View of Boatmen's Rooms, 182 Beach Street, Deal Kent. It was a former Seamen's Mission now a private house.
Former Seamen's Mission on Beach Road, now a private house By the time Dickens came to Deal it had been largely forgotten how the government of 1784, under Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, ensured that the Deal boats were all set ablaze, suspecting some of the Deal luggers of being engaged in smuggling. Pitt had awaited an opportunity that January, when the boats were all 'hoved up' on the beach on account of bad weather, to send a regiment of soldiers to smash and burn them. A naval cutter was positioned offshore to prevent any of the boatmen escaping. The boatmen's ancestors had the right, under charter, freely to import goods in return for their services as Cinque Port men in providing what had been long recognised as the sole naval defence of the realm. These men continued to risk their lives and their boats, in saving the lives of shipwreck victims. The irrepressible spirit of the Deal boatmen remained undaunted by these events throughout the Napoleonic Wars, and they continued to assert their hard-earned right to trade. From these activities news of the events unfolding in France would reach England quickly and regularly, with about 400 men making a living off Deal beach at that time. The war only made the boatmen’s efforts more profitable, so that afterwards the Government immediately turned a part of its naval blockade into a coastal blockade, which lasted from 1818 to 1831. The Revd. Thomas Stanley Treanor was Chaplain to the Downs branch of the Missions to Seamen and Honorary Secretary of the Downs branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. He therefore probably had as great a knowledge of the Deal boatmen as was possible for someone outside their class. He described the boatmen as ‘wild and daring fellows,’ wrote of their ‘skill, bravery and humanity,’ and asked, ‘when the boatmen of Deal hang back in the storm blast, who else dare go?’7 Among the exploits he described was the saving of the vessel Royal Arch in March 1878.
Size: 3725px × 4751px
Location: Beach Street, Dover, Kent CT14 6LE
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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