Lancaster Harbor
Coordinates: 54 ° 3 ′ 13.8 " N , 2 ° 48 ′ 19.3" W.
The Port of Lancaster is an inland port on the River Lune in the city of Lancaster in Lancashire , England .
It is certain that there was a port in Lancaster in Roman times, although little is known or visible about it.
The first voyage of a ship between Jamaica and Lancaster is recorded in 1687, and even if there was a sugar refinery in Lancaster at around this time, the raw sugar was fetched from London and Bristol and processed. The first voyage of a ship - the Imployment - to Virginia is documented in 1698 . This attempt by William Stout and his brother-in-law John Hodgson to establish a trade in tobacco was a failure, but Stout saw great advantages in importing goods, such as wine from Bordeaux , directly through the port of Lancaster, as the cost of the dealers in Bristol or Liverpool could be avoided.
But the port on the River Lune is badly affected by the tides and this caused great problems for the trade and prevented its recovery, so that Daniel Defoe described the port as very neglected at the beginning of the 18th century. In 1749, a resolution by the English Parliament established a Port Authority in Lancaster, whose job it was to make shipping on the River Lune safer. As a result, St. George's Quay was first built, which is one of the "most impressive port buildings of the 18th century". The Customs House (1764; today the Maritime Museum ) is one of the buildings on St. George's Quay , after even the port of Chester was still responsible for the customs revenue until 1732 . The New Quay added to the facilities of St. George's Quay after 1760.
The port of Lancaster experienced in the second half of the 18th century. also an upswing. Leather goods, wool and linen were shipped from Lancaster, along with furniture and many other goods. Sugar, coffee , rum , cotton and mahogany were imported . In 1784, Lancaster was allowed to handle tobacco from America. In general, trade from the port with Europe a. a. Russia and the Baltic States , but also with the West Indies and America as well as within England.
Ships from the port of Lancaster were also involved in the slave trade. The slave trade by merchants from Lancaster began in 1736 with the ship Prince Frederick . One of the Lancaster merchants involved in the slave trade was Dodshon Foster . He was only involved in the triangular trade with a small ship that brought cheap goods to Africa for slaves to the West Indies and rum and sugar to England. Foster's ship was used to bring 700 slaves to the West Indies between 1752 and 1758 - when the Seven Years' War temporarily brought the slave trade to a standstill. This is only a very small part of the approximately 25,000 people who were transported by ships from Lancaster in around 200 journeys. Lancaster was the fourth largest port involved in the slave trade in England for about 20 years. At the end of the 18th century, however, the slave trade was concentrated in the ports of Liverpool and Bristol. The slave trade in Lancaster was only a brief episode in the history of the port, yet it contributed significantly to the city's wealth, which is still evident today in its Georgian buildings . Another evidence is the entries in church registers, especially in Lancaster, about baptisms and funerals of 40 "servants" who had come to Lancaster from Africa or the West Indies and were in service with traders or ship captains.
However, since the Port Authority was ultimately unable to solve the tidal problems of the port in Lancaster, quays for the port of Lancaster were also built at Sunderland Point and then at Glasson Dock at the mouth of the River Lune and Piel Island in Morecambe Bay was also one Part of the port.
The difficult geographical situation of the port in an age of bigger ships was one reason that the importance of the port of Lancaster declined in the early 19th century, another reason was, it is said, that the port of Lancaster had to pay higher port fees than such as the more easily accessible port of Liverpool.
However, a map of Lancaster from 1821 shows two shipyards in Lancaster, one on each bank of the River Lune.
The Port of Glasson Dock as the port of Lancaster still carries on more limited trade today.
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- ^ University of Lancaster - Center for North West Regional Studies. Archaelogical Conference March 2, 1996. Reconstructing the archaelogical past. Archive link ( Memento of the original dated December 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (on-line)
- ↑ a b John Duncan Marshall (ed.); William Stout: The Autobiography of William Stout. Manchester University Press, 1967; John Duncan Marshall: Introduction. P. 26. (online)
- ^ Daniel Defoe: A Tour Through The Whole Island Of Great Britain. 1724-1727. Here after Tim Lambert: A brief history of Lancaster, Lancashire, England.
- ^ University of Lancaster - Center for North West Regional Studies. Archaelogical Conference March 2, 1996.
- ↑ Lancaster Maritime Museum ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Samuel Lewis A topographical dictionary of England , 1831, p. 20.
- ↑ A large part of the wood and furniture was very likely traded by Robert Gillow, a well-respected cabinet maker in Lancaster. Compare Andrew White: Lancaster - A History. Phillimore, Chichester 2003, ISBN 1-86077-244-7 , pp. 60-62.
- ^ John Reeves: A history of the law of shipping and navigation. P. 366.
- ↑ White, pp. 62-63. The fact that Foster was a Quaker did not prevent him from engaging in this trade.
- ↑ Lancaster Maritime Museum ( Memento of the original from October 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ White, p. 33.
- ↑ Hilda Kean: Personal and Public Histories: Issues in the Presentation of the Past. In: Brian J. Graham; Peter Howard (Ed.): The Ashgate research companion to heritage and identity. Ashgate Publishing, 2008, p. 55.
- ↑ White pp. 6-8.
- ↑ In 1831 Samuel Lewis describes the possibilities for ships to enter the port in the city of Lancaster as limited. Lewis, p. 20.
- ↑ Handbook for Shropshire, Cheshire and Lancashire. Murrays English Handbooks, John Murray 1870, p. 289.
- ↑ White, pp. 52/53.
