Sir Charles Palmer, 1st Baronet
Sir Charles Mark Palmer, 1st Baronet was an English shipbuilder born in South Shields, County Durham, England. He was also a Liberal Party politician and Member of Parliament. His father, originally the captain of a whaler, moved in 1828 to Newcastle upon Tyne, where he owned a ship owning and ship-broking business.
Sir Charles Palmer, 1st Baronet
"Shipping". Caricature by Ape published in Vanity Fair in 1884
Statue of Charles Palmer, opposite the Jarrow Town Hall
A collier is a bulk cargo ship designed or used to carry coal. Early evidence of coal being transported by sea includes use of coal in London in 1306. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, coal was shipped from the River Tyne to London and other destinations. Other ports also exported coal – for instance the Old Quay in Whitehaven harbour was built in 1634 for the loading of coal. London became highly reliant on the delivery of coal by sea – Samuel Pepys expressed concern in the winter of 1666–67 that war with the Dutch would prevent a fleet of 200 colliers getting through. In 1795, 4,395 cargoes of coal were delivered to London. By 1824, this number had risen to about 7,000; by 1839, it was over 9,000. The trade continued to the end of the twentieth century, with the last cargo of coal leaving the Port of Tyne in February, 2021.
The royal yacht Royal Escape, formerly a collier called Surprise, built before 1651
A collier has been deliberately beached so that the cargo of coal can be unloaded into carts and taken for sale.
Coal whippers unloading a collier. Four men climb up a step set on the collier's deck, holding ropes that go to a pulley fastened above and then down to a basket in the hold. They jump off the step, holding the rope, and their weight lifts the basket out of the hold. It is then tipped into a chute that leads into the barge alongside.
The collier USS Merrimac