Waterman's and Lightermen's Hall

Waterman's and Lightermen's Hall

On the west side of St. Mary at Hill (Street) at No. 18. In Billingsgate Ward (P.O. Directory).

Erected in 1786 (Elmes).

Formerly in Cold Harbour, Upper Thames Street, facing the river (O. and M. 1677–Strype, ed. 1755).

On part of the site now occupied by the City of London Brewery (q.v.).

Charges regulated by Act of Parliament, 1514.

The Company was incorporated 1555.

About 40,000 temp. Q. Elizabeth, now about 12,000.

Waterman's Hall, St. Mary's Hill,—at 18, three doors on the L. from op. Billingsgate.

Watermans' Hall, St. Mary at Hill, formerly stood in Cold Harbour, and was removed to this spot, and the present neat hall erected, in 1786. It is a pretty design, of brick and stone, upon a rusticated ground story, with the arms of the Company, sculptured in stone, over the door.

The Watermen do not appear to have had any charter of incorporation before the reign of Philip and Mary, when they were established by an act of parliament, which enacts that out of the Watermen between Gravesend and Windsor, eight overseers or rulers are chosen by the Court of Aldermen of the City of London, to keep order among the rest. It is the ninety-first in the precedence of the City Companies.

Watermen's Hall, No. 18 St. Mary at Hill, Lower Thames Street, is a neat unpretentious building of brick and stone, erected in 1786. The old hall of the Company was in Cold Harbour, Upper Thames Street, and faced the river. Taylor, the Water Poet, tells us that in his time "the number of watermen, and those that lived and were maintained by them, and by the only labour of the oar and scull, betwixt the bridge of Windsor and Gravesend, could not be fewer than 40,000." This was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and in the reign of Anne the number was said to be the same. "There be," says Strype, "40,000 watermen upon the rolls of the Company, as I have been told by one of the Company; and that upon occasion they can furnish 20,000 men for the fleet; and that there were 8000 then in the service." In 6 Henry VIII. (1514) an Act was passed for regulating the fares, charges, etc., of watermen, wherrymen, bargemen, etc., in the City of London and on the river Thames, but the watermen of London were first made a Company by virtue of an Act of Parliament passed in the 2d and 3d of Philip and Mary (1515). The watermen rank ninety-first of the City Companies. The Company has no livery. The licensing and registration of boats and barges, the licensing and control of the watermen, and the direction of the pilotage, navigation of barges and lighters, are vested in the Watermen's Company. When Blackfriars Bridge was built the Company accepted the sum of £13,650 in the Three Per Cents in compensation for the loss of the Sunday ferry, maintained by the Company for charitable purposes. The introduction of steam-boats has changed the whole character of the passenger traffic on the Thames, and watermen proper are greatly reduced. But the watermen and river pilots licensed by the Watermen's Company number nearly 12,000.