Shipping and local enterprise in the early eighteenth century: Evidence from south-west Wales

Journal of Transport History, The, Sep 2003 by Matthews, Mark D

The importance of the relationship between shipping activity and local enterprise during the eighteenth century, whilst often inferred in the secondary literature, has received little serious analysis. In the case of Wales, Philip Jenkins's assessment that in the nineteenth century 'the success of rail virtually destroyed coastal shipping operations on which so many local enterprises had depended' points to the wider significance of coastal shipping and related industries in the development of local economies.1 The lack of research in this area presents a fundamental weakness in the existing historiography on the well-springs of enterprise during the early industrial development of Britain, as the role of shipping, and in particular coastal shipping, was a crucial factor in regional economic development. Recent work by John Armstrong and Malcolm Wanklyn has begun to show how important coastal shipping was to economic development at both the local and national levels, and the aim of this article, by way of a case study, is to provide more detail on this hitherto neglected area of maritime research.2

Recent research has suggested that widely accepted estimates of the total size of the British mercantile marine during the eighteenth century, particularly those relating to the size of the coasting fleet, considerably understate the true position and thus the actual levels of maritime activity. An analysis of Admiralty protection registers for 1775/76, undertaken by Robinson, suggests that traditional estimates based on customs records omit about half a million tons of coasting vessels and reveals a domestic coasting fleet (excluding nearcontinent coasting) of some 4,500 vessels.3 Robinson's revised figures for vessels engaged in the coal coasting and northern European trades closely match those given by a contemporary naval officer concerned with manning levels in the Royal Navy (and thus the availability of suitably experienced seamen) in 1774.4 Such findings confirm Simon Ville's view that the overall economic importance of mercantile shipbuilding and ownership in Britain has been substantially underestimated.5

Many of the smallest vessels, especially those used for the transhipment of cargoes to shore where no suitable harbour facilities existed, or those lighters, flats or barges which were used for distribution in the immediate locality and which rarely figure in discussions of the economic impact of shipping on the domestic economy, also went largely unrecorded. The general registration of coastal shipping was not comprehensively carried out prior to the 1786 Act (26 Geo. III, c. 60), and even then the Act only required the registration of vessels over fifteen tons.6 As a result, official records of the size of the coasting trade ignore this important aspect of maritime activity. A later Act of 1795 allowed for the registration of these types of craft; however, the Act was revoked in 1837.7

For Wales, one surviving register of this type has been found. In July 1795, John Gwynne, clerk of the peace in Haverfordwest, compiled a register of vessels on the river Cleddau in pursuance of an Act 'requiring all boats, barges and other vessels of certain descriptions used upon navigable rivers and on Inland navigations to be registered'.8 This records the names of the registered owners, the masters' names, the type of vessels, the tonnage, the number of men employed, and 'the line and extent of navigation' of each vessel.

Of the forty vessels registered in that year, thirty-seven were described as lighters, one as a boat and two as sloops. Such lighters, usually flat-bottomed barges, were used in lightening or loading and unloading vessels that could not be wharfed, or where harbour facilities were underdeveloped or too small. They were also used for transporting goods in harbour or for short trips within bays and estuaries. Some of the lighters in use during the mid-eighteenth century on the river Exe were ketch-rigged; others had a single mast and a lugsail.9 All the vessels registered on the Cleddau, with the exception of the Thomas, a lighter of twenty-eight tons with a crew of three, employed two men, including the master. The average tonnage was around thirteen tons, with the bulk of the vessels either fourteen or twenty tons with an upper limit of twenty-eight tons. They provided work for eighty-one bargemen, and presumably made a profit for their thirty registered owners.10

The most substantial of these was Hugh Barlow, esquire, who owned eight lighters, all of twenty tons, which did the twenty-mile round trip from Cresswell Quay to Milford Haven. The next most substantial owner was John Daniel, shipwright, who had three vessels: two lighters, Nancy and Penny, and a sloop, the Swallow. Each of these vessels was fourteen tons burden and plied the same route as those owned by Barlow. It is probable that for the most part they were engaged in the coal and lime trades. Other owners included a widow, a shopkeeper, a merchant, two Reverends and three farmers.