SOUTHAMPTON’S RISE

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 January 1939, Page 9

SOUTHAMPTON’S RISE

CENTENARY OF THE DOCks

A hundred years ago the foundation stone of Southampton Docks was laid.

Scuthampton was a port of importance for centuries before that eventful day, when the first steps were taken to turn mudland into dockland, and, incidentally, covering the spot where, tradition says, Canute rebuked > his courtiers for encouraging him to think that he could still the tides, states the London Observer. As far back as the fourteenth century the Genoese and Venetian trade in coins and wool was of considerable importance, and when it was necessary to make a return of ships for sei vice in the French War of 1345 it was found that Southampton’s contribution was only slightly less than that of London. The Thames contingent was 25 ships and 662 mariners, and Southampton’s 21 ships and 576 mariners.

About 1572 there were 53 ships belonging to Southampton, but it was the coming of the railway in the last century that gave tlfe port a real spurt. It is curious now' to read that one of the chief arguments advanced for the construction of docks in Southampton was the danger to ships and to life in proceeding up the Channel to the Thames. There had, of course, been many accidents, and there was no hesitation on the part of those who were promoting the scheme to use the Channel disasters for their own ends.

Many leading townspeople thought the docks would bring disaster to the town, involving, as they imagined, heavier dues of ships. The struggle in the local Town Council, who owned the mudland required for the scheme, was whether the town should make the docks a municipal undertaking or give facilities to a private company. The first definite scheme to construct docks was put forward in 1803, but it was not until 1836 that the Southampton Dock Company was incorporated, and two years later—on October 12, 1838—the foundation-stone was laid of the first dock, which is still in use. The ceremony was carried out with full Masonic honours by Admiral Sir Lucius Curtis, and the first dock — then the largest in England, with a surface of 16 acres of water, and a low-water depth of 18ft—was opened in August, 1812, when the first passenger vessel, the Liverpool, arrived' from Gibraltar, and another ship, the Tagus, followed with the directors of the company. In the intervening years Southampton has made its reputation as a home of big ships, and more recently as the British base for Imperial Airways flying boats.