# Samuel Plimsoll, the ‘Sailors’ Friend’

An episode of [Stuff You Missed in History Class](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/283605519), 5 Aug 2026, 35 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/cfb428ef-eafc-44d0-9d09-ae2701747e6f/df781460-a74a-4f6d-afd3-b49c0183301e/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=fb626e1f-112c-4246-a40d-ae2701747e7d

Samuel Plimsoll was an advocate for better working conditions for sailors, and for a lot of other things. A lot of contemporary accounts refer to him as an agitator. Research: • Bibby, Miriam. “Samuel Plimsoll and the Plimsoll Line.” Historic UK. June 14, 2024. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Samuel-Plimsoll-Line/ • Britannica Editors. "Samuel Plimsoll". Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 May. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Plimsoll • “Death of Mr. Samuel Plimsoll.” The Lichfield Mercury. June 4, 1898. https://www.newspapers.com/image/797510210/?match=1&terms=%22samuel%20plimsoll%22 • “Friends of Humanity.” Democrat and Chronicle. Apr 27, 1913. https://www.newspapers.com/image/135735684/?match=1&terms=%22samuel%20plimsoll%22 • Glover, William. “Samuel Plimsoll and the 1880 Carriage of Grain Legislation.” The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord, XXX, No. 4 (Winter 2020), 419-448. https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol30/tnm_30_419-448.pdf • “Jack Tar’s Friend.” The Atchison Daily Globe. July 17, 1896. https://www.newspapers.com/image/479999267/?match=4&terms=%22samuel%20plimsoll%22 • Japp, Alexander H. “Good men and true : biographies of workers in the fields of beneficence and benevolence.” Philadelphia. Gebbie. 1890. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/goodmentrue0000unse/page/10/mode/2up • Jones, Nicolette. “The Plimsoll Sensation.” London. Little, Brown. 2006. • Langenberg, William H. “The Plimsoll Mark.” U.S. Naval Institute. Naval History. June 1992. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1992/june/plimsoll-mark • “Lundhill Colliery Explosion.” Northern Mine Research Society. https://nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/accidents-disasters/yorkshire/lundhill-colliery-explosion-barnsley-1857/ • “The Name of Samuel Plimsoll … “ Birmingham Gazette. June 4, 1898. https://www.newspapers.com/image/815489724/?match=1&terms=%22samuel%20plimsoll%22 • “People's College Sheffield (1842 - 1878).” University of Sheffield. https://archives.shef.ac.uk/agents/corporate_entities/212 • Plimsoll, Samuel. “Our Seamen: An Appeal.” London. Virtue. 1873. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/b20406691/page/n15/mode/2up • Robertson, Jen. “It's Plimsoll Day! (and we're talking about ships, not shoes).” National Museums Liverpool. https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/its-plimsoll-day-and-were-talking-about-ships-not-shoes See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
[0:04] Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
[0:13] Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Crazy v Wilson. I mentioned this in
[0:18] Speaker 1: our Sneakers episode, so it's not going to be any
[0:21] Speaker 1: surprise that we're doing this. We also came up in
[0:23] Speaker 1: another one that it was definitely going to happen today
[0:27] Speaker 1: is Samuel Plimsoll Day at Last. And when I looked
[0:31] Speaker 1: up Samuel Plimsol while I was working on a Sneaker
[0:34] Speaker 1: episode because it referenced a part of his life's work
[0:39] Speaker 1: that we will talk about today, I found out that
[0:42] Speaker 1: he seemed to be a pretty great guy. He was
[0:45] Speaker 1: an advocate for better working conditions for sailors and an
[0:49] Speaker 1: advocate for better conditions for a lot of things. A
[0:53] Speaker 1: lot of write ups and newspaper mentions about him from
[0:57] Speaker 1: his own time call him an agitator because of this,
[1:00] Speaker 1: because he was not shy about telling people they were
[1:04] Speaker 1: really doing it wrong when it came to taking care
[1:06] Speaker 1: of others. So it's just a perfect topic for Stuff
[1:09] Speaker 1: you missed in History Class. Listen. Uh, There's always a
[1:14] Speaker 1: possibility when you're working on one of these that the
[1:17] Speaker 1: person that you're talking about had some sort of secret
[1:20] Speaker 1: ugliness in the dark corners of his life. But if
[1:24] Speaker 1: he did, I sure did not find it, which was
[1:26] Speaker 1: a huge relief because often secret racism and I did
[1:31] Speaker 1: not encounter any such stories about Samuel Plimsoll. It so
[1:35] Speaker 1: often shows up so late in the process, yes, that
[1:38] Speaker 1: it's like, well, now I have to take a totally
[1:41] Speaker 1: different direction with this episode, yeah, or we have to
[1:43] Speaker 1: have this big caveat about Yeah. Seemed like seemed like
[1:49] Speaker 1: it was great, honestly wanted to make the world a
[1:51] Speaker 1: better place, and then it took a turnt so. Samuel
[1:56] Speaker 1: plimsl was born on February tenth, eighteen twenty four, in Bristol, England,
[2:00] Speaker 1: which is in the southwest part of the country, about
[2:03] Speaker 1: one hundred miles west of London. The River Avon runs
[2:07] Speaker 1: through the center of Bristol and out the nearby Bristol
[2:11] Speaker 1: Channel that connects to the Atlantic Ocean. His father, Thomas Plemsil,
[2:16] Speaker 1: was an excise man, and his mother was Priscilla Willing Clemson,
[2:21] Speaker 1: and her father had been a shipwright. The family was large.
[2:25] Speaker 1: Samuel had twelve siblings, although several of them died in childhood.
[2:30] Speaker 1: He was Thomas and Priscilla's seventh child and was described
[2:34] Speaker 1: in one writing about him as quote an old head
[2:37] Speaker 1: on young shoulders. When Samuel was three, the family moved
[2:41] Speaker 1: to the town of Penrith in Cumberland. They moved again
[2:44] Speaker 1: when he was fourteen, to Sheffield. Samuel's activist proclivities evidenced
[2:49] Speaker 1: themselves very early on in his life. When he was
[2:52] Speaker 1: a young teenager, he wrote a pamphlet for social reform
[2:56] Speaker 1: while still in school, titled A Plan to have Fatherless
[3:00] Speaker 1: and motherless children cared for instead of being consigned to
[3:04] Speaker 1: the workhouse. Uh. Basically, he didn't want kids to have
[3:09] Speaker 1: to go through dredgery just because they had already had
[3:12] Speaker 1: a family tragedy. And this little pamphlet might have been
[3:16] Speaker 1: inspired in part by the serialization of Oliver Twist, which
[3:19] Speaker 1: was published monthly in the magazine Bentley's Miscellini starting in
[3:23] Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven. There's been a lot of speculation that
[3:25] Speaker 1: he read that and was very moved to try to
[3:28] Speaker 1: make an effort to create better conditions for orphans. When
[3:32] Speaker 1: Thomas died, the family fell into poverty, and that of
[3:35] Speaker 1: course had a significant impact on Samuel, who was sixteen
[3:39] Speaker 1: at the time of his father's death. Although he was
[3:43] Speaker 1: still just a kid, he was the oldest son at
[3:45] Speaker 1: home and that meant he was responsible for the family's
[3:48] Speaker 1: welfare and he had to take care of his mother
[3:51] Speaker 1: and his five younger siblings. Initially, he was kind of
[3:55] Speaker 1: hustling to make ends meet by managing a widow's pension
[3:59] Speaker 1: that his mother received, and that included saving a little
[4:02] Speaker 1: bit on the side so that he could buy hair
[4:04] Speaker 1: pelts and send them to his older brother in London
[4:07] Speaker 1: to resell for a profit. Then Samuel left school to
[4:11] Speaker 1: start working as a lawyer's clerk. He moved on to
[4:14] Speaker 1: a clerking position at the Pond Street Brewery a couple
[4:17] Speaker 1: of years later. He also wrote speeches for Thomas Burks,
[4:21] Speaker 1: who was a partner in the brewery and also the
[4:24] Speaker 1: mayor of Sheffield. But although he was not attending regular school,
[4:28] Speaker 1: he knew he had to get a complete education, and
[4:31] Speaker 1: he started going to night classes at the People's College
[4:34] Speaker 1: of Sheffield after it opened in eighteen forty two. What
[4:38] Speaker 1: would a mid nineteenth century English episode be without the
[4:41] Speaker 1: inclusion of the London Great Exposition of eighteen fifty one.
[4:46] Speaker 1: I feel like it's a recurrent character on Stuffian Bison
[4:49] Speaker 1: history class, and that's fine by me. Plimsol worked to
[4:54] Speaker 1: ensure that Sheffield was well represented there at that expo.
[4:58] Speaker 1: He also got to show off several of his own
[5:00] Speaker 1: inventions there. Biographer Nicolette Jones, writing in two thousand and six,
[5:05] Speaker 1: put Samuel Plimsel's inventive tendencies this way quote. Samuel specialized
[5:10] Speaker 1: in simple logical solutions that someone else should have thought
[5:14] Speaker 1: of before. One that was on display at the expo
[5:18] Speaker 1: was an umbrella that had no handle. It was designed
[5:22] Speaker 1: to attach to a walking stick that somehow reminds me
[5:25] Speaker 1: of the tents that are made by things that connect
[5:29] Speaker 1: to people's hiking poles. Yeah, just cutting down on the
[5:32] Speaker 1: amount of stuff that you got to carry around. That
[5:35] Speaker 1: seemed to be a lot of his inventions were very like,
[5:37] Speaker 1: why don't we just simplify this a little bit? Yeah. Great.
[5:41] Speaker 1: On December twentieth, eighteen fifty one, the warren Vale Colliery
[5:45] Speaker 1: at Swinton, Yorkshire had an explosion that was at six
[5:49] Speaker 1: point fifty five am. Fifty one people died, and roughly
[5:53] Speaker 1: half of them were teenagers really on the younger side
[5:57] Speaker 1: of their teen years. While an investment stigation looked into
[6:01] Speaker 1: the cause of this blast, plem Cell saw a more
[6:03] Speaker 1: immediate need, which was help for the survivors and the
[6:07] Speaker 1: families who were dealing with this loss. Just as the
[6:10] Speaker 1: pamphlet he wrote as a teenager had shown, he thought
[6:14] Speaker 1: there were better ways to help orphaned children than to
[6:17] Speaker 1: put them in a workhouse, and he started a fund
[6:20] Speaker 1: to ensure that these children and widows who were left
[6:23] Speaker 1: behind would have their needs met as they grieved and
[6:25] Speaker 1: as they tried to rebuild their lives. Over the course
[6:29] Speaker 1: of the next decade, Plimsel carefully built up his finances,
[6:33] Speaker 1: but he also used his energies to help people in
[6:36] Speaker 1: his community. In fact, he later said quote I was
[6:39] Speaker 1: desirous of wealth as a condition of devoting myself to
[6:43] Speaker 1: public service. Through the connections that he made through working
[6:47] Speaker 1: with Thomas Burks, he was able to become a coal merchant,
[6:51] Speaker 1: working with railway companies to secure transport deals, and he
[6:55] Speaker 1: moved to London in eighteen fifty three to support this
[6:57] Speaker 1: new career. This was a departure from the way that
[7:01] Speaker 1: coal had been transported for centuries, which was of course
[7:04] Speaker 1: largely by sea and then sometimes by horse cart. He
[7:08] Speaker 1: left his job at the brewery and he invested in
[7:10] Speaker 1: the Great Northern Railway as part of this business move,
[7:13] Speaker 1: and that was a bad idea. He trusted the wrong
[7:17] Speaker 1: people and this investment led to bankruptcy because he kind
[7:20] Speaker 1: of got cheated out of that investment, but he did
[7:23] Speaker 1: still believe in the idea of rail transport for coal.
[7:27] Speaker 1: Because of his financial problems, he had to live in
[7:29] Speaker 1: a charity house in London. He'd later described feeling ashamed
[7:34] Speaker 1: of being in such a position, but that the months
[7:37] Speaker 1: that he lived alongside the city's poorest residence gave him
[7:41] Speaker 1: a valuable education about compassion and care. He wrote about
[7:46] Speaker 1: the way people with very little formed community and took
[7:49] Speaker 1: care of one another with shared resources and with kindness.
[7:54] Speaker 1: This experience gave him an even deeper resolve to help
[7:57] Speaker 1: people who were in need, and that became the guiding
[8:00] Speaker 1: principle of his life. He started working as a coal
[8:04] Speaker 1: merchant again, building up a clientele by asking satisfied customers
[8:08] Speaker 1: to tell their friends about him. As he built up
[8:11] Speaker 1: his financial reserves, he also purchased some property along the
[8:14] Speaker 1: planned route of a new underground railway. He knew that
[8:18] Speaker 1: the railway company would have to purchase these properties. Even
[8:22] Speaker 1: though it seemed like a safe bet, this was still
[8:24] Speaker 1: risky because he had to borrow money for a lot
[8:27] Speaker 1: of these purchases. But this time the investment paid off
[8:31] Speaker 1: and plumsall made a lot of money. He also patented
[8:35] Speaker 1: an invention for the coal industry as he was getting
[8:38] Speaker 1: back on his feet financially. It was a coal drop
[8:41] Speaker 1: that enabled workers to empty out wagons without damaging the coal.
[8:46] Speaker 1: Prior to this, a lot of this would end up broken,
[8:48] Speaker 1: and that meant losses for the company, and it also
[8:51] Speaker 1: meant more work for the laborers. Plimshall's invention improved his
[8:55] Speaker 1: own coal business, it helped him continue to grow his fortune,
[8:59] Speaker 1: and it also became fairly standard in the industry. Coming up,
[9:04] Speaker 1: we'll talk about Samuel Primzel's one arrest, but first we
[9:07] Speaker 1: will pause for a sponsor break. Samuel Plimsel very clearly
[9:20] Speaker 1: had a well developed sense of right and wrong from
[9:23] Speaker 1: a young age, but that did cause problems on occasion.
[9:27] Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty six, when Plimsoll was thirty two, he
[9:30] Speaker 1: got into a bit of legal trouble when he was
[9:33] Speaker 1: arrested for assault. This had occurred late in the evening
[9:37] Speaker 1: on Waterloo Bridge where Samuel and a friend were crossing.
[9:41] Speaker 1: It was something that they had to pay a toll
[9:43] Speaker 1: of a halfpenny to cross. Plimsell's friend had paid a penny,
[9:48] Speaker 1: covering them both, but while the friend walked through the turnstile,
[9:52] Speaker 1: Plimsol walked around it and proceeded on the carriageway instead
[9:55] Speaker 1: of the footpath. It was kind of like they were
[9:57] Speaker 1: walking side by side, and he didn't want to stop
[9:59] Speaker 1: their conversation and to get in single file line. He
[10:02] Speaker 1: just kept going, Uh. It's a little bit unclear because
[10:07] Speaker 1: it seems like because it was late and the bridge
[10:10] Speaker 1: was quiet, he just wanted to, like I said, maintain
[10:12] Speaker 1: his side by side walking with his friend rather than
[10:15] Speaker 1: having to shift their arrangement. But the tollkeeper did not
[10:20] Speaker 1: enjoy this. He yelled at Plimsol and said he had
[10:22] Speaker 1: to come back and walk through the turnstile. Plimsole refused
[10:25] Speaker 1: to do it, insisting that the toll had been paid
[10:28] Speaker 1: he was entitled to cross that bridge. However, he pleased.
[10:32] Speaker 1: It is unclear what the nature of the assault was.
[10:35] Speaker 1: As this conflict escalated, but after he was released on bail,
[10:39] Speaker 1: Samuel Primsol returned to the bridge, paid a halfpenny and
[10:43] Speaker 1: asked the tollkeeper to show him the legal documentation that
[10:47] Speaker 1: said that he could not cross the bridge on the carriageway.
[10:51] Speaker 1: He knew that no such law could be produced, uh,
[10:54] Speaker 1: and so it was kind of just his way to
[10:56] Speaker 1: make his point and be a little bit spiteful. Three
[10:59] Speaker 1: days later, though, Plimsol was before a judge arguing that
[11:03] Speaker 1: he had paid for access to the bridge and that
[11:05] Speaker 1: the tollkeeper had been insolent. This case did not go
[11:09] Speaker 1: Plimsol's way. He was fined three pounds. But I really
[11:12] Speaker 1: like that story. I like it too. It's so funny
[11:16] Speaker 1: to be like the tollkeeper's insolence was not a legal matter. Really,
[11:23] Speaker 1: he was a jerk. So I wasn't going to go back.
[11:25] Speaker 1: I paid my thing. I didn't do anything wrong. There's
[11:27] Speaker 1: no law. There's not even a sign that says I
[11:29] Speaker 1: have to do it this way. Yeah, why do I
[11:32] Speaker 1: have to pay three pounds? A horrible tragedy played out
[11:38] Speaker 1: in Womwell, South Yorkshire, on February nineteenth, eighteen fifty seven.
[11:43] Speaker 1: A colliery that sat between Womwell and the nearby village
[11:47] Speaker 1: of els Gar had a catastrophic explosion. There were two
[11:52] Speaker 1: hundred and twenty people in the mine when this explosion happened,
[11:55] Speaker 1: and one hundred and eighty nine of them were killed,
[11:58] Speaker 1: as well as all of the horses. Some of the
[12:01] Speaker 1: workers who died were experienced miners in their fifties, but
[12:05] Speaker 1: some of them were children as young as ten years old.
[12:08] Speaker 1: According to the Northern Mind Research Society, ninety women were
[12:12] Speaker 1: widowed that day and two hundred and twenty children were orphaned.
[12:17] Speaker 1: Once again, Plimsoll led the relief effort and raised more
[12:20] Speaker 1: than ten thousand pounds to help the families and to
[12:23] Speaker 1: keep people out of workhouses. In addition to raising money,
[12:27] Speaker 1: he also did his own analysis of the conditions in
[12:30] Speaker 1: the minds and made recommendations regarding a number of early
[12:34] Speaker 1: warning safety measures that could be adopted. It's not clear
[12:37] Speaker 1: if any of these were ever used. Yeah, his fundraising
[12:41] Speaker 1: got really really famous. Like there are a lot of
[12:44] Speaker 1: very famous people that are noted as having donated to
[12:48] Speaker 1: this fund, in particular, including Queen Victoria. Later in eighteen
[12:52] Speaker 1: fifty seven, Plimsoll married Eliza Ann Rilton on October first,
[12:57] Speaker 1: and this was a match that appeared to be very good.
[13:01] Speaker 1: Both emotionally they were very close in a great match
[13:03] Speaker 1: for each other, but also situationally because Eliza was Samuel's
[13:07] Speaker 1: best friend, his partner in his decisions, and a tireless
[13:11] Speaker 1: supporter of his work, and because her stepfather was a
[13:15] Speaker 1: partner in a coal mining company, he made a lot
[13:18] Speaker 1: of good business connections. With this marriage, Eliza and Samuel
[13:23] Speaker 1: wanted children, but they had difficulty. After seven years of marriage,
[13:27] Speaker 1: they finally had a baby girl, but she died soon
[13:30] Speaker 1: after she was born. Later, they adopted Samuel's great niece,
[13:34] Speaker 1: Nelly after her father died, and by all accounts they
[13:37] Speaker 1: doated on her. In eighteen sixty four, Plymsel had an
[13:41] Speaker 1: experience while he was a passenger on a steamer that
[13:44] Speaker 1: really shifted the trajectory of his life and gave him
[13:47] Speaker 1: a passion for labor activism. He was on this steamer
[13:51] Speaker 1: overnight in an intense storm. The next day, as they
[13:54] Speaker 1: traveled north along the coast of Yorkshire from Flameborough Head
[13:58] Speaker 1: to the River Tees, saw four shipwrecks. He noticed that
[14:03] Speaker 1: while these ships had been lost in the storm the
[14:05] Speaker 1: night before, a lot of them looked old and rited out,
[14:09] Speaker 1: and he realized that a lot of people lost their
[14:11] Speaker 1: lives simply because they had been sent out on poorly
[14:14] Speaker 1: maintained vessels. When he arrived home late at the dock,
[14:19] Speaker 1: his wife was there and obviously very worried, and she
[14:24] Speaker 1: greeted him tearfully and was just grateful that he had
[14:26] Speaker 1: made it home. He later recounted that moment in a speech, saying, quote,
[14:31] Speaker 1: I mingled my tears with hers because I was thinking
[14:35] Speaker 1: of those other women who had also spent a sleepless
[14:38] Speaker 1: night and who would never see their husbands again. I
[14:41] Speaker 1: was thinking of good and brave men who would never
[14:44] Speaker 1: return home. And I resolved, deep down in my heart
[14:47] Speaker 1: to devote myself to this work. What was the difference
[14:51] Speaker 1: between me and these poor drowned sailors. He also stated
[14:56] Speaker 1: that since that moment quote, my wife and I have
[14:58] Speaker 1: regarded everything we put us as held in trust for
[15:02] Speaker 1: the sailor. If it is necessary, we will spend it
[15:05] Speaker 1: for them as freely as our sailors would shed their
[15:08] Speaker 1: blood for their country if we got into trouble. Witnessing
[15:12] Speaker 1: so much needless devastation really got Samuel Plumsel fired up,
[15:16] Speaker 1: and he started his own investigation into maritime business. He
[15:21] Speaker 1: met with a lot of shipowners, and while there were
[15:23] Speaker 1: definitely many of them who were conscientious and were happy
[15:26] Speaker 1: to meet and speak with him about their work, there
[15:29] Speaker 1: were also a lot of them who were really shady,
[15:31] Speaker 1: and they were happy to cut corners in every single
[15:34] Speaker 1: way if it meant that they could make more money.
[15:37] Speaker 1: It actually benefited these unscrupulous operators to let their ships
[15:42] Speaker 1: go without maintenance and to overload their cargo holds to
[15:45] Speaker 1: a dangerous degree. They would take out insurance policies on
[15:50] Speaker 1: their ships, run them really hard without spending any money
[15:53] Speaker 1: on upkeep, and then collect their insurance payouts when the
[15:56] Speaker 1: ships inevitably fell apart. Rationally, most merchant ships only carried
[16:03] Speaker 1: two life boys on board two because they were expensive,
[16:07] Speaker 1: and some captains apparently said that having more of them
[16:11] Speaker 1: would make their ships look weak. Now, it was not
[16:14] Speaker 1: like Samuel Plemsoll was the first person ever to discover
[16:17] Speaker 1: this problem. Just the poorer conditions of the ships and
[16:20] Speaker 1: the overweight loads should have gained condemnation, But that you
[16:25] Speaker 1: add in the insurance scam aspect of all of it
[16:29] Speaker 1: that makes it seem unconscionable. People should have seen this previously,
[16:33] Speaker 1: and people did know all about it, But there was
[16:37] Speaker 1: a tricky aspect to talking about and calling out these problems.
[16:41] Speaker 1: The book Good Men and True Biographies of Workers in
[16:45] Speaker 1: the Fields of Beneficence and Benevolence, written by Alexander H.
[16:49] Speaker 1: Japp in eighteen ninety, explains the legal issue that held
[16:53] Speaker 1: people back with this quote. The tricks of the trade
[16:56] Speaker 1: of ship owning were very well known before mister plemsol
[16:59] Speaker 1: and merged prominently into public view. The Lifeboat Journal had
[17:04] Speaker 1: frequently dwelt on them and exposed them, and even the
[17:07] Speaker 1: reports of the Board of Trade had acknowledged the existence
[17:10] Speaker 1: of the evil. Newspapers of a more independent turn had
[17:14] Speaker 1: often made their readers shudder by suggestions of horrors that
[17:19] Speaker 1: could not be detailed. But the law of libel, though
[17:23] Speaker 1: very loose in some respects, is very tight in others.
[17:26] Speaker 1: And general statements somehow made no more impression on the
[17:30] Speaker 1: public mind than the blow of a baby's hand on
[17:33] Speaker 1: a feather pillow. It seems to yield easily to the impact,
[17:37] Speaker 1: but no lasting impression is produced. General statements alone were safe,
[17:43] Speaker 1: and if you are to do any good in a
[17:45] Speaker 1: case where vested interests are so directly involved, you must
[17:49] Speaker 1: come to very close quarters. Indeed, so unless papers and
[17:54] Speaker 1: reports named names and gave specific details, nothing was really
[17:58] Speaker 1: going to have enough impact. But because of libel laws,
[18:02] Speaker 1: if a newspaper or magazine actually did that, it would
[18:05] Speaker 1: almost certainly be put out of business. Plimsoll, armed with
[18:10] Speaker 1: the information that he had gathered, dedicated his life to
[18:13] Speaker 1: making a change, and that meant running for a seat
[18:16] Speaker 1: in Parliament. In eighteen sixty five, he ran to be
[18:19] Speaker 1: the representative of the constituency of Darby, but he did
[18:23] Speaker 1: not win. He didn't give up though. He ran again
[18:26] Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty seven, and that time he won and
[18:29] Speaker 1: became a member of the House of Commons in eighteen
[18:32] Speaker 1: sixty eight at the age of forty four. His early
[18:35] Speaker 1: efforts in the Chamber were in defense of trade unions,
[18:38] Speaker 1: although his speech skills were considered quite poor at that
[18:42] Speaker 1: point and he didn't have a huge impact with them.
[18:45] Speaker 1: He started really advocating for a legislation that would benefit
[18:49] Speaker 1: sailors in eighteen seventy. One of his proposals was marking
[18:53] Speaker 1: the side of a ship to denote the maximum load level.
[18:57] Speaker 1: This wasn't a new idea, but it had never been
[19:00] Speaker 1: really pushed very hard. And Plimzel decided he would do it.
[19:04] Speaker 1: He put forth a bill for a safe load line
[19:06] Speaker 1: and regular ship inspections in eighteen seventy one, but it failed.
[19:12] Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy three, Plimsol published a scathing criticism of
[19:16] Speaker 1: the state of the maritime business, noting that a lot
[19:19] Speaker 1: of sailors were working on ships that were barely seaworthy
[19:23] Speaker 1: and precariously dangerous. Plmzell pointed out in this writing that
[19:27] Speaker 1: often these ships had huge insurance policies, so the owners
[19:32] Speaker 1: knew that if they fell apart at seat, they would
[19:35] Speaker 1: be well compensated, but they didn't have any financial protections
[19:38] Speaker 1: in place for the sailors or their families. He referred
[19:42] Speaker 1: to these boats as coffin ships. That book, which has
[19:46] Speaker 1: the somewhat less than ideal title of Our Seamen An Appeal,
[19:50] Speaker 1: opens with quote, everybody knows that there is a great
[19:54] Speaker 1: loss of life on our coasts annually, and nearly everybody
[19:57] Speaker 1: deplores it. I am sure that if the English public
[20:01] Speaker 1: equally knew how much of this loss is preventable and
[20:05] Speaker 1: the means of preventing it, no long time would elapse
[20:08] Speaker 1: before means would be taken to secure this end, it
[20:12] Speaker 1: is with the view of giving this information so as
[20:14] Speaker 1: to enable each person who reads these pages to pronounce
[20:18] Speaker 1: with decision upon this question, that this pamphlet is submitted
[20:22] Speaker 1: to the public. He goes on later to state, quote,
[20:25] Speaker 1: A great number of ships are regularly sent to see
[20:28] Speaker 1: in such rotten and otherwise ill provided state that they
[20:31] Speaker 1: can only reach their destination through fine weather, and a
[20:35] Speaker 1: large number are so overloaded that it is nearly impossible
[20:39] Speaker 1: for them to also reach their destination if the voyage
[20:42] Speaker 1: is at all rough. This whole writing is supported by receipts.
[20:47] Speaker 1: Clemsel reprints government reports in his book, calling attention to
[20:52] Speaker 1: details that make it clear that these problems were known
[20:56] Speaker 1: early on. He wrote, quote, the next statement is made
[20:59] Speaker 1: by no less than a third already than the government itself,
[21:02] Speaker 1: for the page you see before you, as part of
[21:04] Speaker 1: the annual report of the Board of Trade. And I
[21:07] Speaker 1: beg your attention to the words which I have underlined,
[21:11] Speaker 1: the section with the underlined text and the report read quote.
[21:14] Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty eight, there were one hundred and thirty
[21:17] Speaker 1: one res and casualties to spacks and other fishing vessels.
[21:21] Speaker 1: Excluding these, one hundred and thirty one fishing vessels. It
[21:24] Speaker 1: will be seen that the number of vessels employed in
[21:27] Speaker 1: the regular carrying trade that have suffered from wreck or
[21:31] Speaker 1: casualty during the year is two thousand. If this number
[21:35] Speaker 1: is again subdivided, it will be found that about half
[21:39] Speaker 1: of it is represented by the unseaworthy, overladen or ill
[21:44] Speaker 1: found vessels of the collier class chiefly employed in the
[21:48] Speaker 1: coasting trade. For the six years ending eighteen sixty eight,
[21:52] Speaker 1: the number is more than half. So for clarity, half
[21:57] Speaker 1: of the shipwrecks that happened that were recorded by the
[22:01] Speaker 1: government were because the boats were not up to the task.
[22:06] Speaker 1: And if you're hearing all of this and you think, wow,
[22:09] Speaker 1: it sure is odd that everybody knew that the shipping
[22:11] Speaker 1: industry had problems, but no one was doing anything about
[22:14] Speaker 1: it before this, So did a lot of Plimshole's contemporaries.
[22:18] Speaker 1: In the book about Benevolent Men by jap that we
[22:21] Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, which was written while Plimsol was still alive,
[22:24] Speaker 1: the author also mentions the various reports that had been
[22:28] Speaker 1: made about shipping's dangers to workers, and then stated, quote,
[22:31] Speaker 1: it seems odd that a government which could year after
[22:35] Speaker 1: year make such records as that did not bestir itself
[22:38] Speaker 1: to end the evil or to lessen it. Materially very
[22:42] Speaker 1: odd that agitation for change should be left to a
[22:45] Speaker 1: private member of Parliament who had to undergo no end
[22:48] Speaker 1: of toil, anxiety, loss, and even of opposition, and worse still,
[22:53] Speaker 1: positive abuse from many quarters. Mister Plimsol was assailed on
[22:58] Speaker 1: all sides by shipowners and their friends or agents. Plmsall
[23:03] Speaker 1: became a hero to sailors everywhere almost instantly, while his
[23:07] Speaker 1: detractors in Parliament pointed out that he had no experience
[23:11] Speaker 1: as a sailor or a shipowner himself. Actual sailors and
[23:15] Speaker 1: shipowners who ran above board operations were glad to have
[23:18] Speaker 1: somebody in the government advocating for better practices. The same
[23:23] Speaker 1: year his book was published, the Walter Hood and Company
[23:26] Speaker 1: Shipyard named one of their new merchant sailing ships, the
[23:29] Speaker 1: Samuel Plimsoll. All of this led to legal trouble for
[23:33] Speaker 1: Plimsol because a lot of people were really angry that
[23:36] Speaker 1: he was calling out their shifty business practices. We're going
[23:40] Speaker 1: to get into all of that after we hear from
[23:42] Speaker 1: the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class,
[23:44] Speaker 1: going as the issue of shipping reform got a lot
[23:57] Speaker 1: more attention through Plimsoll's work. He was sued for libel
[24:01] Speaker 1: by a dozen different shipowners, but the most high profile
[24:05] Speaker 1: of them went nowhere. There were a couple that really
[24:08] Speaker 1: tried to press it, and after they failed, the rest
[24:11] Speaker 1: of those suits were withdrawn. At the same time, as
[24:15] Speaker 1: more people heard about this work and the conflicts it
[24:18] Speaker 1: was causing, Plimsoll also gained a lot of support. This
[24:22] Speaker 1: surge of popularity led to a request for another bill
[24:25] Speaker 1: to be presented, and Plimsoll worked alongside several of his
[24:29] Speaker 1: colleagues in preparing it. Some portions of that bill passed,
[24:33] Speaker 1: but it only gave municipal authorities the right to inspect
[24:37] Speaker 1: ships if they already looked run down. However, the ongoing
[24:42] Speaker 1: interest in the issues that Plymsall had laid bare and
[24:45] Speaker 1: his writing led to the establishment of a Royal commission
[24:49] Speaker 1: to investigate his claims. When a subsequent bill about reforms
[24:53] Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy five didn't even make it to a vote,
[24:57] Speaker 1: Plemzell started pointing a finger at Government of f and
[25:00] Speaker 1: politicians who were financially tied to the shipping industry. He
[25:04] Speaker 1: had to formally apologize for doing so, but he continued
[25:08] Speaker 1: to vocally criticize the lack of legislation just now without
[25:13] Speaker 1: naming any of his specific colleagues in the process. There's
[25:17] Speaker 1: an interesting turn that happened over the course of several
[25:20] Speaker 1: years with regards to Plimsol's representation in the press. In
[25:24] Speaker 1: his early days as a member of Parliament, he was
[25:27] Speaker 1: often lampooned in political cartoons for these sort of mumbling,
[25:32] Speaker 1: rambling speeches. But as he gained momentum and his maritime
[25:36] Speaker 1: reform efforts, the press started depicting him in a more
[25:39] Speaker 1: positive light and poking fun at the MPs who opposed him.
[25:43] Speaker 1: Benjamin Disraeli started calling Samuel's supporters the Plimsolites. In eighteen
[25:50] Speaker 1: seventy six, the New Merchant Shipping Act was finally passed,
[25:54] Speaker 1: in large part because Samuel Plimsol had been such a
[25:57] Speaker 1: tireless advocate for reform, and that act stated that any
[26:01] Speaker 1: vessel could be inspected by the Board of Trade and
[26:04] Speaker 1: that ships had to display a maximum loading line, which
[26:07] Speaker 1: came to be known as the Plimsol line. For the
[26:10] Speaker 1: first several years, the addition of this line was not enforced.
[26:14] Speaker 1: This was purposely. It gave shipowners time to add it
[26:18] Speaker 1: to the holes of their vessels, but then starting in
[26:20] Speaker 1: eighteen ninety, it was mandatory. In the year eighteen seventy one,
[26:26] Speaker 1: the likelihood of loss of life at sea was one
[26:29] Speaker 1: in seventy five. In eighteen ninety it was one in
[26:34] Speaker 1: one hundred and eleven, so Plimsol's work immediately had an impact.
[26:38] Speaker 1: In the years after the passage of this Act, Samuel
[26:41] Speaker 1: Plmsall's life had its ups and downs. He lost his
[26:45] Speaker 1: election and retired from politics in eighteen eighty and at
[26:48] Speaker 1: that point Eliza's health was precarious. They spent a lot
[26:52] Speaker 1: of time traveling looking for the perfect climate to try
[26:56] Speaker 1: to help her recover. There were a lot of scares
[26:59] Speaker 1: along the way. She had become very sick. They would
[27:01] Speaker 1: have to get a doctor to come from England to
[27:04] Speaker 1: where she was. At one point they were in Madeira
[27:07] Speaker 1: and she suffered what's referred to as an attack of paralysis,
[27:11] Speaker 1: which might have been a stroke, but she recovered. They
[27:14] Speaker 1: moved on to South Africa, where she seemed to do
[27:16] Speaker 1: quite well. In the summer of eighteen eighty one, they
[27:19] Speaker 1: traveled through Europe and India and they parted ways, while
[27:23] Speaker 1: Samuel returned to England for business, and Eliza and Nelly
[27:27] Speaker 1: went on to Brisbane, Australia to visit relatives, but Eliza
[27:31] Speaker 1: fell ill there and could not make the trip back.
[27:34] Speaker 1: After ten days with pneumonia, she died. Samuel learned of
[27:39] Speaker 1: her passing after an associate received a telegram with the news. Initially,
[27:44] Speaker 1: she was buried in Australia, but after three days Samuel
[27:47] Speaker 1: had her body disinterred so that it could be buried
[27:49] Speaker 1: at home in England. Yeah that telegram had specifically been
[27:54] Speaker 1: sent to one of his associates because nobody wanted him
[27:57] Speaker 1: to get that news that way. They wanted somebody that
[27:59] Speaker 1: he he trusted to be able to tell him in person,
[28:03] Speaker 1: because they didn't want him to be alone when he
[28:05] Speaker 1: found out. Several years later, in eighteen eighty five, Plimsoll
[28:08] Speaker 1: married a second time to Harriet Frankish Wade. She was
[28:12] Speaker 1: twenty seven years younger than him, but Harriet, like Eliza,
[28:16] Speaker 1: was very much on the same page as Samuel, and
[28:18] Speaker 1: joined him in his activism. The two of them had
[28:22] Speaker 1: several children together, and they named their second child, a
[28:25] Speaker 1: daughter after Eliza. Samuel Plemsol became the honorary president of
[28:31] Speaker 1: the National Amalgamated Sailors and Fireman's Union in eighteen eighty seven.
[28:36] Speaker 1: While he wasn't a politician anymore and was mostly retired,
[28:39] Speaker 1: he still spoke out in support of the rights of
[28:42] Speaker 1: these and other workers. He also felt that there was
[28:45] Speaker 1: still plenty of room for reform in the maritime business,
[28:48] Speaker 1: and his next focus was cattle ships. He wrote at
[28:52] Speaker 1: length about the need to make the transport of live
[28:55] Speaker 1: animals more humane, with an eye toward ending that completely,
[28:59] Speaker 1: writing quote, the state of things I shall herein try
[29:02] Speaker 1: to make plain is only of recent growth, but it
[29:05] Speaker 1: involves such cruelty to animals and so much loss of
[29:09] Speaker 1: life to semen, that I should have given it precedence.
[29:13] Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety six, Limsel took on a very unusual project.
[29:18] Speaker 1: He wanted to try to mend some of the animosity
[29:21] Speaker 1: between the US and Britain by editing US history textbooks.
[29:27] Speaker 1: This sounds sort of cocka. Maybe it did sound that
[29:30] Speaker 1: way to people in the United States initially, but once
[29:33] Speaker 1: he arrived in North America he won over quite a
[29:35] Speaker 1: few people. He wasn't making a case that Britain was
[29:39] Speaker 1: a victim It was more like he thought that if
[29:41] Speaker 1: everyone could accept that the outcome of the Revolutionary War
[29:45] Speaker 1: was settled, like you're not fighting with us anymore. We
[29:49] Speaker 1: all know that you won your independence. We acknowledge that
[29:53] Speaker 1: maybe the two countries could get along again, and we
[29:57] Speaker 1: could probably do a lot of good as allies. He
[30:00] Speaker 1: didn't try to whitewash or e RaSE anything, but he
[30:03] Speaker 1: did think that there was room for improvement in the
[30:06] Speaker 1: way that history was taught. He basically wanted to add
[30:08] Speaker 1: more nuance and make it less like these people evil,
[30:11] Speaker 1: these people good. He's like everybody has fault, everybody has benefit.
[30:17] Speaker 1: He wanted to erase this sense that England could not
[30:19] Speaker 1: be trusted that he felt was being taught to kids.
[30:23] Speaker 1: He gave lectures in cities throughout the US. He was
[30:26] Speaker 1: always urging educators to reevaluate their textbooks for any kind
[30:30] Speaker 1: of bias. In a write up in the Achson Daily
[30:33] Speaker 1: Globe of Atchson, Kansas, the opening about Plemzell's US tour
[30:38] Speaker 1: has kind of a get a load of this guy
[30:40] Speaker 1: toned to it, but then shares that Samuel Plemsoll is
[30:44] Speaker 1: a genuine and kind man. Quote. If all Englishmen were
[30:48] Speaker 1: like Samuel Plemsel, he would not have the slightest difficulty
[30:52] Speaker 1: in achieving his object. And if all Americans were as
[30:55] Speaker 1: good as he, this would be a great and glorious nation.
[31:00] Speaker 1: A great, big heart has, mister Plemsel, a heart that
[31:04] Speaker 1: beats for all humanity. You know this as soon as
[31:07] Speaker 1: you have seen the kindly, benevolent way in which he
[31:10] Speaker 1: beams through his glasses at all the world. And he
[31:14] Speaker 1: was quite liked almost everywhere he went. In the US.
[31:17] Speaker 1: He did manage to get the US Commission for Education
[31:20] Speaker 1: to pull anti British books from public schools. After the
[31:24] Speaker 1: US tour, Plimsol returned to England. He continued to crusade
[31:29] Speaker 1: for reform there on a variety of issues, but at
[31:32] Speaker 1: this point in his life he had slowed considerably. He
[31:35] Speaker 1: had a number of health complaints that he had been
[31:37] Speaker 1: nursing along through the years, including diabetes and kidney disease,
[31:41] Speaker 1: and they were really starting to get the better of him.
[31:44] Speaker 1: He continued to decline until his death on June third,
[31:47] Speaker 1: eighteen ninety eight, at the age of seventy four. His
[31:51] Speaker 1: adopted daughter Nelly was with him. Every ship in Folkston
[31:55] Speaker 1: Harbor flew their flags at half masted when the news broke,
[31:58] Speaker 1: and his coffin was carried from the hearst to his
[32:01] Speaker 1: grave by local sailors. Birmingham Gazette wrote of his passing quote,
[32:06] Speaker 1: by Samuel Plemsol's death, we lose a bold champion of
[32:10] Speaker 1: individual rights and a true and honest man who, without
[32:14] Speaker 1: special gifts or genius, achieved a remarkable success by sincerity
[32:19] Speaker 1: and courage. And by nineteen thirty, after a lot of
[32:23] Speaker 1: debate and a little bit of controversy, load lines on
[32:27] Speaker 1: ships were regulated at an international level. That Samuel Plimsol,
[32:34] Speaker 1: dun dun, duh. Do you also have some listener mail?
[32:38] Speaker 1: I do, and this so made me laugh, which I
[32:40] Speaker 1: always love. This is from our listener Chelsea, who writes Hi,
[32:43] Speaker 1: Holly and Tracy. During the listener mail portion of your
[32:46] Speaker 1: recent episode Charles Goodyear and Vulcanized Rubber, I had to
[32:49] Speaker 1: chuckle when Holly wrapped up with anyway, that's the long answer.
[32:53] Speaker 1: I think I was chuckling two at the time. That
[32:55] Speaker 1: was just for reference for anyone. In answer to the
[32:59] Speaker 1: email about the Fezzi where we were talking about what
[33:02] Speaker 1: qualifies as history and how do we define what we
[33:05] Speaker 1: do and do not talk about in terms of how
[33:07] Speaker 1: old it has to be. Chelsea continues. It immediately reminded
[33:11] Speaker 1: me of the social media trend about asking a friend
[33:14] Speaker 1: how they're doing and saying you always want the long
[33:16] Speaker 1: version when it comes to you, two fantastic humans, your
[33:19] Speaker 1: listeners always want the long answer. While I love your
[33:22] Speaker 1: beautifully researched history episodes, I genuinely enjoy hearing your personal
[33:26] Speaker 1: thoughts in Banter just as much. It's exactly why I
[33:29] Speaker 1: look forward to Behind the Scenes every Friday. Thank you
[33:32] Speaker 1: for being a bright spot in my week and my
[33:33] Speaker 1: favorite podcast for ten years running. I know I'm definitely
[33:36] Speaker 1: not alone in feeling that way, Chelsea. Chelsea, this is
[33:39] Speaker 1: the sweetest email. Also, I don't know that everybody agrees
[33:43] Speaker 1: with you. I'm verbos. You can cut some of my
[33:45] Speaker 1: stuff sometimes, but I do like to chitter chatter. I can't.
[33:49] Speaker 1: I have been this way since I was a child.
[33:51] Speaker 1: You looked at my reports from I remember my first
[33:54] Speaker 1: I saw not that long ago, one of my report
[33:58] Speaker 1: cards from first grade that was like, oh, it's a
[34:00] Speaker 1: joy to have in class. But she talks too much.
[34:04] Speaker 1: And here we are fifty years later. Oh yeah, still
[34:08] Speaker 1: talks too much. Talk about art history. Art history. Thanks thanks,
[34:15] Speaker 1: We love it. But that's a very sweety mail, so
[34:17] Speaker 1: thank you. I'm keenly aware that sometimes I talk people
[34:21] Speaker 1: see your soft it's got compulsion. I don't have a
[34:24] Speaker 1: lot of control in any case, Thank you, Thank you, Chelsea.
[34:28] Speaker 1: That made my week. If you would like to write
[34:30] Speaker 1: to us, maybe tell me I talk too much and
[34:32] Speaker 1: shut up? You could do that. I guess do that
[34:36] Speaker 1: a history podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also
[34:40] Speaker 1: find the show notes for all of our episodes at
[34:43] Speaker 1: mystinhistory dot com, which will include the sources that we
[34:46] Speaker 1: use to put them together. And if you haven't subscribed
[34:49] Speaker 1: to the show and you want to, that is easyps
[34:52] Speaker 1: of rice and cheesy. You can do it on the
[34:54] Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
[35:03] Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
[35:06] Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[35:11] Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.