HM Victualling Yard, Deptford
HM Victualling Yard, Deptford was a
Previously known as the Red House, Deptford, the site with its wharf and storehouses was taken over by the Victualling Commissioners in 1743 to serve as their main operational facility. Rebuilt in the late 18th century, it soon became 'the largest food-processing operation in Britain, if not in Europe'.[1] After 1858 it was formally known as the Royal Victoria Victualling Yard.
Deptford's proximity to the food markets of London made it especially convenient for victualling, and it served the requirements not only of its own neighbouring Dockyard but also those of Woolwich, Sheerness and Chatham, as well as of the fleet and vessels based in the Nore (which was one of the Navy's principal anchorages).[2] In addition, it routinely supplied the other naval victualling yards, both at home and abroad, with items of stock (to supplement those sourced or produced locally) ranging from rum, food and tobacco to clothing and medical supplies.[3]
Origins: the Red House
In the 17th century the Navy Board's victualling operation was based on Tower Hill in a complex of offices, residences, storehouses and manufactories which had been established in the reign of Elizabeth I. In 1650, to supplement these arrangements, a slaughterhouse was acquired by the Board of Victualling of the Commonwealth Navy, across the river and downstream, at Deptford.
After the
The Red House was part of the Sayes Court estate. In the hands of private contractors, it continued to be used for naval victualling for the next 70 years.
Acquisition and expansion: HM Victualling Yard
In 1742 the
The Commissioners took possession the following year; they set about building a large new storehouse (to take items from Tower Hill), re-facing the wharf with bricks and repairing a number of buildings (which had been damaged in a fire a few years beforehand). At the same time, they drew up much more ambitious plans for a comprehensive redevelopment of the 11-acre site designed to consolidate in a single location facilities for the purchase, production, packing and dispatching of foodstuffs, beverages and other victualling supplies for naval use (while also providing residential and office accommodation for the Victualling Commissioners themselves).
Fire remained a serious threat in this period.[4] In 1748 the new Victualling Office burned down (the fire started when a spark set light to some sacks hung up to dry by a hearth; it subsequently spread to 'a great number' of staves which had been stacked nearby, and went on to set fire to two lighters on the river which were laden with dry stores ('biscuits, pease, &c.').[7] In 1755 the King's Mill was destroyed, likewise the New Storehouse in 1758; and 1761 the old Red House (which had been rebuilt in 1640) was once again burned down.[3]
It was only, finally, in the 1780s that HM Victualling Yard, Deptford, acquired the layout, scale and complexity of operations that it was to retain for the best part of the next two centuries. A comprehensive rebuilding took place, to designs by James Arrow (Surveyor to the Victualling Office, 1774–1785).
In 1785 the Victualling Board closed the Tower Hill depot and Deptford became its centre of operations (though the commissioners themselves did not move to Deptford, instead transferring their office to Somerset House in 1787).
Operation
Certain provisions were purchased locally and then stored on site, including butter, cheese, peas and fish, as well as malt and hops for brewing and flour for baking. (Initially, flour was milled by the Board in a pair of nearby windmills in Deptford and Rotherhithe, but by 1802 these had been sold as they proved uneconomical.)[9]
Livestock arrived either by boat or else on the hoof, usually from
One characteristic that distinguished Deptford from the Board's other manufacturing facilities (in Portsmouth and Plymouth) was that, in addition to the aforementioned large-scale facilities, Deptford specialised in the production of other foodstuffs on a smaller scale, such as mustard, pepper, oatmeal and chocolate (each prepared in a dedicated milling area). There were also separate storehouses for sugar, tea, rice, raisins, wine and tobacco, all of which were purchased in London and stored in Deptford prior to being distributed for use elsewhere as required.[1]
In the late-18th and early-19th centuries, during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Deptford's main task was to maintain a steady provision of victuals (either by manufacture or purchase) with which to supply the smaller yards on the south coast and overseas where the fleet was principally based.[9]
By 1813 the Victualling Yard at Deptford covered nearly 20 acres. A 10-horsepower
Deptford's integrated approach to manufacture and storage provided a model for the new purpose-built victualling yards established by the Navy in the 1820s: the
Personnel
The senior personnel of the yard varied over time. Up to 1809, the Principal Officers of the yard were listed as follows:[9]
- Superintendent
- Hoytaker
- Clerk of the Cheque
- Clerk of the Cutting House
- Clerk of the Dry Stores
- Clerk of the Brewhouse
- Master Cooper
- Clerk of the Issues
These officers related directly to their counterparts on the Victualling Board, leading to a lack of co-ordination and accountability in the yard.
In response to this difficulty, a Board of Revision recommended in 1809 that the number of Principal Officers at Deptford be reduced to three:
- Agent Victualler (having overall responsibility for the yard's operation, for negotiating contracts and distribution of victuals)
- Clerk of the Cheque (financial officer)
- Storekeeper (overseer of items in store)
with the following listed as Subordinate Officers:
- Master Cooper
- Master Brewer
- Master Baker
- Master Butcher
- Principal Boatswain
- Principal Stevedore
- Inspector of Works
- Porter
In 1832 the Victualling Board was disestablished and the civilian Agent Victualler was replaced with a serving naval officer, the Captain Superintendent, assisted by a Master Attendant. In 1869, these offices were abolished and the Yard was instead placed under the management of a civilian Storekeeper.[10]
Later years: the Royal Victoria Victualling Yard
Deptford remained the largest of the home victualling establishments through the 19th century. The establishment was renamed the Royal Victoria Victualling Yard in 1858, following a visit by
Brewing ceased in the yard after the beer ration was discontinued in the 1830s; the old brewhouse instead became a clothing store.
After the 1870s live animals were no longer brought into the yard for slaughter, though fresh meat did continue to be salted on site.
The biscuit bakery, staffed by just twelve men, could produce 30,000 ship's biscuits a day (though it only normally operated in the winter months). Around 450 tons per year were being manufactured in Deptford in 1900 (with biscuit-making also undertaken at the other two principal Victualling Yards). Grain was bought on the open market, and stored on site in a three-storey granary before being transferred to the steam-powered flour mill. In the course of manufacture, each hexagonal biscuit was stamped with the Government's broad arrow and the letter 'D' for Deptford. After baking, the biscuits were placed for three days in the upper-floor drying rooms, which were heated to 140 °F (60 °C) using surplus heat from the ovens downstairs. It was claimed that Deptford alone could, if needed, 'turn out sufficient biscuits to feed the whole Navy'; enough raw material for 11,000,000 biscuits was kept in stock in the Yard.[12]
Deptford always provided more than just the staple naval provisions of meat, biscuits, rum and cocoa. In the 20th century a whole variety of stores were kept on site, including drugs and medical supplies, soap, lubricating oil and acid, as well as sizeable stocks of tea, sugar, jam, salt, raisins, split peas and preserved milk (each kept in their own dedicated storehouse). Oatmeal, pepper and mustard continued to be milled on site.
Foodstuffs and other items continued to be stored in barrels: 30,000 a year were being manufactured at Deptford's cooperage in the early 20th century. By the 1870s, machinery for cask-making had been installed by
In the early 20th century, if a Royal Navy ship required provisions her officers would order them directly from the nearest appropriate Victualling Yard. From Deptford, supplies were routinely conveyed downriver in
From 1869 the Admiralty Compass Observatory was located in the yard, housed within a small wooden hut erected for the purpose on the lawn at the centre of the site.[15] Its Superintendent was housed in the Terrace. Responsible for testing and ensuring the individual accuracy of every compass in naval service, it remained based in the yard for almost 50 years.
Closure
A. Cecil Hampshire wrote in the early 1970s:[16]
By the end of the Second World War the yard had become less and less of a storehouse, the functions of its staff being chiefly confined to inspecting and checking the quality.. of victualling stores.. all of which are today supplied by commercial firms. Certain quantities of dry and refrigerated provisions continued however to be held in stock, together with materials and uniform clothing, flying clothing and special cold-weather kit. At the final closure these were transferred to.. Portsmouth and Plymouth.
The Royal Victoria Victualling Yard closed in June 1961. Some staff (and stores) were relocated to the adjacent Army Supply Reserve Depot (which occupied part of the former Dockyard site).[17] The majority of the old Victualling Yard buildings were demolished; a large council estate, the Pepys Estate, was built on the site. Some historic buildings, all dating from the 1770-80s, were retained and converted for housing or community uses.[8] These include the gateway on Grove Street and behind it the 'Colonnade' (former houses and office, fronted by a colonnaded passageway), the terrace of former officers' houses on Longshore and the two former Storehouses on the riverbank.
See also
- Deptford Dockyard
- Royal Clarence Victualling Yard
- Royal William Victualling Yard
- Victualling Commissioners
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Coad, Jonathan (2013). Support for the Fleet. Swindon: English Heritage.
- ^ a b c Lavery, Brian (1989). Nelson's Navy: the Ships, Men and Organisation, 1793-1815. London: Conway Maritime Press.
- ^ a b c Dews, Nathan (1884). The History of Deptford. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. pp. 267–269.
- ^ a b c "Plans of the 'Red House', Deptford". The National Archives. Retrieved 24 November 2017.
- ^ Davies, J. D. (2008). Pepys's Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare 1649-89. Seaforth.
- ^ a b Baugh, Daniel A. (1965). British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole. Princeton University Press. pp. 434–435.
- ^ Maitland's History of London, quoted by Dews, 1884.
- ^ a b Pevsner, The Buildings of England - London 2: South (Yale University Press, 1983 & 2002).
- ^ a b c Macdonald, Jane (2010). The British Navy's Victualling Board 1793-1815. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
- ^ "Dockyards". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 7: 270. 1894.
- ^ Quotation from "Northern Whig", 28 September 1876.
- ^ a b c d e Dolman, Frederick (October 1900). "How The Navy is Fed: A Visit to the Principal Victualling Yard". The English Illustrated Magazine. XXIV (1): 8–17. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
- ^ Walford, Edward. "Old and New London: vol. 6". British History Online. Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
- ^ "The Deptford Victualling Yard". Scientific American Supplement (42): 661. 14 October 1876.
- ^ Q, ed. (1895). The Story of the Sea. London: Cassell and Company. pp. 679–680.
- ISBN 0718300343.
- ^ "Royal Victoria Yard, Deptford", HC Deb, 27 April 1960 vol 622 cc198-9
External links
- Early photograph of the Cooperage entrance, which faced the river gate across the yard at the end of a long avenue.
- View through the main gate towards the tree-lined central area of the yard.
- Elevated view of the main gate with the former livestock area beyond it.
Photographs of the river frontage, 1937 (south to north):
- Stationery Store
- New Stationery Store (left) and New Clothing Store (right).
- New Clothing Store (left) and entrance to the Wet Dock (formerly the Mast Pond of the Dockyard).
- Chocolate mill (left) and flour mill (right).
- Flour mill (left) and South Storehouse (right).
- Offices (left), Superintendent's house and North Storehouse (right).
- North Storehouse (left) and 'Old Storehouse' (right).
- 'Old Storehouse' (left) and Brewhouse (right).
- Brewhouse (centre) and Tobacco Store (right).
- Tobacco Store.