Reminder of our lost marine tradition
OFF AND ON...inside the Mercantile Marine Office in the Market Place more than 40 years ago.
THE face of South Shields Market Place is to change in coming months with the demolition of Wouldhave House.
But so much has already come and gone from it over the years.
This picture of seamen being engaged and discharged from ships goes back more than 40 years, to when the old Mercantile Marine Office had moved from the Mill Dam in the town, to what was at that time described as “the new Government buildings’ in the Market.
It took over the offices which had formerly housed the Ministry of Social security.
It had been down at the Dam for more than 100 years before that; actually, no one seems to have known exactly how long it had been there.
What is sobering to realise now is that, even at this time, there was a reflection of the decline taking place in British seafaring, as the Board of Trade had already closed its Mercantile Marine Offices in both Newcastle and Sunderland, leaving Shields as the only one serving both ports.
* One forgets what a concentration of marine services there used to be at the Mill Dam.
Looking at an old directory from the 1860s, the Customs House, alone, included the shipping office, the Royal Naval Reserve Office, another office for money orders and a “seamen’s savings bank.”
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Thursday 17 May 2012
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