1744
Trinity House Keep a Thames Waterman from the Press Gangs
Trinity House Board Minute:
“A certificate to the officers employed in empressing seamen, not to Impress John Goodcheape, employed as a waterman to row the Deputy Master and Wardens, was issued under the seal of the Corporation.”
Trinity House had the right to license mariners to row on the Thames as watermen. These watermen were both older and fewer in number than the apprentices and freemen of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen.