CHAP. YJL 



LONDON DOCKS. 



195 



CHAPTER VII. 



ME. BENNIE'S DOCKS AND HARBOURS. 



THE growth of the shipping business, and the increase 

 in our home and foreign commerce, led to numerous ex- 

 tensive improvements in the harbours of Britain about 

 the beginning of the present century. The natural 

 facilities of even the most favourably situated ports, 

 though to some extent improved by art, no longer suf- 

 ficed for the accommodation of their trade. Compara- 

 tively little had as yet been done to improve the port 

 of London itself, the great focus of the maritime and 

 commercial industry of Britain. 1 It is true its noble river 

 the Thames provided a great amount of shipping room 

 and a vast extent of shore convenience between Millwall 

 and London Bridge ; but the rise and fall of the tide twice 

 in every day, and the great exposure of the vessels 

 lying in the river to risks of collisions, and other 

 drawbacks, were felt to be evils which the shipping 

 interest found it necessary to remedy. Besides the 

 crowding of the river by ships and lighters the larger 

 vessels having to anchor in the middle of the stream as 

 low as Blackwall, from which their cargoes were lightered 

 to the warehouses higher up the Thames the warehouse 



1 The increase in the trade of London is exhibited by the following abstract 

 of vessels entered at the port at different periods since the beginning of last 

 century : 



o 2 



