Wharfinger
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Wharfinger is an archaic term for a person who is the keeper or owner of a wharf. The wharfinger took custody of and was responsible for goods delivered to the wharf, typically had an office on the wharf or dock, and was responsible for day-to-day activities including slipways, keeping tide tables and resolving disputes. The word's etymology is probably Elizabethan-era English.[1] An 1844 usage appears in Pigot's Directory of Dorset[2] in which Beales and Cox are noted to be wharfingers for the Port of Weymouth.
[edit] Uses
- Richard Wharfinger is the name of a fictional Jacobean playwright—author of The Courier's Tragedy--in Thomas Pynchon's 1965 novel The Crying of Lot 49.
- British Author Jane Wilson-Howarth's grandfather listed his occupation on his daughter's birth certificate in 1926 as wharfinger; he was supervisor of a warehouse in the London Docks between the wars.
