Volume Nine - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - The Board of Trade, Mercantile Marine Offices at Penarth Dock . . .

Other duties of these offices included, from 1855 onwards, the administration of a savings bank for seamen and a money order office was established to serve this purpose. Also, the receipt of fees for ship measurement and survey was often a necessary requirement of the Board of Trade and the offices dealt with payment of the surveyors. In addition, wreck accounts, Colonial lighthouse accounts, accounts relating to 'Inquiries' and the local management of the Royal Naval Reserve plus the officers dealt with many other details associated with the multifarious ramifications of the Board of Trade.

Losses of shipping, crews and cargoes coupled with spurious insurances scams by ship-owners, unseaworthy ships and overloading etc., etc., was, in part, the impetus for these Acts. The loss of the 'Royal Charter' and 450 lives in October 1859 added to the awareness of the plight of merchant mariners; a cause which, in the 1860’s, stirred the Victorian MP Samuel Plimsoll to launch a campaign to tackle the overloading issue

The UK ports with a Mercantile Marine Office and some instructions to 'aliens' serving on British ships.

The scope of the Mercantile Marine Offices covered British waters and the coast of Europe, extending from the river Elbe to Brest. In foreign ports, similar work was undertaken by the Consuls of Her Majesty and in the Colonies by Collectors of Customs and other officials according to the Nautical Magazine [597] of 1876. Much of this article is extracted from that journal of maritime affairs.

The national model for the Mercantile Marine Office was based upon the voluntary steps taken at the port of Liverpool to overcome 'crimping'. 'In order to protect themselves from the 'blackmail' of these harpies (the crimps) the merchants and shipowners there established a central office at that port on a voluntary basis.'