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Warehouse of the World 1

Look at the large Sampling showcase. Draw two different objects or commodities (for example shells or rope) in the spaces below. Find out as much as you can about them.

Look at the close-up photos on the next page and find out what they are by opening the

sampling boxes.

write the correct name beside each photograph

write as many words as you can which describe

the look (e.g. shape, size, colour)

write as many words as you can which describe

the smell (e.g. sweet, sour, pungent)

do you use these at home? If so, what for?

Find some recipes for Christmas cake. How many different spices can you find in the recipes?

What is it? _____________________

Description: _____________________________

_____________________________

What is it? _____________________

Description: _____________________________

_____________________________

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

Key words: Sour a strong, harsh tastePungent very strong and overpowering smellSpicy a hot and fiery smell or tasteSweet sugary smell or taste

What other describing words can you think of?

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Warehouse of the World 2

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

Name: ___________________

Name: ___________________

Name: ___________________

Name: ___________________

Name: ___________________

Name: __________________

Description:e.g.colourshapesizesmell

Description:e.g.colourshapesizesmell

Description:e.g.colourshapesizesmell

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Tobacco

Watch the film clip about tobacco and circle the correct word in each sentence.

Tobacco is a type of tree / plant / vegetable.

Cigars and cigarettes are made from the stem / root / leaves.

Look carefully at the display, find the following items, and tick the words when you have found them.

ladder barrel press scales trolley cargo basket

Choose two of the items in the display and draw them below.

Read the information panel to the left of the display. From which countries was tobacco imported? Circle your answers.

Germany Russia China Brazil America Sweden Turkey

PLA is written on the scales. This is the sign for the organization which checked imports, exports and payments.

Can you find the full name of the PLA in the gallery? _____________________________

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

This is a ________________________

It is used for _____________________

________________________________

This is a ________________________

It is used for _____________________

_______________________________

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Tea

Find the tea warehouse and look at the film and the display. Don’t forget to read the information panel to the right of the display!

Is it men or women who pick the tea? Men Women

From which of these countries was much tea imported? Circle your answers!

France India Spain Canada China Poland Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

Using the pictures and the film, try to work out the processes from pickingthe tea until we drink it and number them below. Discuss it in your groups!

Picking tea leaves on a plantation

Taking tea samples in a warehouse

Transporting tea crates to London by boat

Moving crates from boat to warehouse

Drinking tea at home

Packing tea crates with tea leaves

Packing tea into packets for a shop

Testing tea for quality

Weighing tea crates for export

In the tea warehouse display, look for the following, and tick the words when you have found them.

Shovel Trolley Scales Crate

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

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Living conditions

Find the pictures which show you how dockworkers and their families lived, and read the caption. How do you think you would feel if you lived like this? Fill in the thought bubbles.

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

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The kitchen of a lodging house, visited by Henry Mayhew c. 1861

Look carefully at the photograph on the right. How can you tell that this family is poor?

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

A docker’s family at home in the East EndOn the other side of this sheet, write a Health Visitor’s report on this family.

The call-on 1Sit down, read and discuss the text below in your group.

How would you feel if you were a docker who hasn’t

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

Many dockworkers woke up each morning not knowing whether they

would get work that day. They would make their way to the dock offices

and look to see which ships had come in or were waiting to be discharged

(unloaded). If they saw work, they would wait until the ganger appeared.

The ganger’s job was to distribute the work to the waiting dock workers.

He had a certain number of tokens to give out. He would look for people

he knew and could trust to do a good job – sometimes these would be his

mates. It paid to be nice to the gangers! When a ganger got down to the

last few tokens, he would just throw them out into the crowd. Those

dockers who didn’t get a token wouldn’t get work that day.

The call-on favoured the

dock managers because

they could hire casual labour

when they needed it, rather

than having to pay dock

workers when there wasn’t

much work for them. They

were able to continue this

unfair practice because the

dockers were so desperate

for work.

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had any work for a week? You can’t even afford to pay a doctor to visit one of your children who is very sick.

How would you feel if you were a policeman who has to keep the crowd in order?

Act out a role-play with dockers, gangers, police and dockers’ families.

Why wasn’t the call-on organized more fairly? Discuss this as a class back at school.

The call- on 2

+

Find this picture in the gallery which shows the call-on. Fill in the thought bubbles of the docker and the policeman.

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

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Dockers rushing from the dock gates to the call-on positionat the London Dock, 1886.

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

In the space above, draw the ganger and his thoughts.

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Shipbuilding: The Great Eastern

Find this photograph of the Great Eastern being built, and then look at the scale model of the ship and the information panels.

Can you find the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel on the model of the Great Eastern?

Why do Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the photographer look so small?

True or False?

Tick the box you think is correct. TRUE FALSE

A few hours after the photograph was taken, Brunel collapsed and later died.

The Great Eastern was powered only by wind.

The Great Eastern was able to travel to Australia without stopping.

It took approximately 18 months to build the GreatEastern.

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

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Shipbuilding: Blacksmith’s forge and pattern making 1

The building of large ships involved many different skilled workers, for example blacksmiths and pattern makers.

A blacksmith is a person who makes and repairs things of iron.

A pattern is a wooden replica of a piece of machinery or other metal item. The wooden replica was used to make a sand mould in which the hot metal would be cast. Pattern making was a very specialized branch of the woodworking trade.

Look at the blacksmith’s forge and the range of tools which were used.

What is a forge for?

Look carefully at the pattern making display and read the information panel.

Find the following items on the patterns display and then see if you can spot each shape on the model of the Great Eastern.

Make a tally of the items in the chart below.

Shape TallyCog

Grille

Wheel

Bollard

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

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Shipbuilding: Blacksmith’s forge and pattern making 2

In your groups, use what you have just learned about the pattern-making process to order the following stages from the making of the wooden pattern to the casting of the piece in iron. The first one is done for you.

Wet sand is put in a box

The cast iron part is built into a ship

The wooden shape is removed from the wet sand, leaving an impression ofthe shape in the sand

A pattern-maker makes the shape of the ship’s part out of wood

Molten iron is poured into the impression of the ship’s part in the wet sand

The wooden shape is pressed into wet sand

The molten iron sets hard and is removed from the sand

Why not try this back at school using plaster of paris instead of molten metal? How easy is it to make a perfect pattern and mould?

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

1

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The Princess Alice disaster 1

The Princess Alice colliding with the steamship Bywell Castle

Look at the display of the Princess Alice disaster and find the answers to the questions below.

The passengers on the Princess Alice had been on a day trip. Where had they been?

Describe how the disaster happened.

How many people drowned? Circle the correct number.

250 173 49 558 780 640 23

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

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The Princess Alice disaster 2Talk in your groups about which possible reason for the accident was most likely.

Poor visibility because of steam from the ships’ funnels

Traffic was becoming much busier on the river

Poor navigation

Large ships travelled alongside much smaller ones

Can your group think of three reasons why an accident on the Thames might not be so disastrous today?

Think about modern communication, technology, health and safety rules, treatment of survivors and so on.

1.

2.

3.

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

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Containers

Look for some containers in the galleries. Draw two of them and then fill in the boxes below.

Some ideas: barrels, crates, rope cargo baskets, tea canisters, bottles.

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

What was it used for? What was it used for?

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Y5/6 extension activities 1

Find the sampling warehouse. In pairs, find out three facts about one of the commodities in the sample boxes.

Commodity: ______________________________________________________________

Watch the tea clipper video and answer the following questions.

What was a tea clipper for?

What was special about their shape? Why?

Why did they race each year to be the first back to England with their cargo of tea?

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

Fact 1 Fact 2 Fact 3

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Y5/6 extension activities 2

Look for the picture below.

The call-on system meant that dockers didn’t know from one day to the next whether they would get any work? Do you think this system was fair?

Complete the sentences below. You will find the answers in the picture.

We strike for ______________________ and for _____________________

wives and _____________________.For _______________________ where

____________________ is possible and for our ____________________.

Why does the picture show mothers and children as well as dock workers?

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

The Great Strike of 1889

Dockers went on strike because of poor working conditions like the call-on system, for an extra penny an hour and for a guaranteed minimum daily rate.

Other tradespeople such as the gas workers came out in support of the dockers, and they even received money from workers in Australia to support them during their strike.

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Y5/6 extension activities 3

Find the interactive screens in the 1889 Dock Strike display. Choose one of these pairs to ‘interview’

Either

Cardinal Manning and Mr C M Norwood

or

Mr C M Norwood and Mr Ben Tillett

or

Mrs Anne O’Reilly and Mr C M Norwood

For both people in your chosen pair, write down two questions which interest you the most.

Write down two of their answers to each of the questions.

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries

Teacher’s note

Ensure that within your class, all four people have been interviewed.

The aim is for your students to argue their point of view in a debate about the strike back at school.

Person 1 is ______________________

Question 1:

Answer:

Answer:

Question 2:

Answer:

Answer:

Person 2 is ______________________

Question 1:

Answer:

Answer:

Question 2:

Answer:

Answer:

© Museum of London Docklands 2009. This sheet is designed to be edited by teachers. The Museum cannot take responsibility for edited content.

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World, Sailortown and First Port of Empire galleries