PUB SERIES - THE PLIMSOLL LINE

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: november/december 2008 :: RMTnews 36 S amuel Plimsoll (1824-1898) was appalled at the hundreds of deaths at sea caused by the callous greed of the shipowners. They would put overloaded and unseaworthy ships to sea which were heavily overinsured. Seamen had to sign articles before seeing the state of the ship, and if after seeing it was dangerous they refused to sail they were sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour. Many were drowned as a result, but the shipowners collected their insurance and were happy. Their vessels became known as "coffin ships" and all attempts to introduce maritime safety were resisted by the shipowners who were heavily represented in parliament. Plimsoll, a Chartist sympathiser, was lucky to survive a storm at sea when sailing to Redcar in 1864. Four ships were wrecked on the same night but his finally berthed. He could not help thinking about the brave sailors that had drowned so close to him. When he became a Liberal MP in 1868 he proposed that a loadline be painted on ships which had to remain above the water to prevent dangerous overloading. One Conservative MP, Edward Bates, had owned three ships that had been sunk in a single year with the loss of 87 lives. He and the other shipowners resisted Plimsoll's proposal tooth and claw, and nearly bankrupted him by serving 13 writs and notices on him simultaneusly. Unperturbed Plimsoll stuck to his guns and finally the Plimsoll Line, as it became known, was made law in 1876. It was still left to the shipowners where to paint the line, however, and one showed his contempt for the law by painting it on top of the ship's funnel. It was not until 1890 that the Board of Trade decided where the line should be painted. The appalling conditions that the seamen were forced to work under were exposed in Plimsoll's book "Our Seamen" published in 1872. Some had less shelter than the sheep that were being carried on board, and others died of scurvy after being fed seven-year-old meat which had been deemed unfit for soldiers to eat. Plimsoll became the first president of the National Amalgamated Sailors' and Firemen's Union of Great Britain and Ireland when it was formed in 1892. Naturally he became known as "the Sailors' Friend". Earlier he had been called "the Miners' Friend" after supporting ways of preventing colliery explosions by detecting fire damp. He also supported measures to lower the high death rate from asthma among knife grinders exposed to metal dust in workshops. His maiden speech in parliament was in favour of repealing the criminal laws against trade unions, which helped pass the 1871 Trades Union Act. But his greatest pride was summed up in a popular song called "Our Sailors on the Sea." One verse went: There was a time when greed and crime did cruelly prevail, And rotten ships were sent on trips to flounder in the gale; when worthless cargoes, well-insured, would to the bottom go, And Sailors' lives were sacrificed that men might wealthy grow. The pub is a Wetherspoon's. WORKERS PUBS - Words by Mike Pentelow, Picture by Peter Arkell THE PLIMSOLL LINE 138 High Street, Redcar, North Yorkshire. REMEMBERING THE FALLEN RMT national secretary Steve Todd joined the annual remembrance service at the Merchant Seamen’s War Memorial garden at Tower Hill in London. Over 35,000 merchant seamen lost their lives in World War Two alone.