The Plimsoll Sensation : the Great Campaign to Save Lives at Sea /Nicolette Jones

A biography of Samuel Plimsoll (1824-1898), politician and reformer and the story of his campaign to improve the safety of merchant shipping. Plimsoll's focus was on 'coffin ships', vessels which were overloaded, unseaworthy and often overinsured by unscrupulous owners who risked the lives of their crew and passengers. Plimsoll devised a load line on a ship's hull which would indicate the maximum safe draught and as a result the minimum freeboard for the vessel in various operating conditions. He entered Parliament as an MP in 1867 but his efforts to introduce legislation for the adoption of the line were thwarted by the number of MPs with shipowning interests until 1876 when the Merchant Shipping Act gave stringent powers of inspection to the Board of Trade and made the line a requirement for ships leaving British ports. Known thereafter as the Plimsoll Line, the line was adopted internationally in 1930 with the first International Convention on Load Lines. Appendices include a collection of songs and poems about Plimsoll, a chronology, detailed notes and a bibliography.