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Daniel Joseph Kirwan
Published by Good Press, 2022
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The "Tackle House" and City Porter Companies complained that if the import and export business were removed beyond the city limits, their right to the exclusive privilege of unloading and delivering all merchandise imported into the city would be worthless. The carmen who enjoyed a similar privilege and monopoly made the same complaint, and they stated that Christ's Hospital, an institution much revered by all Londoners, derived an income of four thousand pounds a year from the licenses under which they held their monopoly; the watermen, who were then numbered by thousands, foretold that the establishment of docks would deprive one half of their number of bread; the lightermen stated that they had a capital of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds invested in tackle and craft, employed to transport merchandise, which capital would be annihilated if ships were allowed to discharge their cargoes on quays within docks; the proprietors of the "legal quays" as they were called, and the "sufferance wharves," or wharves which held no legal title, all prophesied that the trade of London would be ruined at once if the new system of docks was established.
However these people differed in some details of their grievances, they all concurred in stating that unloading ships in closed docks would be more expensive than discharging them into lighters in the river.
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