Dover quay gangs

Standing parties of eleven to twenty hands, nine on the eastern quay and seven on the western, that hire and are paid as units by the tide. Each is a family or two intermarried; places pass by blood and marriage.

Sixteen separate family-based gangs that work the Dover quays, paid by the tide, each with a reckoner (a woman at nine of them) who divides the money in public.

Named with it

• Gang-Master Simon Folkestone · eastern quay
• Quay-Hand Dorcas Buckland · eastern quay
• Tide-Caller Amos Ringwould · eastern quay
• Gang-Reckoner Susan Reculver · reckoner, western quay

Ties

• disputes heard by the Port-reeve of Dover

At the table

A gang earns a little above a shilling for each tide, paid out in the open by its reckoner, who is often a woman. The port-reeve hears the quarrels. Let a gang talk of a cargo and the next cargo goes elsewhere; their knowledge is therefore shut to all but those seen to deal honestly with someone the quay knows. After dark, from New Year until March, nothing goes up the eastern quay beyond the bell; and after a closure three eastern gangs will not start work again till the bell has sounded twice. Each gang polices its own members, and casual hands are taken on in a fixed order. No widows' fund exists among them, the sixteen gangs having never once agreed. Bands ought to see the gangers before anyone else.