The Portsmouth Dockyard workforce 1880-1914

Abstract

The Portsmouth Dockyard workforce, 1880 to 1914, represents a community of state employees in an overwhelmingly capitalist economy and society. The core of this study is an examination of the conditions of work provided by the state, via the Admiralty, in this period, and the response of the Dockyardmen to these. However, the relationship between the Dockyardmen and movements affecting the working class nationally, particularly the Trade Union movement and the emerging Labour Party, is also considered. The overall argument of this work is that 1880-1914, from the various perspectives of Admiralty imposed employment conditions, and the workers' trade union, political and cultural responses, was a formative period in Dockyard history. Moreover, this was a period which saw a closing of the gap between Dockyardmen and the wider labour movement.

The opening section focusses on the key features of Admiralty employment as they developed 1880-1914, the function of the established system, pay, demarcation, the petitioning process and management structures. The response of the workers to this, encompassing Admiralty, worker interaction, the internal dynamics of the Dockyard workforce and contacts between Dockyardmen and the wider labour movement, is pursued through studies of trade union development amongst trades, the Shipwrights, Engineers and Sailmakers, and the Labourers. Supplementing this is a chapter on the Dockyard as a focal point for a distinctive workplace-based culture.

From this the political responses of the Dockyardmen are considered; the nature of Dockyard-based, working class Conservatism, Liberalism and the emergence from this of independent labour politics. Finally, there is a discussion of Dockyard findings in a national context, with particular reference to the utility of the Labour Aristocracy Concept.

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