Plimsoll, Samuel [key], 1824–98, English reformer. Plimsoll was particularly interested in the welfare of sailors. As a member of Parliament (1868–80) he secured legislation limiting the loading of ships. It required that a line be painted on the sides of all British merchant vessels to show the limit of submergence allowed by law. This line has come to be known as the Plimsoll mark or Plimsoll line. He wrote Our Seamen (1872).
See D. Masters, The Plimsoll Mark (1955).
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