Volume One - Into the Victorian Age - Losses of shipping and crews out of Penarth . . .

The vessel was then loaded in Penarth Dock, and ready to proceed to sea. It was shown that the load line had been shifted since it was marked by the shipbuilders, and the defendant was fined £25 and costs.” Western Daily Press [023] 22nd July 1884

The loss of the 'Royal Charter' and 450 lives in October 1859 added to the awareness of the plight of merchant mariners; a cause which, in the 1860’s, stirred the Victorian MP Samuel Plimsoll to launch a campaign to tackle the overloading issue. Gladstone set up a Royal Commission on unseaworthy ships in 1872, and from that the Merchant Shipping Act of 1874 made a load line compulsory for vessels using British ports. However, the position of the lines remained undefined until 1894.

Plimsoll's speeches at Parliament followed by his book "Our Seamen", shocked the politicians and public alike into action. The Laws of Motion state that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This was not the case for Plimsoll because it fueled great anger and retribution from the shipowners who stood to lose out on financial settlements from the insurance and other scams and many of whom considered the mariners to be expendable anyway.

Prolonged litigation followed and Plimsoll faced bankruptcy. Undeterred, in 1876, the Unseaworthy Ships Bill became law. The Act stipulated that a number of witness lines must be painted on the ship to show the maximum load the ship is permitted to sail with. In practice, the shipowners could paint the line where ever they interpreted the Act and some decided that the funnel was the most appropriate place! By 1890 the Board of Trade officials responsible for ensuring compliance with the regulation had managed to enforce the regulations as intended.

In 1906, laws were passed requiring foreign ships visiting British ports to be marked with a load line but it was not until 1930 that there was International agreement to the universal application of the “Plimsoll Line”. Only the last few years of coal exports and sailings from Penarth Dock had the "luxury" of this vital safety standard being universally applied and by that time countless lives had been lost.

Peter Campbell followed a life at sea and in 1883 sailed out of Penarth Dock bound for Bombay with a cargo of Welsh coal aboard the steamship 'St. Columba'. Their voyage was cut short by the forces of nature as they crossed the Bay of Biscay and Peter was lost. Who was Peter Campbell? Read his story in Volume 8, Chapter 10.