Chatham Dockyard (13 page)

The methods by which piece rates operated varied considerably between each group of worker. In most cases it was according to the size and type of product. This was particularly the case with mast making, boat building and sawyers, the range of finished items being limited. For other groups of workers, payments were more complicated. Scavelmen were frequently paid for amounts of ballast removed or lengths of drainage cut while spinners were paid so much for the length of yarn, strand or finished rope that was completed. Caulkers, where new work was known as ‘stint’ rather than task, had portions of work variously estimated, a recognition also existing that certain parts of a warship were more difficult to caulk. Most complicated however, was the working of piece rates when worked by shipwrights, vessels divided into twenty-five separate units, known as articles, with completion of an article leading to the payment of a fixed sum. Once completed, all work performed by ‘task’ or ‘job’ was assessed for payment by measurers, inferior officers specifically created upon the introduction of work by output rather than by the day. Piece rates represented a very real increase in wage levels but at no point completely displaced the use of day pay, with the latter continuing at an unchanged rate until the following century.

The one group of workers rarely paid piece rates were the anchor smiths. The Navy Board were more than aware of the exigencies of their work and did not expect smiths, when engaged in the manufacture of heavy anchors, to be paid by result. To compensate, the smiths were allowed an increase in their day rates, hammermen being allowed 12
s
per week when working on the twenty-hundredweight hammers.

Helping offset the relatively low wage that was paid to the dockyard worker, with piece rates also failing to bring about parity with those employed outside the yards, was that of continuous employment, job security and the availability of a pension following thirty years of continuous service.
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Furthermore, the dockyard also provided workers
with sick pay and access to the dockyard surgery. Outside of the dockyards, most employment was neither guaranteed nor permanent. While this might not matter to a young and able worker who was prepared to travel, this was a clear disadvantage to a family man or one who was ageing. The latter, in particular, found it especially difficult to secure alternative work should they become unemployed. In the royal dockyards, while there were lay-offs, these were comparatively rare. Indeed, the Navy Board preferred not to dismiss highly skilled artisans, for it was not always possible to re-employ them at short notice. The result was that Chatham dockyard, during peacetime years, was oversubscribed in the artisan trades, but to the Navy Board this was a preferable situation to lack of numbers at a time of rapid mobilisation. Most at risk were the unskilled. Ordinary labourers, for instance, were only employed for short periods, perhaps in the autumn, for unloading the ships that were bringing hemp for the ropery.

Within each of these work groups there was a clear sense of group consciousness, with its strength varying in direct proportion to the level of skill possessed by each group. Thus the shipwrights, the most skilled of the dockyard workers, showed a very high degree of group loyalty while the unskilled labourers formed a group in name only. Rope makers, smiths and sail makers were among other workers with a developed sense of individual work group consciousness, although none of these approached the shipwrights.

Helping ferment this consciousness was the interaction that occurred within the membership of those trades. This resulted from both living and working in a confined space, together with the traditions and culture of the group itself. The past successes of the group, the stories of which were passed from one generation to the next, showed the ability of groups to achieve sought-after goals, reinforcing intra-group loyalties. Even more important, however, was participation in a particular struggle, for a successful outcome would keep individual members permanently committed.

It was the eighteenth century industrial dispute which can most probably account for this strengthening of interpersonal group relationships. These disputes also created a strong group consciousness among the numerous artisan groups but, most noticeably, that of the shipwrights. Most of these disputes concerned various trade groups, with each, in turn, threatening to withdraw their labour knowing that a skill, in short supply, would make the Navy Board anxious to appease. Engaged as they were in the working of a military industrial complex, such pressure was most often brought during a wartime situation, when the chance of artisan success was greatly increased. The unskilled labourer, on the other hand, bereft of such skills, had no such bargaining position and rarely disputed with the Navy Board. Having, therefore, no tradition of group success, the dockyard labourer had only an insignificantly developed group consciousness.

For the shipwrights in particular, a distinct group consciousness was not simply restricted to the dockyard at Chatham. For them, there was an extended consciousness that encompassed those with this same skill and employed in the other five naval dockyards, this displaying itself in mutual support and frequent cooperation, both
during industrial disputes and in other more general areas. These links were initially facilitated by the movement of shipwrights between yards, but formalised by frequent letters and messages circulated between the several shipwright groups. Even more interesting, however, was that this highly developed brand of group consciousness was not restricted to the royal dockyards but if necessary, might extend to supporting and receiving the support of those shipwrights employed within the private yards. In March 1795, for instance, the shipwrights at Chatham submitted a petition to the Navy Board requesting that an instruction to allow house carpenters to undertake work, normally performed by shipwrights, on board ships in the Ordinary be rescinded. In a show of support, the shipwrights of the Thames-side yards submitted their own petition to the Admiralty that supported the Chatham shipwrights.

Among the various artisan groups, there were also clearly established patterns of behaviour that were essential, both for the survival of the group and ensuring it could achieve prized goals. As such, the majority of group members accepted the need to conform, feeling it to be essential, if they, themselves, were to be adopted by that particular group. Failure to conform, and not all dockyard workers were totally integrated, would lead to the introduction of sanctions designed to correct any deviant pattern of behaviour. The most usual sanction, especially if a strike was in progress, was the use of violence, both actual and threatened. On occasions, for his own safety, the Navy Board might have to move a non-striking artisan to an alternative yard, to prevent his continued victimisation. Methods used by artisan groups to prevent a decline in support during a period of strike included mass demonstrations and frequent meeting of group members at selected hostelries. During the dispute over the matter of house carpenters being allowed to work ‘afloat’, the shipwrights would assemble early in the morning on Star Field and march, ‘in a regular body’, to the dockyard gate. This both maintained solidarity and strengthened the resolve of those considering a return to work. Star Field was chosen for assembly, as it was adjacent to the Star Inn on Chatham Hill, where the leaders of the strike, together with a good number of shipwrights, were usually to be found.

However, something else was also occurring among the workforce at Chatham during the eighteenth century: the creation of a much more extended group consciousness and one that was to eventually absorb all workers, irrespective of the skill they possessed. Perhaps the earliest sign of this took place in 1783, as a result of a Navy Board decision to impose more stringent rules on the carrying of ‘chips’ out of the yard. Whereas the ruling was that such bundles should be carried under the arm, the majority of those entitled to this perquisite were taking larger amounts by carrying bundles over the shoulder. Given that the enforcement of this rule affected all the timber working trades, and not just the shipwrights, it resulted in a degree of inter-trade consultation. However, at no point was leadership placed in the hands of any group other than the shipwrights, with the most important of these petitions, submitted by the shipwrights, suggesting a compromise solution, of artisans being allowed ‘three pence a day in lieu of chips’.
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Despite the unity fostered on this occasion, the
workforce was unsuccessful in their wish to carry chips over the arm, this a result of the dispute taking place during a time of peace, with the country in no desperate need for the services of the dockyard artisan. Had the Navy Board attempted to force the issue one year earlier, with the war in America still undecided, a unified workforce threatening a strike would have achieved a very easy victory. But, of course, the Navy Board was aware of that, choosing to confront the issue only upon the conclusion of that particular war.

The emerging unity, as witnessed at the time of the dispute over the carrying of ‘chips’ out of the yard, was in sharp contrast to an earlier dispute, this taking place in August 1739, when the shipwrights failed in an endeavour to gain support from other artisan groups. On this occasion the issue was one that affected only shipwrights, with other artisan groups seeing no advantage to the lending of their support. An argument, of course, might have been made for those of other trades offering the shipwrights a favour on this occasion, tied to the returning of such a favour in the event of a later need. However, there is no evidence of such thinking. Instead, when fines were imposed upon five Chatham shipwrights, the Master Shipwright having concluded that they had performed insufficient work, this particular artisan group, in vehemently opposing this action, found themselves completely on their own. Nevertheless, the shipwrights still considered themselves to be in a strong position, war having recently broken out with Spain, and proclaimed a strike on 29 August. A picket line was established early in the morning, this to discourage both shipwrights and others entering the yard. According to a letter written by the Commissioner of the yard, Thomas Matthews, the rope makers were approached, but ‘would not be stopped by them and are at their duty’. As for the sail makers, Matthews further reported that they also showed no inclination to provide support. Instead, the Master Sailmaker asked the shipwrights at the gate why they attempted to stop ‘his people [as] they did not belong to them nor had they any grievance’. In response, and again according to Matthews, the shipwrights ‘behaved with all the insolence imaginable’.
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Ultimately, the shipwrights at Chatham did not require the support of other artisan groups; their own peculiar industrial muscle, through the use of the strike weapon during a time of war, being sufficient to force the Navy Board to pursue a policy of pacification. A delegation from the Board arrived on the evening of 30 August and from Hill House they observed a number of shipwrights milling around the Main Gate. According to the Board minutes:

They gave us an opportunity to talk to them; upon which they seemed much pleased at Our Coming; and on our answering them, that we would do them justice; they promised that they themselves would go to work, and give notice to as many as the workmen, as they should meet with.
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News of the Board’s arrival soon had the desired effect as, early the following morning, most of the yard’s shipwrights had gathered outside the dockyard gates. They were
reluctant to enter until the two members of the Board had spoken with them, but upon being given the same assurances as on the previous evening, the shipwrights entered the yard.
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Following a brief enquiry that included interviews with several of the yard officers, the delegates determined the fines to have been unfair and that too much had been asked of that one particular shipwright gang. In rescinding the fines, the delegates did add that the shipwrights had been ‘extremely wrong’ in not having gone to the Commissioner of the yard ‘as they and all others ought to do, when they thought themselves injured’.
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A show of complete inter-trade unity was most certainly expressed on two clear occasions during the years of the French Revolutionary War (1793–1802). This was not unconnected with a general growth in political radicalism, with a particular coalescing factor being opposition to new legislation being discussed in parliament, known by some as the ‘Convention Bills’. Between them, and once passed, they would make it illegal for political meetings to exceed fifty in number, unless a magistrate had been advised, while making it an offence to incite people to hate the established constitution. The introduction of the new laws had come as a direct consequence of a massive anti-government demonstration in London. The King, on his way to open parliament, had been assailed by shouts of ‘Down with Pitt’, ‘No War’ and ‘No King’, while a window in his carriage was shattered.