Smuggler, sailor, caulker, pirate: The many faces of maritime Rotherhithe

Seagulls screeching overhead, the hammering of shipwrights, the smell of tar, the masts of ships peeping over the tops of tiny cottages. Since the fourteenth century this was the scene that met the traveller to Rotherhithe, or Redriff as it was formerly known.

Rotherhithe was home to sailors, caulkers, shipbuilders and merchants for many years. Its winding streets were crammed full of artisans’ cottages, coffee-houses and inns that neighboured the graceful homes of Master Mariners and affluent businessmen. This rich heritage is acknowledged today in the names of the streets and pubs in the area as well as the little golden ship on top of the weather vane of the Norwegian church.

Dotted all around this area were shipyards that built magnificent vessels, which sailed away to the exotic Spice Islands or off into battle. In fact, many of the ships that formed the Georgian Navy and the East India Company were built here. When the ships came to the end of their useful life they would return to Rotherhithe to be broken up in the breakers yards.

Sometimes they would limp back into port for repairs that gave plenty of work to the many caulkers in the area. The caulkers would mend the ship with tar and ropes, making her watertight and seaworthy again. There were also workshops where beautiful ships' figureheads would spookily peep out to look at the river as carpenters carved their features into life. Just along the river was Greenland Quay, until the 1850s a major whaling base that could house up to a hundred and twenty ships at any one time.

London and the River Thames, seen from the South, from Westminster to Greenwich. F.J. Smyth, 1856. Image courtesy of the Wellcome Collection.

Trade and industry flourished in Rotherhithe and those that had success in their ventures would contribute to the upkeep of their community. Master Mariners Peter Hills and Robert Booth were two such men. In 1614 they used their seafaring profits to found a school to educate the children of destitute sailors. Other people in the area with less cash to spare would offer their services instead; such was the case with the rebuilding of St Mary's church.

St Mary's has always been the focal point of Rotherhithe and has been on site since the Middle Ages. The present church was designed by John James and was built in 1715 after the previous one had been damaged in one of the frequent floods that plagued the district. Queen Anne turned down the Rotherhithe residents' application for a grant to rebuild, so in great tradition the people dug deep into their pockets and paid for it themselves.

Residents managed to raise the princely £4,000 outlay for their new church. Local shipbuilders helped keep the cost of materials down, which is why St Mary's has wooden pillars made from ship's masts. This tradition was followed some years later when the altar in the sacrament chapel was constructed from the wood of the Temeraire , a warship that fought in the Battle of Trafalgar.

In St Mary's churchyard are numerous gravestones that are dedicated to old sea dogs. In fact, three of the captains of the Mayflower (which eventually returned to Rothers to be broken up) lived here and are buried in the church. Incidentally, The Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe Street was named after the ship in the sixties, but is a genuine seventeenth-century building. It was originally called the Shippe and then renamed the Spread Eagle and Crown.

The Mayflower Inn

Also in the churchyard lies Captain Henry Wilson of the East India Company who lived in Jamaica Road. In August 1783 he and his crew were shipwrecked off the Pelew Islands in the Pacific. Washed-up on the beach with the remains of their ship, the sailors were dragged onto dry land by the islanders who gave them food and shelter. The ship's dog fascinated them as they had never seen one before and he paved the way for a friendship to develop between the two groups.

The islanders agreed to help the crew rebuild their ship from the wreckage. During the three months it took, the two groups became firm friends. In return for the shipbuilding help, Rupack the Island King asked the Captain to take his son, Prince Lee Boo back to England and educate him. In fact, they did a swap as sailor Madan Blanchard liked the place so much he didn't want to return to Blighty.

St Mary's in Rotherhithe, image courtesy of Debra Gosling

Once back in Rotherhithe young Prince Lee Boo became a bit of a celebrity. He was of fashionable interest in London; at once highly regarded and taken to be intelligent, yet treated also as an exotic curiosity. Most people had not seen a dark skinned person before and everyone wanted him at their social gatherings.

Sadly, the young prince's promising life was cut short when he contracted smallpox and died in December 1784, just six months after landing in London. He is also buried in St Mary's and his gravestone reads: 'Stop reader, stop! Let nature claim a tear. A prince of mine Lee Boo, lies buried here'.

Today’s residents may worry about antisocial behaviour and crime, but for maritime Rotherhithe the problems were far worse. As with any seaport it had its fair share of muggers, smugglers, pirates and highwaymen and by the end of the seventeenth century it was a crime hotspot.

Highwaymen were attracted to the area as it was en-route to Blackheath where the rich and dandy of the day would be relieved of their jewels as their coaches trundled across the common. The robbers would go back to Rotherhithe with their booty to sell on to visiting sailors in the pubs and coffee-houses.

One famous highway robber who frequented Rotherhithe was in fact a woman who went by the name of Moll Cutpurse. Moll was born in 1589 in the City of London and christened Mary Frith. From an early age she spent much of her time in Rotherhithe and was very familiar with the docks, inns and streets in the area.

As a child Moll was a tomboy and would hang out around the shipyards with gangs of boys. As she grew up, instead of wearing fine silks and elegant gowns she preferred to spend her time in the filth, squalor and bawdy inns of Rotherhithe.

Moll Cutpurse, or 'The Roaring Girl', illustrated in The Roaring Girl (1611) by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker. Image courtesy of the Wellcome Collection

Moll could out-fight, out-think and out-drink any man. She always dressed as a man and was thought to be the first woman to smoke tobacco. She joined a gang and made a living picking pockets and cutting the purse strings of rich merchants and seafarers that were in port. Moll was a good fence and had two shops, one in Fleet Street and one on Bankside, where she made plenty of dosh. As well as fortune-telling she was also an expert forger, even daring to forge the signature of Oliver Cromwell.

Bored by all this, Moll decided to branch out into highway robbery. After doing the usual runs across Blackheath she decided to ride across the water to Hounslow. Here she waited on General Thomas Fairfax who refused to hand over his cash so she shot him.

Captured, she was left to languish in Newgate Prison and contemplate her fate on the gallows, but she bribed her way out for £2,000. Moll finally died peacefully in her bed aged seventy-five. Ever faithful to her gang of dippers she left £20 in her will for her friends to have a night out on the town.

Pillaging pirates were another problem that the good people of Rotherhithe had to contend with. It wasn't hard to identify one, as most had scars and bits missing after fights on board captive ships. Just like Long John Silver some had wooden legs while others sported eye patches. The more light-fingered pirates could be identified by their split noses. A favourite pirate punishment was to slit down the nose of any thief on board with a cutlass.

In 1765 local man Mr Fosbrook met some of these attractive men when he had his corn lighter robbed of nine sacks of oats by river pirates. They cut his boat from its moorings and set it adrift in the Thames.

In 1721 a pirate was brought before the Justice of Rotherhithe when one of his previous victims, a ship's captain, had spotted him as he passed a pub. The unlucky captain recognised the man as the pirate who had stolen three of his ships on different occasions. He remembered the incidents well, as on the third time the pirate had threatened to nail the captain's ears to the mast.

During the course of the trial it was revealed that the pirate had taken eight other ships. It is unknown what sentence this Jolly Roger was given but it is likely he would have been hanged at Cuckold's Point which was roughly where Columbia Wharf is today in Rotherhithe Street. For years there was a permanent gallows near the shore of the Thames at this point.

The thought of the noose didn't put off the smugglers who were drawn to the convenient waterside inns. The Angel pub, once called the Salutation, was built on piles in the river and must have been an attraction to any smugglers on nighttime boating trips. They could easily take advantage of the trap doors in the floor to stash their booty.

The Angel, Rotherhithe (pictured in 2017)

Rotherhithe was not just a stop-off point for pirates and cross-dressing women. It also had a whole gaggle of robbers, muggers and burglars. In fact, the problem got so bad that the locals set up a vigilante committee.

In 1771 six robbers armed with knives and cutlasses jumped out on a married couple who were walking by Fountain Stairs. Four of them held the man up, clenching a large knife to his throat and pushing the barrel of a pistol into his chest. They rifled his pockets for silver and nabbed the glittering buckles from his shoes. Meanwhile, the other two gang members pushed the victim's wife down an alley and tried to rape her, giving up when she fainted. The parish constable was on scene and tried to help but was told by the ruffians that they would blow his brains out if he intervened.

Further down river house owners had their own problems: brass door knockers would vanish overnight and when it rained it was discovered that the lead had gone from the roof. People were not even safe in their own back garden as muggers would skulk in the bushes and wait to unburden them of their valuables.

The vigilante committee became a proper neighbourhood watch when residents regularly met at the Ship pub and made plans to capture local villains. Rewards were put up and intelligence plans were laid to watch any stranger arriving in the community.

Today, there is still a nautical air to Rotherhithe Street, where the original cobbled thoroughfare can be seen along with capstans and anchors. But to get the atmosphere of those seafaring days a trip to one of the surviving pubs such as the Mayflower or the Angel is the best idea. What could be better than to ponder the days of tall ships over a tot or three of rum?