Jim Lawrence 1933-2024
It’s with sadness that we report the death of Jim Lawrence, barge master, sailmaker and east coast waterfront character, who died aged 90 after a short illness in late January, writes Dan Houston. One of the last skippers working in the coastal Thames Sailing barge trade, Jim began his working life aged 15 in 1948, earning £1 a week on the sailing barge Gladys. He was the youngest skipper of his era, on the Mirosa, when he got his ticket at just 18. At that time there were 150 barges still trading under sail, but the fleet and income was dwindling compared to motor barges. Jim persevered with sailing barges until just six were left in trade, and in 1963 at the age of 29 he had to give up. It was the end of an era where the graceful, stately trade of the sailing barge had been the London River’s lifeblood for centuries.
By then Jim had already taught himself sail-making and, after working using the barge Marjorie’s copious hold as a sail loft, he set up in Brightlingsea creating James Lawrence Sailmakers. He built the business making sails for tall ships down to local dinghies and many of the smacks and ex-working craft of the east coast. By 1979 he was employing nine sail makers in the business, which is now run by his son in law Mark Butler. He remained active even in retirement and more recently helped design the rig and sails of the new Blue Mermaid barge. He was one of the founders of the Colne Smack Preservation Society in 1971.
When he retired, Jim bought and ran the Aldous of Brightlingsea-built 1930 bawley Saxonia and ran her as a charter business. Taking her out and around the Colne he would regale eager visitors with his wealth of sailing barge lore and tales. He was the real deal, using a lead and line for sounding depth, and could relate how a barge would take on a huffler or two – men with long poles (barge poles) who would help navigate a barge up or down river.
He could tell you about the hay barges – cargoes his old skipper carried, of hay and straw for London horses in the Edwardian era. “They’d sail with 80 tonnes of it, stacked 14ft (4.3m) above the deck. The sail would be sheeted down one side of the cargo. And the downdraft of the wind would push the barge to windward.”
Shooting bridges when coming downriver on a falling tide, or going up on a rising one was a habitual hazard that called for great skill as well as the brute strength of lowering and then hoisting the rig. “The highest thing aboard the barge has to be the spoke of the wheel,” Jim told me, bringing home just how sleek, and how slick, the operation had to be.
Jim was always in high demand as a skipper on the sailing barges and would sail again on Marjorie with her owner over the last three decades, Simon Devonshire KC. “I don’t know what I could say about Jim that would capture his essence in a brief comment. A few years ago he came aboard with Steve Hall (of North Sea Sails) to help measure up for a new running sail. Although a very successful sailmaker in his own right, Steve cheerfully confided in me that for him Jim would always be the guv’nor. I could only agree; that is exactly how I felt every time he stepped aboard the Marjorie. I have never met a man I admired more.”
In his late 80s Jim could be seen sailing his Yachting World 14 footer out of Brightlingsea with a modified lugsail rig. In 2018 he published a memoirs – London Light. His wife Pauline, with whom he had three daughters, died in 2018.