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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[April, 



ON DAGEXHAM BREACH. 



.1 brief account of the stopping nf Dagenham Breach on the Thames 

 digested from Captain Perrv's Narrative, published at London in 

 1721. 



Emgineering has only within the last fifty or sixty years been con- 

 sidered a liberal profession in Great Britain. Formerly from its 

 limited extent, and the want of education and science on the part of 

 its ])rofessors, it was looked upon as a subordinate although an useful 

 occupation. Although the profession has so greatly extended itself 

 \vithin that limited pe iod as now to be recognized as a scientific avo- 

 lation, we must not on that account suppose, that formerly there were 

 not men engaged in its arduous works, who by their originality and 

 boldness may be considered as worthy of memory. The work of 

 which we are to subjoin a brief account was (like some others at the 

 same period ) conducted by a man of real genius and industry — one who 

 although obliged by the slight encouragement given to his profession, 

 to execute by personal contract the works which he designed, yet can- 

 not be regarded as a mere pecuniary adventurer. Of his history all 

 the information I have been able to gain has been gleaned from his 

 writings, from wdiich it would seem, and it is worthy of remark that 

 liis own country afforded such small scope for his genius, that he was 

 obliged at one time to seek a livelihood under the Czar of Muscovy. 



With regard to the work by which he so much distinguished him- 

 self, it was one of those unpretending yet costly works, the call for 

 which, had it not been irresistible would have probably been disre- 

 garded, but it was a work that could admit of no delay, as every lost 

 opportunity added to the difficulty of its completion. And it is to this 

 cause we must attribute the laying out of such a large sum of public 

 money in times so deficient of the spirit of enterprise. 



Breaches in the Thames seem to have been of frequent occurrence 

 in the earliest periods of which we have accurate accounts. So far 

 back as the time of the Romans, the Thames afforded employment for 

 the ingenious. The earliest work of which we have any information, 

 w as the drainage of .Southwark and its neighbourhood ; this was a sort 

 of work w ith which the Romans were well acquainted. Sir William 

 Dugdale in his voluminous history of Embanking and Draining (fob, 

 Loudon 1772, p. 81, 2d edit.) mentions that " howbeit these banks 

 being not made strong enough to withstand those tempestuous storms 

 and violent tides which happened in September 1()21, Cornelius Ver- 

 muden, gentleman, (an expert man in the art of banking and draining) 

 being treated withal by the commissioners of sewers appointed for the 

 view and repair of the breaches then made, undertook the work and 

 perfected it ; but such being the perverseness of those as were owners 

 of the lands assessed by the commissioners to pay their proportions 

 thereof — upon comp'aint therefore made to the said commissioners, he 

 the said Cornelius in recompence of his charges had parcel of the said 

 lauds assigned unto him, which assignation was by the king's letters 

 patent confirmed to him the said Cornelius and his heiis." 



I can find no account of the extent of this breach or the manner in 

 which it was stopped. Although from the handsome remuneraticjn 

 witli whicb the services of this eminent fen engineer were rewarded, 

 we umst suppose his task to have been a formidable one. 



The breach with which Captain Ferry was connected, was occa- 

 sioned by the blowing up of a small sluice or trunk, that had been made 

 for carrying away the drainage water of the low grounds adjoining the 

 banks of the river. The ditch which communicated with this sluice 

 was at first not above H or l(j feet broad, so that had the accident met 

 with the attention it deserved, all the trouble and expence consequent 

 on sto])ping the breach would have been saved. Instead however of 

 )jrompt measures being taken, the damaged sluice was in the first in- 

 stance neglected, and it was not until the tidal water had greatly en- 

 larged the gap that attempts were made to stop the breach ; but by 

 this lime tlie water had scoured away the clay bottom, and began to 

 act upon what oiu' author calls " Mouilogg," and the gravel and sand 

 beds which lie out a little way below the surfice of the ground. 

 Moorlogg is described as a vein of juatted brusliwood, with nuts and 

 pieces of rotten wood interspersed. In these soft strata the scour 

 proceeded with great ra])idily, and baffled all attempts which were 

 made to check its progress during a period of no less than 14 years. 

 In that time the tiny ditch had ramified above a mile and a half into 

 the land, and its main branch had attained a breadth of about 4:10 or 

 50U feet, and a depth of from 2u to 30 or 40 feet. By a computation 

 made at the time, no less than about 120 acres of marsh laud had been 

 carried into the Thames by this tidal river. The ground thus exca- 

 vated anil carried into the river w.is comjiosed nf clayey ground moor- 

 logg, about a foot or IG inches of blue clay, and at llie bottom gravel 

 and sand. 



Aor was the loss of s.unl by any means tlie most serious consequence 



coimected with this inroad of the tide ; a more important although 

 perhaps less apparent evil was the injurious effects produced bv so 

 large a quantity of matter lodging both in the higher and lower reaches 

 of the Thames. 



The landowners were neither idle nor illiberal in their efforts to 

 check the incursion. The method they adopted was contracting the 

 channel to some extent by means of pile-work advanced from both 

 sides, and when the stream was confined within a moderate channel 

 they sunk old vessels and large boxes ; these were backe<l on both 

 sides by " maands," or baskets filled with chalk, and bags filleil with 

 earth and gravel. All this was done during neap tides, that they 

 might be able to make good the dam before the springs. Engaged in 

 these operations were those in the vicinity, and all who had a direct 

 interest in their success, and many lost their lives by the violence of 

 the current which swept them away, and carried them into the Thames. 

 In spite however of all their activity and perseverance, the tide 

 always succeeded in boring through below the obstructions which had 

 been put in its way. With such violence did it act that on one occa- 

 sion when they had sunk the " Linn " man-of-war and two other ves- 

 sels, the first ebb of the tide swept them so completely away that there 

 was not a fragment to be seen, and as Captain Perry asserts, " three 

 days after there was upwards of 50 foot depth at /our water where she 

 was sunk." This depth, however, seems very extraordinary, and is 

 surely overstated. He mentions another case which certainly gives 

 a good idea of the force of the current (pp. 17, 18). "Another gen- 

 tleman concerned (since my late stopping the breach) speaking of 

 what had passed with tliem in their attempts, merrily told me that at 

 one of those times when they had made a shut (or attempted to do 

 it) bv the sinking among other things, a large chest or machine up- 

 wards of SO feet long, tlie next day afterwards the violence of the 

 back water setting out of the levels upon the tide of ebb, worked so 

 strong underneath the bottom of this machine that she bolted up at 

 once above water, and discharging as she rose most part of the chalk 

 and stones with which she had been sunk, drove directly with the 

 current out of the mouth of the breach, whereat a gentleman standing 

 bv, who was a considerable landowner, and had been at great expense 

 in the work, being much surprised, ran along upon the wall (or bank) 

 on the side of the breach, and with great earnestness called out, stop 

 him, stop him, oh stop him ! this machine driving directly down the 

 river, and sometimes sticking against the bottom and sometimes re- 

 bounding above the water again, when it came down in view of the 

 shi s atGravesend, they were alarmed at the unusuahiess of the sight, 

 as it emerged out of the water sometimes with and sometimes athwart 

 the tide, and as they ride pretty numerous there at that time, they 

 were forced to sheer, some one way and some another to avoid re- 

 ceiving anv mischief from it It drove from thence as far as the buoy 

 off the Nore, and there run agrouid upon a shoa'." 



At a later period they succeeded in keeping in their places some 

 vessels which had been sunk by driving piles on each side, but although 

 a large quantity of chalk in bags and baskets had been sunk all round 

 them, the tide still rose and fell within. So much were the public in- 

 terested in the operations that a power was given to impress all chalk 

 vessels that passed on the river, so that sometimes 10 or 15 freights 

 a-day were delivered at the breach, which was actually reported to 

 have in some measure retarded the London buildings. An extraordi- 

 nary tide happening soon after, put a stop at once to the embargo on 

 chalk, and to the works at Dagenham, by removing the whole struc- 

 ture which had been erected at such cost and labour. 



Here all exertions on the part of the landowners naturally enough 

 ended, and they would no doubt have made up their minds to abandon 

 to the waters their unfortunate property, the value of which was not 

 adequate to warrant a farther expenditure, had not the desti.ictive 

 effects of the silt lodging in the Thames arrested the attention of the 

 House of Commons, which passed a bill in April 1714, for effectually 

 stopping the breach at public expense, and this they farther extended 

 to removing the silt which had been deposited in the river, and mak- 

 ing good the adjoini' g banks. Captain Perry offered to execute the 

 works for £24,000, and a Mr. Boswell for £10,500, which being the 

 lowest offer was accepted. 



Mr. Boswell was first to make piers and then sink G ponts or chests 

 60 feet in length, 30 feet broad, and made salient at each end like the 

 starlings of a bridge. These were to be placed in the bottom 12 feet 

 apart, and the spaces were to be made up with piles and other timber 

 work. 



In the chests were to be sluices whicli when shut down were wholly 

 to exclude the water. But the gap was no sooner contracted by the 

 piers than the current scooped out the soft bottom which was the 

 cause of (he miscarriage of all the former plans. Thus was Mr. Bos- 

 well's first plan completely set aside. He had then recourse to one 

 ennrniouj box, but whenever he attempted to contract the water-way. 



