The origins of the Sailors’ Society
On 18th March, 1818, a public meeting took place at the City of London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street, London, England under the chairmanship of Mr Benjamin Shaw, MP when a new Society to be known as the Port of London Society was formed to minister to the religious needs of seamen.
The Minutes of that Meeting record that ‘…it appeared to this Meeting that Britain owes much of its national security, political independence and commercial greatness to the instrumentality of its numerous and intrepid Seamen; who have therefore an urgent claim upon the benevolence of those who enjoy the fruits of their adventurous and toilsome service – that while a laudable and liberal attention has been shown to their temporal interests, no direct and adequate moves have been employed to promote their Religious instruction, their Moral reformation, and their Eternal happiness…’
The first act of the Society was to commission an ex-naval sloop, the ’Speedy’, to be rebuilt internally and converted into a floating chapel moored at Wapping Stairs in the heart of London docklands. It was aboard this hull that the first fully appropriated seaman’s church was dedicated on 14th May,1818, popularly referred to by seafarers as the ‘Ark’.
Many other similar societies were formed around this time but on 3rd July, 1833, another public meeting was held at the same tavern as before and it was resolved with the then Port Society to form a merged society between it and the newer national interdenominational seamen’s mission society known quite simply as the ‘Sailors’ Society’. So the ‘British and Foreign Sailors’ Society’ was formed for promoting the moral and religious improvement of the sailors of the day.
In 1905 that society became a company limited by guarantee and in 1925 its name was altered to the British & Foreign Sailors’ Society (At Home and Abroad) Incorporated – commonly called the British Sailors’ Society.
Becoming known as the British & International Sailors’ Society in 1995, after yet another name change, its name was more and more commonly being abbreviated and the Society tended to be referred to only by its mnemonic BISS, which tendency was to render the organisation even more into obscurity.
Accordingly, in 2007 the Society was again renamed simply as the ‘Sailors’ Society’ as it was famously known back in 1833. It was re-branded in a modern and distinctive form of logo to retain the emblems of the Dove of Peace and the Holy Spirit, and the Star of Hope in its symbol. Those same motifs that appeared upon the early Bethel flag that was traditionally hoisted aloft on a ship to signify to seamen that a particular ship in port was to be the host vessel for that evening’s religious and social meeting.
The origins of the Star and the Dove
In 1814, a Captain Wilkins, the Master of a collier ship, decided with other colliermen and like minded colleagues from Rotherhithe, that the lantern that had regularly been hoisted up the mast of the ship chosen for worship during the dark days of the winter was becoming useless as a signal as spring approached, and daylight lengthened into the evening.
They chose a flag as the alternative signal and had great debate about how it should look. It was realised that a piece of bunting adorned with the simple word ‘BETHEL’ would suffice. Bethel was known to be a word appearing in the Old Testament, signifying the House of God. So it was that the flag was made out of blue bunting with large white lettering spelling out the simple word. It was hoisted for the first time on 23 March, 1817 a Sunday, on a collier brig named ‘Zephryr’.
It is said that the Star of Hope and the Dove of Peace with an olive branch in its beak – held also to relate to the Biblical account of Noah and the Ark – were added to the flag in July 1817. Amazingly, these main motifs have remained throughout the Society’s long and illustrious history and continue to be the distinctive elements by which it is recognised today.