Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION TWO.
THE PORT OF DOVER
XIII. A HARBOUR MASTER'S ENGINEERING.

Mr. James Moon, who had filled the office of Harbour
Master since 1792, was in 1808 asked to undertake the
work of making good the breach in the side of the North
Pier, which had been made by a violent storm in that year.
He renewed about 200 feet of it, and did the work so well
that the Commissioners wanted no other engineer.

In iSo8 the Passing Tolls had been entirely devoted to
Dover specially for the purpose of rebuilding die South Pier-
head, on which the existence of the Harbour maiidy depended,
and the Commissioners showed confidence in Mr. Moon by
asking him for a report as to the works that would be
necessary.

In April, 181 1, Mr. Moon presented his rej.ort, in which
he admitted that he was indebted to reports which various
engineers had made on the Harbour since 1792, he having
during those nineteen years acted as Harbour Master. He
brushed aside the ideas of Captain Perry, Mr. Smeaton, Mr.
Nickalls and Messrs. Rennie and Walker, who had proposed
to extend the South Pier and to alter the form of i'^s round
head to keep out the shingle. Such an attempt to get rid
of the accumulation he considered vain. He recommended
that the South Pier should be rebuilt in the same position
and in the same form as it then stood, but he adopted the
plan proposed by Mr. Nickalls, to construct culverts in
the pier-head to discharge the backwater immediately on
the bar to remove it more quickly than lett'ng water out
of sluices in the lower Crosswall could do. Mr. Moon's
plans were accepted, and he was now clothed with the
authority of engineer to carry out the wcik with the
Harbour staff of workmen. To make the sluicing canals
which he proposed to carry to the South Pier head effect-
ive, he commenced making a tunnel from <^he basin through
the southern end of the lower Crosswall, and he built
another wall from the Crosswall, in the direction of the
South Pier, cutting off a large piece of the western side
of the tidal harbour for the purpose of constructing a
second floating basin to hold back water for sluicing



122 ANNALS OF DOVER

purposes; but the basin was also fitted to receive ships, and
adjoining it was constructed a small dry-dock for repairs.
The plan was to connect this new basin by a tunnel with
a reservoir in the head of the South Pier, ^o that there
might be a considerable weight of water immediately over
the point where the sluices would operate on the bar. This
plan of utilising the western corner of the Harbour for
the threefold purpose above stated was considered by the
Commissioners a cleverly contrived arrangement, but nautical
men said that it entirely spoiled the outer Harbour, as the
upright wall made the water so rough that ships broke
from their moorings. This complaint came later; but almost
as soon as Mr. Moon began his work, he got into difficulties.
Early in 1S12. when digging the foundations for the new
})asin, the water came in so rapidly that it stopped the
work; also, in taking out the ancient piles of the Pier-head,
in order to renew them, the crazy structure threatened to
fall in a heap and destroy the entrance.

Mr. Ralph Walker (the surviving partner of Mes.srs.
Rennie and Walker, who reported in 1802) was asked to
give his advice at this critical stage. He at once ordered
the piles in the South Pier-head to be replaced as a
temporary measure, and then he made an exhaustive report
covering the whole of the proposed improvements. As a
concession to the proposals of Mr. Moon, he retained the
idea of having a canal for sluicing carried to the extremity
nf the South Pier, but, at the same time, he hoped to make
sluicing unnecessary by proposing to carry that Pier into the
tideway, as he and his late partner, and othei engineers,
had previou.sly recommended. The whole of the works,
according to his estimate, would have cost ^^67,000 — three
times as much as Mr. Moon had expected to spend. That
large sum, no doubt, set the Commis.sioners against Mr.
Ralj)h Walker's proposals, but the part of the scheme which
forcibly collided against their fixed ideas was the extension
of the South Pier with the hope of finally getting rid of
the Harbour bar. The Commissioners, from generation to
generation, seemed to have unanimously held that the
existence of the Harbour bar was as inevitalile as original
sin, so that when they met on the i6th January. 1813, to
decide on the best way of rel)uilding the South Pier-head,
after considering Mr. Ralpli ^Valker's report, the observa-
tions of Captain Huddart, of the Trinity House, as well as



THE PORT OF DOVER 1 23

the views of Captain Dul:)ois Smith, of the " Lively " revenue
cutter, and several of the Dover pilots, they decided unani-
mously that it was not desirable to extend the South Pier,
that no material variation should be made in its form, and
that Mr. Moon should be instructed to carry out his plans ;
and Mr. Ralph Walker, who had proposed the p'ans which
were not adopted, had nothing further to do with the
Harbour.

Mr. Moon proceeded, in 1814, to build the wall
460 feet in length from the Crosswall in the direction of
the South Pier, cutting off the western angle of the tidal
harbour, and in the space so enclosed he formed the .small
dry dock and a moderate-sized dock basin, to make room
for which the houses on the east side of Clarence Place
were removed. In rebuilding the South Pier, he widened it
towards the west to make room in it for a reservoir and the
tunnel to conduct the water to the sluices, the tunnel being
fed from the new dock basin, the supply to that being
conveyed by a tunnel through the Crosswall fiom the inner
basin and the Pent. This work was done leisurely, so as
to adapt the expenditure to the ordinary Haibour income
without resorting to a loan. In 1822, after operations
extending over eight years, the work had to be suspended
owing to a deficiency of funds. By that time the most
pressing part of the improvements were completed. There
were to be three culverts to discharge the backwater on the
bar through the pier-head. Two of them were completed
on the 22nd January, 1822, and a trial of them on that
day completely removed a bar that had accumulated between
the pier-heads.

There being funds available again, in the year 1828,
the works were resumed, and the sluicing .scheme, with its
three culverts and two resen'oirs, completed satisfactorily.
While Mr. Moon's men were digging out the dock basin, on
the site since occupied by the Continental Goods Yard,
they came upon the foundations of Henry VIII. 's Pier
built in 1533. Mr. Moon completed his work as engineer
in 1830 by giving some finishing touches to the Crosswall,
building there, each .side the gateway, the clock and compass
towers, which remained until the re-construction of the inner
basin in 1871. Mr. Moon was spoken of by his contem-
poraries as a man of keen observation, great tact, and
natural sagacity. He was the first resident engineer of the



124 ANNALS OF DOVER

Harbour, and he died in 1832 after a career at this Port
of forty years.

On the death of Mr. Moon, his dual office of Engineer
and Harbour Master was divided, Mr. E. P. Fordham being
appointed Resident Engineer, and Mr. John lion, Harbour
Master. Mr. Fordham, immediately after his appointment,
commenced constructing the quays on the east side of the
Pent, on which he spent, for materials and labour, ;£5,596
in three years ending March, 1835; and dunng the same
jaeriod he spent ;^8or in clearing iq, 926 tons of mud from
the Pent. He also built lock gates to the Pent at a cost
of ;^QOo. It is not possible to form a clear estimate of
Mr. Fordham's merits as an engineer, as his term only
extended from 30th /v]:)ril. 1832, to the 1st March, 1834.
In the year after he took office the winter .south-westerly
gales brought an unprecedented quantity of .sliingle into the
Harbour mouth, and the sluices failed to adequately deal
with it. In January, 1834, Mr. Thomas Telford was called
in as consulting engineer to give advice as to new works, and
when the plans were ready the work was put out to contract.
The Commissioners dispensed with a Resident Engineer on
1st March, 1834.

The works and expenditure which Mr. Thomas Telford
recommended, when he was consulted, on the 29th January,
1834, were: — A wide tunnel instead of an iron pipe through
the lower Crossvvall, from the inner basin to dock basin,
;^i2,ooo; a tunnel reservoir in the south head 2nd additional
culverts, T^i 1,010; and a new wall in front of the Cross-
wall, ;^5, 100; making a total of ;^2 9,4 10. This expenditure
was approved by the Commissioners, l)ut Mr. lolford died
in August, 1834, and did not see the work carried out.

Mr. James Walker was then called in as consulting
engineer, through tlie medium of a letter from the Duke of
Wellington, Lord Warden, who explained that the Commis-
sioners were satisfied with the works then in progress, but
desired to have Mr. Walker's advice on points arising from
time to time in the execution of the work. Mr. James
Walker's position at first was that of a consulting engineer,
but after March, 1836, he also performed the duties of
resiflent engineer, and was one of the Harbour witnesses
examined before the Select Committee of the House of
Commons that considered the Dover Harbour Bill of that
year.



THE PORT OF DOVER 125