I went to the London Docklands Museum this weekend for the first time. It is housed in one of the West India warehouses making the museum structure part of the collection. There are several floors and it is probably more of an all-day visit than the afternoon we spent there.
The exhibits cover from the 1600s to the early 2000s (it says the present but sadly that is something that is always marching on and it ends with the pre-pandemic heyday of the Canary Wharf finance boom) starting really with the construction of the docks on the Isle of Dogs. I thought the docks were an expansion of an existing lake so the first thing I learnt is that they are all man-made with a canal added later to help avoid a massive meander in the Thames.
There is loads of paperwork on display and customs, duties, storage and fees are all fundamental to cargo, shipping and trading right from the start. There is also lots of context as to the development of the docks. Originally cargos were unloaded from the riverside or directly from the ships at anchor in the river itself. The docks were completely sealed with a wall and guards for security and to prevent smuggling.
While the West Indies docks were built on agricultural land, St. Katharine dock required clearing homes and other buildings including St. Katharine church which gives the dock its name. Building these docks required labour but the demolished housing was not replaced meaning that rents rose and density rocketed. History definitely rhymes here.
Similarly dock workers were always casual dayworkers (winning improved regular employment status just before the docks were closed) with no sick pay or guaranteed work. Zero-hours contracts personified.
I also learned that the Canada connection in Canada Wharf and Water refers to the timber trade with North America. The wood being warehoused on-site.
The end of the docks seems brutal, from being a hub in the preparation of the Normandy Landings in the next twenty years you have containerisation, the adoption of the forklift (impossible in the old Victorian warehouses), the independence of former colonies and homeshoring of the finishing industries, the increase in draught of the ships and the lack of road and rail links. The docks were of another age but it must have been traumatising to see it disappear so quickly.
It was a nice but very dense museum and probably worth one or two more trips to appreciate everything there.