The Elizabethan Privy Council and the Repair of Dover Harbor

David B. Mock

Tallahassee Community College

The prolonged concern of the Elizabethan Privy Council with the repair of Dover Harbor provides an excellent example of the collaboration of local and crown officials in late Tudor England. Dover Harbor is one of the most important ports on the southeastern coast of England. Located at the narrowest point of the English Channel it is some fourteen miles from the Continent. Tides, storms, and regular currents regularly erode the chalk banks and present on-going obstacles to both constructing and maintaining a harbor at this location.[1]

The history of Dover Harbor began around 1500. Unfortunately, conflicting reports as to the initial construction of this harbor may mean that the history of the original harbor may never be fully understood. What is certain, however, is that Henry VIII and his children were almost continuously involved, often intimately, in supervising and occasionally even financing various construction and repair efforts. The Tudors’ interest in what we today call “public works” was not limited to harbors. Roads, lighthouses, and bridges; safe harbors, waterfronts and docking facilities; navigable rivers and the reclamation of marginal lands all gained royal and parliamentary moral and financial support during the sixteenth century. Government officials clearly recognized the economic, military, and political importance of these projects. Despite the interest of Tudor monarchs in these projects, historians have unfortunately shown more interest in the public works activities of Elizabeth’s contemporaries than they have in activities in England.[2]

During the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I repair efforts centered on building piers south and west of the harbor in order to shelter ships from foul weather. As the piers extended into the channel silt built up and created a beach and sand bar. Storms would gradually knock the newly constructed pier into the sea and erode the beach. Erosion of the chalk cliffs created another perennial problem. Tides and currents which wore away the cliffs carried pebbles along the coast until they reached the harbor mouth, where they were deposited, gradually filling up the harbor. Nature was thus not only destructive; it was also expensive, as an inquiry into the efforts of the Elizabethan Privy Council will demonstrate.[3]

As early as 1559 Dover officials advised Elizabeth’s Privy Councilors about the decay of the harbor. Nevertheless, the queen’s council did nothing for five years. Finally, in 1564 William Brooke Lord Cobham, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, forwarded concrete proposals of a plan to repair the harbor to the Council. His elaborate plan admitted, however, that the town could not afford to pay for the necessary repairs. This is, perhaps, the major reason that another twelve years would pass before the Council would act. Finally, in 1576 Sir Francis Walsingham, one of the Privy Councilors, hired one William Borough, a well-respected navigator, to investigate the perpetual problems the harbor faced and to develop a plan to resolve the difficulties. By this time a sand bar had spanned the harbor, creating a shallow lagoon. Moreover, part of an older pier had collapsed during a storm earlier that year. In the resulting discussions the Council considered plans to construct additional jetties or groins, in order to protect the shore from erosion. It also reviewed the surveys of Matthew Richworth, a master Dutch sluice maker. After a lengthy debate the Councilors accepted Borough’s plans to stabilize the bank and to use the River Dour to help clear the harbor of pebbles. Essentially the plan was to erect a dam to hold back the river and to build a sluice, which would channel the river toward the compilation of pebbles. Periodically the sluice gates would be opened. This would release the water and essentially flush the pebbles into the channel and thus clear the harbor of debris.[4]

As the cost of construction exceeded the financial ability of the people of Dover, and since the Councilors recognized the national importance of this harbor, they convinced Elizabeth to grant the city a license to export rye grain. The income generated by this license would help to defray construction costs. The economic value of this license increased once the Council imposed an embargo on neighboring ports. The city would earn even more money when the Council added other commodities, including beer, malt, wheat, and barley, to the rye export license. As these funds were still inadequate to fund the project the Councilors sold the lands of Dover’s St. Peter’s church and allocated the £118 17s. to the repair work. Although this was a modest amount, it was nevertheless appreciated by Dover’s populace.[5]

In early 1580 the Council examined eight new proposals concerning the construction of additional jetties. Although it determined that most of the proposals were too expensive, it believed that existing taxes and other assessments would be able to finance a second groin. The Council then endorsed John Trew’s plan to build a large masonry wall to shield the harbor and directed Cobham to discuss Trew’s plan with Dover’s mayor. As the plan required close supervision the Council identified local gentlemen it believed capable of serving as commissioners. In July 1580 the Council ordered Cobham to employ another surveyor to examine the work that had been completed to that point and to evaluate the success of future efforts. Two months later it authorized Trew to levy masons and other workers to complete the work. In January 1581 the Council received yet another evaluation of the project from Elizabeth’s naval officers when Sir William Winter, Sir Francis Drake, and John Hawkins critiqued the plans. The next year found the Councilors objecting to the projected expenses of new proposals of the Dover commissioners, and ordering Trew fired. Essentially the problem at this time was that the riverbank would not support the weight of a masonry wall. Consequently, its foundation kept collapsing. Commissioners developed several new plans over the following months. The Council’s approval of these proposals was postponed until its agents–Winter, Borough, and Thomas Digges–met with the Dover commissioners. Finally, in April 1582 the Council agreed on a new course of action and appointed Digges to oversee the work. In addition, it made several technical decisions about the enterprise as well, choosing between several plans concerning the location of a wall; the placement of additional groins, a sluice, and a crosswalk; and the relocation of the harbor mouth. Work resumed, but progress was slow.[6]

In late 1582 and 1583 the Council resolved a bitter dispute between officials overseeing the Dover works. Richard Barrie, lieutenant of Dover Castle, complained in December 1582 that a recent opening in the harbor that Fernando Poyntz, the chief overseer, had made, would not allow the harbor to withstand the force of the high seas. Borough, the Council’s agent, supported Barrie, who claimed that the harbor was worse than it had been in 1576. Dover commissioners, on the other hand, reported that Poyntz had, in fact, made only one slender groin and it had been beneficial to the project. Other town officials, including the mayor, even praised Poyntz’s efforts. A subsequent investigation by the Privy Council, however, criticized Poyntz and ordered him fired. In November 1583 the Council investigated a new problem of additional decay between two parallel sluices. Poyntz received the blame for this as well.[7]

Throughout the 1570s and 1580s the Council, and presumably the Queen, remained closely involved in the myriad details of the project. Through extensive correspondence with Dover officials and the dispatch of agents to supervise the work, the Council remained well informed about developments on the coast. In 1584 engineers created a new harbor in a shallow lagoon that the River Dour fed. The next year work progressed on new groins, a sea wall, and a sluice. Unfortunately, in the fall of 1585 severe storms destroyed some of that year’s work. Despite frequent setbacks the project was finally completed at a cost of less than £12,000.[8]

The repair of Dover harbor perhaps best illustrates the collaboration that occurred between Crown, Council and local officials. Although the Councilors and other royal officials preferred to rely upon local authorities to supervise the construction, the Councilors remained closely involved with major projects of the age–particularly the repair of Dover Harbor and the reclamation of the East Anglican fens. Once the Council became interested in a project, it authorized several different schemes to raise money to finance the work. It also dispatched agents to monitor the expenditure of funds and to investigate the progress of construction. Furthermore, it carefully examined and discussed plans and hired engineers and workers to pursue the work. Yet, despite this very high level of involvement in some projects, the Council worked through local officials, especially local commissioners and mayors. Though it was concerned with the success of a project, it usually did not seek to circumvent local authorities. The Council acted differently towards Dover Harbor, however.[9]

Dover Harbor was unique in both the difficulty of the project and its national importance. It is thus understandable that the Privy Council would take such a personal and long-standing interest in the work there. Such interest was highly unusual. Not only was this the only public works project to receive such close conciliar supervision, it was only one of two subjects, the other being the plague, where royal officials regularly countermanded decisions of local officials and received on-going status reports. Moreover, while communities were traditionally responsible for paying for the maintenance of local roads, bridges, and harbors, this was not the case with Dover. Parliament might occasionally authorize a temporary assessment on a neighboring region, but assessments for Dover’s repairs included not only grants, monopolies, and taxes that extended over decades, but also levies of workers and wagons similar to the French route corvée. The attention and the involvement of the Council was obviously necessary and timely. In May 1588 Sir William Winter reported to William Cecil Lord Burghley and the Privy Council that few repairs remained to be completed. Winter was thus able to recommend that the English fleet, then awaiting the Spanish Armada, be resupplied through Dover.[10] The intervention of the Privy Council thus paid off–and just in time.

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[1] Henry Clifford Darby, The Draining of the Fens, 2nd ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956); Frederick G. Emmison, “The ‘Very Naughty Ways’ of Elizabethan Essex,” Essex Review 64 (April 1955): 85–91; Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, English Local Government: The History of the King’s Highway (Hamden, CN: Archon Books, Shoestring Press, 1963), pp. 1–26; H. M. Colvin, The King’s Works, vol. 4 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1982); Frederick G. Emmison, “1555 and All That: A Milestone in the History of the English Road,” Essex Review 64 (January 1955): 15–25; Frederick G. Emmison, “Was the Highways Act of 1555 a Success?” Essex Review 64 (October 1955): 221–34.

[2] Elizabeth I issued proclamations in 1571, 1575–75, 1578, 1580–81, 1584–85, 1590, 1595 and 1598. Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, eds., Tudor Royal Proclamations, vols. 2–3 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 2: 426–30, 510–11; 3: 51–52, 57–58, 151–53, (hereafter cited as Proclamations); William Dunkel, William Lambarde, Elizabethan Jurist, 1536–1601 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1965), pp. 73–74; The Acts of the Privy Council, John R. Dassent, ed., n.s. 42 vols. (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1892–1907), 7: 91; 12:121; 13:34; 21:77–78; 30:359–60, (hereafter cited as APC); Michael B. Pulman, The Elizabethan Privy Council in the Fifteen Seventies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), pp. 137–39.

[3] British Library, Lansdowne Manuscripts, MSS 107 no. 54 f. 217; British Government, Public Records Office. State Papers Domestic, Series 12/108 (hereafter cited as PRO SP, series and document; 2& 3 Philip and Mary c. 8 (1555), The Statutes of the Realm, 4 vols., reprint (London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1963): 4 (1): 284–85, (hereafter cited as SR); 5 Elizabeth I c. 13 (1563), SR 4 (1): 441–43; 18 Elizabeth I c. 10 (1575–76), SR 4 (1): 620–21; Journal of the House of Commons, 1547–1714, 17 vols., reprint (Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1967), 1: 45–46, 67, 112–13; APC 9: 117, 120–21, 131, 135, 150; T. E. Hartley, ed., Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I. Volume I 1555–1581 (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1981), 1: 389, 395, 483–84, 486–90.

[4] Huntingdon Library, Ellesmere Manuscripts, MSS 2531, 2532, 2535; Darby, Draining of the Fens, pp. 15–21; Harry Godwin, Fenland: Its Ancient and Uncertain Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 135–46; APC 10: 223–24. For developments under the Stuarts see Mark E. Kennedy, “Charles I and Local Government: The Draining of the East and West Fens,” Albion 15 (Spring 1983): 19–31; and Margaret Albright, “The Entrepreneurs of James I and Charles I: An Illustration of the Uses of Influence,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History 8 (1955).

[5] British Library, Lansdowne Manuscripts, MSS 104: 40; 106: 54; PRO SP 12/19, 77, 108, 283; APC 5: 166; 7: 248; 8:19, 25, 289–90; 9: 17, 19, 134–35; 10: 321; 11:85, 287–88; 12:108, 114, 164; 13: 85; 18 Elizabeth I c. 17 (1575–76), SR 4 (1): 627; 27 Elizabeth I c. 25 (1584–85), SR 4 (1): 735; P. W. Hasler, ed., The House of Commons, 1558–1603 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1981), 1: 672–75; Proceedings 1: 483–84; Proclamations 2: 426–30.

[6] British Library, Lansdowne MSS 67: 35, 38; PRO SP 12/75, 99, 106, 120, 125, 127, 141, 144, 148, 219, 241, 244, 264; Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Honorable the Marquis of Salisbury, Series 9 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1883–1930), 2: 267; APC 7: 310; 8: 99; 10: 321; 11: 54, 190–91, 414; 18: 314; 29:329–30; King’s Works 4 (2): 755–56.

[7] PRO SP 12/130, 140, 142, 152, 153, 154, 155, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 155, 167; APC 7: 70; 12: 161, 192, 195, 197; 13: 80, 392; King’s Works 4 (2): 754–62.

[8] PRO SP 12/156, 158, 159.

[9] After 1585 the major additions were the construction of a seawall in 1592–93 and the repair of the sluice after 1599. PRO SP 12/162, 163, 181, 184, 210, 210; British Library, Lansdowne Manuscript 67: 27, 29.

[10] King’s Works 4 (2): 762–64.