XIII. A HARBOUR MASTER'S ENGINEERING.
Mr. James Moon, who had filled the office of Harbour Master since 1792, was in 1808 asked to undertake the work of making good the breach in the side of the North Pier, which had been made by a violent storm in that year. He renewed about 200 feet of it, and did the work so well that the Commissioners wanted no other engineer.
In iSo8 the Passing Tolls had been entirely devoted to Dover specially for the purpose of rebuilding die South Pierhead, on which the existence of the Harbour maiidy depended, and the Commissioners showed confidence in Mr. Moon by asking him for a report as to the works that would be necessary.
In April, 181 1, Mr. Moon presented his rej.ort, in which he admitted that he was indebted to reports which various engineers had made on the Harbour since 1792, he having during those nineteen years acted as Harbour Master. He brushed aside the ideas of Captain Perry, Mr. Smeaton, Mr. Nickalls and Messrs. Rennie and Walker, who had proposed to extend the South Pier and to alter the form of i'^s round head to keep out the shingle. Such an attempt to get rid of the accumulation he considered vain. He recommended that the South Pier should be rebuilt in the same position and in the same form as it then stood, but he adopted the plan proposed by Mr. Nickalls, to construct culverts in the pier-head to discharge the backwater immediately on the bar to remove it more quickly than lett'ng water out of sluices in the lower Crosswall could do. Mr. Moon's plans were accepted, and he was now clothed with the authority of engineer to carry out the wcik with the Harbour staff of workmen. To make the sluicing canals which he proposed to carry to the South Pier head effective, he commenced making a tunnel from <^he basin through the southern end of the lower Crosswall, and he built another wall from the Crosswall, in the direction of the South Pier, cutting off a large piece of the western side of the tidal harbour for the purpose of constructing a second floating basin to hold back water for sluicing purposes; but the basin was also fitted to receive ships, and adjoining it was constructed a small dry-dock for repairs. The plan was to connect this new basin by a tunnel with a reservoir in the head of the South Pier, ^o that there might be a considerable weight of water immediately over the point where the sluices would operate on the bar. This plan of utilising the western corner of the Harbour for the threefold purpose above stated was considered by the Commissioners a cleverly contrived arrangement, but nautical men said that it entirely spoiled the outer Harbour, as the upright wall made the water so rough that ships broke from their moorings. This complaint came later; but almost as soon as Mr. Moon began his work, he got into difficulties. Early in 1S12. when digging the foundations for the new })asin, the water came in so rapidly that it stopped the work; also, in taking out the ancient piles of the Pier-head, in order to renew them, the crazy structure threatened to fall in a heap and destroy the entrance.
Mr. Ralph Walker (the surviving partner of Mes.srs. Rennie and Walker, who reported in 1802) was asked to give his advice at this critical stage. He at once ordered the piles in the South Pier-head to be replaced as a temporary measure, and then he made an exhaustive report covering the whole of the proposed improvements. As a concession to the proposals of Mr. Moon, he retained the idea of having a canal for sluicing carried to the extremity nf the South Pier, but, at the same time, he hoped to make sluicing unnecessary by proposing to carry that Pier into the tideway, as he and his late partner, and othei engineers, had previou.sly recommended. The whole of the works, according to his estimate, would have cost ^^67,000 — three times as much as Mr. Moon had expected to spend. That large sum, no doubt, set the Commis.sioners against Mr. Ralj)h Walker's proposals, but the part of the scheme which forcibly collided against their fixed ideas was the extension of the South Pier with the hope of finally getting rid of the Harbour bar. The Commissioners, from generation to generation, seemed to have unanimously held that the existence of the Harbour bar was as inevitalile as original sin, so that when they met on the i6th January. 1813, to decide on the best way of rel)uilding the South Pier-head, after considering Mr. Ralpli ^Valker's report, the observations of Captain Huddart, of the Trinity House, as well as the views of Captain Dul:)ois Smith, of the " Lively " revenue cutter, and several of the Dover pilots, they decided unanimously that it was not desirable to extend the South Pier, that no material variation should be made in its form, and that Mr. Moon should be instructed to carry out his plans ; and Mr. Ralph Walker, who had proposed the p'ans which were not adopted, had nothing further to do with the Harbour.
Mr. Moon proceeded, in 1814, to build the wall 460 feet in length from the Crosswall in the direction of the South Pier, cutting off the western angle of the tidal harbour, and in the space so enclosed he formed the .small dry dock and a moderate-sized dock basin, to make room for which the houses on the east side of Clarence Place were removed. In rebuilding the South Pier, he widened it towards the west to make room in it for a reservoir and the tunnel to conduct the water to the sluices, the tunnel being fed from the new dock basin, the supply to that being conveyed by a tunnel through the Crosswall fiom the inner basin and the Pent. This work was done leisurely, so as to adapt the expenditure to the ordinary Haibour income without resorting to a loan. In 1822, after operations extending over eight years, the work had to be suspended owing to a deficiency of funds. By that time the most pressing part of the improvements were completed. There were to be three culverts to discharge the backwater on the bar through the pier-head. Two of them were completed on the 22nd January, 1822, and a trial of them on that day completely removed a bar that had accumulated between the pier-heads.
There being funds available again, in the year 1828, the works were resumed, and the sluicing .scheme, with its three culverts and two resen'oirs, completed satisfactorily. While Mr. Moon's men were digging out the dock basin, on the site since occupied by the Continental Goods Yard, they came upon the foundations of Henry VIII. 's Pier built in 1533. Mr. Moon completed his work as engineer in 1830 by giving some finishing touches to the Crosswall, building there, each .side the gateway, the clock and compass towers, which remained until the re-construction of the inner basin in 1871. Mr. Moon was spoken of by his contemporaries as a man of keen observation, great tact, and natural sagacity. He was the first resident engineer of the Harbour, and he died in 1832 after a career at this Port of forty years.
On the death of Mr. Moon, his dual office of Engineer and Harbour Master was divided, Mr. E. P. Fordham being appointed Resident Engineer, and Mr. John lion, Harbour Master. Mr. Fordham, immediately after his appointment, commenced constructing the quays on the east side of the Pent, on which he spent, for materials and labour, £5,596 in three years ending March, 1835; and dunng the same jaeriod he spent ;^8or in clearing iq, 926 tons of mud from the Pent. He also built lock gates to the Pent at a cost of ;^QOo. It is not possible to form a clear estimate of Mr. Fordham's merits as an engineer, as his term only extended from 30th /v]:)ril. 1832, to the 1st March, 1834. In the year after he took office the winter .south-westerly gales brought an unprecedented quantity of .sliingle into the Harbour mouth, and the sluices failed to adequately deal with it. In January, 1834, Mr. Thomas Telford was called in as consulting engineer to give advice as to new works, and when the plans were ready the work was put out to contract. The Commissioners dispensed with a Resident Engineer on 1st March, 1834.
The works and expenditure which Mr. Thomas Telford recommended, when he was consulted, on the 29th January, 1834, were: — A wide tunnel instead of an iron pipe through the lower Crossvvall, from the inner basin to dock basin, £12,000; a tunnel reservoir in the south head 2nd additional culverts, £11,010; and a new wall in front of the Crosswall, £5, 100; making a total of £29,410. This expenditure was approved by the Commissioners, l)ut Mr. lolford died in August, 1834, and did not see the work carried out.
Mr. James Walker was then called in as consulting engineer, through tlie medium of a letter from the Duke of Wellington, Lord Warden, who explained that the Commissioners were satisfied with the works then in progress, but desired to have Mr. Walker's advice on points arising from time to time in the execution of the work. Mr. James Walker's position at first was that of a consulting engineer, but after March, 1836, he also performed the duties of resiflent engineer, and was one of the Harbour witnesses examined before the Select Committee of the House of Commons that considered the Dover Harbour Bill of that year.