Penarth Dock, South Wales - the heritage and legacy

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Volume Eight - Pre-Victorian to the present day - more aspects - Shipwright's Working Rules and Price List - 1937 - 1959

Shipwright's Working Rules - 1937 - 1959

The following pages are personal selections from the Working Rules and Conditions and Piecework Price List as agreed between the Bristol Channel Shiprepairers' Association and the Shipconstructors and Shipwrights' Association 1937.

By 1882, the majority of the older, well-established shipwright's societies merged ('federated') into an entity named the Associated Society of Shipwrights which was formed in 1872. Between 1900 and 1910 this society absorbed the Ship Constructive Association together with numerous smaller local societies to become the Ship Constructors' and Shipwrights' Association.

So far as I am able to ascertain, the Penarth Pontoon, Slipway & Shiprepairing Co. Ltd. were members of the Bristol Channel Shiprepairers' Association and were bound from 1937 to the agreements set out within the book (some 86 pages long) of working rules adopted universally by the ship repairers of the Bristol Channel ports.

The first edition dates from 1937 and was reprinted in 1959, presumably with updated prices, which prescribed the rules for employees and employer alike working within the industry. This document is held within the Penarth Dock Collection [000] [001] and was owned by Mr. Brian Cook, a shipwright, who worked at the Prince of Wales dry dock. Brian states the dry dock to be at Port Talbot but I believe this was actually situated at Swansea.

The introduction pages state that 'These Rules, Conditions and Price List apply to all shiprepairing work in the Ports of Cardiff, Penarth, Barry, Newport, Swansea and Port Talbot, and cancel and supersede all previous Agreements, Rules, Prices and Customs.'

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