was one of her earliest acts of protest.

Public outrage forced Disraeli to rush through a stop-gap Merchant Shipping Bill before the end of the session. He admitted in private letters that he had feared for his political future. [shows image on projection screen] And here he is doing penance in a shroud marked ‘Stopgap Merchant Shipping Bill’ and around him sailors are still raising the issues that were unresolved by the Act.

[shows image on projection screen] Here from Fun magazine, Popular Opinion in the guise of Britannia brings Disraeli to his knees, while Plimsoll in the background looks on, rolling his sleeves up for a fight or perhaps rolling them down after one. And the caption to this one is ‘An all powerful supporter’. And Popular Opinion isthe idea of an “owner’s loadline”, which he could set where he pleased. One captain, a Welshman from Cardiff, put it on the funnel of his ship.

The Act was a triumph of public opinion over vested interest, but it was not a complete victory. It took another 14 years before the compulsory loadline was fixed. Plimsoll felt he still had work to do. He travelled at first, ostensibly to rest from the strain of his campaign, [shows image on projection screen] and here he is on the deck of a ship travelling from Malta to Constantinople. He’s sitting in the corner, partly obscured, with Eliza behind him. When he returned, incidentally, he was back in Liverpool addressing a meeting about his findings about loading abroad.

Here they are closer