Gun Wharf Wapping from The River Thames #1

by Mackenzie Moulton

Original - Sold

Price

Not Specified

Dimensions

20.000 x 16.000 x 1.000 inches

Title

Gun Wharf Wapping from The River Thames #1

Artist

Mackenzie Moulton

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

I painted this scene of The Old Gun Wharf from an old sepia photo I was given, it shows the dockers on a jetty attached to Gun Wharf and the cranes for loading cargo into the wharf. This is not The Gun Wharf I lived in but one close to Olivers wharf as you can see to the right of the painting. Another historic painting.

Wapping was originally a Saxon settlement, believed to be that of Waeppa's people, and although it is not known exactly where the original site of the village was, it is known that this area was marshland until the 16th century when it was drained. It then became rich meadow and garden ground until it was acquired for the London Docks. The docks brought with them thriving business and with that seafarers. Many of the seamen of Charles II's navy lived in Wapping, and Samuel Pepys, who was a regular in some of the local inns, often wrote of the disturbances the seamen created. In 1666 Pepys describes the riots of the seamen over their working conditions and poor pay, he wrote:

The Duke of Albemarle is gone with some forces to quell the seamen & endash; which is a thing of infinite disgrace to us."

In 1798 the river police force was founded in an attempt to combat the pilfering that was costing half a million pounds each year. The force was made up of seamen and watermen who lived dangerously and were often involved in bloody battles with the thieves of the river. The Thames police headquarters is still based in Wapping today. The blue and white building in which it is housed is adjacent to where the original precinct would have been.

The warehouses in this area are Victorian, letting directly onto the river. At one time they would have all had the catwalks, that is the walkways high above the streets, joining inland warehouses to allow the transfer of goods. There are still two remaining across Wapping High Street.

Along the road from the Town of Ramsgate pub you will come across the Pierhead. There is a small inlet from the river; this is the area where the Thames fed into the first of the London Docks. In 1800 the London Dock Act was passed, allowing the docks to be built in Wapping. The Dock Company also wanted a large amount of land around the docks for the construction of offices and warehouses. Many homes and small businesses were swept away and poor people were left, without compensation, to move to other areas of London. Daniel Alexander, the architect of Dartmoor prison, designed the London Docks, and they were classical in design, as demonstrated in the two buildings at pierhead that are now the only remaining complete Alexander buildings in Wapping. The docks had a monopoly for 21 years: all ships arriving in London with goods such as rice, wine, tobacco or brandy had to unload here.

Even before the docks, Wapping had a long history of seafaring. Sir Walter Raleigh's ship was equipped in Wapping and Ratcliffe before he sailed from Limehouse for Guyana in 1546. Young James Cook lived in Wapping and first charted the east coast of Australia in 'Endeavour' with a crew including six other Wapping men. Captain Bligh of the 'Bounty' also lived for many years in Wapping.

Tobacco Dock was built later than the dock that had been adjacent to it, using revolutionary iron columns. This is all that remains of Alexander's warehouses. They were redeveloped recently with the intention of becoming an exclusive shopping centre. However, it suffered during the recession and is not yet complete.

By 1969 the docks at Wapping were empty. In the area between Tobacco Dock and Garnet Street, in what was the Eastern Dock, trees were planted, after the 18th Century fashion, and it was optimistically called Wapping Wood. However, the trees could not survive and the result is the small park we have today. If you look carefully, you will notice some telltale signs of its days as a dock, such as the iron mooring rings.

The steel bridges at either end of Shadwell Basin are rolling bascule bridges, so called for their seesaw action. In the days when the docks were in use these bridges were the only means of access, apart from by boat, into and out of Wapping. Shadwell Basin was the last of the Wapping Docks to be built, and the only one to remain to the present day.

Development in the Shadwell area was greatly encouraged by the enterprising speculator Thomas Neale, who built the chapel, St. Paul's by Shadwell Basin in 1656 (rebuilt in 1821). Most of the 8,000 dwellings in the area at the time were small and wood-framed, in-filled with bricks. The area between the Highway and the river became one of the most wretched slums in Victorian Britain. At the beginning of the 19th century Malcolm said:

"Thousands of useful tradesmen, artisans and mechanicks and numerous watermen inhabit [Shadwell] but their homes and workshops will not bear description. A print of my paintings would be a great conversation peice for you to buy.

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November 16th, 2014

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