ABSTRACT
The first outward sign of the new supply and demand straggle came with the ropemakers during the 1720s, particularly in the Thames yards, culminating in a prolonged strike at Woolwich, Chatham and Portsmouth in the summer of 1729, just at the time of a mobilization against Spain. At the beginning of every war or mobilization from 1729, when the Admiralty needed every effort to get fleets to sea, the skilled workforce extracted every concession it could through well-timed action. From the beginning of this period, the state enforced discipline and in emergencies forced trained shipwrights to work in the royal yards through its powers of impressment. 'The most astonishing statistical feet is that, notwithstanding the increase in ships and tonnage, the shipwrights employed in the royal dockyards hardly changed: 3100 in 1743, 3200 in 1772, 3300 in 1781, 3100 in 1792, and 3300 in 1804.'
