The thesis examines a number of questions concerning the design, construction,
costs and use of Romano-British seagoing and inland waters shipping. In the first part the
reasons for the methods of construction for seagoing and coastal vessels, such as the
Blackfriars Ship 1, the St. Peter Port Ship and the Barland's Farm Boat, have been
investigated. The constructional characteristics of the two ships are massive floors and
frames, with the planking fastened only to the floors and frames with heavy clenched iron
nails. There is no edge to edge fastening of the planks, with tenons inserted into mortises
cut into the edges of the planks, as is normal in the Mediterranean tradition of ship
construction in the Roman period. The Romano-British ships also differ from the
Scandinavian tradition of clinker building with overlapping planks nailed to each other
along their length. It has been concluded that a natural phenomenon, the large tidal range
around the British Isles and the northern coasts of Gaul and Germany, had a dominant effect
on the design of seagoing vessels. Deep water harbours, such as Portus, Caesar ea
Maritima and Alexandria in the Mediterranean, where ships could lie afloat at all times,
were neither practicable nor economic with the technology available. At the British ports,
such as Dover, London and Chichester, ships had to come in with the high tide, moor to
simple wharves at the high tide level, and then settle on the ground as the tide dropped. At
the numerous small havens, inlets and estuaries around the British coasts, ships would come
in with the tide, settle on a natural or man-made 'hard' as the tide fell, and discharge cargo
over the side to carts, pack animals or people. This mode of operation required sturdy ships
that could take the ground without damage, and also withstand a certain amount of
'bumping' on the bottom in the transition period from fully afloat to fully aground.
The second part of the thesis investigates the cost of building, maintaining and
operating various types of vessels. To do this, a new mode for measuring cost, the Basic
Economic Unit, or BEU, has been developed. The probable volume of the various types of
cargoes carried has been examined. It appears that grain was the dominant cargo in both
coastal and overseas traffic. The total cost of building, maintaining and operating the
seagoing and inland water shipping was less than one percent of the gross product of
Britain, a small cost for an essential service.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/13197 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Millar, Roderick J. O. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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