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