Sailortowns
Sailortowns are not port cities as one might think, but were districts in major port cities around the world. These were usually located at dockyards, harbours or, as in the case of London, on large rivers near a harbour or Dock.
Portsmouth Point, by Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827) (x)
Sometimes it was just one street, sometimes a small district and sometimes several districts at the same time but always with quick access to the ships. In these areas, which depending on the city could have existed since the 16th century, every sailor, no matter where he came from, could get what he needed and get rid of what he no longer brought.
One of Londons Sailortowns were around the Western Dock (x)
There were boarding houses, taverns, pubs, brothels, pawnbrokers, ship chandlers, tailors, clerks, tobacconists, even small churches and translators, dealers for scrimshaws, surgeons and much more.
A replica of a Sailortown in the Museum of London Docklands (x)
A Sailortown was notorious, a place where no one liked to go, because apart from the typical working-class district like Whitechapel in London, only the lower strata of society stayed here. That was true to a certain extent, there was an increased criminality there, in the form of brawls, illegal gambling, boxing matches, black marketeering, shanghaiing, fraud, etc., but mostly the residents sorted it out among themselves. Rather, it was a world of its own that was tailored to the Sailors' needs, and very clever retailers went there to acquire the best and unique goods that the men had brought with them from all over.
Queen Street, Portsea. ‘Sailortown’ Territory in Portsmouth, early 20th century (x)
Unfortunately, these Sailortowns were also lost when most of the ports changed or even closed and so most of them dissolved at the latest in the middle of the 20th century, but remains can still be seen today, even if one would not necessarily associate it with a Sailortown.
