|
|
 |
|
An "old weeping sponger"; "the sincere but hysterical member for Derby"; "the sailor's truest friend". Which of these descriptions applied to Samuel Plimsoll best fits such an extravagant character?
Elected to Parliament for the Liberals in 1868, the philanthropic coal merchant was a driven man, eternally in search of causes - like the so-called "coffin ships". Sent to sea by greedy owners under dodgy insurance clauses, these rotting, corroded hulks nearly always sank from overloading at the slightest hint of rough weather.
Parliament, keen to conciliate the shipping magnates, dithered a shade too long over suitable legislation. Plimsoll seized his moment, mobilising formidable support from Gladstone and Florence Nightingale, wrong-footing Disraeli in a stormy Commons debate and triumphantly piloting the Merchant Shipping Act, introducing load-lines known as "Plimsoll marks" for all sea-going vessels, on to the statute book.
Owners and captains soon spotted potential loopholes in the new law, but |
|
 |
|
|
Plimsoll had made his point, with mortality rates at sea dropping to prove it. At his funeral in Folkestone, all the ships in the harbour flew their flags at half-mast.
Nicolette Jones clearly loves her subject, but acknowledges in The Plimsoll Sensation his use of buccaneering tactics, blatant showmanship and emotional blackmail in the course of a wildly zigzagging humanitarian campaign. Her set-pieces mix sensitivity and narrative gusto.
Dickens, who died just as Plimsoll was beginning his crusade, would have delighted in this story's cocktail of cut-throat capitalism, bleeding-heart politics, evangelical piety and simple common-sense.
FIRST POSTED JUNE 22, 2006
 Read the rest of our books coverage
Life reviews: Night by Elie Wiesel
|
