THAMES LIGHTERMEN.
[From a Sketch.]
The lightermen who are employed in the conveyance of goods chargeable with duty are licensed by the Excise Office, as a check against the conveyance of contraband articles. Both the proprietors of the lighter and the persons he employs must be licensed for this conveyance, the cost being 5s. yearly. A licensed man thus employed casually by the master-lighterman is known as a jobber, and has 6s. a-day; the average payment of the regular labourers of the lighterman is 25s. a-week; but some employers, whom I heard warmly extolled as the old masters, give 30s. a-week. In addition to this 25s. or 30s., as the case may be, nightwork ensures 2s. or 2s. 6d. extra. Thus the permanent labourers under the lightermen appear to be fairly paid.
The master-lightermen, as I said before, are, according to the “Post Office Directory,” 175 in number. I am told that the number may be taken (as the Directory gives only those that have offices) at 200 at the least, and that of this number one half employ, on an average, one man each. The proprietors of the lighters who average ten hands in their employ cannot be reckoned among men working on the river, except perhaps one-fourth of their number, but of the other class all work themselves. The annual number of actual labourers in this department of metropolitan industry will thus be 125 proprietors to 1100 non-proprietors, or 1225 in all, driving 1100 lighters at the least. The bargemen, who are also employed, when convenience requires, as lightermen, are 400 or 500, driving more than half that number of barges; but in these are not included many coal-barges, which are the property of the coal-merchants having wharfs. The number of London boat-bargemen and lightermen given in the Occupation Abstract of 1841 was 1503, which, allowing for the increase of population, will be found to differ but slightly from the numbers above given.
The lightermen differ little in character from the watermen, but, as far as their better circumstances have permitted them, they have more comfortable homes. I speak of the working lightermen, who are also proprietors; and they can all, with very few exceptions, read and write. They all reside near the river, and generally near the Docks—the great majority of them live on the Middlesex side. They are a sober class of men, both the working masters and the men they employ. A drunken lighterman, I was told, would hardly be trusted twice. The watermen and lightermen are licensed by the by-laws of the City, passed for the regulation of the freemen of the Company of Master, Wardens, and Commonalty of Watermen and Lightermen of the River Thames, their widows and apprentices, to row or work boats, vessels, and other craft, in all parts of the river, from New Windsor, Berks, to Yantlet Creek (below Gravesend), Kent, and in all docks, canals, creeks, and harbours, of or out of the said river, so far as the tide flows therein. A rule of the corporation, in 1836, specifies the construction and dimensions of the boats to be built, after that date, for the use of the watermen. A wherry to carry eight persons, was to be 20½ feet in length of keel, 4½ feet breadth in the midships, and of the burden of 21 cwt. A skiff to carry four persons was to be 14 feet length of keel, 5 feet breadth in the midships, and 1 ton burden. The necessity of improved construction in the watermen’s boats, since the introduction of steamers caused swells on the river, was strongly insisted on by several of the witnesses before Parliament, who produced plans for improved craft, but the poverty of the watermen has made the regulations of the authorities all but a dead letter. These river labourers are unable to procure new boats, and they patch up the old craft.
The census of 1841 gives the following result as to the number of those employed in boatwork in the metropolis:—
| Boat and barge-men and women | 2516 |
| Lightermen | 1503 |
| Watermen | 1654 |
| 5673 |
The boat and barge-men and women thus enumerated are, I presume, those employed on the canals which centre in the metropolis; so that, deducting these from the 5673 labourers above given, we have 3157, the total number of boat, bargemen, lightermen, and watermen, belong to the Thames.