Overview

In 1881 the British merchant shipping industry was the largest in the world. A huge and expanding demand for the carriage of goods, both around the United Kingdom and worldwide, also made it a highly profitable industry. Nevertheless, it was an industry with a lamentable safety record. Every year hundreds of vessels were lost and with them thousands of seamen. It was a paradoxical situation. Here was a successful and profitable industry which was simultaneously losing too many of the vessels on which its prosperity was based. It seemed to defy logic. There was, however, no great mystery about why so many vessels were lost. All too often they were sent to sea either overloaded, unseaworthy or undermanned. In many instances all three conditions applied. This book seeks to make comprehensible the paradox between a high rate of vessels lost and a profitable industry. It explains in simple terms the contemporary technical terminology that so complicates an understanding of shipping losses. Consideration is also given to efforts of men like Samuel Plimsoll who sought to persuade the government to introduce legislation to improve maritime safety and provide greater protection for seamen. Finally, it will provide a database of the losses sustained by the British merchant fleet in November 1881, demonstrating that the casualty figures used by campaigners for greater maritime safety were not a gross exaggeration. The statistical data makes clear the scale of loss by setting down the details of every vessel involved. However, the numbers fail to give a full picture as they say very little about the human tragedies involved. Therefore, a major part of the book is devoted to telling the story behind each vessel lost.

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