The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-08-17 00:00:00

PORTLAND BREAKWATER.

The following extract is from a well-written description of
this--anotM-r great engineering achievement—by the Special
Correspondent of The Tinted :
Just twenty-three years ago . . . . the first atone
of the Portland Breakwater fell with a ' mighty
plunge into the sea. . . . . . This great sea-wall
stretches with a bend towards; Weymouth for a
mile and five-eighths from the east side of the inland
of Portland, and shelters from every wind an area
of 2,100 acres of water, 1,290 of which have at
low tides a depth ranging from five to eleven
fathoms. It consists of an inner break-eater,
1,900 feet in length, divided from an enter or
isolated breakwater, 6200, feet in length, by an
opening 400 lac. wide. The whole is built in nine
to ten fathoms of water, the material need being
rough blocks of Portland stone, quarried by con-
victs from the shore close by. This was loaded
into trucks, which were run out on a scaffolding
and tipped into the sea, the scaffolding being pushed
forward as the reef of rocks rose above the water.
The inner breakwater has been built with dressed stone
into a finished sea-wall, the surface of which is two
broad roadways, the outer raised above the inner on
arched recesses for the reception of Government stores.
Men-of-war can be coaled at the rate of a ton a minute
from the cranes and coal-shoots, which are all worked
by machinery. The two parts of the breakwater form
an obtuse angle, and the outlet occurs just before the
angle of turning north, being so placed that ships going
to sea in a northerly wind can pass at once through the
opening, and take a fair breeze d ,vm Channel. The
outer breakwater is, to the eye, a mere low line of
rugged blocks of stone, showing above the sea in most
admired disorder, just as they were tipped from the
trucks. We believe it is no; at present intended to
complete this portion with a sea wall and causeway,
though it would add beauty and solidity to the
structure, and even strengthen it by binding it
ogether at the uppermost an I therefore loosest
part. The work cast never have a finished appearance
so long as its principal section remains in this jagged,
"rough and tumble" condition, and it seems a pity
that what is sow. II begun should not be well ended,
even if the expense be, as iss stated, another £59,000. At
the east end of the inner breakwater there is a [solid
and well armed circular granite fort, which immediately
defends the channel of pa,sage ; and at the extreme
north end of the outer part of the work there is a
fortress, the already immense strength of which is to
be niade complete by a sheathing of armour-plates of
incredible weight and thickness. But the real defence
of the anchorage is the Verne, excavatsd in the solid
rock, and the heavy line of earthwork batteries called
the East Weir, which are cut in the slope of the Port-
land hill, and overlook the whole breakwater. Guns
of the greatest calibre, and every artifice of military
engineecing, joined to the advantage of the site, will
make this position, when the works are complete, as
impregnable in itself and as secure 3 protection to the
fleet below as it is possidle for any poet of war to be.
A few figures and measurements will give sc-me idea
of this great undertaking, which, now that it is
finished, offers to the eye little more than a thin reef,
stretching away almost till it fades. Its magnitude
and strength me buried for ever out of sight, and we
have to remember that if the seas could run dry that
low line of stone would grow to t vaA Cyclopean wall,
100 ft. high and 100 yank thick at the base. It is
heaped up by nearly six million tons of stone, whl-'
ii built into a solid column 1001 b in diameter, wo,
overtop the highest Alp. Another, and indeed Cu
chief, miu-vel and difficulty of the undertaking was the
erection of the scaffolding, of which, of course, there
now remains no trace. It must be described as a
wooden railway viaduct of the most massive kind,
built a mile and a half out from the shore, in from
50! t. to 60ft. of rough sea water. Every timber had
to he suede waterproof and wormproof by the
hydraulic forcing of creosote into the pores of the
wood, and when this was done a huge pile was made
of nine or ten timbers bolted together in one
mighty spar of eight or nine tons, Rome two or
three feet square. Tipped with an iron *crew, this
was lowered into the sea till it rested on the bottom,
when it was worked round by a capstan till the screw
had bitten 810. into the clay. Three or four of theme
great piles were set at a time, and at once bolted
together by many wrought-iron tie-rods and power.
till craw timbers and under trusses till the mese was
strong enough to carry the trucks of stone for "tipping
in." The t -cs sl the acaffolcing was, 30ft. above the
water, or 901 i. above the ground. In the construction
of the North Fort these piles were get in two great
circles of 112 ft. and 224f1. in diameter, upon which, as
on a huge dial, moved an immense wroughtsirou
easlial " tn. aaller." dragging the feeding trains, each
with frcin 60 to 80 tons of some in tow, stooping
a _to over the exact spot where more " tl2ping "
was required, when, an by magi; the waggons row

ghich,
would

on end, and poured their blocks Into the scourged
and fettered waves. Thus—and this shows the wsy
in which the whole breakwater was built—a mighty
mound was heaped for the foundations of the North
Fort, an island in the sea, of 140,000 tons of solid stone,
soil, with the fortifications, 100 ft. high, 400 ft in
diameter at the base, and 200 ft. at the summit. At
every tide the divers went down to level, as well as
they could, the masses tipped in and to report that a
little more stone was needed here or there, as the case
might be, This North Fort is in three stories, one of
magazines, two of casemated batteries, and the arms-
meld will be sixty guns in all. The whole structure
appears from above a ring of granite 100 ft. thick, en.
closing a centre courtyard, into which look the ottkers'
quarters and men's barrack rooms. Taking three
fathoms' depth as the standard at low water, Plymouth
Breakwater encloses 1,741 acres, or 150 more than
Portland. Prntland, however, bass larger areaof deep
shallow water—that is, of water varying from five to

eleven fro homs.
The first idea of a breakwater at Portland appears
to be due to Mr. .John Harvey, portmmter at Wey-
month, who urged it meta the A. itaiatity so far lonic
m 1794. Its history from that time ie a ho try of
5,-loot Committees, and Minutes, and Votes. Pratt of
all we find a Select Committee of the Boom of Com-
mons inB43 recommending the subject of Harbours
of Refuge to the attention of the Government;
in 1844, a Treasury Minute, Sir Robert Peel being in
office, recommending the appointment of Commis-
sioners to inquire into eligible situations; then Com
missioners, with Admiral Sir Byam Martin at the head
of them, appointed, and delivering in their report the
same year, recommending harbours of refuge being
formed at Dover, Portland, and Seaford, and giving
their preference to the places in the order in
which they are named ; then, in 1846, surveys
were made, an i the case further and professionally
reported on by the late Mr. James Bernie!,. C.E. ; and,
finally, Parliamentary powers were obtained for the
purchase of land, &c., and the preliminary works were
begun in August, 1847, Mr. Bendel being engineer in
chief and Mr. (now Sir John) Comte resident engineer.
On the death of Mr. Bendel in 1856 Sir John Cootie
became engineer in chief, and has so continued, though
for the last few years the work, which was at fist
under the llaard of Trade, has been altogether in the
hands of the Admiralty, and of the director id works
to that Board, Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, 11. E., C.B.
The total cost of the breakwater and harbour works,
including the coaling establishment, jetties, and water-
works, has been £1,653,600, a sum which represents
Pocket to contractors
,odn my ar
ano udt ohasf thenothing nation's
Flu:tater to do with the
worth of the convict labour.
Nat
Now we come to that very intricate the ques-
tion— what has been saved to the country by t.''e em-
ployment upon this breakwater for the last 23 Y:ar,'
of 600 convicts, for that is the average number whin.'
has been engaged. We have before WI a schedule com-
piled by the prison authorities. This sets down the
value of convict labour at a total of £452,793 9s. 101 d.,
which we are told is the product of a measurement
most accurately taken, at any rate for the last nine
years, of the money value of the work actually done
by convicts, their food, clothes, and lodging being left
out of the account as an affair belonging to the nation.
Yet, exact and encouraging as these figures are, we
fear we cannot conclude that the breakwater would
have cost £1,486,393 of clear public money, instead
of £1,033,600, had it been entirely accomplished by
free labour. Such an allowance would make it out
that convicts when employed on a public work
save the country more than 30 per cent, of its cost
in clear cash; but we fear that when the arith-
metic came to be thoroughly worked out, when I
every deduction was made on account of the ex-
pense of instruction, of the loss of time, and of a dozen
other elements which enter into the calculation, it
would be found that 30 per cent. is a tale too flattering
to be true, and that 15 per cent, would be nearer the I
mark. It most be remembered that labourorotis is not
everything, and that the cost of the plant and materials
come to a great part of the expense of a public or any
other work. It is also obvious that if four convicts do
the work of two free men there is a dead loss of the
purchase and keeping in repair of the tools they use.
We du not wish for a moment to decry the employ-
ment of convicts on public works. On the contrary, we I
think their employment the best feature of the Eug-
lish system. We only cannot accept on a difficult
matter flourishing statistics which, if they are not
easily confuted, are also not easily understood, and are
far from explaining themselves as all financial figures
should. But whether the money gained by convict
labour be, as some engineers hold, 15 per cent; or, as
others hold, nothing at all ; or, as the prison au-
thorities hold, 30 per cent., it is indubitable that
here at Portland, and elsewhere, convicts have been
made to do a VW3t deal of work of one sort aud another,
and to do it very well. Whether, considered as in-
dividuals, they have worked hard and satisfactorily, is
again another matter, for now we are only speaking of
the gloss result for 23 years of the labour of 600 con-
'frets. The Portland prison was first established in the
year 1848, Sir George Grey b- bog at the time Slime
Secretary, and Sir Joshua Jebb Surveyor- General of
Prisons. The object in view was twofold—first, the
construction of the breawater ; second, the organiza-
tion of a system of indostrial training for priaontra
under sentence of penal servitude. The prison was
built by contract ; by the end of 1849 its complement
had reached 1,125, and was still further increased in
subsequent year:, the number for 1871 being 1,564.
'rhe first year was devoted to preliminary works,
but by 1850 the great work of excavating, quarry-
ing, and loading the immense metre of stone re-
quired for the breakwater was fairly begun. Once
started, it was carried on without interruption
until 1862, when the quantity of stone daily required
grew less. though it only ceased altogether last year.
As much as 2,300 tons of stone has been sent down
the incline along the scaffold railway, and tipped into
the eta, in one day, and the exact quantity excavated,
quarried, loaded, and used for the breakwater mound
reaches the irumenae total of 5,731,376 tons, to which
must be added the 72,247 tons of dressed stone req eired
for the pier-heads, &c. The west quarry, from which a
portion only of this material was drawn, is of 18 acres, ex-
cel: tted to a mean depth of 40 feet. The organization of
the prison soul the training of the convicts to the work
required of them, taxed all the energies and resources
of the authorities. It was the inauguration of a new
system, and difficulties had to be met and combated
at every step, one of them being the strong objection
of *is island inhabitants to the employment of convict
labour in the quarries. This even reached such a
pittli that the Governor of the prison WM compelled
to order that his warders' to protect themselves from
assault, should only visit certain parts of the island in
parties of six or eight. By degrees, however, the Port
lenders came to look upon the convicts, and even upon
any post about the prison which fell vacant, with more
kindly eyes, and all has been goodwill and harmony
for some years.
Besides building the breakwater the convicts have
executed a vast quantity of accessory and other work in
the 21 years from 1850 to 1871. They have quarried
and scapled or dressed more than 114,000 additional
tons of stone for the Dockyard extension works at
Portsmouth and Chatham, and for other and sundry
War Department and prison works, and a body of men,
gradually increasing from 120 in 1856 to 6 i9O n 1863,
have been employed on the Verne-hill fortifications, on
the batteries on the East Weir, and on the various
buildings and works connected with these. The labour
done for the War Department imomputed by the prison
authorities at £32,312 17s. 84. The routine work of the
prison itself and the continued enlargement of the prison,
including the erection of a church designed by Major
Du Cane, of schools, gasworks, and also the execution
of various stonework for other prisons, has always
absorbed a large number of the prisoners, and the
labour of this gang is set down as, to the end of last
year, worth no lees than £158,840. The entire plant
of tools, rolling etock, &c., has also been kept in eider
by the prisoners, and to this list of labours we might
add innumerable other lesser but important items, all
of which, whatever may be the saving effected by the
use of convict labour, testify to the ability and zeal
with which Mr. Clifton, the present Governor of tlio
Prison, and his predecessors have administered the
system with the working of which they are intrusted.