Shipping in the London coal trade, 1700‒1860

Evidence from more than 40 000 voyages shows that labour productivity growth for sailing ships in the London coal trade was rapid but quite irregular between 1700 and 1860. These granular data permit us to examine various dimensions of change, showing that ships made more voyages per year, had small...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Economic history review 2024-08, Vol.77 (3), p.1005-1034
Main Authors: Solar, Peter M., Dunn, Oliver Buxton, Kane, Aidan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
18th century
Coal
coal trade
Crews
Economic growth
infrastructure
Labor productivity
London
Sailing
shipping
Shipping industry
Ships
transport
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Summary:Evidence from more than 40 000 voyages shows that labour productivity growth for sailing ships in the London coal trade was rapid but quite irregular between 1700 and 1860. These granular data permit us to examine various dimensions of change, showing that ships made more voyages per year, had smaller crews, carried more coal per ship ton and had longer working lives. Some changes resulted from what happened on land rather than on the sea, notably a marked reduction in the seasonality of trade as wagonways were built in the northeast in the early eighteenth century and a pronounced dip in voyages per year due to congestion in the port of London during the 1830s and 1840s, partly caused by the operation of the coal cartel. These results for the coal trade suggest that shipping, being neither spectacularly modern nor doggedly traditional, made a respectable contribution to British economic growth.
ISSN:0013-0117
1468-0289
DOI:10.1111/ehr.13296