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 St. George's Quay 1790 |
St. George's Quay During the eighteenth century (the 1700s) Lancaster became a rich and successful town - as you wander the streets the many impressive Georgian buildings you see demonstrate this. |
St. George's Quayside, however, was really at
the heart of this success. Lancaster's merchants were investing in trade
- foreign trade. It might seem strange because Lancaster is seven miles
up a river but St. George's Quay was once a bustling port full of sailing
ships - many of which came from abroad.
Before the eighteenth century people used and
ate things which were grown or made near where they lived. In the eighteenth
century this began to change - people began to drink more tea and coffee,
use more sugar, smoke more tobacco, use more spices in their cooking and
make their clothes from cotton and, all of these things came from abroad.
In those days most sailing ships were relatively small and weighed between
50 and 200 tons - they could sail up the river easily. In the early part
of the century there was no Quay, although there were one or two piers,
most ships simply unloaded on the river banks where they could.
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In 1750 the Port Commission built a wall on the south side of the river, so ships could tie up against it - the Quayside wall - and sold the land that had been reclaimed beside it as 'lotts' to Lancaster merchants. The merchants built warehouses on these 'lotts' for the goods they were shipping. Between 1750 and 1840 these merchants did very well - for much of that period Lancaster was a prosperous town. A lot of the trade was specialised and focussed on the West Indies. However about 20% of that trade was what people called the 'Africa Trade' - slavery. |
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 Dodshon Foster |
Slavery Lancaster was the fourth largest slaving port and between 15 and 25 thousand people were probably sold into slavery by Lancaster merchants. It would have been rare to see a slave here as these slaves were sold in the West Indies or America. So how did this awful trade work? Often merchants would group together to invest in a slaving voyage - that way they spread the risk - the risks could be as high as the potential profits. |
The money might be spent on commissioning Smith's shipyard in Skerton to build them a snow - that's a type of sailing ship. Once complete - the ship would be provisioned - loaded with trade goods such as gold, guns, gunpowder, pots and pans, beads, etc. The ship then set sail for West Africa, often to one of the smaller countries like the Gambia. Once in the Gambia the captain or an agent used his initiative and knowledge to trade the goods in the ship for slaves, sometimes trading directly with a tribal leader, sometimes at a European owned fort. Once they had stuffed the ship with as many slaves as it could carry - often 60 - 90 slaves in holds which were smaller than a classroom - the ship set sail for the West Indies or America. Once they arrived the slaves were sold to work on the plantations growing, tea, coffee, sugar, spices and many other things - often for a huge profit. The return voyage to Lancaster was usually made carrying, tea, coffee, spices, sugar and mahogany wood for Gillows the famous furniture makers - more goods to sell - more profit to make.
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