URL originale : https://books.openedition.org/septentrion/8113
Unintended Consequences – The Port of London and the interconnection of ports in Northwest Europe
p. 91-94
Texte intégral
1The Ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Hamburg dominate trade in Northwestern Europe, each handling over 100 million tonnes of cargo a year with Rotterdam well in the lead with 440 million tonnes. London is clearly Second Division with its 50 million tonnes. But the Port of London enjoyed a prominence for many centuries and the question is how did it achieve this prominence and why has it declined – or indeed has it? After all, the estuaries of the Elbe, Rhine and Scheldt have always been far better places to build ports.
2This question is important as governments and port authorities have an active interest in finding out the dynamics of estuaries as generators of wealth and employment, including the employment of academics, policy makers and consultants which is generated by attempts to answer this question.
3This paper will briefly try to outline the historical processes that led to the genesis and development of the Port of London as an aspect of the methodology used in analysing estuary activities. It is by no means a complete methodology – the subject is just too complex – but is an important component of a systems approach. This paper will seek to argue that these processes are essentially those of opportunism, greed and unintended consequences, i.e. a reflection of normal human propensities.
1. The Roman Port
4The origins of a port as such at London, and indeed the city itself, stem from the Roman conquest of AD 43. By AD 61, when Boudicca paid a visit and razed London, it was an active port and metropolis. But it only came into existence through the expedience that it was the lowest part of the river that could be forded – it therefore was the nexus of both land and sea transport. But the prior question is why the Romans bothered to cross the sea to conquer Britain in the first place. It is arguable, certainly on a reading of Tacitus, that this was the easy option when compared with the alternative of Germania. If the German tribes had been more welcoming, it would have been Rotterdam that would have had the head start. London came into being simply through opportunism.
5The Romans as usual left their mark and built the first identifiable dock structure on the Thames, now known as Queenhithe since the time that Matilda, Holy Roman Empress from 1114 to 1125, was granted the dues from the dock by her father, Henry I of England. In Saxon times it was known as Ædereshyd but the Roman name, if any, is unknown. Queenhithe remained in use as an active part of the Port of London up to the 1970’s. It became a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 1973.
Queenhithe dock in the 1960’s (English Heritage).

2. The Anglo Saxon Port
6The fortunes of London were re-booted when Alfred the Great made London his capital in the 9th Century, not least because of the trading relationships with other Germanic peoples, particularly those of the Rhineland, who were known as Easterlings. Again the Germans have a major influence and one that would continue for a thousand years (the last German warehouse in London was sold on in 1853, so more on this later). But this was a period of maintenance rather than expansion. The port of London would have to wait for the next invasion before it could move into the next league.
3. The Norman Port
7Just as the Roman conquest established the port of London, the Norman conquest in the 11th Century established the conditions that allowed it to grow in importance. William the Bastard brought with him the business opportunities of empire and the continental merchants to facilitate these trading opportunities. In 1130 London became a Hanseatic port, again through the agency of the Easterlings, a status it would retain until the end of the 16th Century. This bound London into the commercial network of Northwestern Europe and the Baltic allowing merchants to enjoy the benefits of enforceable contracts, credit and standard terms of trade and allowed London to evolve into an entrepôt port. This international benefit was reinforced by growing national strength to enforce law and in 1390 the first Navigation Act stipulated that import and export goods could only be carried in English ships, which further boosted London as a shipbuilding and shipowning centre. An example of “greed is good”.
8But the Normans did more than this through the import of Flemish skills and in a way that was both unintended and had far reaching consequences. Up to the 12th Century the river was unbounded and bordered by marsh and mudflat. The waterflow was so slow that there was little natural scour of the channels, restricting navigation and the size of vessel that could use the port. But farmland was at a premium and the Flemish peoples brought over by William set about reclaiming land on the river margins for agricultural purposes. This bounded the river and changed its nature. Waterflow and scour increased and channels deepened. This was a stepchange that had huge and permanent benefits which were totally unintended. Indeed, some histories of the port rate it as the most important factor in its development.
4. Early Modern and beyond
9The 16th Century created opportunities that set London up for the next 300 years. On the one hand the growing power of the state allowed monopoly corporations to be established and sustained, principal examples being the East India Company and the Hudsons Bay Company, which laid the foundations of what would become the British Empire. The port also had a major boost from the Spanish Empire in the form of the Duke of Parma, who obliged by laying waste to Antwerp in 1576 and removing a major competitor. But it is the British Empire that really helped the port. All trade between the colonies had to pass through London and taxed accordingly. Warehouses were built to accommodate these goods and commodities, bourses and exchanges were established to trade them, banks were established to finance the growth of trade and insurance companies to manage the related risks. This created London as we have come to know it and, as a further unintended consequence, resentment and then revolution in the American colonies – the Boston Tea Party was the celebration of London’s monopoly of trade. While Britain promoted free trade in the 19th Century this was only free trade between sovereign nations – the Empire was domestic trade as far as the British were concerned and with the decline of the empire came the decline of the port.
The lower course of the Thames in 1840.

5. Postmodern and beyond
10As the empire collapsed, so the port of London was relegated from the premier league of ports. But the question was posed at the beginning of this paper as to whether London has really declined. As a port it has, but as a maritime centre it still leads the world. The ships might have gone but the bourses and exchanges for the trading of commodities remain as do the means of finding ships for these cargoes and providing insurance for them along with the many services shipping requires. Singapore is now regarded as the leading all round maritime cluster, but it still sees London as the competitor it must beat. There is no single model that defines a “successful” port or maritime centre. Size does not always matter when it comes down to it. One has to examine and weigh disparate components and in the end any analysis that aims to be comprehensive must include qualitative factors, including historical and cultural factors, to give a full picture.
11As the port of London has declined so sea levels have risen and the land reclaimed by the Flemish is now being returned to the estuary to bolster flood defences. In Flanders, however, the concept of the port and estuary has multiplied and one no longer speaks of Antwerp as separate from Rotterdam and Amsterdam, they are now ARA, and are integrating their activities into one logistical network. London feeds into this network just as the Thames, in an earlier geological time, used to feed into the Rhine.
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