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Safety at Sea during the Industrial Revolution

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  • Morgan Kelly
  • Cormac Ó Gráda
  • Peter Solar

Abstract

Shipping was central to the rise of the Atlantic economies, but an extremely hazardous activity: in the 1780s, roughly five per cent of British ships sailing in summer for the United States never returned. Against the widespread belief that shipping technology was stagnant before iron steamships, in this paper we demonstrate that between the 1780s and 1820s, a safety revolution occurred that saw shipping losses and insurance rates on oceanic routes almost halved thanks to steady improvements in shipbuilding and navigation. Iron reinforcing led to stronger vessels while navigation improved, not through chronometers which remained too expensive and unreliable for general use, but through radically improved charts, accessible manuals of basic navigational techniques, and improved shore-based navigational aids.

Suggested Citation

  • Morgan Kelly & Cormac Ó Gráda & Peter Solar, 2019. "Safety at Sea during the Industrial Revolution," Working Papers 10197/11167, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:10197/11167
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/11167
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. N. F. R. Crafts & C. K. Harley, 1992. "Output growth and the British industrial revolution: a restatement of the Crafts-Harley view," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 45(4), pages 703-730, November.
    2. Peter Solar, 2013. "Opening to the East: shipping between Europe and Asia, 1770-1830," Working Papers 13013, Economic History Society.
    3. Harley, C. Knick, 1988. "Ocean Freight Rates and Productivity, 1740–1913: The Primacy of Mechanical Invention Reaffirmed," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(4), pages 851-876, December.
    4. Peter M. Solar & Luc Hens, 2016. "Ship speeds during the Industrial Revolution: East India Company ships, 1770–1828," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 20(1), pages 66-78.
    5. Temin, Peter, 1997. "Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(1), pages 63-82, March.
    6. Cohn,Raymond L., 2009. "Mass Migration under Sail," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521513227, September.
    7. Pearson, Robin & Richardson, David, 2019. "Insuring the Transatlantic Slave Trade," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(2), pages 417-446, June.
    8. Puttevils, Jeroen & Deloof, Marc, 2017. "Marketing and Pricing Risk in Marine Insurance in Sixteenth-Century Antwerp," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(3), pages 796-837, September.
    9. Douglass C. North, 1968. "Sources of Productivity Change in Ocean Shipping, 1600-1850," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(5), pages 953-953.
    10. Crafts, Nicholas, 2014. "Productivity Growth during the British Industrial Revolution: Revisionism Revisited," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 204, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    11. Joel Mokyr, 2016. "A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10835.
    12. Solar, Peter M. & Duquette, Nicolas J., 2017. "Ship Crowding and Slave Mortality: Missing Observations or Incorrect Measurement?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(4), pages 1177-1202, December.
    13. de Roover, Florence Edler, 1945. "Early Examples of Marine Insurance," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 172-200, November.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Peter M. Solar & Oliver Buxton Dunn & Aidan Kane, 2024. "Shipping in the London coal trade, 1700‒1860," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(3), pages 1005-1034, August.
    2. Hatton, Timothy J., 2023. "Emigrant Voyages from the UK to North America and Australasia, 1853-1913," IZA Discussion Papers 16281, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Cormac Ó Gráda, 2019. "Economic History: «An Isthmus Joining Two Great Continents»?," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 81-120.
    4. Arteaga, Fernando & Desierto, Desiree & Koyama, Mark, 2024. "Shipwrecked by rents," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    5. Hatton, Timothy J., 2024. "Sailing Ship Technology, Navigation and the Duration of Voyages to Australia, 1848-85," IZA Discussion Papers 17218, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Dan Bogart & Oliver Buxton Dunn & Eduard J. Alvarez‐Palau & Leigh Shaw‐Taylor, 2022. "Organizations and efficiency in public services: The case of English lighthouses revisited," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 975-994, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Shipping; Insurance; Industrial Revolution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N - Economic History
    • N73 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies

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