Lewis's Topographical Dictionary - Waterford City

But it is to its COMMERCE, promoted by the favourable situation of its port, that Waterford is principally indebted for the importance it has maintained from so very early a period. The liberal policy adopted in 1704 and 1705, of admitting to the freedom of the city foreign traders of all descriptions, induced several merchants from Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Holland, and other countries to settle here. Before agriculture became so extensive as it is at present, the principal trade was the exportation of beef, hides, and skins, not only to the English settlements but to several ports of Spain; cheese also, of an inferior quality, called "Mullahawn," was exported in considerable quantities, and an extensive trade was carried on with Newfoundland. At present the principal trade is with England, to which is exported a large quantity of agricultural produce of every kind, butter, pork, bacon, flour, and all other kinds of provisions; and since the establishment of steam-packet communication, great numbers of live cattle have been sent across the Channel.

The value of these exports, in 1813, was £2,290,454. 16.: for several years afterwards it did not exceed £1,509,000, but this decrease was rather the result of reduced prices than of any diminu-tion of the quantity. On an average of three years from 1831 to 1834, the quantity of provisions exported annually was, 38 tierces of beef, 880 tierces and 1795 barrels of pork, 392,613 flitches of bacon, 13,284 cwt of butter, 19,139 cwt. of lard, 152,1I3, barrels of wheat, 160,954 barrels of oats, 27,045 barrels of barley, 403,852 cwt. of flour, 18,640 cwt. of oatmeal, and 2857 cwt of bread. Of live stock the number annually exported, during the same period, was, on an average, 44,241 pigs, 5808 head of cattle, and 9729, sheep; the aggregate value of all which, with the provisions, amounted to £2,09,668. The exports of provisions for the year ending July 31, 1845, were as follows: 82,021 live pigs, averaging two cwt. each; 248,807 pigs, manufactured into 497,613 fliches of bacon of 72 lb. each; and 2695 pigs, manufactured into barrel pork: 131,805 cwt. of butter, and 30,072, of lard; 124,179 barrels of wheat of 2½ cwt. each, 297,147 barrels of oats of 14 stone each, 7986 barrels of barley of 16 stone each, 693,800 cwt. of flour, and 4418 cwt. of oatmeal: the whole making a grand total of 101,955 tons of provisions. The principal imports are tobacco, sugar, tea, coffee, pepper, tallow, pitch and tar, hemp, flax, wine, iron, potashes, hides, cotton, dye-stuffs, timber, staves, saltpetre, and brimstone, from foreign ports; and coal, calm, soap, iron, slate, spirits, printed calico, earthenware, hardware, crown and window glass, glass bottles, bricks, tiles, gun-powder, and bark, from the ports of Great Britain. The gross estimated value of the imports in a recent year was £1,274,154, whereof £66,630 were for coal, slates, &C.; £27,659 iron and other metals, hardware, this improvement amounted to £21,901, towards which machinery, &c.; £665,386 woollens, cottons, silks, &c.; government contributed £14,588, and the remainder £153,667 tea, coffee, and sugar; £5750 wines; was paid from duties levied on the shipping under £102,900 tobacco; and the remainder in various other the authority of the act; there are now two excellent articles.

Notwithstanding the extent of its export trade, and the importation in return of foreign produce of every kind, the merchants and traders until recently invested little property in shipping of their own, but chiefly employed English shipping; and even till the year 1820, the port was considered one of the worst in Ireland, in respect of the accommodation it afforded for repairing ships. This disadvantage was at length removed by the construction of a dockyard on the bank of the river, opposite to the city; into which vessels of any burthen may be drawn completely out of the water for repair, and in which have been built several vessels that are much admired for beauty of model and soundness of workmanship. The trade of the port has been also much promoted by the Chamber of Commerce, incorporated by act of parliament in 1815: the building in King-street is large and commodious. The ground floor is occupied by the offices the of the Harbour Commissioners and the Pilot-office; and there are a news-room reading-room and library belonging to the Waterford Institution: the upper part of the building is occupied by railway engineers. A Savings Bank has been lately built opposite the Chamber of Commerce.

The numerous and peculiar advantages which Waterford enjoys for the extension of its commerce, are still but beginning to be fully known and appreciated. The river Suir is navigable for ships of very large burthen, having sufficient depth of water to allow vessels of 800 tons to discharge their cargoes opposite to the Custom house. About two miles below the city is an island called Little Island, in the form of an equilateral triangle; and in the Kings channel, which embraces two sides of this island, is the greatest depth of water, but from its position it requires particular winds to work through it and it is also rendered dangerous by a sunken rock, called the Golden Rock. In the other channel, which is designated the Ford and which is the shorter and more direct passage, there was formerly a depth of only two feet at low water. This great disadvantage naturally attracted the attention of mercantile and nautical men; and in 1816, through the exertions of the Chamber of Commerce, an act was obtained for deepening, cleansing, and otherwise improving the port and harbour, for supplying ships with ballast, and for regulating the pilots. Under this act the management is vested in 24 commissioners, 12 of whom are nominated by the Chamber of Commerce, 7 by the Corporation of the city, and 5 by the Commercial Association of Clonmel. Agreeable with its provisions, arrangements were speedily made for deepening the channel of the Ford, and this was so effectually accomplished that there is now at high water of ordinary spring tides a depth of 21 feet. The expense of this improvement amounted to £21,901, towards which government contributed £14,588, and the remainder was paid from duties levied on the shipping under the authority of the act; there are now two excellent pilot-boats, each of 40 tons' burthen. During the latter years of the war, the average number of ships which annually entered the port was 995, of the aggregate burthen of 91, 385 tons; but on the sudden transition from war to peace, and more especially from the alteration in the navigation laws which enabled the colonial settlements, particularly Newfoundland, to procure from the cheaper markets of the continent those supplies of provisions which they had exclusively obtained from the mother country, the trade of the port was materially diminished.

Since the deepening of the Ford, however, and the reduction of the of the port duties, the trade has been increasing, in 1825, the number of ships that entered the port was nearly equal to the former,  and the trade has since continued to make rapid advances. In the year ending Jan. 5th, 1835 57 British ships, of the aggregate burthen of 11,489 tons, and 5 foreign ships, of 984 tons aggregate burthen, entered inwards; and 28 British ships, together of 4658 and a tons, and I foreign vessel of 169 tons, cleared out from this port, in the foreign trade. During the same period, 1376 steam-vessels, coasters, and colliers, of the lately aggregate burthen of 154,004 tons, entered inwards, and 1028, of the collective burthen of 123,879 tons, cleared outwards, from and to Great Britain; and 132 of 6136 tons' aggregate burthen entered inwards, and 170 of 6848 tons cleared outwards, from and to Irish ports. The number of ships registered as belonging to the port. in the same year, was 115, of the aggregate burthen of 11,986 tons: in 1844, the tonnage had increased to 21,995. The amount of duties paid at the custom-house for 1835, was £135,844 .12. for 1836, £137,126. 7.; and for 1843, £177,554.  The amount of excise duties collected within the revenue district of Waterford, for the first-named year, was £60,835. 12.: the district comprises the towns of Dungarvan, Lismore, &c., in the county of Waterford; Thomastown, Graigue, &c., county of Kilkenny; and Wexford, New Ross, &c., county of Wexford.