6. Chip on Your Shoulder, October - November 2020

Our first exhibition, Chip on Your Shoulder, took place in October-November 2020 and looked at intersections between the Deptford Dockyard’s role in the violent histories of enslavement and colonisation, and in the lives of ship-builders, seamen and other, often exploited workers, living in Britain. How do these histories link with communities who live in Deptford today?

The term ‘chip on your shoulder’ was used by eighteenth century shipbuilders who worked tirelessly during a period of employer corruption and wildly fluctuating wages. It described a form of self-authorised payment used on the many occasions they did not get paid at all. The workers would take the scraps of wood that were not being used to sell in local markets. Arduously carrying these large sacs of wood chip to sell, they were the first, it is said, to have had a ‘chip’ on their shoulders.

For many of us who are children of the Windrush generation in Britain, our first contact with this term was in schools. When we responded critically to experiences of bullying and institutional violence, we were told that we had “a chip on our shoulder”.

The term connects these two very different experiences of Deptford across time and space. The exhibition explored these connections through walks, an installation of materials documenting slave revolts and worker resistance, and talks.

Chip on Your Shoulder was curated by Ken Thomas and Joyce Jacca at Deptford People’s Heritage Museum in partnership with The Lenox Project and supported by the Naval Dockyard Society.