The West India Docks are a series of three docks, quaysides, and warehouses built to import goods from, and export goods and occasionally passengers to, the

British West Indies The British West Indies (BWI) were the territories in the West Indies under British Empire, British rule, including Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Antigua and Barb ...

. Located on the Isle of Dogs in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, the first dock opened in 1802. Following their commercial closure in 1980, the

Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is a financial area of London, England, located in the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The Greater London Authority defines it as part of London's central business district, alongside Central London. Alongside ...

development was built around the wet docks by narrowing some of their broadest tracts.

History

Early history

Robert Milligan (–1809) of a Scottish family, was largely responsible for the construction of the West India Docks. He was a wealthy

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

merchant, slave trader and ship owner, who returned to London having managed his family's

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

sugar plantations. Outraged at losses due to theft and delay at the extensive (continuously along the Thames for ) riverside wharves comprising the Port of London, Milligan headed a group of powerful businessmenincluding

George Hibbert George Hibbert (13 January 1757 – 8 October 1837) was an English merchant, politician and ship-owner. Alongside fellow slaver Robert Milligan (merchant), Robert Milligan, he was also one of the principals of the West India Dock Company which ...

, the chairman of the London Society of West India Planters and Merchants who was a merchant, politician, and ship-ownerwho promoted the creation of a wet dock circled by a high wall. The group planned and built West India Docks, lobbying Parliament to allow the creation of a West India Dock Company. Milligan served as both deputy chairman and chairman of the West India Dock Company. The docks were authorised by the Port of London Improvement and City Canal Act 1799 ( 39 Geo. 3. c. lxix). The docks were constructed in two phases. The two northern docks were constructed between 1800 and 1802 for the West India Dock Company to a design by leading

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

William Jessop (with consultant John Rennie, appointed resident engineer Ralph Walker, and with input from Thomas Morris,

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

's third dock engineer),Skempton, A. W. (2002) ''A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland'', pp. 757–758 and were the first commercial wet docks in London. British

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

William Pitt the Younger William Pitt (28 May 1759 – 23 January 1806) was a British statesman who served as the last prime minister of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain from 1783 until the Acts of Union 1800, and then first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, p ...

and

Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...

Lord Loughborough were assisted in the foundation stone ceremony on 12 July 1800 by Milligan and Hibbert. The docks were formally opened on 27 August 1802 when the unladen was hauled in by ropes. ''Echo'', a ship laden with cargo from the West Indies, followed. For the following 21 years all vessels in the West India trade using the Port of London were compelled to use the West India docks by a clause in the Act of Parliament that had enabled their construction. The southern dock, the South West India Dock, later known as South Dock, was constructed in the 1860s, replacing the unprofitable City Canal, built in 1805.The City Canal had been constructed across the Isle of Dogs just to the south of West India Docks. The aim had been to provide a short cut for sailing ships, to save them travelling around the bottom of the Isle of Dogs to access the wharves in the upper reaches of the Thames; if winds were unfavourable, this journey could take some time. However, access to the canal was determined by the state of the tide, fees were expensive, and the transit slow. In 1909 the

Port of London Authority The Port of London Authority (PLA) is a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and its ...

(PLA) took over the West India Docks, along with the other enclosed docks from St Katharines to

Tilbury Tilbury is a port town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, England. The present town was established as separate settlement in the late 19th century, on land that was mainly part of Chadwell St Mary. It contains a Tilbury Fort, 16th century fort ...

From 1960 to 1980, trade in the docks declined to almost nothing. There were two main reasons. First, the development of the shipping container made this type of relatively small dock inefficient, and the dock-owners were slow to embrace change. Second, the manufacturing exports which had maintained the trade through the docks dwindled and moved away from the local area. The docks were closed in 1981.

Re-development

After the closure of the upstream enclosed docks, the area was regenerated as part of the Docklands scheme, and is now home to the developments of

. The early phase one buildings of Canary Wharf were built out over the water, reducing the width of the north dock and middle dock. Canary Wharf tube station was constructed within the middle dock in the 1990s. Part of the original dock building was converted for use as the Museum of London Docklands in 2003. The Crossrail Place development was completed in May 2015 and the Canary Wharf Crossrail station below it was completed in September 2015.

Layout

The original docks consisted of an Import Dock of of water, later named North Dock, and an Export Dock of , later named Middle Dock. Between them, the docks had a combined capability to berth over 600 vessels. Locks and basins at either end of the Docks connected them to the river Thames. These were known as Blackwall Basin and Limehouse Basin, not to be confused with the Regent's Canal Dock also known as Limehouse Basin. To avoid congestion, ships entered from the (eastern) Blackwall end; lighters entered from the

Limehouse Limehouse is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. It is east of Charing Cross, on the northern bank of the River Thames. Its proximity to the river has given it a strong maritime character, which it retains throu ...

end to the west. A dry dock for ship repairs was constructed connecting to Blackwall Basin. Subsequently, the North London Railway's Poplar Dock was also connected to Blackwall Basin. The Docks' design allowed a ship arriving from the West Indies to unload in the northern dock, sail round to the southern dock and load up with export cargo in a fraction of the time it had previously taken in the heavily congested and dangerous upper reaches of the Thames. Around the Import Dock a continuous line of five-storey warehouses was constructed, designed by

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

George Gwilt and his son, also named George. The Export Dock needed fewer buildings as cargo was loaded upon arrival. To protect against theft, the whole complex was surrounded by a brick wall high. The three docks were initially separate, with the two northern docks interconnected only via the basin at each end, and South Dock connected via a series of three basins at the eastern end. Railway access was very difficult. Under PLA control, cuts were made to connect the three docks into a single system, and the connections to the Thames at the western end were filled, along with the Limehouse basin and with it the western connection between the two northern docks. This allowed improved road and rail access from the north and west. South Dock was also connected to the north end of Millwall Dock, its enlarged eastern lock becoming the only entrance from the Thames to the whole West India and Millwall system.

Gallery: West India Dock (North Dock)

File:West India Dock - geograph.org.uk - 2210703.jpg, West India Docks, October 1998 File:West India dock - SS Robin - geograph.org.uk - 2210716.jpg, West India Docks, October 1998 File:West India Dock North footbridge - geograph.org.uk - 2130453.jpg, West India Dock North footbridge File:West India Dock - geograph.org.uk - 2574753.jpg, West India Docks, August 2011 File:Cannon Workshops near West India Dock - geograph.org.uk - 2570555.jpg, Cannon Workshops near West India Dock, August 2011 File:West India Dock North - geograph.org.uk - 2636676.jpg, West India Dock North, October 2011 File:West India Dock North Quay - geograph.org.uk - 2636707.jpg, West India Dock North Quay, October 2011 File:North Quay, West India Dock.jpg, North Quay, West India Dock, March 2014 File:West India Dock (North Dock) - geograph.org.uk - 3998790.jpg, West India Dock (North Dock), April 2014 File:North Dock, West India Docks - geograph.org.uk - 3987419.jpg, West India Dock (North Dock), April 2014 File:West India Dock footbridge - geograph.org.uk - 5267333.jpg, West India Dock footbridge, January 2017

Gallery: West India Dock (South Dock)

File:Canary Wharf, London (Ank Kumar, Infosys) 03.jpg, View of the West India Docks, July 2012 File:HMS Northumberland (F238) at West India South Dock 01.jpg, HMS Northumberland (F238) docked at West India South Dock, September 2013 File:HMS Northumberland (F238) at West India South Dock 05.JPG, HMS Northumberland (F238) docked at West India South Dock, September 2013 File:HMS Northumberland (F238) at West India South Dock 10.JPG, HMS Northumberland (F238) docked at West India South Dock, September 2013 File:Londres West India Docks.jpg, West view from South Quay Walk, March 2017. File:West India Docks-South Dock 7136.JPG, West India Docks, South Dock by South Quays, September 2017 File:West India Docks-South Dock 7138.JPG, West India Docks, South Dock by South Quays, September 2017 File:West India Docks-South Dock 7139.JPG, West India Docks, South Dock by South Quays, September 2017 File:West India Docks-South Dock 7157.JPG, West India Docks, South Dock by South Quays, September 2017 File:West India Docks-South Dock 7159.JPG, West India Docks, South Dock by South Quays, September 2017 File:West India Docks-South Dock 7083.JPG, West India Docks, South Dock by South Quays, September 2017

Notes and references

Notes

References

{{Commons category, West India Docks History of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets London docks Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Port of London