Dover Harbour, 1889. Postcard in the collection of Simon Cooke. Dover has been a sea-crossing point since time immemorial, and its harbour works have as long and complicated a history as its defences: work began on what would become the Wellington Dock in 1583. In proposing an extension to the South Pier Head in 1838, Benjamin Worthington stressed its role as a refuge for ships in difficulty on the south coast, pointing out
that it is the only port of shelter between Ramsgate and Portsmouth; and its great utility in affording shelter to dismasted and distressed ships, when driven out of the Downs by gales from the North and Eastward, can be most satisfactorily proved in numberless instances, in many of which the distressed vessels could never have reached Portsmouth; and but for Dover harbour must inevitably have been lost. [34]
Yet as late as 1899, Samuel Statham could still say that at each stage the harbour works had been "destined to failure" (42). The scene shown on the postcard does not show the latest developments, which came at the end of the nineteenth century, and went on well into the next, with the firm of Messrs Coode, Son, and Matthews as chief engineers — "work, which is generally acknowledged to be one of the greatest feats in port construction of its time" ("History and Heritage"). However, credit must be given to those Victorian civil engineers, like Sir William Matthews (1844-1922) who envisioned, designed and supervised these vast projects, and finally solved the problems that had dogged earlier attempts to accommodate the increasingly heavy sea traffic using the harbour. — Jacqueline Banerjee
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Bibliography
"History and Heritage." Port of Dover. 1 August 2023.
Obituary of Sir William Matthews, KCMG." ICE Virtual Library. Web. 1 August 2023.
Statham, Samuel Percy Hammond. The History of the Castle, Town and Port of Dover. London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1899. Internet Archive online version of a copy in the New York Public Library. Web. 1 August 2023.
Worthington, Benjamin. Proposed Plan for Improving Dover Harbour, by an extension of the South Pier Head, &c.. Dover, 1838. Internet Archive online version of a copy in the New York Public Library. Web. 1 August 2023.
Created 31 July 2023