Chatham Dockyard (14 page)

Among the advantages of working in the yard was the right to medical care in the event of an injury sustained while carrying out yards duties. Often this might involve transfer to a naval hulk moored in the Medway and converted to use as a hospital ship. However, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Melville Hospital was constructed close to the Main Gate and upon that area now occupied by the modern-day Melville Court.

Throughout the country numerous radical societies had come into being, including a branch of the London Corresponding Society that was formed in Brompton, within the very shadow of the dockyard wall. John Gale Jones, a leading opponent of the new legislation, made a point of visiting the Medway Towns and must have addressed a number of meetings attended by dockyard workers. He also left an impression of a unique occasion in which the entire workforce of the dockyard expressed their absolute opposition to the proposed legislation:

At Chatham, Commissioner Proby, it is said, called together all the workmen (near seventeen hundred in number) of the dockyard, and desired them to sign their names to an Address to His Majesty, congratulating him on his late happy escape, and praying him to pass the Bills. By a singular circumstance, however, the men unanimously declared they would not sign away their liberties, and, rushing out of the yard in a body, went to the place where a Petition against the Convention Bills laid, and every one instantly subscribed his name.
²²

The action taken by the workforce on this occasion, described by Jones, provides a rare example of total and absolute unity of both the skilled and unskilled employed in the dockyard. Knowledge that they would be mustered for purposes of signing an address in support of the new legislation was known several days beforehand. The Mayor of Rochester, considered by Jones to be ‘a good patriot’ for the cause of freedom, had a number of handbills posted. Entitled ‘A Caution’, they appealed to the yard workers not to sign:

Being informed this evening that the Commissioner has requested a meeting of the workmen in His Majesty’s Dockyard Chatham, and that the purpose of the said meeting is to request you to approve of the present Bill now pending in Parliament – I take this method of cautioning you against being entrapped to approve of measures which you are not acquainted. The present Bills in the state they now stand completely deprive the People of Liberty of Speech, of Writing, Printing, Preaching, or assembly in any respect of redress of Grievances however arbitrary or oppressive without the presence of a magistrate.

It was between 11 a.m. and noon on 17 November that Commissioner Proby assembled the workers and asked them to sign the address. In doing so, he made reference to the Mayor of Rochester’s handbills:

I understand a caution has been put up this morning in different places, to prevent you from being entrapped by me to approve of measures with which you are not acquainted.

I am of opinion, that you are, all of you, as capable of judging of any matters, which may be brought before you as any other person whatsoever, and therefore I shall read you the address, that you may form your own judgements upon it.

And this he proceeded to do:

We have the fullest confidence that Your Majesty in conjunction with the Houses of Parliament will take the properest measures for the safety of Your Majesty’s loyal person in future for the happiness of all Your Majesty’s subjects, and for the good of the British nation in every respect.
²³

At the time, Proby felt his speech went down well, believing it probable that the mass of men would sign. After all, they had no history of radical action, and could not be considered in sympathy with the mob action in London.

No further developments, despite Jones’ suggestion to the contrary, took place on that particular day, although it can be assumed that a great deal of thought and discussion took place. As Jones, in an account of his visit to Kent, later pointed out, the Medway Towns were highly politicised and the workforce at Chatham was no exception. Many, of course, would not have known the precise terms of the government legislation, but the Commissioner, in drawing attention to the Mayor of Rochester’s handbill, did much to publicise the negative aspects of the proposed laws. Inter- and intra-trade discussions doubtless ensued and would have hinged upon the bill and how it impacted on their own workplace situation. If, when the Commissioner spoke, none had read, seen or heard of the handbill, all would be familiar with its content by the end of the day. Having made the labourers and artisans reflect on the two government bills, it is hardly surprising they reacted. On the following day, while muster was in progress, Commissioner Proby related to the Navy Board that:

… the greatest part of them went to the ropeyard and took possession of the lower spinning house. The respective officers used their endeavours before and after breakfast, to indulge them, in vain, to go to their respective works. As the weather was exceedingly bad, I desired that Deputies might be sent to me, which they positively refused and therefore I went to them and made another speech.

In this, he expressed concern at their behaviour and asserted that his address was one to which there could be no possible objection. To this, he further added that it was left to each individual ‘to sign or not’, so giving no reason for them to have now assembled in the spinning house rather than attending their place of work. Proby then went on to make the following comments:

They heard me with apparent quietness, when their spokesman said, that they all had determined not to sign either part of the address; and should proceed quietly out of the yard at 12 o’clock and go immediately to sign the petition, in consequence of the Mayor of Rochester’s printed advertisement.
²⁴

The particular advertisement referred to had been circulated during the previous afternoon and had obviously much influenced all the artisan and labouring groups of the dockyard. Its content was as follows:

The Mayor requests those of the Freemen and inhabitants who may be willing to petition against the Bills now pending; one in the House of Lords purposely to be for the better security of his most royal person; and the other in the House of Commons, purposely to be for the more effectual suppression of seditious meetings, to meet at the Guildhall tomorrow at one o’clock in the afternoon.
²⁵

As intimated, the various classes of workmen did leave the dockyard that afternoon, with large numbers signing the Mayor of Rochester’s petition. They did not return to the dockyard that day, but having made their protest did not devise any further action. On 19 November, Proby was able to report:

Of the artificers, workmen &tc who went out yesterday in the afternoon, to sign the Rochester petition, there have been only sixteen of them absent without leave, which is not uncommon at other times.
²⁶

As to the address congratulating the King upon his escape, this was duly sent to London four days later. Proby attached a short explanatory note detailing his interpretation of events:

I am sorry it is not so fully signed, as I had every reason to have expected, which I trust would not have occurred, both from the steps taken by the Mayor of, and others in Rochester and Chatham … Many others would have signed if threats had not been held out to them.
²⁷

In his comments Proby felt a degree of force had been used. Such an accusation should not be discounted, as it seems highly unlikely that every worker assembling in the spinning house was fully in sympathy with the objectives of that meeting. Physical force was frequently used in trade disputes for achieving solidarity and it is possible that a degree of violence was offered to those who showed insufficient enthusiasm. But such an observation as Proby made must not be used to undermine the totality of the workforce action. A clear majority must have desired the eventual outcome; had it been otherwise, events on that day would not have run so smoothly. Furthermore, Proby was only in a position to surmise, as violence, if offered, would have been of a covert nature. Neither he, nor his officers, witnessed any violence, while informers reported no facts.

A second show of inter-trade unity was demonstrated during the early months of 1801 and prompted by a demand for a pay increase at a time of a dramatic rise in the cost of living. Within the various royal dockyards, including that of Chatham, local committees were established to coordinate the actions to be taken, with each yard
also sending two delegates to join a central committee in London. Although the exact composition of Chatham’s local committee is unknown, it seems to have reflected the size of each of the artisan and labouring groups within the dockyard. In May, when the Admiralty presided over discharges of such men ‘as had composed the committee in Town [London], or committees of correspondence with other yards’ the numbers discharged at Chatham included shipwrights, joiners, brick makers, sail makers, rope makers and labourers as well.
²⁸

The Committee in London was responsible for drawing up a number of petitions, with one that was submitted to parliament on 3 February declaring:

That the permanent daily wages of the artificers and labourers employed in His Majesty’s Dock and Rope Yards has not received any augmentation since the settlement thereof in the reign of His Majesty Charles 2nd but the advance in the price of provisions, and the rise of house rent, with every necessary article of life, and advance of interest, upon the money which your petitioners are necessitated to take up, to supply the wants of their families since the period of time, have in most cases exceeded a triplicate proportion which circumstances combined together would have rendered it impossible for your petitioners to have subsisted themselves and families on the scanty pittance of their daily pay many of the families of your petitioners consume in the article of bread alone had it not been for the addition of extra work which the nature and urgency of the service of His Majesty’s Navy … have enabled us to attain.
²⁹

On 1 April 1801, and somewhat reluctantly, the Navy Board agreed to meet with the dockyard delegates. Most probably they would have preferred to have ignored the existence of such a committee but had been forced to take such action as a result of an increasingly turbulent situation within the yards. Furthermore, to placate the totally unified workforce, an offer was put forward, this deemed a special payment, restricted to married men without apprentices, and to last for the duration of the war, with amounts varying according to the size of families and level of skill. For a shipwright with four or more children an additional shilling a week would be allowed while for a labourer with a similar sized family it would be 10
d
. The amounts were approximately half for unmarried men and stood at the midway point for those with one to three children. Once informed of the offer, the delegates were ordered to return to their respective dockyards on pain of dismissal.
³⁰

Although the delegates favoured the Navy Board offer, the mass of yard workers, including those at Chatham, rejected them. It must be assumed that a ballot took place in all of the yards, with Plymouth and the various eastern yards proving considerably more militant than Portsmouth. Indeed, delegates representing Chatham are reported to have visited Portsmouth and to have referred to the possibility of a strike being called. Within the dockyard at Chatham, an orchestrated campaign was already underway, with bills opposing the Navy Board offer having been posted outside the dockyard gate. Indicating that the cost of living had tripled since 1775, it was a tentative reminder to the rest of the workers that the Navy Board offer fell far short of actual need.
³¹

In mid-April, delegates once again met with members of the Navy Board. But time was running out. A number of factors were now operating in favour of the employers. First and foremost, the dockyards were operating under considerably less pressure. The Baltic fleet that was to engage in the Battle of Copenhagen, preparation of which had occupied much of the Chatham dockyard workforce, had sailed in March with much of the remaining work being routine. In addition, a split had occurred within the ranks of the various workers with a substantial minority in favour of accepting the wartime payment as offered. Furthermore, the Navy Board was being persuaded to take a much tougher line by the Earl of St Vincent who, since February 1801, had held office as First Lord of the Admiralty. He was an inveterate opponent of wage increases and favoured confrontation.

The outcome was that the Navy Board chose to make no further offer other than a promise to review wages. Following this, St Vincent came to the fore, getting it agreed by the Navy Board that they should form a committee to tour the yards and dismiss all workmen engaged in the recent dispute. At Chatham, which was visited during May, a total of seventy-nine artisans and labourers were dismissed, each told that they must present themselves at the dockyard gate on the following day that they ‘might receive wages and collect chests and tools’.
³²

The dismissal of such a large number of leaders from among the workforce doubtless created a deep and memorable scar. While workers outside the naval yards might have treated dismissal as a temporary setback, such an occurrence within the dockyards was of a much more serious nature. Those employed in the yards had accepted lower wages while looking towards the long-term benefits of job security and a pension; should strike action threaten these advantages, then the majority of those employed in the yard would now choose to espouse this clearly blunted weapon. The outcome, therefore, was a more or less total rejection of strikes, replacing this weapon with a greater emphasis on the petition.