232 Mineral Trades 



Watermen. 



The Watermen, including the lightermen before 1700, were an un- 

 chartered Company at London whose business it was to care for the 

 unloading of the ships in the Pool.^ They used lighters to carry the 

 cargoes from ship to wharf or barge. But to this manual occupation 

 the watermen were prone to annex the business of coal dealer or crimp. 

 Until 1730 the dealers were forbidden to use lighters of their own,- 

 and the watermen enjoyed a monopoly of this business. The charges 

 for their ser\aces were prescribed by the oflficiary of London; however, the 

 business was competitive and the masters or owners of ships allowed 

 secret salaries, gratuities and rewards to certain of them for prefer- 

 ences in unloading their coals and dispatch in doing it. An ineffectual 

 prohibition on such practices was laid in 1710.^ 



The lightermen effected combinations with the coal dealers of 

 London to the end that they favored certain ones, with whom they 

 were in partnership, in the delivery of coals. The last mentioned 

 statute also failed to break up these amalgamations and discrimina- 

 tions. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century they frequently 

 acted as crimps; they unloaded and sold the coal to buyers, likely 

 their own partners. This practice was forbidden in 1730.^ A further 

 step was made by the middle of the century when many had become 

 ship-owners.^ There was, therefore, at the London end of the trade 

 a tendency toward integration of the various parts of the business, 

 in contradistinction to the Newcastle end; but adverse legislation 

 checked the development. 



Crimp or Coal Factor. 



Crimps were, before 1700, persons who undertook and agreed to 

 unload cargoes of coal; by 1800, this function had passed to persons 

 called "coal undertakers." Meanwhile crimps had become coal 

 factors, in the sense of doing the selling for the ship-masters and 

 owners. The crimps were sprung from the wharfingers and water- 

 men.^ The ship-masters were permitted in 1730 to employ as crimps 



1 For descriptions of the process of unloading ships on the Thames see Defoe, 

 Com. Eng. Tr., II, 171-3; Rep. from Com. H. C, X, 563. 



2 3 Geo. I, Cap. 26, Sec. 1. 



^ 9 Anne, Cap. 8, Sec. 3; "Considerations on the present high prices," 15. 

 ^3 Geo. II, Cap. 26, Sec. 3. 

 ^ "Considerations on the present high prices," 15. 



•^ Compare Rep. Com. H. C, X, 563; B. E. Diet. Cant. Crew, s. v. Crimp; Defoe 

 Tour, II, 176; Campbell, 318; .Anderson, Origin, II, 421. 



