Docks

Next up on our list of things we wanted to checkout before we left London, was the London Docklands Museum. We knew very little before heading over to the Canary Wharf area where the museum is located but learned a ton before we left. Turnes out that London used to be one of the greatest import and export locations in the world. This particular area was home to one of the world’s largest docks and at one point could process up to 600 huge sailing ships.

Today the area is mostly covered with financial district Highrise office buildings. There are just a few canals left from what used to be very large open port areas and of the almost 30 dock buildings there are only a handful left that have been restored. The location came into existence due to the fact that all along the Thames there were multiple docs that were unsecured and poorly managed. Import and export companies from the West Indies area of the world were frustrated at the disorganization and theft that was taking place costing them money. In the late 1700 the West Indies Shipping company got parliament to agree to let the docks be built and in the short span of 1800-1802 the docks were built and thus began a whole new area of the city. Residence had been knocked down and destroyed to build the docks, but now new cheap housing was built as many flocked to the jobs, though they were hard and very low paying. Life in and around the docks was hard. All shipping passed through this area so it could be taxed, orderly removed from ships and repacked and then loaded onto new ships to redistributed around the world.

The museum had so much information and unfortunately, I was unable to learn it all before our time was up. Our time in London this spring has shown us so much of the British history and we have learned so much along the way. I have really enjoyed every bit of it.