St Olave's Infirmary, Rotherhithe, 1875-1985

The Infirmary in 1888

Work on St Olave's Infirmary began in 1873 and opened in 1875 sandwiched between Deptford Lower Road (now Lower Road, SE16 2TU) and Southwark Park. Located next to the St Olave's Poor Law Union workhouse (which I have covered on an earlier post), its creation was a requirement following the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867, which required that infirmary accommodation be separate from workhouse buildings. 

The new building was a substantial enterprise.  It covered a 2 acre site and was divided into three components -  a male block, a female block, which together had a capacity of 175 patients, and an administrative block in between them. It was run by a Board of Guardians.  The Boards of Guardians were bodies who were responsible, by law (the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834) for the management and administration of workhouses and related buildings. Those serving on a Board of Guardians were elected by the owners of the properties that were liable for the poor rate, a tax gathered by residents in order to provide provision for the disadvantaged. The board was elected annually.  Although the workhouse closed in 1884, the infirmary stayed open until the late 1970s, and its history between those dates is well recorded.  It was so successful that it had already been extended in 1877 and was expanded several times during its career,

The Infirmary in 1914.  The main change from the
1894 map was the addition of a large laundry.

In the 1920s its name changed to the Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Infirmary, but locally it continued to be known as St Olave's.On 1st April 1930 control passed from the Board of Guardians to the London City Council, at which point it was renamed St Olave's Hospital.  The main difference between an infirmary and a hospital was the sort of care that was offered.  Whereas in hospitals specialized medical professionals and surgeons performed life-saving services, infirmaries were more about basic procedures, provision of medication, and simple levels of care, often lacking any surgical facilities. Maternity, geriatric and convalescent care made up a large part of their activities. Accordingly, three operating theatres were installed at the hospital, which improved its ability to treat medical patients and enabled it to take on and surgical cases as well.  

The entrance to the infirmary in the 1920s on
Lower Road

Rotherhithe was badly damaged during the Second World War and although the main areas targeted were on the peninsula of Rotherhithe, other areas suffered too, and St Olave's was damaged several times.   The maternity block was first part of the hospital to receive damage and other bombs inflicted minor damage until in August 1944 a V1 flying bomb damaged a third of the hospital buildings. Amazingly no-one was killed. In the 14th November 1944 the third of five V-weapons to hit this immediate vicinity fell on the forecourt of the hospital, which had to be evacuated. Later bombs also continued to inflict damaged and by the end of the war most of the oldest sections of the hospital had been destroyed.  The number of beds available was severely reduced. The last bomb to hit Bermondsey fell on 26th March 1945 and exploded by the nurses home of St Olaves Hospital on Gomm Road.

A London City Council hospital ward in the 1930s

In 1948 the Hospital became part of the National Health Service.  From 1948 St Olave's was administered by the Bermondsey and Southwark Hospital Management Committee under the South East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.  In 1954 the hospital had fewer beds than before the war, partly due to the legacy of the war damage, but also because new regulations demanded that beds were more widely spaced, meaning that more space per bed was required, which left the hospital with reduced capacity.  There was also a shortage of nurses, which meant that not all the available beds could actually be used. Nursing numbers were soon supplemented by recruiting from overseas and this resulted in an influx of different nationalities into the area.  Rotherhithe had always had a multi-national component, with a large Scandinavian presence from the days of the Baltic timber trade.

By the end of the 1950s the hospital had 12 wards and had become very antiquated and although a number of improvements were made, including the addition of a children wards, the modernization of three of the wards and the building of a refreshment pavilion, it continued to be under-funded, although the number of beds eventually increased.  

The only surviving gate house, with
the plaque commemorating
the birth of Michael Caine.
Photograph by Martin Addison

In 1966 St Olave's was subsumed into the Guy's Hospital Group under the auspices of the South East Thames Regional Health Authority.  Matters improved considerably, with the expansion of its remit and significant investment into its infrastructure.  It was the first general hospital to take in psychiatric patients, and dedicated facilities were provided to support this new initiative.  Upgrades to the rest of the hospital took place in 1971 and 1973.

Following the National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 St Olave's has been administered by the South Thames Regional Health Authority and in 1974 St Olave's became the responsibility of Lewisham and North Southwark District Health Authority.  In 1979, the hospital was closed to save costs, its patients transferred to other hospitals in the region.  Although the closure was supposed to be temporary the hospital never re-opened and an official announcement of its closure was made in 1985.

Most of the building had already decayed during its period of closure and was eventually demolished.  During the 1990s it was replaced by the Ann Moss Way housing estate.  However, one of the gatehouses is a fortunate and welcome survivor.

A blue plaque commemorates the birth of Sir Michael Caine (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite), son of a local fish porter, who was born in the charity wing of the Hospital on 14th March 1933.



With particular thanks to the Lost Hospitals of London website at http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/stolaves.html
St Olave's

New website: British Transport Treasures

British Transport Treasures
http://www.britishtransporttreasures.com.

A warm welcome to the new "British Transport Treasures" website from Stuart Rankin, who as many readers will know wrote a number of excellent pamphlets and three guided walks about Rotherhithe, all of which I have been using over the years as a major source of information for my blog.  The new website is about transport all around Britain, not just London, so there is a lot to discover.  You can find the site at: http://www.britishtransporttreasures.com.

The site has been put together to supply printable downloads of classic historical works about transport, as well as attractive souvenir items and printed ephemera, for educational and decorative purposes - collages, decorative screens, scrapbooks etc, including colourful examples of the best in Victorian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Austerity, print and graphic design.   All the publications are high resolution scans, which are in PDF format. 

An awful lot of these publications are no longer in print and are difficult to get hold of second hand, so this really is a useful resource.  See, for example, Nathaniel Gould's "Historical notice of the Commercial Docks in the Parish of Rotherhithe, County of Surrey 1844."  The site is in its early stages and many more publications will be added in time.

Fully printable downloads of facsimile books, souvenirs and documents are priced from 50p to £5.00.  It is not a profit-making venture and the charges are made to help cover hosting costs, and for each download purchased a donation of 5p will go to Help For Heroes. 

The publications are shown in categories on the Home page, and listed by title on the Shopping page.  If you are looking for something in particular (I searched for "Rotherhithe") the search engine works well.  This is not just a catalogue of items, but each has a description setting it an historical context, which can be read without buying the item and some of these provide some really great information in their own right.

A really good resource, with a trusted name behind it.

Free film screening on Saturday 7th March at Sands Film Studios . . . .

The Friends of Southwark Park are delighted to announce the screening of the classic 1972 Thames TV documentary about Bermondsey/Elephant and Castle WE WAS ALL ONE (55'), along with the 2014 film about Southwark Park IT'S OUR PARK (34') at Sands Film Studios in Rotherhithe (venue address below).

This takes place on Saturday 7 March, the double bill of Southwark-themed films will be screened twice, in a matinee session at 2pm and an evening session at 7pm.
Free Entry (advance reservation recommended: http://www.sandsfilms.co.uk/Sands_Films_Studio/Cinema_Club_and_Events.html - choose matinee or evening tickets).

The organisers are delighted to be presenting a pristine copy of the 1972 film fresh from the Thames TV archives, and to be welcoming the film's Cinematographer Mike Dodds to Rotherhithe to introduce the film and participate in a QandA after both screenings.

Screening Venue:
SANDS FILM STUDIOS
82 St Marychurch Street
Rotherhithe, London SE16 4HZ
Tube: Canada Water / Bermondsey (Jubilee Line)
Overground: Rotherhithe (East London Line)
Buses: 47, 188

Clarence Wharf, the gasometer and a history of gas supply in Rotherhithe

Up until 1851 the main source of lighting and other domestic fuel in the area was Daniel Bennett and Sons Oil Works, which had provided whale oil for the Rotherhithe area.  According to Stuart Rankin their presence may account for the late arrival of gas in the area.   Daniel Bennett and Son were located on the western side of Rotherhithe, adjacent to the Surrey Basin (now Surrey Water, by the Old Salt Quay pub and the red bascule bridge) and as well as investing in the whaling trade were involved in the South Seas trade, transporting convicts.  Daniel Bennett died in 1826 and son William in 1844. The subsequent gasworks were built over their premises.

Drawing the retorts at the Great Gas Establishment Brick Lane,
from The Monthly Magazine (1821). Sourced from Wikipedia

The earliest gas was manufactured, unlike today's natural gas.  The supply of gas was a major innovation in the early 19th Century. It was the energy that eventually supplied first for street lighting, industrial and eventually for domestic applications.  In 1792 William Murdoch had supplied his own home with light using gas, and went on to work with engineer William Clegg to develop commercial applications. The Birmingham steam engine manufacturers Boulton and Watt, for whom he worked, started to build small gas works for factories using Murdoch's designs. At the same time, in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries Philippe Lebon displayed his own gas experiments in Paris, influencing German Frederick Albert Winsor who established the Gas Light and Coke Company.  The company was granted a Royal Charter in England in 1812 and supplied lighting to the streets of Westminster in 1813, from where it was eventually run out to most of Britain and then Europe and the United States.

The last remaining Rotherhithe gasometer as it is today,
built in 1935

The earliest application of gas was for street lighting followed by factories and mills.  It was rolled out to profitable private enterprises and homes of the wealthy, before finally finding into ordinary households in the late Nineteenth Century, by which time electricity was becoming established.  Gas for cooking, and the appliances that made it possible, was available from the mid 19th century for the homes of the wealthy.  Homes were only heated by gas from the early 1900s.  Showrooms for light fittings, cookers and heating systems were soon set up on high streets. At the same time, gas engines supplied electricity for factories and public and tramway supplies. Although many other private and municipal companies were established, Winsor's company remained the main private supplier of gas until nationalization in 1948.  

As I have mentioned above, the gas used before the discovery of Natural Gas in the North Sea was manufactured.  Manufactured gas was produced by setting fire to combustible materials to produce carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide.  As Winsor's company name indicates,coal was the preferred material, and this was "gasified" by heating coal in enclosed ovens which had low levels of oxygen.  The gas was then burned to produce light and heat.  This required the supply of large quantities of coal, transported in from the country's coal mines, and was a manual process involving men stoking the coal in the ovens at dedicated gasworks.

Making gas from coal.  From the National Gas Museum website.

The initial process in the production of gas took place in the "retorts," where the coal was heated in the oxygen-deprived atmosphere.  Every gasworks had a retort house.  The Rotherhithe retorts are clearly marked on the 1868 map below.  The production and supply of gas was a complicated process that required a considerable amount of technology that was housed in other gaswork buildings. The most obvious visible signal of a gasworks was the gasometer or gas holder.  This innovation was designed to solve the problem of patterns in the use of gas, which was used mainly during mornings and evenings, when lighting was most required.  To prevent wastage and to regulate supply, gas was stored in gas holders, which stored the gas overnight.  Various different designs evolved, and the gas tower is now a familiar part of the urban landscape.  Chimneys were also a noticeable feature, used for disposing of unwanted components of the gas production process, and responsible for the introduction of several toxins into the atmosphere.  None of the Rotherhithe chimneys survive, but some of them are visible in the 1937 photograph below. To see more about the complexities of gas production see the excellent Wikipedia page on the subject.

Lighting in the Thames
Tunnel, Rotherhithe, 1843

Gas first found its way into Rotherhithe in response to a commercial need.  When the Thames Tunnel opened in Rotherhithe in 1843, illuminated by 100 gas jets, the gas was supplied by the Phoenix Gas Company.  The Phoenix Gas Company had gasworks at Deptford Creek and Bankside and pumped the necessary gas into the area. The Phoenix Gas Light and Coke Company was established by Act of Parliament in 1824, and purchased the gasworks at Bankside in Southwark, from the South London Gas Company in the same year.  The Phoenix Gas Works was a very successful company, financed by subscription.  The Early London Gas Industry website describes it as follows:

In its company history ‘A Century of Gas Lighting' the South Metropolitan Gas Company described the original Phoenix Company as having ‘a philanthropic, if not a Whiggish, tinge’ - and this is certainly true. The original Phoenix subscribers list, given below, includes many of the great and good of the era - Whigs, Quakers, Anti-Slavers - together with a strong element of local Southwark business men, and many of them would fit into several of these categories. It is a deeply impressive list - it is also, in contrast to some others, a list, which contains some highly principled politicians. There are also a number who can be identified as family and connections of the prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry. Even Derek Matthews in ‘Rogues, Speculators and Competing Monopolies’ was unable to find evidence of corruption - except in the dishonesty of a company secretary in the early 1830s.

The Rotherhithe Gasworks was established in 1851 following the foundation of the Surrey Consumers Gas Company (also known as the Surrey Consumers Gas Association) in 1849, opening in 1855 in competition with Phoenix, occupying the land that had formerly housed the Daniel Bennett and Sons Oil Works.   The small company already owned a small gasworks in Deptford, and with the establishment of the Rotherhithe site were able to supply the Rotherhithe peninsula, extend into Bermondsey and eventually parts of Southwark. At the time of construction a wharf was built to accompany the gasworks, and an iron bridge was built to transport coal across Rotherhithe Street to the gasworks beyond, in barrows. The coal was shipped in from the northeast, where it was mined. The gasometers were established at that time. Numbers 1 and 2 had a capacity of 1,600,000 cubic feet between them.  There were three by 1868. 

In 1879 the South Metropolitan Gas Company took over the site, with its three gasometers.  The South Metropolitan Gas Company was founded in 1829 and incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1842 and their gasworks were established on the Grand Surrey Canal on the eastern side of Old Kent Road, enabling them to receive coal delivered from ships to Rotherhithe wharves, via barges on the canal. By 1856 they had seven gasholders on the site. In 1879, the South Metropolitan Gas Company merged with the Surrey Consumers Gas Works and later in the same year Phoenix Gas Company and the South Metropolitan Gas Company were also amalgamated. These mergers gave the South Metropolitan Gas Company the gasworks at Rotherhithe, Vauxhall, Bankside and Greenwich.

Maps showing the same site in 1868 and 1894. The major difference
between the two maps is the extension of the jetty and the establishment
(shown in dark lines) of the single track railway on the jetty to run
between thejetty and the gaswork site, via the bridge over Rotherhithe.
Click to see the maps properly.

 

Women Working in a Gas Retort House during the
First World War: South Metropolitan
Gas Company, London. 1918,
by Anna Airy. Imperial War Museum

The Rotherhithe site was extended to six and a half acres and the company acquired three riverside properties to improve efficiencies; F.Powell's sea-biscuit bakery at King's Mill Wharf, Mangle Wharf granary, which was owned by Timothy and Company, and Clarence Wharf, then in the hands of S.Cooper.  The South Metropolitan Gas Company immediately replaced the existing waterside infrastructure with a new iron jetty in 1882/1883, which received sufficient coal to supply both the Rotherhithe Gasworks and the South Metropolitan Gas Works on the Old Kent Road, to which it was delivered via lighters (un-powered boats) along the Grand Surrey Canal.  The bridge over Rotherhithe Street was still furnished with the single track railway. The three gasometers were still there in 1894, by which time the gas jetty had been expanded and a single track railway put in place to connect the jetty and the gasworks, the coal supplied by sea on collier ships from the north-east. The jetty was again expanded in 1908.

During the First World War many men went to war, and much of their work was taken over by women, in a situation that presaged the factory work carried out by women in the Second World War.

In his book The Story of Rotherhithe, Stephen Humphrey describes how the South Metropolitan Gas Company "was one of the most enlightened industrial employers in south London."  Housing built for their employees included seven houses in Brunel Road in 1926, which were destroyed by bombs during the Second World War.  Another housing development was erected in 1931 in Moodkee Street, which consisted of 30 flats in three buildings - Murdock House, Clegg House and Neptune House. Murdock and Clegg houses were named for the British innovators of gas mentioned above.

South Metropolitan Gas Works, 1937, with a collier
moored against the wharf

In 1932 a 18,000 cubit ft gasometer was built (known as number 4), followed in 1935 by one with a capacity of 800,000 cubit ft (number 3).  During the Second World War gasometers Numbers 1 and 2 were destroyed.

After the war the jetty was again expanded, this time extended to 200ft so that it could handle colliers that could each transport coal cargoes of up to 2500 tons.  Four cranes were installed at the same time and these could shift up to 75 tons an hour each.

Gas supply was nationalized in 1948. The Rotherhithe gas works closed in 1959.

Today, apart from the one remaining gas tower, used to support a cell transmitter, the entire site of the gasworks has been replaced by residential housing built by Bellway Homes in the late 1990s.  The bridge between the jetty and the wharf was still in place, when it was in use for a different purpose, in the 1990s (I've not yet found out what the site was used for after the closure of the gasworks).  The wharf, in the form of the grey jetty, is still in place, preserved as a condition of the housing development behind it thanks to local protests at its intended demolition. It is substantially smaller than it was.  It was supposed to be made available for public use, as part of the Thames Path, but for reasons that no-one seems to know it remains closed, but is a favourite sunbathing spot for cormorants (or shags - I've never been able to tell the difference).

The gas jetty today

A different view of the 1935 gasometer tower today.
Photograph by Stephen Craven.

Neptune House, built by the South Metropolitan Gas
Company in 1931 for its employees.
Photograph by Chris Lordan.

I got a major insight when writing this post about a dig I was on when I was an archaeologist working in Chester in the 80s.  I was working on a Roman site where the Crown Courts are now located, near the former gasworks, which were long defunct. We had excavated a badly subsided Roman road and were now digging through an earlier Roman drain beneath it, which took us very deep.  As we dug down below 6ft, our regulation hard-hats firmly on our heads, we found ourselves paddling in tar.  The state we were in!  I've never seen so much gunge spread so far and wide.  We couldn't dig any lower because as fast was we dug the tar oozed in from the vertical sections in which we were standing.  Looking at the diagram above, it is quite clear where it was coming from!

With thanks to Stephen Humphrey's and Stuart Rankin's excellent works for the usual kick-start. For those wanting to investigate further, the National Gas Archive might be a good place to start: http://www.gasarchive.org.  The National Gas Museum is located in Leicester and has an excellent website: http://nationalgasmuseum.org.uk. 

The 1866 clipper "Shun Lee," built at Rotherhithe's Lavendar Dock

Shun Lee by Montague Dawson

Shun Lee was built in 1866 by John and William Walker at Lavender Dock in Rotherhithe.  The site is now occupied by the east end of the modern residential Sovereign View development (SE16 5XH) near to the Lavender pump-house and the Lavender Lock, both of which survive today.  More about John and William Walker can be found on my previous posts about the tea clippers Ambassador and the fast ship Lothair, which was the  last large sailing ship to be built in Rotherhithe.

As with the other Walker ships, Shun Lee was a composite,with wooden planking laid over an iron frame.  To get an understanding of what the wrought iron frame looked like and how it worked, see the last photograph on my post about Ambassador or go and visit the wonderful Cutty Sark in Greenwich, London.  Composites had many benefits over ships made entirely of wood.  The wood made ships light and streamlined but the iron frames provided longevity and strength. Most importantly, a composite had no need of the giant beams required by a wooden ship, which left more room for cargo.  The earliest known composite hull was the schooner Excelsior of 1850, built by John Jordan, and one of the earliest clippers to be built was Bilbe and Perry of Rotherhithe's 720 ton Red Riding Hood.  Although built by John and William Walker, the work was overseen by Bernard Waymouth, who was a renowned surveyor for Lloyd's Register and became an authority on composite ships.  The experience he gained working with shipbuilders like John Walker stood him in good stead when later, as a naval architect, he went on to design the famous Thermophylae.   

Lavender Dock

She was 674grt (650 nt), 158ft long, with a 31ft beam and was Register A1 at Lloyds.  The only unusual design features were longer than average overhangs at both bow and stern. A description of her was published in the "London and China Telegraph" at the time of her launch:

The frame is of double-angle iron, diagonally trussed, with extra angle and bulb iron stringers worked longitudinally on frames right fore and aft.   The bottom is double to the underside of the wales, the inner bottom being fastened to the frames with galvanized iron bolts, and the outer bottom being worked diagonally and fastened to the inner bottom with pure copper bolts.

The above description, full of technical details, illustrates the real interest in shipbuilding innovation that existed at the time. 

Advert for passage on Shun Lee, from The London
and China Telegraph, Volume 11, 1869

Shun Lee was owned and operated by the Walker company for the first years following construction.  Although ostensibly designed for the China tea trade, Shun Lee's first voyage under Captain Milbank was to Australia.  She did one China trade trip and was sold in 1871 to Potter and Co. of London for work on New Zealand trade routes.  Shun Lee changed hands several times.  In 1874 she was sold to M. Ion & Co. and subsequently to J. Graham who apparently re-sold her to M. Ion & Co.  In 1885 she was purchased by J. Henkins and in 1891 by J. Carew.

In 1880 her full rig was reduced to barque rigging, a standard procedure for former tea clippers when they were no longer required to achieve the high speeds demanded by the tea trade over such long distances. With shorter rigging they were easier to handle and required fewer crew hands to man them. 

Shun Lee by Thomas Goldsworth Dutton
Royal Museum Greenwich, London (PY8575)

There are no particular tales to tell about Shun Lee.  There seems to be no record of her China voyage, how long it took or what cargo she was carrying.  In his book "White Wings," Sir Henry Brett says that under Captain Langlands, sailed from England on May 18th 1871, arrived Port Chalmers, Otago in New Zealand on December 2nd with  passengers on board.  Emigration to New Zealand provided the clippers with an outward cargo that contributed to their profitability.

Shun Lee never saw the end of 1891.  In the September of that year she was in Rio de Janeiro when she caught fire and burned.  Three crew members falsely accused the mate of deliberately setting fire to the ship, were found to be lying and had to pay the costs of the inquiry.  The cause was actually declared as internal combustion.

Shun Lee by Montague Dawson

The 1869 tea clipper Ambassador, built in Rotherhithe's Lavender Dock

Ambassador in the year of her launch.
Thomas J. Duggan 1869

Ambassador was built in 1869 by was built by John and William Walker at Lavender Dock in Rotherhithe, a site which is now occupied by the east end of the modern residential Sovereign View development (SE16 5XH) near to the Lavender pump-house and the Lavender Lock, both of which survive today.

She was 714grt (692nrt), and measured 176ft by 31.3ft and 19.1ft.  Apparently she was fitted with the figurehead of an eighteen century diplomat, but I've been unable to find which one.

The 1868 Ordnance Survey map shows
the Lavender Dock where
Ambassador and the other Walker tea
clippers were constructed, right at the
apex of Rotherhithe.

William Walker was a shipbuilder who operated, at different times, out of Rotherhithe, Deptford, Poplar and Millwall.  Of John Walker there is no surviving record, apart from the name of the business, although he was clearly related to William Walker.  William Walker specialized in composite ships.  The company had also previously built Shun Lee, Mikado and a year later built their fastest and biggest clipper Lothair, all composites.  Lothair was described in a previous post. Composites were wooden ships built on iron frames, providing additional strength to the hull (a famous example is the Cutty Sark, which has been restored and is now in dry dock in Greenwich, London). They were lighter, requiring much less internal structural work, which also provided more internal space.  Composite ships were only accepted as a recognized class in 1867, when they were described in the Lloyds Register, which gave guidelines for their construction.  The photograph at the end of the post shows Ambassador as she is today, with only the iron frame remaining, bright orange with rust, showing how the precise form of the frame with its once beautiful lines.

"Setting Topgallants, The China Clipper Ambassador,"
1870, by Derek Gardner. Note the steamship in the
background at the right - steam eventually saw
the demise of sailing ships.

Ambassador was built for William Lund.  W. Lund and Sons established the Blue Anchor shipping line in 1869, and Ambassador was bought as the first ship of the new line specifically for the tea trade (the company was sold to the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. in 1910).  The Blue Anchor shipping line, like many others at this time, was engaged in the China shipping industry.  Ships like this are known as tea clippers but not only carried tea (although that was one of their most profitable cargoes) but china, fabrics, sundry other cargoes and quite often passengers too. As David MacGregor says in The China Bird, 1869 was a "boom" year for tea clipper building.  Other clippers built around the country in the same year were Cutty Sark, Norman Court, Deerhound, Duke of Abercorn and Caliph, whilst orders were placed for Wylo, Miako and Osaka. It is ironic that so many tea clippers were built in the same year that the Suez Canal was built, an innovation that gave steam shippers the edge over sail for the first time. 

Ships in the Tea Race of 1870
From Brian Lubbock, 1914.

Although Ambassador was a beautiful looking ship and considered to be reasonably fast, she never attained the crossing speeds of the best of the tea clippers.  In his book The China Clippers, all Brian Lubbock has to say about her was that she was  "very cranky and overmasted, though a fast ship."  She only made six tea voyages in total (a two-way voyage a season or year was standard for tea clippers travelling distances which would usually take over 100 days). Her first passage to the UK was from Foochow in the 1870-71 season under Captain P. Duggan took 115 days (she left Foochow on 25th July and arrived off Deal on the 15th November), whilst the clippers Lahloo and Leander took only 98 days to complete the same route in the same season.  She wasn't the slowest though, by any means - the slowest ships that year was Eme (135 days), who took a different route from most of the other vessels and was becalmed for some days. Ambassador's fastest crossing between Foochow and London was 108 days, in 1872. 

Ambassador's sister ship, Lothair

In 1874 Ambassador was reduced to a barque rig and changed routes  Steam ships were becoming increasingly successful and with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 steamers could reach China from London in much better time, making sailing ships in the China trade progressively redundant. Tea clippers were unable to use the Suez Canal due to the difficulty of the winds in the Red Sea, where the Suez Canal terminated.  Instead, the clippers were used on a more diversified set of routes where steam was still unable to compete due to the need to store fuel at convenient points along their routes. Accordingly,  Ambassador began to serve the Australian wool industry, which was still out of the reach of steamships who needed multiple re-fuelling bases along their routes, and also sailed between Hong Kong and New York and Yokohama and New York.  In the 1876-77 season she went up against her sister ship, the notoriously fast Lothair, also made by Walker at Lavender Dock a year after Ambassador in 1870. Both ships were sailing from Yokohama to New York.  Here's MacGregor's account of that race, which contains an intriguing temporal ambiguity:

Ever since Ambassador and Lothair found themselves together in Sunda Straits bound for the same port they must have made a race of it.  Lothair had knocked eight days off her lead down the China Sea and although the shipping reports give her a lead of two days off the Cape of God Hope, the two ships were also report in company on 11 January at 11 January in 35degreesS, 19degreesE.  Lothair still held her two-day lead on paper as she crossed the Equator two days ahead in longitude 25degreesW.  Ambassador crossed it at 34degreesW and went on to get into port four days ahead, although her overall time was four days greater.  Maury recommended ships bound for America to cross the Equator at about 33Degrees30'W, and Ambassador's gain of six days on Lothair ably proves his point.

Ambassador towards the end of her life, with
reduced rigging

David MacGregor in "The Tea Clippers describes how in 1877 a rather more traumatic journey took place.  Travelling from New York to Melbourne under the command of Captain C. Prehn running before a westerly gale force 10 in the South Atlantic, Ambassador's deck "was swept by a enormous sea, carrying overboard her master, four crew her steering wheel and the boats."

In 1888 Ambassador sold to George Milne of the Inver Line in Aberdeen, but he kept her for only a year, after which she was sold to G. Shaddick, Swansea, in 1889.  Again, she exchanged hands very rapidly and in 1891 Sold to Burgess and Co. of London.  Three years later, in 1894, she was again sold, this time to Aktieselskabet Kristians and then to Ole G. Olsen, Kristians and was employed on the routes between the Atlantic ports to the Pacific around Cape Horn, sailing under a Norwegian flag.  The rounding of Cape Horn was notoriously dangerous and is the subject of numerous seamen's shanties.  Brian Lubbock says that in  July 1895 a hurricane around Cape Horn was so bad that 14 ships put back for repairs, six of which went into Port Stanley and the remainder into Monte Video.  En route from Florida to Hawaii, Ambassador, damaged and leaking, was one of the ships that put into Port Stanley, together with Priorhill, GW Wolff, Eagle Crag, Ratharina and Gladys.  Sadly, Ambassador never sailed again.  She was condemned in Port Stanley in December 1895 and put up for sale.  

The remains of Ambassador today
Karsten-Rau-Photography

On 10 January 1896 sold to Frank Townsend for £850.  Townsend was presumably hoping to re-sell her for a profit because he had her moved to Ponte Arenas off the Chilean coast, where she was again put up for sale.  This time she was purchased by  a company called Jose Menendez and Mauricio Braun for £1,250.  Although they were ship owners, as well as merchants, they used her as a storage hulk. Her career as a sailing ship was over but she was retained for storage purposed for another forty years, passing into the hands of the  Sociedad Ganadera y Comercial Menendez. In 1899, when they no longer required her, she was towed to her present location at Punta Arenas, in the Straits of Magellan, Chile, and beached.  She survives today as an iron frame with virtually none of her wooden covering surviving.  She was placed on the National Historic Landmarks List of Chile in 1973.

With thanks to Brian Lubbock and David R. MacGregor for their great books.

Hope Sufferance Wharf and Granary, Rotherhithe village, 1850 - 2014

Hope Wharf today, with the tower of St Mary Rotherhithe
clearly in the background to the left of the photograph,
and the red hoist or crane just visible to the right.

There are three buildings that make up the Hope Wharf enterprise:  one with a Thames frontage, and two others facing onto St Mary Rotherhithe Street, which changed function over time but were originally storage and stables.  There is a small cobbled corridor between the building that fronts onto the Thames and those that front onto St Mary Rotherhithe Street, and they are connected by a first floor gantry walkway (see the fourth image on this page), a common model for this particular part of Rotherhithe.  Grice's Granary, for example, had the same relationship between Thames-fronting wharf and a separate granary connected by a walkway.  The Hope Wharf buildings are in the heart of Rotherhithe Village, very near to the 18th Century church of St Mary Rotherhithe and its churchyard.

Hope Wharf in 1868

On the 1868 Ordnance Survey map to the right the riverside building is highlighted but behind it are the other two buildings that made up the complete property.  All three were in poor condition before they were restored, and it is thanks to the quality of their original build that are still standing.  The two overlooking St Mary Church Street are clearly painted with their names (see the photographs at the end of this post).  Apart from the church in its grounds and the large tree-framed burial ground, this is an area dominated by closely-packed buildings.  If you click on the map to enlarge it, you will see that the Thames frontage is an almost unbroken ribbon of wharves punctuated by waterman's stairs and open yards.  Set back of the Thames are granaries, timber yards, mills and, inevitably pubs (four in the immediate vicinity).  Beyond them are dense terraces of housing. The East London railway runs close by, with Rotherhithe Station clearly marked.  Hope Wharf was located in one of Rotherhithe's busiest commercial areas.  It was well set up for connections by river and rail, employed dozens of people, many of whom lived nearby, and it was well served by those fundamental opposites of community life:  a church and a lot of pubs.

Hope Sufferance Wharf in 1937

The three buildings dates to the early 19th Century, probably around 1810.  They were all built of yellow London stock brick, a ubiquitous building material in Rotherhithe (see my post about London stock here).  The building that looks onto the Thames consists of three storeys with attics.  Key features are wooden storey-posts and a hipped queenpost roof with eaves at the front. Inside, at least one post was the reused part of a ship's mast.

I have been unable to find out what it was used for when it was built but by the 1850s Hope Wharf was occupied by Joseph Goddard, when it was used as an open coal wharf and depot.  He was there at least until 1858, when he is mentioned in the February 27th issue of the London Gazette.  By 1890 it was occupied by L. Farrel.  In 1902 it was taken over by H.F Gardiner and Company, who were wharfingers.  Wharfingers were general cargo handlers who provide docking facilities and are responsible for receiving cargo and storing it, and ensuring that it is forwarded correctly. 

Between the 1920s and 1960s it was operated by A.J. Gardiner and Sons as a sufferance wharf for the handling of foodstuffs, flour and metals.   Sufferance wharves were buildings that were licensed to handle dutiable goods.  H.M. Customs regulations that were brought in during the 19th Century dictated that all dutiable goods were to be offloaded at special Legal Quays, all of which were on the north bank of the Upper Pool, a stretch of the river between London Bridge and the Tower of London.  The Legal Quays often reached and exceeded capacity, unable to cope with the cargo that they were required to handle.  Sufferance wharves were introduced to assist with the traffic jam - places that were permitted or "suffered" to land good that attracted lower duties. Five sufferance wharves were licensed on the north bank of the Thames and sixteen on the south.   The wall-mounted hoist or crane has been preserved today belongs to this period, shown in the photograph above in 1937, below in 1979, and at the end of this post as it is today.   It was made by the East Ferry Road Engineering Works in the 1930s on the Isle of Dogs and was capable of lifting 12.5cwt.  In the 1937 photograph above, the space to the left of the building (at the right of the photograph) is the yard into which much of the cargo was offloaded, and it too has a crane in it.  This yard has been preserved today and is a good place to see the wall-mounted hoist (and has great views of the river).

Hope Wharf in 1979 showing the overhead connecting
walkways, the 1930s hoist and the the walkway
that leads to Rotherhithe village. 
From the John Harvard Library

The building now known as the granary was used for storage during the sufferance wharf phase, and only later became a granary, serving the nearby Thames Tunnel Mills. 

In 1974 part of the property was acquired by the Industrial Buildings Preservation Trust and was converted by Duffy Lange Giffone Worthington to premises for crafts workers, including silversmiths, potters and knitters.  It is worth noting that this was done over a decade before the regeneration of the area by the London Development Corporation.  There's a nice description of the conversion in the Time and Talents booklet mentioned above (page 7):

"The main structure was general sound but the floors had sagged alarmingly because of the heavy loadings they had to bear.  The top of the parapet was rebuilt and a new roof constructed with dormer windows lighting a third floor display area.  Glazed doors opened onto patio giving fine views across the Thames; a small opens paces was created along the river side of the building, with benches and brick planters; and the warehouse hoists were restored and pointed as a reminder of its past.  The scheme took a year to complete and cost £160,000.  The first occupants were craftsmen: potters, silversmiths, glassblowers, ceramicists and carvers."

The journalist who started today's invaluable local newspaper, Southwark News (Bermondsey News in its first iteration), was at that time running a news agency and had a small office there.  It's rather a nice story (from the Southwark News website - see the page for full story):

Cartoon of Dave Clark at his
Hope Sufferance Wharf premises.
(from the Southwark News website)

"The Southwark News, London’s only paid for, independent weekly newspaper, was born in 1987 – the brainchild of respected journalist Dave Clark.  At the time, Dave had left behind a successful career in national newspapers and was running his own news agency, South East News, out of a rundown warehouse in Hope Sufferance Wharf, Rotherhithe . . . .  Seeing the need for a local community paper in the Bermondsey and Rotherhithe area, Dave decided to launch an A4 photocopied sheet of paper, and sell it for 20p, hand delivering it to a few newsagents.

Hope Wharf was transferred into the hands of Southwark Council in 1977 and closed a few years later in a "rundown" condition, according to the Southwark News excerpt above.  It's really rather sad that this particular brave experiment failed.

In 1997 the properties that made up Hope Wharf were converted to apartments. There is a small garden immediately to the west of the Thames frontage, on the site of Wilson's Yard, from where the side of the building can be seen, together with its hoist. The current state of the buildings can be seen below.

The buildings are Grade II listed.

With thanks to "London's Changing Riverscape" for the names and dates of the occupiers up to the 1960s.

"Dockland Memory In Rotherhithe" - A video of historic Rotherhithe by Shintaro Kurihara

A must-see video on You Tube by Shintaro Kurihara for anyone interested in Rotherhithe's past. 

As usual, I found it today whilst looking for something else entirely.  This video, entitled "Dockland Memory in Rotherhithe," beautifully juxtaposes still black and white photographs from Rotherhithe Picture Library with video footage shot by the photographer today. 

Take a video walk around Rotherhithe and see past and present side by side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ65wAhUt4A&feature=youtu.be

A history of the Rotherhithe Workhouse on Lower Road - 1728-1884

The Rotherhithe Workhouse in 1820. By George Yates.

Workhouses were, crudely, buildings owned and administered by the state, in which impoverished people lived and for whom work was provided in return for their keep.  They are an 18th and early 19th Century phenomenon but they had been a long time coming.  The 1601 Act for the Relief of the Poor put the care of the poor firmly into the hands of parishes, who funded their poor relief by imposing a poor-rate tax on property owners.  In its earliest phases the sort of assistance that the poor could expect was usually in the form of hand-outs of essentials like food, clothing and fuel with which to cook and heat their homes.  However, the concept of the workhouse gradually began to evolve as a means of improving efficiencies both in terms of cost and the administration of relief.  Intentions were good, and these early forms of workhouse were successful.

Darton's 1817 map shows the location of the
workhouse (highlighted here in red).
Copyright Mapco.net

These institutions were formalized with a 1723 act that gave parishes the freedom to deny the poor any form of relief unless they moved into the workhouse, where they were given shelter, clothing and food in return for labour.   Not all workhouses were purpose built, but there was a growing trend in that direction throughout the 18th Century.  Poor law unions were an outcome of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, and these were responsible for joining together parish management of the poor and creating big, purpose built workhouses to create economies and scale and centralize operations, the Poor Law Unions.  As well as dormitory accommodation and work rooms, they also included infirmary facilities.  These big 19th Century workhouses received bad publicity from a variety of sources, notably Charles Dickens, but although not all of them were the horror stories that the word conjours up, many clearly were.  They were run on a minimal budget. Conditions were basic, food  unappetising, beds arranged in large hospital style-large dormitories with men segregated from women, and all inmates had to wear uniforms. Workhouses were intended to deter potential residents. They were very much a last-ditch option for the poor and were often the dumping ground for orphans, the elderly, unmarried mothers and the mentally impaired. However, although they were organized along the lines of the prisons of the day, residents were free to leave at any time.

Rotherhithe workhouse was established in the 1720s and came under the St Mary Rotherhithe Parish, and its Vestry.  There are almost no images of the workhouse so I have supplemented this post with photographs and paintings from other London workhouses, as examples.

The workhouse is first mentioned in the Vestry Minutes on April 29th of 1722 when the proposal to establish a workhouse was put forward. Nothing was actioned at that time and it was only in 1728 when the proposal resulted in a workhouse on Deptford Lower Road (since 1888 simply Lower Road, opposite today's Neptune Street). 

An example of a work room in a London workhouse.
From Pyne and Combe's book (1810) "The Workhouse"

It is described in a remarkable book that describes numerous workhouses in the early 18th Century.  Assembled by the Society for Promoting Christian knowledge, a London group that supported and promoted workhouses, it described the Rotherhithe workhouse as follows:  "A Workhouse is lately set up here, near the Footway to Deptford, and though it is not yet finished, there are 8 Poor Men and Women, and 32 Boys and Girls put into it, under the Care of a Mistress; their chief Employment at present is the picking Ockam." Ockam, or more usually oakum, will be discussed below.

The Rotherhithe workhouse continued to remain under the care of the St Mary Rotherhithe Parish, and its Vestry until 1836. From 1836-1869 the workhouse was placed into the care of the St Mary Rotherhithe Board of Guardians.  Boards of Guardians were bodies who were responsible, by law (the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834) for the management and administration of workhouses and related buildings. Those serving on a Board of Guardians were elected by the owners of the properties that were liable for the poor rate, a tax gathered by residents in order to provide provision for the disadvantaged. The board was elected annually.

This illustration from the Police Illustrated News gives
an idea of the light in which the workhouses were regarded

The Workhouses website (http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Lancet/Rotherhithe.shtml) reproduces an account from the 1865 edition of The Lancet, which describes the workhouse as follows at this time:  "The workhouse consists of three distinct blocks of building. The main block, which fronts the east, is 300 years old, and is now used for the "able-bodied" and for offices. The block which lies on the west was built in 1837, and is now occupied by the "old and infirm," and by the midwifery and nursery wards." The report mentions that the infirmary was often the victim of the high water table, but that drainage was generally good.  It also says that the handling of the infirm within the workhouse was less than ideal:  "The position and pay of the medical officer is a deplorable subject. He visits the house daily, and has about forty sick, besides the aged and infirm, under treatment; and attends about twelve midwifery cases yearly. For the whole of this duty, and for supplying and dispensing all the drugs, Mr. Firth receives £35 per annum! Any comment on these facts would be quite superfluous.  The mortality of the year 1864 was eighty-eight, and presents nothing remarkable; and there is no evidence of the outbreak of epidemic disease as far back as the records extend. This last circumstance is one for which the guardians are certainly not to be thanked." Sanitation was clearly appalling and the report takes the management severely to task on this as well. See the above page for the full report.

Weller's 1868 map of Rotherhithe,
showing the workhouse (in red)
sandwiched between Lower Road and
Southwark Park. Rotherhithe was
becoming increasingly busy.

Another bad report followed, this time from one of the workhouse's own employees. In the mid 1860s a nurse from the workhouse infirmary, one Matilda Beeton, wrote with such effect to the Poor Law Board that the master and matron of the workhouse were both dismissed following an investigation. Matilda Beeton worked as Head Nurse at the workhouse infirmary from 9 July 1864 and left 16 April 1865.  Here's the text of her letter (with thanks to the rgreeen.org.uk website for reproducing it):

"On the 9th of July 1864 I took office, as head nurse, in Rotherhithe Infirmary, where I had 50 patients sick and infirm; with this number I found I was really able to personally superintend the actual nursing, which is as much as one paid nurse can do with any satisfaction to herself or those by whom she is employed. For this number of patients I had four pauper nurses, all of whom were old and inexperienced; two could read but neither could write.

Of the four nurses allowed me three were all I could expect them to be; drunk only when they had the means or the chance of getting anything to drink; the fourth was a confirmed drunkard, so much so, that I was in constant fear of her doing bodily harm to the sick patients. She would beat them till they were black with bruises, more especially those who were unable to help themselves and friendless; and I found, by the patients, that they lived in fear of her, and only by giving her their beer, or other nourishment, could they feel themselves safe to ask for the most trifling thing to be done for them.

I complained to the matron and assistant master, and was told she had always done very well till I came there; they supposing she did not like a paid nurse over her. I must therefore do the best I could with her, as there was no one in the house she could put in her place.

Dinner at Marylebone workhouse

I then complained of the dirty state the patients were in, when the matron said I must get used to all that, as workhouses were not like hospitals.

When I had been there about four months, I had a pauper sent to the sick ward from some ward up at the workhouse. I understood this poor creature had been in the house for some time, she was an imbecile. This poor patient I believed sensitive to all her sufferings and yet she was the victim to the most cruel treatment from this inhuman pauper nurse.

This state of things went on till one morning I sent for the master to come to the infirmary. Immediately on his coming, I told him he must that moment remove the sick ward nurse, or I would go and bring in the guardians to see what could be done in the shape of finding me another nurse; the master, fearing I should do so, very reluctantly ordered what he thought a model nurse to the body of the house.

I do not think I am wrong in saying many a poor creature went to their home long before the time, by the hands of this inhuman nurse. It was my firm impression that when patients had got bad and troublesome she gave opium, put them on the left side, and so they passed out of this world as natural deaths.

Respecting things for the use of the patients, there was an insufficiency of everything throughout the whole infirmary.

As regards the sick diet, I considered on the whole it was insufficient; the mutton broth and beef tea were only mockery, the meat was more often than not one lump of fat, and nearly cold, so that a patient very ill could not eat it. Milk in the sick ward was never heard of till I asked the doctor to allow it with arrow-root; then the master made a great fuss about it. I had forgotten to say nightdresses were not allowed for the sick patients, with the exception of three or four of the union blue, made out of the skirts of worn out dresses. Patients were allowed to wear their own if they could pay for the washing; and I found they often had to sell their nourishment to do it.

On the whole, it did not seem to me that a pauper's life was regarded in any other light than the sooner they were dead the better.

I left Rotherhithe workhouse 16th April 1865."

Matilda Beeton
23 April 1866"

"The elderly at the workhouse" by Hubert von Herkomer

In 1869 the workhouse became part of St Olave's Union, under the administration of the St Olave Board of Guardians, named for the Church of St Olaf at London Bridge.  The Vestry of St Mary Rotherhithe continued to work with the poor, offering help, building churches, improving education and generally helping to support those in need.  The workhouse played a different role, consolidating those who had no other recourse but to turn to the workhouse for shelter.

Although it had included an infirmary of its own, the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 required that infirmary accommodation be separate from workhouse buildings and a separate infirmary was built next door in 1873.This will be covered in another post.

Residents of the Rotherhithe workhouse were employed in a number of tasks, many of which were directly related to the local shipping industry.  In the early Nineteenth Century a rope manufacturing operation supplied new rope to ship builders and owners.  Stephen Humphrey says that in 1836 it turned a profit of £592 2s and 2d (with thanks to the National Archives Currency Convertor, £582 2s 2d would have the same spending worth of around £25,670.98 - very impressive). Another of their tasks was the creation of oakum.  Old ropes and cables ("junk") were chopped into manageable lengths and these were in turn picked apart to reduce them to their component fibres.   These were then tarred and used as packing ("caulking") to fill gaps in wooden planking of ship hulls and decking.  It was a laborious job, and was commonly assigned to workhouse inmates.

Failure to comply with workhouse rules resulted in severe punishment.  Stephen Humphrey gives the example of four girls who were housed in the women's block in 1835 who were threatened with deportation to Tasmania.  

The workhouse closed in 1884, but the separate infirmary continued to operate until the 1970s, and will be described on another post. In 1889 the workhouse was still standing because the Minutes of the Board of Guardians state that it was "dilapidated and unused."  

Today, the land where the workhouse used to be located is covered by the residential estate on Ann Moss Way.  Although there are remains of the infirmary that survived the demise of the workhouse, there are no extant remains of the workhouse itself.

Ann Moss Way

With thanks to Stephen Humphrey's book "The Story of Rotherhithe" for untangling much of the history.  For more about workhouses and their history see Peter Higginbottom's fascinating and comprehensive Workhouses website.

Website: "I Live In SE16"

To my surprise, this website has apparently been going for around 6 months now, but I missed it because I was away for a lot of last year.  I am really terribly out of touch at the moment!  Peddling fast to make up for lost time :-)

So on the off-chance that other local residents reading the blog are unaware of the "I Live In SE16" website (http://iliveinse16.com), I thought it would be worth mentioning that it is a really good local resource.  There is both static text and a blog with news updates, and the site is supported by presences on Facebook and Twitter as well as meetings in the real world at suitable local venues.  I've paged through the news updates and it is particularly useful if you want to get involved in Rotherhithe life. 

It is probably best to let it speak for itself, so here's the introductory paragraph from their site.

An online hub for everything in Bermondsey, Surrey Quays, Rotherhithe and Canada Water in London SE16. We are a small group of friends who are building this community site to bring everyone together –  residents, workers and visitors. We provide a source of information and ideas about our neighbourhood.

We are volunteers finding our way and welcome others to help us make this a real success. We also have a Facebook page and run the weekly #SE16Hour on Twitter. If you’ve news to share, a business to promote or a an event to publicise, tweet to @SE16Hour.

And more from their About page:

In recent years SE16 has flourished with many new residents and businesses coming to the area. New builds are going up left right and centre and there are still many new changes to come. Members of the community currently residing in the area and new residents still aren’t aware about all the great local businesses and events that happen in the area, so it’s now time to get the word out through iliveinSE16.com & @se16hour.

We are a collective of local businesses and organisations who have come together in partnership to bring to your attention of what goes on in your area. This includes day to day activities, services and local events. We feel the more support we give each other, the stronger we are in raising awareness of all the wonderful things that go on. Search through our page to find listings and contacts for all partners involved in iliveinSE16 and discover your area. The Census 2011 advised that the population for SE16 was 44,957.

There is advertising, but it is confined to local services and events. Just to remind you that the web address is http://iliveinse16.com.

At the same time, do take time to look at the "4RS Amateur Video Productions" page on You Tube.  Amongst other great pieces of video, as part of the I Live In SE16 project, the 4RS team has started interviewing local institutions and organizations in Rotherhithe to build up a record of different initiatives in the area. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClsnXDjgyGMj-Q7B03nbESw


Enjoy!