LEGAL QUAYS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 August 1939, Page 5

LEGAL QUAYS

CENTURIES OLD CUSTOM IN LONDON. The Corporation of the City of London is taking steps to do away with the rights of the old “legal quays" on the north bank of the Thames between Tower Bridge and London Bridge. In an article in the July issue of “The Port of London Authority Monthly,” the Editor explains how these quays came to be privileged. “Centuries before it became exclusively a fish market, Billingsgate was one of only two places in the Port at which dutiable goods could legally be landed. The other was Queenhithe. In pre-Elizabethan days vessels bringing foreign goods had to give 24 hours' notice before starting to discharge, and the revenue officer was supposed to find the ship and examine the cargo. In those days regular berths for particular vessels were unknown, and the master of a sailing ship would make fast to the first convenient moorings which, happened to be free. Means of communication were extremely difficult so that it is hardly surprising that the revenue officer frequently failed to arrive before the cargo was discharged and. taken away often without duty being paid. The collection of the Crown's customs revenue became so unsatisfactory that Elizabeth appointeel a Commission in 1558 to select •legal quays' at different ports in the Kingdom at which all foreign goods were to be landed between sunrise and sunset. In London 20 quays or wharves were endowed with this privilege, all c,f them on the north side of the river between the Tower and London Bridge, the total length being 1.419 feet.”