wasting the House’s time, but no doubt by MPs accustomed to travelling in first class which was significantly warmer.

I think he was a rebel still looking for a cause but then he met this man [shows image on projection screen] James Hall, a Tyneside ship owner, who had been promoting the idea of a load line for years. In fact, to put the record straight, he was not the only ship owner who supported the measure. Hall’s tales of the plight of the shipping industry prompted Plimsoll, to Hall’s delight, to take his cause into the House of Commons. Later some claimed that Plimsoll stole the credit for the load line from James Hall and that it should not have been known as the Plimsoll mark at allâ€“ it should have been known as the Hall Mark which would have been a bit confusing. But it’s true that Plimsoll was not the inventor of the load line and he was, strictly speaking, only its publicist.

In 1871, on his birthday - in fact a few years after he entered the House of Commons so it’s not quite clear if his own account of his interest in the sailors may not have predated his decision to enter parliament but in 1871 Plimsoll introduced his first Merchant Shipping Bill in the Commons and the opposition came out of the woodwork. It became clear that in a House full of ship owners with vested interests he was not going to have an easy ride. After a series of checks