© Museum of London Docklands 2015. This sheet is designed to be edited by teachers. The museum cannot take responsibility for edited content.

Teachers’ notesThese activities help your pupils build on their handling and gallery drama sessions through exploration of the First Port of Empire and Warehouse of the World galleries. They are designed to focus their time in the museum through guided looking, talking and role-play.

Our aim is that pupils should engage with the museum exhibits rather than worksheets. Each activity can be done in pairs, or in groups of up to six.

You can choose to distribute all the activity cards, or select those you feel are most appropriate for your class. It is possible to keep the class in one gallery at a time, or set groups off on their own with an accompanying adult. Make sure each adult has a copy of the activity.

Please bring a camera to photograph your pupils at work. You’ll see that many activities suggest that pupils are photographed, which can be a reminder of their visit as well as a way of recording their work. You could also film their role-plays.

Life in the Victorian docksGallery activities

© Museum of London Docklands 2015. This sheet is designed to be edited by teachers. The museum cannot take responsibility for edited content.

Word bankAfter your visit to Maeve Dawson, use these thought clouds to record adjectives about Sailortown.

You could use these words in your writing about the Victorian East End when you’re back at school.

Poverty, work and life in the Victorian docksSailortown

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Tea time

Find the black cabinet full of tea samples.

How many different types of tea can you see?

Why aren’t there any teabags?

Who drinks tea in your family?

What kind of tea do they drink?

Where do they buy it from?

What other drinks do people in your family like?

Life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World gallery

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Sugar and spice and all things nice

Find the smell boxes.

On your own: Try to identify each product from its smell. Open each box and have a good sniff!

In pairs: Share your ideas with someone in your group. Do you agree with them? You might need another sniff!Now check the label to see if you are right.

In your group: Discuss how many of these products people in your group have tasted or used before. What did they use them for?

Feel the other objects on the table. Describe how they feel, look and smell.

Where might they have come from? Who might and used them and how?

Life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World gallery

© Museum of London Docklands 2015. This sheet is designed to be edited by teachers. The museum cannot take responsibility for edited content.

Warehouse workers

Look around the Warehouse of the World gallery.

What other goods arrived at London’s docks?

Where did they come from?

Explore the recreated workshops.

What jobs might people have done in the docks? List three here:

1.

2.

3.

Life in the Victorian docksWarehouse of the World gallery

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Living conditionsFind the pictures of families in the 1889 Dock Strike area.

What clues are there in the pictures that tell you these families are poor?

Where do you think the woman’s husband might be?

What do you think the children might be thinking about?

Explore the recreated living room and create a role-play between two of the children.

Life in the Victorian docksFirst Port of Empire gallery

© Museum of London Docklands 2015. This sheet is designed to be edited by teachers. The museum cannot take responsibility for edited content.

A docker’s lifeIf a dock worker was successful at the call-on, an hour’s work unloading a ship would earn him 5d (5 old pence).

A bed for a night and use of the kitchen in a common lodging house cost 2d.

Look at the food prices below from 1901. How long would a docker have had to work to earn enough to buy this food?

A loaf of bread 3d

Milk (one pint) 2d

Cheese (one pound) 10d

Eggs (one dozen) 11d

Bacon (one pound) 10d

Chicken (each) 1s*

Tea (one pound) 1s/2

Cup of hot eels ½d

Pint of pea soup ½d

*One shilling (1s) = 12 old pence (12d)

Why do you think a docker with a family might accept badly paid work?

Life in the Victorian docksFirst Port of Empire gallery

© Museum of London Docklands 2015. This sheet is designed to be edited by teachers. The museum cannot take responsibility for edited content.

The call-onFind the images of the call-on in the 1889 Dock Strike area.

Every day up to 3,000 men arrived at the docks hoping to get a few hours’ work unloading the ships that arrived in the docks from all over the world.

A man called a ‘ganger’ was in charge of choosing who would work on the docks that day. He had a certain number of tokens to give out.

What sort of men do you think the ganger would choose to unload the ships?

Do you think this is a fair way to give people work?

How would you feel if you were a dock worker who had not had any work for a week?

Life in the Victorian docksFirst Port of Empire gallery

© Museum of London Docklands 2015. This sheet is designed to be edited by teachers. The museum cannot take responsibility for edited content.

The Great Dock Strike 1889The dock workers who walked out on strike wanted:

a rise in pay of 1d to 6d an hour – known as ‘the Docker’s Tanner’. (a tanner was another word for sixpence)

a minimum of four hours’ work and pay each day 8d an hour for overtime from 6pm to 6am.

Draw a banner that could be carried by a striking docker. Use the stevedores’ banner as inspiration.

Life in the Victorian docksFirst Port of Empire gallery