with
special thanks to.... John Wraight, Nigel Robinson, Charles
Traill, Sue Blaxland,
Philip
Neame and Vicky Quinney
The Wider Picture
In the South East, barge trade was shared between companies and followed a pattern.... as
John Wraight explains....
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In the past, there used to be in excess of twenty different
barge owners scattered around the SE coast.
Pauls and Cranfields were mainly the Essex and Suffolk
companies running mostly from Ipswich/Harwich to London. The
LRTC (London Rochester Trading Co) would cover the Medway/London
area and Daniels did most of the work into Whitstable /Ramsgate
and Dover.
That's not to say that other companies did not work in other
areas but local barges worked mostly in their own areas.
A lot of the work into Ramsgate/Dover was done by the
"Vicuna" & "Kathleen". They were auxiliary
with wheat/maize/barley being the main cargos.
John Wraight
Australia
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Whitstable
Barges...
and Daniels Bros....
Whilst vessels from
a number of different South East companies plied their trade at
the harbour, it would be sacrilege not to dedicate a specific
section of our article to Whitstable's most prominent barge
operator - Daniels Bros. In fact, Daniels (and its
predecessor, The Whitstable Shipping Co) were active in so many aspects of
Whitstable's maritime industries (including ship building, barges
and larger cargo vessels). Members of the family also occupied significant positions in local public life. We
are still in the very early stages of producing a separate article
on the company. However, already, we can piece together some
initial findings and suppositions. In this respect, we have been
helped greatly by Nigel Robinson who, in tracing his
own family history, discovered that he was the Great
Great Grandson of Sarah Ann Daniels. Sarah was the
eldest sister of the
founders of the Daniels shipping interests - George, David and
James Robert Daniels. Nigel
located the fascinating article "Daniels of Whitstable"
by Charles Dance and Charles Traill - published in Sea
Breezes, November 1971. With
kind permission of Charles Trail, he has been able to produce the
following compilation which combines contents of that article with
additional family history. He has also been assisted by Sue
Blaxland (another relation of the Daniels family) who has supplied
fascinating family photos from the past.
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Daniels
Bros
It
appears that a ship owning partnership was founded in 1869
by the brothers George, David
and Capt James Robert Daniels along with Capt
J Dadd. The three brothers were the sons of
James, variously recorded as a shipwright and shipbuilder
and a brewer, and his wife Ann (née Nicholls) who was
also from a prominent Whitstable maritime family – the
brothers also had three older sisters Sarah Ann (Nigel
Robinson’s Gt Gt Grandmother), Jane Eliza and Harriette.
James
Robert
was Lloyds Agent at Whitstable and also a Nautical
Assessor involved in salvage claims on Whitstable ships
throughout the country.
Later,
George Daniels became the local postmaster
(he married the Postmaster’s daughter!) and David,
who married another of the daughters, became Clerk to the
Urban District Council amongst many, many other official
and voluntary appointments in the community.
James
Robert Daniels
was appointed manager of the company - he had five sons by
his first wife and seven children by his second. He
too served on the local council including a period as
Chairman of Whitstable Urban District Council.
Of
his first five sons Flavius,
a noted linguist, died young aged 27. Sidney,
a master mariner, apparently went to America and settled
in New York and yet another master mariner, James
Drawbridge Daniels,
travelled widely (including voyages in the Pacific) and
also wrote poetry; a book of his poetry was published
privately. Later
he was to become a director of Daniels Bros.
Alfred
William Daniels
became one of the first captains of a Sunderland steamship
company but left the sea and, after a spell as the Marine
Superintendent of the South Eastern Railway, came back to
be assistant manager at what was, by then, the Whitstable
Shipping Co. He eventually took over as manager on
the death of his father in 1904.
Harry
Kingsford Daniels,
another son, occupied the post of barge manager in an
organisation that embraced barges, larger sailing vessels
and shipbuilding.
The
ship yard premises were located at West Beach on an area
of ground that extended inland to the Island Wall roadway
where the company established its main offices. The
land is now occupied by a small housing development known
as Daniels Court .....
Above: Daniels Court - Site of the Old Shipyard
Below: Daniels Court
from the Island Wall roadway
However, the old office building, known as the Deck House,
can still be seen in Island Wall....
The
Whitstable Shipping Co was wound up in 1916 after most of the
vessels had been requisitioned by the Government for war
service and
Harry Kingsford Daniels (the former barge
manager) founded the new firm of Daniels Bros (Whitstable)
Ltd as barge owners, wharfingers and stevedores with
Capt Alfred William Daniels as partner. A niece of Harry Kingsford Daniels, Mabel Carlton,
also joined the company around this time as book-keeper.
Mabel Carlton
This photo has been
kindly supplied by Sue Blaxland. It is thought that
it was taken during the 1920s |
After
Alfred’s death in 1927, “H K”, as Harry
Kingsford was known, assumed full control of the company and
his nephew, Harry Blaxland, joined the
company.
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Harry
Kingsford Daniels
This
photo was taken in 1928 by Dorothy Wilding shortly
after Harry
Kingsford Daniels had assumed assuming full control of the
company. It has
also been supplied by Sue Blaxland.
Dorothy
Wilding was a society photographer whose
subjects included celebrities of the time and even
royalty. As Sue points out, this underlines the
social status of Harry Kingsford at the
time.
|
Harry
Blaxland took
over the management upon the death of Harry Kingsford Daniels in
February 1939. At this point, Harry Kingsford Daniels’ widow
Ellen Flora assumed the Chairmanship until shortly before her
death in 1953 aged 92.
Frank
Nicholls,
an ex-barge master, and son of Frank “Dolly” Nicholls who
had commanded Daniels barges, joined in 1941 as wharf manager.
Rebuilding
the fleet after the war was quite a task but one highlight was
that the barge Esther won the restricted staysail
class in the 1953 Coronation Thames and Medway Barge Race!
Although she was a Cremer owned barge she had a
Daniels’ skipper in the crew and Harry Blaxland accepted the
winner’s trophy; from 1953 the two firms shared work, their
craft taking equal turns on loading.
This replaced a previous arrangement with Whiting Bros.
of Chatham who had been taken over by the London & Rochester
Trading Company - they were also to take over Daniels Bros,
eventually, as we shall see. Almost immediately after the race Esther was converted to a
motor barge.
By
this time, the company operated an office in a block of shops at
Starvation Point - opposite the harbour's West Gate in Harbour
Street.
Starvation Point from the
Harbour Gates in 1966 with Daniel Bros Offices on the left
Sketch by Vicky Quinney © Vicky Quinney 2008
The
buildings have long since been demolished and the land used for
a small public garden with a nautical theme.
By
1956,
Daniels operated just three barges - these were the Azima,
Kathleen and
Savoy along with the Edith
and Esther from
Cremer’s Faversham Freightage fleet.
All had over the years been converted to auxiliaries with
engines fitted.
A
major event in the summer of 1956 was the collapse of the grain
silo on the North Quay – it had only recently been partially
rebuilt.
Then
in June 1957 Harry Blaxland died suddenly at the early age of 52
. His widow,
Kathleen, their son Michael and Mabel Carlton (Mabel was by now
a Director and probably also company secretary) tried to run the
firm for a brief period. Eventually
they approached the London & Rochester Trading Co and asked
it to take the Whitstable company under its wing - thus Daniels
Bros became a wholly owned subsidiary of the London &
Rochester Trading Co from June 1958.
Daniels
Bros house flag or “bob” was a dark blue rectangle with a
white “D” in the
hoist – hulls of motorships were red and the funnels blue with
a white “D”
London
& Rochester with their greater resources opened a service to
Esbjerg under the auspices of Daniels Bros trading as the
Crescent Line. The
Crescent Line name came from London & Rochester’s funnel
colours – black with a broad red band between two thin white
bands and on the red band a white crescent.
Luminence
opened the service in April 1959 and at the end of 1962 she was
replaced by the specially purchased second-hand 1958-built
refrigerated ship Resurgence
– up to 12 passengers
were carried from 1963 – later the unit load carrier Dangeld
was introduced in 1969 - the service ceased in February 1973.
By
then there was no point in Daniels Bros being a separate
organisation and so the name that had been so prominent in the
affairs of Whitstable for many years slipped quietly away and
Crescent Shipping became the trading name for all of London
& Rochester’s activities.
Nigel
V. Robinson
Information compiled by Nigel V Robinson with
acknowledgement to Daniels
of Whitstable by Charles Dance and Charles G
Traill published in Sea Breezes, November 1971.
Revised
June 2008
|
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Daniel’s
barges that survived into preservation....
Ardwina,
which was owned for a time in the 1950s by Daniels Bros., is
now preserved as part of the National Register of Historic
Ships and is based in St Katharine Dock, London.
Nellie
built by and for Cremers was later owned for a short while by
Daniels. After they sold her she was to become one of the
earliest vessels owned by Rachel and Tony Lapthorn –
Lapthorns, based at Buttercrock Wharf, Hoo St Werburgh on the
banks of the Medway, were to become very prominent in coastal
shipping. Nellie has also been restored and preserved, by Professor Diane
Montgomery, and is now based at Maldon, Essex.
Kathleen,
owned
by Daniels for 52 years, was initially restored, preserved and
raced by Richard Walsh, but was sold on, eventually going to
Holland and finally becoming derelict in the 1980s at
Spaarndam. Her wheel survives as the emblem of the publishers
Chaffcutter Books.
Nigel
V. Robinson |
We would
to extend our thanks to Nigel, Charles, Sue and Vicky for making this
history available to Simply Whitstable. Nigel's
mention of the shipping links with Esbjerg will bring back some
memories for Natives of that era. Each Christmas, there was an
exchange of gifts between the peoples of the two towns. The burghers
of Esbjerg sent us a large Christmas tree and, in return, Whitstable dispatched
barrels of oysters. The gifts were transported on the Crescent Line
ships Luminence and, later, Resurgence. The
Christmas tree was decorated with lights by locals and took pride of
place outside St Alphege Church in the High Street. However, goodwill
ran into problems when, one year, the tree was confined to the harbour
grounds by the authorities due to restrictions imposed in the wake of
the Dutch Elm Disease scares. It was displayed near the perimeter of
the south quay so that it could be seen from Harbour Street but,
sadly, it was never quite the same and the exchange of gifts
eventually fell by the wayside.
Daniels offices at Starvation Point are
well remembered by Pip Neame in Vancouver......
In late 1959, I was offered a job at Daniels after I had
returned from National Service. I still have the letter
signed by Commander Guy Clarabut RN (Rtd) from Rochester.
The pay was 6 pounds a week, just barely more than army
pay but living at home helped.
The office was on two floors of the old building opposite
the Harbour gates. Upstairs was Mr Tooke (the business
manager) and two ladies (a secretary and a bookkeeper).
Daniel Bros Offices
in 1966
Extract from Sketch by Vicky Quinney
© Vicky Quinney 2008
The
ground floor was the domain of Frank Nicholls, ex barge
skipper, who handled the agency part of the business. I
was his assistant.
My job consisted, in order of
importance, of making tea for upstairs twice a day;
operating the antique telephone exchange where an
"eyeball" popped up when a call came in and then
plugging in the "knitting". Otherwise, it was
filling up customs forms for the Esbjerg cargo, Danish
cheeses, butter, etc. and dealing with lorry drivers at
the big counter at the front.
Most fun, was when the bargees came in, usually with a
complaint, and Frank would have it out with them. Once I
left the intercom with upstairs on, and learned later the
ladies had been upset by the salty language. But my
lasting memory is of the cold. By January, there was snow
and only a one-bar electric heater for downstairs. I wore
my overcoat all day and those gloves without the fingers!
The whole set-up was right out of Dickens. Needless to say,
I barely lasted five months.
Anyway it started me on my shipping and marine insurance
career so I am grateful to the funny little office by the
Harbour.
Philip "Pip"
Neame
Vancouver
BC
Canada |
Barge
Ownership... and a Close Community
Whilst Daniels Bros is the best known of the town's barge
owners, they were not the only barge entrepreneurs and they may
not have wholly owned all the barges that they operated in the
distant past! In fact, due
to the complex system adopted for ship ownership of the 1800s,
it seems things were quite widely spread around Whitstable's
small and close knit community. Nigel Robinson explains....
| Many of the families of Whitstable seem to have
been involved in "ship owning" which was a complicated
business in the 19th century.
Ownership was split in to
64ths and individuals would take a share or group of
shares in a vessel. It was both a way of raising
capital and spreading risk. (Later, limited liability
companies allowed a more corporate approach).
As
a result, all sorts of people became involved - literally “the butcher,
the baker and the candlestick maker”. In fact, anyone who had
money to spare.
If you study Wallace Harvey’s book Merchant
Ships of Whitstable, you will see the same names
cropping up in ownership of various vessels. However, professional management of a ship would probably be taken
on by the likes of Daniels Bros who would also own some of
the shares.
In some cases there were family connections with Daniels.
In other cases, there may have been other forms of
business connection.
In some instances, the names of owners also appear
as masters of the vessels. In the census
returns, names often appear as neighbours in what was
such a close-knit community like Whitstable.
Nigel
V. Robinson
|
Some
people may find "64 shares" a rather odd number. After
all, why not a nice round 100? Of
course, you won't be so surprised if you are
"into" computing"! The number "64" is
nicely divisible by 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32. Thus, it was easy to own a
half share, a quarter share or an eighth share in a barge. You
could also split your share easily when selling it or dividing it
up in your last will and testimony! In effect, you had the same
binary system that computers use today. Clever
people our ancestors!..... Or were they? I have not yet had time
investigate the origins of the 64 share business. However, Coralie
(my wife and an ex-assembler programmer!), suggests that it may
not have been a case of careful design and implementation of
binary mathematics. It may just have been a way of formalising
what was already happening in practice. For example, take a
granddad who owned a whole barge. He died and left a half share to
his two sons.... who then died and left half shares to their two
sons. Suddenly you are dealing with quarters, eighths and
sixteenths.... and heading quite naturally to the magic number of
64. Thus, rather than the starting point of a clever new system of
arithmetic, 64 may just have been a way of placing an upper limit
on an age old practice. Interestingly, the "64 share" system is still used around
the globe for some types of small vessel. Nigel's
investigations to date show the very close link between groups of
Whitstable families... by marriage and business ownership. These
links not only involved all aspects of barge operation (such as
construction, repair, operation and crewing). They also extended
to general High Street businesses and, even further inland, to the
ownership of large swathes of farmland. Such families also
occupied prominent positions in local public life. As
we find out more about these connections, we will be able to
produce articles on "landbased" Whitstable and its
connection with the maritime world. We will also be able to trace
how that tight knit community and hierarchy unravelled during the
20th century.
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