PLIMSOLL’S LIFE LINE

Hokitika Guardian, 23 October 1929, Page 5

PLIMSOLL’S LIFE LINE

’ ENGLAND HONORS SAILORS’ FRIEND. Gazing down upon the’ships of the Thames, a memorial to Samuel Phm-, soil, the sailors’ friend, is shortly to be unveiled in the Embankment Gardens, London. A replica of the memorial is to he erected in Bristol, jn which city he was born in 1824.* The memorial will be unveiled in the presence of representatives of all branches of the merchant service by Sir Walter Runciman, who was ,a personal friend of Plimsoll. Tne Plimsoll line is a circular aisc.lt inches in diameter, with a horizontal line 18 inches long drawn through its centre to mark the depth down to which a vessel may be loaded, and that it is painted on every British ship is the result of the life work and struggle of Plimsoll. He became a member of the House of Commons in 1868, and the Merchant Shipping Act of 1876 empowered the Board of Trade to detain any vessel deemed unsafe, imposed penalties for overloading, and ordered the marking of the Plimsoll line upon the sides of the ships, for it was a common practice in those days for an unscrupulous owner to over insure a “ coffin ship and then to send it to sea hoping it would founder. In 1894 an act was passed to take the fixing of the load line out of the discretion of the owner and making it a duty of the Board of Trade. Four years later, his work done. Samuel Plimsoll died.

Before his death, Plimsoll returned to Bristol to be honored at dinner on board the Great Western by members of the naval reserves. When Mr and Mrs Plimsoll arrived, they were enthusiastically welcomed by a display of blue fire and hearty cheers.