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Shipowners of Cardiff

A Class By Themselves: A History of the Cardiff and Bristol Channel Incorporated Shipowners' Association

University of Wales Press

Birth, Growth and Dissent, 1875–1918

Cardiff was one of the boom towns of Victorian Britain. Between 1790 and 1914, it was transformed from a modest borough town and port at the lowest bridging point of the River Taff to become one of the foremost coal exporting ports in the world. In the 1780s a local customs official had been of the opinion that Cardiff would never develop as a coal exporting port, but on the eve of the First World War the Welsh ports of the Bristol Channel were as vital to world energy supplies as the ports of the Persian Gulf are today. The initial stimulus for the development of dock facilities at Cardiff had come not from the coal industry, however, but from the iron industry that had developed at centres like Merthyr Tydfil since the mid-eighteenth century. By 1794 the Glamorganshire Canal had been completed between Merthyr and Cardiff and in 1798 a sea lock was built at the lower end of the canal that enabled the trans-shipment of cargoes from barges to ocean-going sailing ships.

By the early nineteenth century, however, it had become clear that the basin was woefully inadequate for the growing trade and in the 1820s John, second Marquess of Bute (who has rightly been dubbed 'the creator of modern Cardiff') commissioned the eminent canal engineer, James Green, to produce plans for a new floating dock at Cardiff. Revised in the early 1830s, these plans were implemented in 1834 when work began on the 'Bute Ship Canal' or the Bute West Dock as it eventually came to be known. Completed in 1839, the dock was opened for traffic in October of that year, and it was indicative of the way in which coal was gradually supplanting iron as the foundation of the industrial economy of south Wales that twelve coal tips were provided along the eastern quay.

The Bute West Dock was soon a victim of its own success; the opening of the Taff Vale Railway in 1841 facilitated the transport of coal from the newly developed coalfields of the Cynon Valley, with the result that the new dock soon became congested. Proposals for a second dock to alleviate this congestion were drawn up in 1847, and despite the sudden death of the second Marquess in 1848, the Trustees continued with plans to build this new dock to the east of the first to cope with the growing demand for south Wales steam coal. Coal exports exceeded one million tons per annum in 1855, and a considerable boost to the trade was given in 1851 when the Admiralty announced its preference for Welsh smokeless steam coal as the optimum fuel for the Royal Navy's growing fleet of steam-powered battleships. Spurred on by this notable development, and terrified by the prospect of losing trade to other ports, particularly Newport, the construction of the Bute East Dock was authorized by the Trustees and was completed in successive sections between 1855 and 1859. By 1862, coal exports exceeded two million tons per annum.

Despite these encouraging economic developments, Cardiff's early shipowners would appear to have been almost oblivious to the enormous commercial opportunities offered by the growing coal trade. In 1841 there were just sixty-five wooden sailing vessels registered at the port, with an aggregate gross tonnage of a mere 6,109 tons. There was a substantial increase during the 1850s and by 1861 the port had seventy-eight sailing vessels, aggregating almost 13,000 gross tons on its books. In addition, there were twenty-two steamers; however, with an average size of a mere 32 gross tons, these were almost certainly all paddle tugs.

Three factors were to transform this state of affairs. Firstly, the years between 1860 and the early 1880s saw unprecedented progress in the technology of the merchant ship. The sailing vessel ruled supreme on deep-sea voyages well into the 1870s, but its days were already numbered because of notable developments in the efficiency of the marine steam engine. In 1865 Alfred Holt, founder of Liverpool's famous 'Blue Funnel' Line, had developed the first truly successful iron-hulled compound-engined steamer, Agamemnon, which could compete with a sailing vessel on the long ocean voyage to the Far East. By 1881 further economies had been achieved with the development of the triple-expansion marine steam engine which made even more efficient use of the steam produced, and by the mid-1880s such engines were being fitted in cargo ships whose hulls were built of steel rather than iron. The age of the tramp steamer had arrived.

Secondly, between 1850 and 1914, Britain's foreign trade doubled in both bulk and value. Coal was always available as an outward cargo for the UK's expanding fleet of tramp steamers, but the new steamers also needed homeward cargoes if they were to trade profitably. Britain's expanding industries and growing population necessitated the import of a wide range of raw materials and foodstuffs, and homeward trades in iron ore from northern Spain, pitwood from Bordeaux and Scandinavia, and grain from the Black Sea and (at a later date) the River Plate, all provided a significant impetus for the ownership of steamships, especially as turn-around time was decreased with the general improvement in port facilities.

The third factor was the arrival in Cardiff of the first generation of immigrant entrepreneurs, individuals of outstanding ability who were to transform the commercial life of Cardiff by their willingness to acquire and operate the new steam-powered vessels. They came from all over the British Isles and further afield, men such as John Cory from Padstow, the Morel brothers from Jersey and Charles Stallybrass from Newcastle upon Tyne, and they soon eclipsed Cardiff's established sailing shipowners, few of whom undertook the crucial transfer from sail to steam at the time.

All these factors combined to provide a remarkable stimulus for the development of steamship-owning at Cardiff, and with plentiful supplies of the world's best steam coal readily available, the port was poised upon the threshold of a golden era of the export of coal worldwide in the holds of locally owned steam-powered vessels. The first steamship to be owned locally was the William Cory, a vessel of 1,168 gross tons, jointly owned by the coal exporter William Cory and the coal owner John Nixon, but this vessel was registered at London, the port to which she habitually traded with Welsh coal. It was not until 1865 that the first Cardiff-owned and -registered steamship, aptly named Llandaff, was completed for H. J. Vellacott & Co., built by Schlesinger & Davies at Newcastle upon Tyne. The 411 gross ton vessel was the first of hundreds of tramp steamers built on the Tyne that would bear the legend 'Cardiff' on their sterns. During the 1870s, ownership of steamships at Cardiff outstripped that of sail; in 1871 there were eighty-two sailing vessels totalling 21,758 nett tons owned at the port, as opposed to fifty-four steamers totalling 6,604 nett tons; a decade later the Cardiff register recorded seventy-four sailing ships totalling 18,341 nett tons, whilst steamship figures had soared to 170 vessels totalling over 84,000 nett tons. The coal trade was also expanding, with export figures exceeding three million tons for the first time in the mid-1870s.

It is against this background that the establishment of the Association in 1875 must be viewed. The origins of the Association lay within the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce that had been established in 1866 to promote and safeguard the town's growing commercial interests. Cardiff's early steamship owners were naturally prominent members of the Chamber, and by the mid-1870s some of them were beginning to draw attention to the fact that the Chamber was hopelessly overburdened with work. At the monthly meeting held in May 1875, one shipowner, J. H. Wilson, pointed out that there had been insufficient time for the discussion of a number of important issues affecting shipowning interests, particularly the new Merchant Shipping Act and the proposed Lundy Refuge Harbour scheme. Wilson advocated 'the formation of sectional committees to promote the interest of different branches of our trade ... in particular one for shipowners, shipbrokers, shippers and others.'

It was agreed that consideration be given to this proposal at the June meeting of the Chamber, but at that meeting discussions were soon hopelessly bogged down in petty arguments over which trades deserved subcommittees to themselves. No firm conclusions were drawn, and the August meeting of the Chamber was devoted largely to discussion of the 'Bill on Unseaworthy Ships' brought before Parliament by Samuel Plimsoll, MP. The general principle of the Bill was approved, but reservations were voiced by one shipowner, J. H. Wills, regarding the powers the Bill would grant to Board of Trade officials to detain ships and order surveys at the owners' expense. There was also strong condemnation of Plimsoll's assertion that large numbers of vessels left Cardiff overladen. It was the opinion of the Chamber that most of those vessels were Severn trows, the traditional sailing barge of the Severn estuary, trading in the upper Bristol Channel only. Wills concluded his comments with the words, 'it is people in inland towns that give Mr Plimsoll his support.'

Such was the concern felt amongst local shipowners regarding certain proposals of Samuel Plimsoll's that a meeting was called at the Chamber of Commerce on 19 October 1875 to discuss the Bill and numerous other grievances which were of specific interest to the ship-owning community. Twenty shipowners attended and they elected Edward Hill as chairman; he went on to emphasize the desirability of establishing a shipowners' association at Cardiff, 'to watch over and defend the interests of shipping'. John Wilson then moved that a shipowners' association be formed at Cardiff; seconded by John Elliott, the motion was carried unanimously. A committee consisting of the chairman, together with J. H. Wilson, J. Guthrie, J. Watson, J. R. Christie, J. Hacquoil, J. H. Anning, A. T. Lucovich, J. Elliott and E. A. Capper, was elected to formulate a 'code of rules' whilst W. L. Hawkins, secretary to the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce, agreed to act as secretary to the new Association as well.

It is most unfortunate that the 'code of rules' drawn up by the Executive Committee has not survived, so that there is no indication whatsoever of the structure or the membership of the Association in its early years. It is also somewhat ironic that in its first chairman, the new Cardiff Shipowners' Association had elected a prominent businessman whose name was perhaps more immediately associated with Bristol rather than Cardiff. Edward Stock Hill was a partner in Charles Hill & Sons of Bristol, noted shipbuilders in that city and the founders of the well-known 'Bristol City Line' of steamships that operated a regular cargo liner service from Bristol to New York. The Hill family did have substantial business interests in Cardiff, however, as they had established Hill's Drydocks on the Bute East Dock in 1857 where, in addition to ship repairing, they had built five ships between 1862 and 1873. Edward Hill had crossed the Bristol Channel to Cardiff to manage these interests, making his home in Rookwood, Llandaff, which survives today as a hospital. He was to serve the Association as chairman for six years until 1881, the only chairman to occupy the office for so long a continuous period; thereafter, the tenure of the Association's chair was limited to one year (until extended to two years in 1964 and to three years in 1985).

It seems likely that Hill's resignation as chairman of the Association was precipitated by his election to the presidency of the Chamber of Shipping. It had been established in 1878 as the nationwide forum and lobbying body for shipowners' interests, and Hill had represented Cardiff's shipowners in the Chamber since its inception. The annual reports of the Chamber of Shipping indicate that Hill was an effective and conscientious representative of Cardiff interests in the Chamber. In 1879–80 he led an effective campaign demanding that all pilotage authorities in the UK comprise shipowners' representatives, but his call for the creation of pension funds for seamen met with little support amongst his fellow Chamber members. Later in the 1880s he was vociferous in support of the Chamber's campaign for reductions in (if not indeed the total abolition of) light dues and he also supported the introduction of continuous discharge certificates for seamen.

Following the death of the second Marquess of Bute in 1848, and the completion of the Bute East Dock in 1859 the trustees of the Bute Estate were frustrated in their desire to proceed with further dock expansion. Parliament was not willing to sanction the construction of new docks because of fears over the expenditure of such a large sum (£1.2 million) upon the estate of a minor. In the meantime, new dock facilities were being completed elsewhere, with the Ely Tidal Harbour being completed in 1859, and the Penarth Dock in 1865, both with the backing of the Taff Vale Railway. The Roath Basin was completed in 1874 but it was becoming clear that Cardiff's docks could cope with neither the steadily increasing coal traffic, nor the growing size of the steamships that were coming to dominate the coal export trade. Port congestion and the resulting delays to shipping at Cardiff became a serious problem; having invested heavily in new steamers, moreover, their owners could not afford protracted delays in port.

So serious was the congestion at the port of Cardiff, and indeed along the Taff Vale Railway, that in the late 1870s a number of Rhondda coal owners – chief amongst whom was David Davies 'the Ocean' – came together to consider the possibility of constructing a new dock at Barry, linked to the Rhondda by a new railway line. To this end a bill was promoted in 1882 and throughout 1883 parliamentary select committees gathered copious quantities of evidence from interested parties. The Cardiff Shipowners' Association had set up a subcommittee under the chairmanship of Thomas Roe Thompson to consider the proposals for a new dock, which in March 1883 had reported favourably on the scheme, commending the ease of access from the Bristol Channel, new dock machinery, lower dock charges and speedier turn-around for ships. On 11 April 1883 Thompson was summoned to give evidence before the Commons select committee; his evidence can hardly be considered as impartial for he was one of the promoters of the Barry Dock & Railway Bill, but his statements nevertheless reflect the problems being faced by shipowners using Cardiff docks at that time.

Thompson's submission to the select committee centred on the fact that he considered the Bute West and East Docks too small – 'those docks whose size now makes them out of date' were his exact words. This was particularly true of the Bute West Dock, in which any vessel exceeding sixteen feet laden draught could not load down to her marks. The largest ships could only get out of the docks during one hour either side of high water, leading to dreadful congestion in 'the drain' (the channel leading to the dock entrances) and Thompson quoted the instance of one ship owned by a member of the Association, drawing 25 feet 9 inches laden, that had been stuck in the Roath Basin for four days awaiting a spring tide before she could sail. This situation was being reflected in charter parties at the time, with shippers of coal stipulating up to three times the time actually needed to load a ship to insure themselves against delay, which in turn pushed up prices.

Thompson was also highly critical of the 'lop-sided' nature of the trade at Cardiff, accusing the dock management of making no attempt whatsoever to promote general cargo imports, which went instead to Bristol, Gloucester or Liverpool. One significant import trade vital to the coal industry, namely that of pitwood, was being hampered due to lack of discharging space on the quaysides at Cardiff, whilst similarly there was no space for laden vessels that had suffered damage to effect a temporary discharge of cargo whilst repairs were undertaken. Thompson went on to draw attention to the growing average size of steamers on order or on the stocks in British shipyards, steamers which when they entered service would be attracted to Barry rather than Cardiff. At one point he was cross-examined and asked how many steamers drawing more than twenty-five feet laden used the docks at Cardiff, to which he replied succinctly, 'not near as many as we shall have'. He concluded his evidence by stating that he wished no ill to the Bute interest, believing that the coal trade was expanding so rapidly that there would be plenty of traffic to sustain both ports, though only the smaller vessels would use Cardiff in the future unless its dock facilities were improved.

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Excerpted from Shipowners of Cardiff by David Jenkins. Copyright © 2013 David Jenkins. Excerpted by permission of University of Wales Press.
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