Searching for new routes (15th-20th centuries)

Two major complementary poles of activity, with well established maritime trading links, shaped this new economic geography at either end of an axis that stretched from the Italian ports of Pisa, Genoa and Venice to the Northern European cloth towns of Ghent, Ypres and Bruges.

Growth, of course, creates new needs as well as demands which, in turn, spurred both the economic and geographical expansion of Europe. Voyages of discovery provided the means to enlarge horizons, opening up new sea routes, new lands and resources. Cartier’s northwesterly exploration would lead to the discovery of the St. Lawrence River, Champlain’s later founding of Quebec and France’s lucrative trade in Canadian furs, fish and timber. During the same period, Drake was attacking Portuguese and Spanish shipping for their spices, gold and silver, before making the second circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580. Like Drake, carrying ‘letters’ from his Queen, many seafarers were privateers, viewed as a legitimate arm of the war effort at sea. On the French side, those who engaged in privateering in Channel and Atlantic waters were equally renowned, like Ango from Dieppe and Cartier, Duguay-Trouin and Surcouf from St. Malo – ‘City of Privateers.’

The 17^th century ushered in a new commercial age, during which the English, French and Dutch embarked on building their respective colonial empires. The great trading companies played a decisive role organising joint stock ventures and associations of merchants. In Britain the state confined itself to offering monopolies and charters, but in France the Crown was more interventionist, subsidising their activities. Over two centuries the British East India Company would grow into a globally powerful commercial enterprise controlling half of the world’s trade. It also administered an embryonic empire, none of which was achieved without conflict. The three Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17^th century arose from the new Navigation Acts, an English attempt to control access to northern sea lanes. Rivalry between the English and the French for colonial supremacy would shift the struggles across the oceans. Between Cromwell’s great imperialist project and the Victorian hegemony, the importance of naval policy in the affirmation of state power was always more in evidence on the English than on the French side.

In the Channel, maritime commerce not only continued largely unaffected by war, but expanded. The rise of the Hansa ports had already ensured a more than proportionate growth of London’s share of the ocean trade. Between the 16^th and 18^th centuries many of the Channel ports became cosmopolitan and prosperous trading centres. Some, like Southampton, would lose momentum for a time, while Le Havre would have to await the relinquishing of its military role before its commerce could grow. Meanwhile upstream the river port of Rouen, serving the rich hinterland of the Paris basin, maintained its pre-eminence in Normandy, both as a port and as a regional financial centre. On the English side the West Country ports were amongst the most active. The new town of Falmouth, with its fine natural harbour virtually at the entrance to the Channel would grow to become the largest settlement in Cornwall by 1801, dominating the import trade in heavy timber for construction as well as the export of tin to London and the continent. By the late 17^th century, Newfoundland fishery and the associated shipment of cod to catholic southern Europe, was booming as never before, bringing unprecedented growth to Dartmouth. This trade was no less important across the Channel with specialisation and choice of fishing grounds varying between ports – Granville westwards for cod on the “Grand Banks,” Boulogne eastwards for herring in the North Sea and Fécamp in both directions.

Both large and small ports in the Channel would develop trading links with the plantation colonies of the growing French and British Empires of North America and the Caribbean, with Le Havre third-placed in France by 1788. More generally, both ship-owners and merchants were establishing local companies whose lineage would survive several generations into the modern era. Amongst the most notable French ship-owners, with a fleet between 20 and 30 ships, was Jean Ango who played a key role in the early development of Dieppe and the expansion of the Atlantic trade in the first half of the 16^th century.

There was, of course, during this whole period a highly lucrative but unofficial trade, particularly in luxury goods, along both coasts. Smuggling, involving all social classes and producing coalitions of interest within and between communities across the Channel, was a major maritime activity in popular defiance of government economic policies. Ironically, it flourished particularly well during times of war!

Through overseas trade England and France were able to access greater resources, enlarge their markets, exploit new technologies and export capital. By the middle of the 19^th century Britain’s Industrial Revolution had made it the “workshop of the world,” producing more than half of Europe’s total energy output and accounting for half of the world market in manufactured goods. The spread of such technological, commercial and financial expertise across the Channel to other countries was rapid. It was clearly felt in the coalmining and textile areas of northeastern France and more directly the 1840s in the awarding of contracts to British engineers to construct much of the railway network between Paris and the Normandy and Picardy coast. The remarkable improvements in transportation, including the development and use of steamships, greatly expanded the market for manufactured and other goods.

Urbanisation was one of the most visible changes caused by population growth, particularly after 1750. Rural-urban migration fundamentally shifted the balance of population distribution in the ensuing century and a half, albeit more slowly in France than in Britain. If internal migration emerged as one of the most significant social phenomena of the age, so too did emigration to other countries. Material progress had by no means been equally shared by all and the hope of economic opportunity in the New World saw ever growing waves of emigrants from Europe. In the 1830s, European emigration totalled around 100 000 each year, by the turn of the century it was over 1 500 000. Towards the end of the century, most of the mass exodus from Eastern Europe and Russia would pass through Cherbourg, Southampton and Le Havre.

Cherbourg developed its vocation as a commercial port largely in response to the growing tide of emigration to North America. By 1900, passenger traffic had grown to 30 000 and by 1929 it exceeded 200  000, carried by 11 shipping companies. The much acclaimed “Art Deco” style of the interior design and furnishings of the Cherbourg terminal recalled a previous age when the transatlantic liner had become the symbol of technological progress and national prestige. The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, owned by the Pereire brothers, had signed a contract in 1860 with the French government to provide a Le Havre-New York service for a 20-year period. Cunard outbid Brunel to win the Atlantic contract, but meanwhile the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company had already made Southampton its port for its trade with the Iberian Peninsular. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the addition of “Orient” in its name, the P&O expanded its now uninterrupted passenger routes to India and Australia. Likewise, in 1842 the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company connected Southampton to the West Indies and the Union Line to South Africa. As with Cherbourg’s role as a gateway to the French colonies, Southampton also supplied the military expeditions of the 19^th century British Empire, culminating with the British Expeditionary Force to France in 1914. Competition from air transport led to the closure of the Cherbourg ocean terminal in 1968, followed by that in Southampton in 1980, marking the end of the great “Transat” era.