This is a mini post especially for Mirinda who asked what the Plimsoll Line is and why Thomas Turnbull didn’t like it.
Prior to 1876 cargo ships were more or less unregulated. It was up to the owners to decide how much they could carry. This inevitably led to the loss of ships from overloading.
The owners weren’t too bothered because everything would be insured (and there was probably a bit of false claiming going on) however the seamen who didn’t survive weren’t that happy. Still, if they wanted a job they’d have no choice but to work on one of these, so-called coffin ships.
Then along comes Samuel Plimsoll, politician and social reformer and his very important book Our Seaman. In this book he blew the cover off the barrel, letting anyone who could read learn about the appalling conditions and low mortality rate in the merchant seamen service.
The government decided to jump on this particular bandwagon and created the Merchant Shipping Act. It was a success mainly because the recently unionised mining and textile industries threw their successful weights behind the campaign.
In essence the Act set out a series of restrictions on how much cargo could be carried. In order to measure this, Plimsoll proposed that a line be painted around the hull. If the ships displacement caused the line to vanish beneath the water, then some of the load would have to be removed.
This was seen as a simple yet elegant solution to an awful problem. It was, however, not the first.
There have been load lines on ships going back as far as the ancient Greeks and the Lloyds Rule dating from 1835 set out recommendations. The trouble with any of them was that they benefited only the shipowners and took no notice of the men who actually worked aboard the ships. They were also not mandatory.
Now, I can’t be certain but I think Turnbull’s concern (echoed by many other shipowners) was loss of revenue. Pivotally he claimed that painting a line on a ship was too arbitrary and that all ships were different.
Modern load line
