Review

The Plimsoll Sensation: The Great Campaign to Save Lives at Sea

By Nicolette Jones

Published by Abacus

Nowadays it seems hard to believe that Samuel Plimsoll’s lifelong struggle to legislate for load lines on ships was a struggle at all.

How difficult could it be to understand that lighter and more securely loaded ships in good condition were less likely to sink than their creaky, leaking counterparts?

The answer lies in the vested interests of a number of Victorian shipowners, who would send their overloaded and unsound vessels to sea, consigning their sailors to a watery doom. Financial losses were, of course, offset by insurance.

The statistics speak for themselves: in 1871 alone, the Board of Trade reported that 856 British merchant ships were lost within 10 miles of the British coast in conditions no worse than a strong breeze; between 1830 and 1900 one out of every five mariners died at sea.

Plimsoll, who worked for a brewery and a coal manufacturer before becoming an MP, was also an inventor who ‘specialised in simple logical solutions that someone should have thought of before.’ His resolve to come to the aid of ‘poor Jack’ was born in 1864, when he suffered a traumatic sea voyage from London to Redcar.

Thus began Plimsoll’s long and bitter crusade to pass a Bill calling for the statutory implemention of a load line on all ships and the prosecution of shipowners who knowingly sent unseaworthy vessels to sea. In spite of terrible disasters such as the Bridlington Gale of 1871 in which 43 people died, Plimsoll’s Merchant Shipping Survey Bill was opposed by shipowners in parliament .

Undeterred, and at considerable cost to his health, Plimsoll began a campaign of speeches at public meetings around the country in 1873. On the wave of public support generated by his tour, the Plimsoll and Seamen’s Defence Fund was officially opened in the same month; not long after, Plimsoll even had a ship named after him.

But still the load line legislation had not made it onto the statute books. Ultimately it was to take a flagrant disregard of parliamentary protocol on Plimsoll’s part, and a misreading of the situation by Disraeli, the Prime Minister at the time, to get the reforms passed. Even then, the statutory load line was to be administered by the shipowners rather than an independent body, but a start had been made. It wasn’t until 1890 – 14 years after the Merchant Shipping Act of 12 August 1876 had been passed – that ships were required to carry a standard load line regulated by the Board of Trade.

Samuel Plimsoll campaigned for other causes in his life, but he will always be best known for his dogged perseverance of better seafaring conditions for sailors. Nicolette Jones brings to life Plimsoll’s singleminded determination to succeed at almost any cost. This is a truly inspiring morality tale of Victorian philanthropy succeeding against the odds.

Reviewed by James Smith, Booktrust website editor

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