CHAP. V. BREACHES IN THAMES EMBANKMENTS.

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CHAPTER V.

CAPTAIN PERRY STOPPAGE OF DAGENHAM BREACH.

ALTHOUGH the cutting of the New River involved a great deal of labour, and was attended with considerable cost, it was not a work that would now be regarded as of any importance in an engineering point of view. It was, nevertheless, one of the greatest undertakings of the kind that had at that time been attempted in England; and it is most probable that, but for the persevering energy of Myddelton and the powerful support of the King, the New River enterprise would have failed. As it was, a hundred years passed before another engineering work of equal importance was attempted, and then it was necessity, and not enterprise, that occasioned it.

We have, in a previous chapter, referred to the artificial embankment of the Thames, almost from Richmond to the sea, by which a large extent of fertile land is protected from inundation along both banks of the river. The banks first raised seemed to have been in many places of insufficient strength; and when a strong north-easterly wind blew down the North Sea, and the waters became pent up in that narrow part of it lying between the Belgian and the English coasts, -and especially when this occurred at a time of the highest spring tides, the strength of the river embankments became severely tested throughout their entire length, and breaches often took place, occasioning destructive inundations.

Down to the end of the seventeenth century scarcely a season passed without some such accident occurring. There were frequent burstings of the banks on the south side between London Bridge and Greenwich, the district of Bermondsey, then green fields, being especially liable to be

submerged. Commissions were appointed on such occasions, with full powers to `distrain for rates, and to impress labourers in order that the requisite repairs might at once be carried out. In some cases the waters for a long time held their ground, and refused to be driven back. Thus, in the reign of Henry VIII., the marshes of Plumstead and Lesnes, now used as a practising ground by the Woolwich garrison, were completely drowned by the waters which had burst through Erith Breach, and for a long time all measures taken to reclaim them proved ineffectual. There were also frequent inundations of the Combe Marshes, lying on the east of the royal palace at Greenwich.

But the most destructive inundations occurred on the north bank of the Thames. Thus, in the year 1676, a serious breach took place at Limehouse, when many houses were swept away, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the waters could be banked out again. The wonder is, that sweeping, as the new current did, over the Isle of Dogs, in the direction of Wapping, and in the line of the present West India Docks, the channel of the river was not then

permanently altered. But Deptford was already established as a royal dockyard, and probably the diversion of the river would have inflicted as much local injury, judging by comparison, as it unquestionably would do at the present day. The breach was accordingly stemmed, and the course of the river held in its ancient channel by Deptford and Greenwich. Another destructive inundation shortly after occurred through a breach made in the embankment of the West Thurrock Marshes, in what is called the Long Reach, nearly opposite Greenhithe, where the lands remained under water for seven years, and it was with much difficulty that the breach could be closed.

But the most destructive and obstinate of all the breaches was that made in the north bank a little to the south of the village of Dagenham, in Essex, by which the whole of the Dagenham and Havering Levels lay drowned at every tide. A similar breach had occurred in 1621, which

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DAGENHAM BREACH,

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Vermuyden, the Dutch engineer, succeeded in stopping; and at the same time he embanked or "inned" the whole of Dagenham Creek, through which the little rivulet flowing past the village of that name found its way to the Thames. Across the mouth of this rivulet Vermuyden had erected a sluice, of the nature of a "clow," being a strong gate suspended by hinges, which opened to admit of the egress of the inland waters at low tide, and closed against the entrance of the Thames when the tide rose. It happened, however, that a heavy inland flood, and an unusually high spring tide, occurred simultaneously during the prevalence of a strong north-easterly wind, in the year 1707; when the united force of the waters meeting from both directions blew up the sluice, the repairs of which had been neglected, and in a very short time nearly the whole area of the above Levels was covered by the waters of the Thames.

At first the gap was so slight as to have been easily closed, being only from 14 to 16 feet wide. But no measures having been taken to stop it, the tide ran in and out for several years, every tide wearing the channel deeper, and rendering the stoppage of the breach more difficult. At length the channel was found upwards of 30 feet deep at low water, and about 100 feet wide, a lake more than a mile and a half in extent having by this time been formed inside the line of the river embankment. Above a thousand acres of rich lands were spoiled for all useful purposes, and by the scouring of the waters out and in at every tide, the soil of about a hundred and twenty acres was completely washed away. It was carried into the channel of the Thames, and formed a bank of about a mile in length, reaching halfway across the river. This state of things could not be allowed to continue, for, the navigation of the stream was seriously interrupted by the obstruction, and there was no knowing where the mischief would stop.

Various futile attempts were made by the adjoining landowners to stem the breach. They filled old ships with

chalk and stones, and had them scuttled and sunk in the deepest places, throwing in baskets of chalk and earth outside them, together with bundles of straw and hay to stop up the interstices; but when the full tide rose, it washed them away like so many chips, and the opening was again driven clean through. Then the expedient was tried of sinking into the hole gigantic boxes made expressly for the purpose, fitted tightly together, and filled with chalk. Power was obtained to lay an embargo on the cargoes of chalk and ballast contained in passing ships, for the purpose of filling these boxes, as well as damming up the gap; and as many as from ten to fifteen freights of chalk a day were thrown in, but still without effect.

One day when the tide was on the turn, the force of the water lifted one of the monster trunks sheer up from the bottom, when it toppled round, the lid opened, out fell the chalk, and, righting again, the immense box floated out into the stream and down the river. One of the landowners interested in the stoppage ran along the bank, and shouted out at the top of his voice, "Stop her! stop her!" But the unwieldy object being under no guidance was carried down. stream towards the shipping lying at Gravesend, where its unusual appearance, standing so high out of the water, excited great alarm amongst the sailors. The empty trunk, however, floated safely past, down the river, until it reached the Nore, where it stranded upon a sandbank.

The Government next lent the undertakers an old royal ship called the Lion, for the purpose of being sunk in the breach, which was done, with two other ships; but the Lion was broken in pieces by a single tide, and at the very next ebb not a vestige of her was to be seen. No matter what was sunk, the force of the water at high tide bored through underneath the obstacle, and only served to deepen the breach. After the destruction of the Lion, the channel was found deepened to 50 feet at low water, at the very place where she had been sunk.

All this had been but tinkering at the breach, and

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CAPTAIN PERRY.

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every measure that had been adopted merely proved the incompetency of the undertakers. The obstruction to the navigation through the deposit of earth and sand in the river being still on the increase, an Act was passed in 1714, after the bank had been open for a period of seven years, giving powers for its repair at the public expense. But it is an indication of the very low state of engineering ability in the kingdom at the time, that several more years passed before the measures taken with this object were crowned with success, and the opening was only closed after a fresh succession of failures.

The works were first let to one Boswell, a contractor. He proceeded very much after the method which had already failed, sinking two rows of caissons or chests across the breach, but provided with sluices for the purpose of shutting off the inroads of the tide. All his contrivances, however, failed to make the opening watertight; and his chests were blown up again and again. Then he tried pontoons of ships, which he loaded and sunk in the opening; but the force of the tide, as before, rushed under and around them, and broke them all to pieces, the only result being to make the gap in the bank considerably wider and deeper than he found it. Boswell at length abandoned all further attempts to close it, after suffering a heavy loss; and the engineering skill of England seemed likely to be completely baffled by this hole in a river's bank.

The competent man was, however, at length found in Captain Perry, who had just returned from Russia, where, having been able to find no suitable employment for his abilities in his own country, he had for some time been employed by the Czar Peter in carrying on extensive engineering works.

John Perry was born at Rodborough, in Gloucestershire, in 1669, and spent the early part of his life at sea. In 1693 we find him a lieutenant on board the royal ship the Montague. The vessel having put into harbour at Portsmouth to be refitted, Perry is said to have displayed consider