Counting on the sea: Quantifying the rise of seaborne trade serving the United Kingdom 1820-1913

This article presents a data set that provides the basis for a quantitative narrative of the work done by domestic and foreign merchant shipping serving the United Kingdom 1820 - 1913. Using ton-miles (weight of goods times the distance carried) as an output measure a detailed description is provided along two dimensions: countries and commodities. Annual estimates of ton-miles are provided for 479 import goods and 525 export goods in UK trade with 90 countries and provinces. Two issues have been chosen to illustrate the use of the new data: the gain from the Suez Canal and the trend growth of shipping output as an indicator of trade globalisation. There is very firm evidence that the trend rate of growth in inward shipping volumes was highest in the decades in the middle of the nineteenth century before 1870. This is in contrast to the conventional perception that the period after 1870 represents the first era of trade globalisation. For imports to the United Kingdom from all countries the gain in terms of reduced ton-miles from shortening trade routes via the Suez Canal is calculated for each year from the opening of the canal in 1870 to 1913. On the eve of World War One the Suez gain is estimated at 26 per cent for imports from Suez affected routes, from all countries there is a 10 per cent reduction in ton-miles.