I shall now conclude with the following estimate of the number of the hands, ships, &c. engaged in the coal trade in London.
There are about 400 wharfs, I am informed, from Wapping to Chelsea, as well as those on the City-canal. A large wharf will keep about 50 horses, 6 waggons, and 4 carts; and it will employ constantly from 3 to 4 gangs of 5 men. Besides these, there will be 6 waggoners, 1 cart-carman, and about 2 trouncers—in all, from 24 to 29 men. A small wharf will employ 1 gang of 5 men, about 10 horses, 3 waggons, and 1 cart, 3 waggoners, 1 trouncer, and 1 cart-carman. At the time of the strike, sixteen years ago, there were more than 3000 coalporters, I am told, in London. It is supposed that there is an average of 1½ gang, or about 7 men employed in each wharf; or, in all, 2000 coalporters in constant employment, and about 200 and odd men out of work. There are in the trade about 4 waggons and 1 cart to each wharf, or 1600 waggons and 400 carts, having 5200 horses; to these there would be about 3 waggoners and 1 cart-carman upon an average to each wharf, or 1600 in all. Each wharf would occupy about 2 trouncers, or 900 in the whole.
Hence the statistics of the coal trade will be as follows:—
I continue my inquiry into the state of the coal-labourers of the metropolis.
The coalheavers, properly so called, are now no longer known in the trade. The class of coalheavers, according to the vulgar acceptation of the word, is divided into coalwhippers, or those who whip up or lift the coals rapidly from the hold, and the coalbackers, or those who carry them on their backs to the wharf, either from the hold of the ship moored alongside the wharf, or from the lighter into which the coals have been whipped from the collier moored in the middle of the river, or “Pool.” Formerly the coals were delivered from the holds of the ships by the labourers shovelling them on to a series of stages, raised one above the other till they ultimately reached the deck. One or two men were on each stage, and hove the coals up to the stage immediately above them. The labourers engaged in this process were termed “coalheavers.” But now the coals are delivered at once from the hold by means of a sudden jerk, which “whips” them on deck. This is the process of coalwhipping, and it is performed chiefly in the middle of the river, to fill the “rooms” of the barges that carry the coals from the ship to the wharf. Coals are occasionally delivered immediately from the ship on to the wharf by means of the process of “coalbacking,” as it is called. This consists in the sacks being filled in the hold, and then carried on the men’s backs up a ladder from the hold, along planks from the ship to the wharf. By this means, it will be easily understood that the ordinary processes of whipping and lightering are avoided. By the process of coalwhipping, the ship is delivered in the middle of the river, or the “Pool” as it is called, and the coals are lightered, or carried to the wharf, by means of barges, whence they are transported to the wharf by the process of backing. But when the coals are backed out of the ship itself on to the wharf, the two preliminary processes are done away with. The ship is moored alongside, and the coals are delivered directly from the ships to the premises of the wharfinger. By this means the wharfingers, or coalmerchants, below bridge, are enabled to have their coals delivered at a cheaper price than those above bridge, who must receive the cargoes by means of the barges. I am assured that the colliers, in being moored alongside the wharfs, receive considerable damage, and strain their timbers severely from the swell of the steamboats passing to and fro. Again, the process of coalbacking appears to be of so extremely laborious a nature that the health, and indeed the lives, of the men are both greatly injured by it. Moreover, the benefit remains solely with the merchant, and not with the consumer, for the price of the coals delivered below bridge is the same as those delivered above. The expense of delivering the ship is always borne by the shipowner. This is, at present, 8d. per ton, and was originally intended to be given to the whippers. But the merchant, by the process of backing, has discovered the means of avoiding this process; and so he puts the money which was originally paid by the shipowner for whipping the coals into his own pocket, for the consumer is not a commensurate gainer. Since the merchant below bridge charges the same price to the public for his coals as the merchant above, it is clear that he alone is benefited at the expense of the public, the coalwhippers, and even the coalbackers themselves; for on inquiry among this latter class, I find that they object as much as the whippers to the delivery of a ship from the hold, the mounting of the ladders from the hold being of a most laborious and injurious nature. I have been supplied by a gentleman who is intimately acquainted with the expenses of the two processes with the following comparative account:—
Expenses of delivering a Ship of 360 tons by the process of Coalwhipping.
| £ | s. | d. | |
| For whipping 360 tons at 8d. per ton | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| Lighterman’s wages for 1 week engaged in lightering the said 360 tons from ship to wharf | 1 | 10 | 0 |
| Expenses of backing the said coals from craft to wharf at 11¼d. per ton | 16 | 17 | 6 |
| £30 | 7 | 6 |
Expense of delivering a Ship of 360 tons by the process of Coalbacking.
| For backing a ship of 360 tons directly from the ship to the wharf | £16 | 17 | 6 |