Editing London Docklands (section)

==Development==
[[File:Thames river 1882.jpg|thumb|Map showing the London docks in 1882. The [[King George V Dock, London|King George V Dock]] had not yet been built.]]
[[File:Isle of dogs 1899.jpg|thumb|The [[West India Docks]] and the [[Millwall Dock]] on a map of the [[Isle of Dogs]] in 1899]]

Three principal kinds of docks existed. [[Wet dock]]s were where ships were laid up at anchor and loaded or unloaded. [[Dry dock]]s, which were far smaller, took individual ships for repairing. Ships were built at [[dockyard]]s along the riverside. In addition, the river was lined with innumerable [[List of locations in the Port of London|warehouses, piers, jetties and dolphins]] (mooring points). The various docks tended to specialise in different forms of produce. The Surrey Docks [[British timber trade|concentrated on timber]], for instance; Millwall took grain; St Katharine took wool, sugar and rubber; and so on.

The docks required an army of workers, chiefly [[lightermen]] (who carried loads between ships and quays aboard small barges called [[Lighter (barge)|lighter]]s) and quayside workers, who dealt with the goods once they were ashore. Some of the workers were highly skilled: the lightermen had their own [[livery company]] or guild, while the [[deal porters]] (workers who carried timber) were famous for their acrobatic skills. Most were unskilled and worked as casual labourers. They assembled at certain points, such as pubs, each morning, where they were selected more or less at random by foremen. For these workers, it was effectively a lottery whether they would get work on any particular day. This arrangement continued until as late as 1965, although it was somewhat regularised after the creation of the [[National Dock Labour Scheme]] in 1947.

The main dockland areas were originally low-lying marshes, mostly unsuitable for agriculture and lightly populated. With the establishment of the docks, the dock workers formed a number of tight-knit local communities with their own distinctive cultures and slang. Due to poor communications with other parts of London, they tended to develop in some isolation. Road access to the [[Isle of Dogs]], for example, was only via two [[swing bridge]]s. Local sentiment there was so strong that Ted Johns, a local community campaigner, and his supporters, in protest at the lack of social provision from the state, unilaterally declared independence for the area, set up a so-called "Island Council" with Johns himself as its elected leader, and blocked off the two access roads.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1461749/Ted-Johns.html Ted Johns] Telegraph 14 May 2004 accessed 14 May 2015</ref>