United States Lines AMERICAN LANCER entering Tilbury with SUNXXV1 in attendance. An early container ship. She was the first major container ship of 18,764 tons to enter Tilbury in 1968
Slightly understated mention of the American Lancer and its significance in Tilbury Docks history. As I recall, 1968 was when the Unions after almost 100 years of trying to secure regular work for Dockers eventually did it with their Jobs for life deal. This ship coming into the docks and the fact that it completely revolutionised the handing of cargo with the need for massively reduced gangs, suddenly meant that all those blokes that had just had their jobs secured were now going to see the work disappear before their eyes with containerisation, putting their jobs in jeopardy. The full story with all the data is in a book Grays Library, makes fascinating reading.
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Slightly understated mention of the American Lancer and its significance in Tilbury Docks history. As I recall, 1968 was when the Unions after almost 100 years of trying to secure regular work for Dockers eventually did it with their Jobs for life deal. This ship coming into the docks and the fact that it completely revolutionised the handing of cargo with the need for massively reduced gangs, suddenly meant that all those blokes that had just had their jobs secured were now going to see the work disappear before their eyes with containerisation, putting their jobs in jeopardy. The full story with all the data is in a book Grays Library, makes fascinating reading.
http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.67/chapterId/1635/outputFormat/print/The-Port-of-London-today.html
brilliant picture
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