rose. When James I succeeded Elizabeth, restrictions on playhouses in the City were relaxed. In 1613 Taylor presented a petition aiming to prevent their movement across the river, arguing that the carrying of passengers was necessary for the relief of watermen returning from naval employment after the Spanish wars. It was met by a more successful counter-petition from the players. The subsequent transfer of London’s playhouses from Southwark to the City caused hardship for the watermen, as well as recriminations against Taylor who was accused of taking bribes from the players.

As Britain’s navy grew in size it required more seaman than were willing to serve, particularly in times of war. It therefore resorted to sending out gangs to forcibly impress men with sea-faring experience. Being thus taken was a regular danger for watermen during the 18^th and early 19^th centuries. They already possessed some of the necessary skills required to crew a ship and were an easy target. There was considerable difficulty for many needing to gain their freedom from the Watermen’s Company at the end of the Dutch War in 1668 because they could not complete their apprenticeship, their masters having died at sea. Many watermen served in the Napoleonic wars of the early 19^th century. The Watermen’s company were called upon to look after those members who returned from war disabled, and for naval widows.

Watermen did not have an untarnished reputation, not least because of their foul speech, or ‘water language’. The Company of Watermen derived part of its income from fining freemen for bad behaviour and language. As Taylor put it: “I must confess that there are many rude uncivil fellows in our Company.” There is a well-known cartoon drawn by Thomas Rowlandson, made in 1812 as part of his Miseries of London series. A group of watermen are gathered at Wapping Old Stairs where they are accosting a plump lady, each attempting to gain her business.