Deal porter

The deal porters were a specialist group of workers in London's docks.

They handled baulks of softwood or "deal", stacking them up to 60 feet (18 m) high in quayside warehouses.

Deal porters wore special leather headgear (backing hats) with long "aprons" over their shoulders in order to protect their heads and necks from wooden splinters.

The New Survey of London Life and Labour, published in 1928, noted: Most of the deal porters worked at the Surrey Commercial Docks in Rotherhithe, which specialised in timber.

They were eventually rendered obsolete by the 1940s as mechanisation provided a better and cheaper way of moving timber cargo, and less arduous jobs became available elsewhere.