160
DAGENHAM BREACH.
Impartial Account of the Frauds and Abuses at Dagenham Breach,"
etc., published in 1717, we learn that "When it first happed, the
Society of the Trinity House at Deptford, fearing that the work
might bring a charge on them, took care to free themselves by
delivering a formal judgment to the House of Commons, that the
breach was not any obstruction to navigation," so that the matter
rested entirely with the landowners and the Commissioners of Sewers.
So the landowners set to work in their own interest, but in a
poor and half hearted way. First they employed John Motte and John
Cole, who worked by the day, but were soon obliged to desist.
Then James Harvey took it up, and was paid twenty shillings a day,
and made some little progress.
Afterwards a contract was entered into by William Jackson for
the sum of £6,000 on completion of the work; and after a few
months he was joined by John Ward, of Hackney, and then by
Colonel Bennet, Mr. Lethieullier, and others. They spent altogether
some £28,000, and at last stopped the breach; but on the first
boisterous tide the work gave way.
The means chiefly employed up to this time had been the
driving of rows of large piles and sinking of earth and stone in
enormous quantities; old ships laden with chalk and Stones were
brought into the gap and then scuttled. An old government ship,
The Lion, was given, which they filled, and then scuttled in the
breach ; but the next high tide flowed in with such force that the
vessel was broken up, and the channel was found deeper than it had
been before, being fifty feet.
Thus the owners had spent more than the value of the land, and
after nearly seven years, having gained no advantage by the outlay,
deemed their lands to be lost.11
Then the navigation of the river became a pressing matter, for
the bank of material washed out by the tide was increasing. The
question was taken up by the House of Commons, and in 1714
(Anno 12 Annae c. 17) "An Act for the speedy and effectual Preserv-
ing the Navigation of the River of Thames by stopping the Breach in
the Levels of Havering and Dagenham in the County of Essex and
for ascertaining the Coal Measure" was passed. In the Preamble it
is stated to be "of the utmost importance as well to the city of
11 "Reasons demonstrating: that the Breach in the Levels of Havering and Dagenham
hath already done . . , damage to the navigation of the Thames."—S. sheet, fol. 1714.
"The Case of the Land owners of the levells of Havering and Dagnam" (sic).—S. sheet, fol.