Civic body
Dover Quay Office
Also called Quay Office · the quay office · the Office
The Dover office that keeps the pilots' licensed roll (writing the names down without choosing them), enters and lists licensed interpreters, and holds harbour records including loss figures. A room at its back is used to keep bodies awaiting a winter inquest.
The office set up at the end of the Pilot Wars, when a licensed roll of pilots was made. It records pilot passages and fees, and during the Black Wake it asked the Brethren in writing to attend the water.
Ties
- keeps the roll of the Dover pilots' roll
- younger than the Port-reeve of Dover
- received the Brethren's letter on the foreshore during the Black Wake
- the Dover Packet Office's record room lies off it
- holds the licensed roll of Dover pilots
- wrote to the Brethren during the Black Wake
In the chronicle
At the table
It has no power over a pilot's refusal and, when appealed to by a master whom a pilot refused on a shut day, replied in writing that it had no view. It has never asked for the pilots' list of masters who sought irregular routes, nor about unexplained sailings. A clerk there once counted the packet calendar's unexplained withdrawals and found them clustered on three hulls in which the pilots hold shares. Older quaymen fear it will replace the port-reeve's office. Keeps the Brethren's four-line reply. Its records have never been reconciled with the pilots' own book. Hires bands for escort and watching.