tacklehouse

English

Alternative forms

• tackle-house, tackle house

Etymology

tackle +‎ house where "tackle" refers to a device for grasping and moving objects, which was used by the porters belonging to the tacklehouse.

Noun

tacklehouse (plural tacklehouses)

1. A building located at a port, and the corresponding business operated by one of the major shipping companies, that employs porters to load and unload goods from ships.
   • 1977, Anne Crawford, A history of the Vintners' Company, page 167:

     The under beadle, Philip Huffa, was to be accommodated with lodgings above the tacklehouse, and the Company's cellars were built in beneath it.

   • 1997, Joseph P. Ward, Metropolitan Communities: Trade Guilds, Identity, and Change in Early Modern London, page 50:

     In 1648, the officers commissioned the company's carpenter and bricklayer to design and build a new tacklehouse by the river to assist merchants in unloading ships, a project that cost more than £20.

   • 2003, Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century, page 167:

     On the other side of the Atlantic 'tacklehouse' and 'ticket' porters unloaded the ships.

See also

tackle-porter