Great Britain having by her example shown to other nations the advantages to be derived from free navigation and unfettered commerce, and having relieved her shipowners from nearly all the burdens of which protection was the origin, directed her attention in a more special manner than had hitherto been done to the safety of life and property at sea. No doubt she had been ever mindful of her seamen and, from the earliest records of her history, a just pride has been felt in those who protect her sea-girt homes; but it is only in recent years that any organised system has been adopted to reduce the disasters of a naturally hazardous profession, or that the Legislature has seriously devoted itself to the provision of measures whereby the proverbial dangers of the sea may be lessened. Very little attention, indeed, had been paid to this important subject until 1836, when a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into shipwrecks, the result being that certain facts were, for the first time, brought prominently under public notice in a practical manner. These facts are interesting and instructive, especially when viewed by the light of subsequent experience.
There being then, however, no reliable statistics of the extent of the loss of life and property at sea, the Committee were obliged to depend on information from other than official sources; hence, it was only from the records of Lloyd’s, supplemented by estimates of their own, that they were able to compare the casualties of 1816-18 with those of 1833-35, the three years previous to their inquiry. Nor was this comparison complete. To make it so, it would have been necessary to compare, not merely the actual amounts of loss at the two periods, but the proportion the amounts bore relatively to the amount of life and property exposed to danger. There were, however, then no means of obtaining these with accuracy, as the returns were imperfect as regards the number of vessels, their sizes, and the number of persons they carried, an imperfection arising, in a great measure, from the fact that many vessels, which in 1816 had ceased to exist, were still retained on the registry. Though the entries and clearances of British ships engaged in trade between the United Kingdom and her colonies, and foreign countries, could at both periods be obtained with accuracy, there were no certain returns of the amount of tonnage and of the number of men engaged in the Coasting trade, as the Customs did not take any notice of vessels sailing in ballast or with cargoes of a certain description. Nor do we even now know the actual amount of the shipping and men engaged in this particular trade with anything like perfect accuracy.
Estimated loss of life at sea between 1818 and 1836.
Thus it was impossible to arrive at a correct comparative estimate of the increase, or otherwise, of the loss of life at sea at any given periods previous to 1835. I may, however, state that the Committee, with the best information they could obtain, arrived at the conclusion that while the loss of life for the three years previous to 1818 had averaged 763 persons per annum, it had increased to 894 per annum for the three years previous to 1835, though the tonnage of vessels belonging to the United Kingdom was actually less at the latter than it had been at the former period.[239]
The amount of tonnage, however, in itself, even when correct, is an imperfect criterion; indeed, to obtain anything like accuracy we ought to have before us, not merely the number of entries and clearances,[240] but the actual number of persons conveyed by sea; for, without such data, we cannot hope to ascertain the comparative loss of life.
Recommendations of the Committee.
The Committee of 1836 had, nevertheless, sufficient information before them to arrive at certain sound conclusions; the more important of these being that the increase of disasters at sea arose, in a great measure, from the imperfect classification of ships which had existed up to 1834 (when the improved Society of Lloyd’s Register was instituted) depending, as it had, almost exclusively on the age of the vessel; from the bad forms of vessels, arising from the defective system of admeasurement for tonnage dues, and from the shallow harbours where ships lay aground and were strained. The Committee likewise attributed the losses to the incompetency of masters and officers, and to their habits of intemperance, as well as to that of the crews; to the system of marine insurance; to the want of harbours of refuge; to the imperfection of charts;[241] and, strange to add, to the “competition with foreign shipowners, who, from the many advantages enjoyed by them in the superior cheapness of their materials for building, equipping, and provisioning their vessels, and in the lower rate of wages paid to their crews, were enabled to realise profits on terms of freight which would not even cover the expenses of British ships.”
Committee of 1843—loss of lives and ships at that period.
The next Committee appointed to inquire into shipwrecks commenced their investigation in 1843, and the returns made up from the evidence before them show that in the previous three years the annual average loss of vessels was 611, of 128,678 tons, and 766 lives, out of 22,977 ships, of 2,908,737 tons belonging to the United Kingdom, and of 37,380 of such ships, of 6,730,242 tons entered and cleared in the foreign trade of this country, so that, while the intercourse with other countries had very materially increased, the loss of life had been only a fraction more than it was in the three years previously to 1818.
First official return of wrecks, 1856.