‘A Tale of Two Cities’ - Cambridge Core - Journals...

‘A Tale of Two Cities’. The Memory of Ferrol, between the Navyand the Working Class.*

José María Cardesín

‘It was clearer than crystal to the lords of theState preserves of loaves and fishes, that things ingeneral were settled for ever’Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

‘Because I do it with a little ship only, I am calleda thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are calledan emperor’Augustinus, De Civitate Dei

odern political culture was formed – amongst otherthings- by practices of power. It was devised in thecities, because the institutions of power were

founded there and, in addition to this, cities posed new challenges forthe provision, logistics and control of the population. Many cities ofthe Age of Enlightenment - particularly those built up on a militarybasis - were places where the new disciplinary technologies 1 thatoperated through a coercive organization of space, or the policies ofmemory 2 that attempted to manufacture consent were to be put to thetest. There, elaborate scenographies were to be organized, in order toshow off the ceremonial rituals of the state and the elite. Yet thepopulation did not remain the passive recipients of these practices ofpower: instead they qualified them and created limitations for theirapplication to everyday life, openly calling them into question duringtimes of crisis,3 and reinterpreting the ideas of official politicalculture to suit their own ends.4 The history of the founding of Ferrolis a clear illustration of this. The city was designed ‘ex-novo’ bymilitary engineers to serve the Spanish monarchy of the Age ofEnlightenment, housing its naval base and dockyards. The principles

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of stratification on which society was based, and the need to defendthe city from enemy attacks and to discipline workers led to theapplication of a spatial plan charged with violence and with thesegregation of the Navy officers and the working-classes. Yet thisorganization of space demanded a highly costly coercive system,which clashed openly with working-class people when unfavourableeconomic and political circumstances reduced the financial andcoercive capacity of the State.

In the long term, the changes brought about by internationaleconomics and geopolitics and by the art of war had a direct impacton the viability of the city. In addition, changes in political cultureand class alliances led to a redefinition of the practices of power. Inthe 19th century, the naval base and the enclave economy of Ferrolbecame obsolete. Furthermore, the new political culture of the nationstate and liberal democracy complicated even further the alreadycomplex task of controlling a working class which could eventuallyforge an alliance with the local bourgeoisie. Ferrol’s spatial planproved ineffective against enemy attacks or in disciplining workers,and hindered the growth of the city. The various projects aimed atreformulating the city’s spatial plan were based on different policiesof memory that attempted to reinterpret the city’s history. Thepolitical culture of outright confrontation that led to the Civil Warallowed for the updating of Ferrol’s spatial plan thanks to theidentification of a single – and ‘accessible’ – enemy both inside andoutside. The pro-Franco Navy converted the political repressionagainst the working-class people into a major issue in the victoryagainst ‘the red enemy’: the II Republica. The Franco regime meantthe return of a segregated and militarised Ferrol, whereas in the1980s, European integration and the transition to democracy madethis model obsolete. Ever since, the difficulties the city hasencountered in outlining an alternative development project andtracing a policy of memory agreed by consensus have been directlylinked, and are at once both the cause and effect of the lack ofstability that exists in local politics.

Ferrol 1 Urban History

The Shipyards of the Bourbon Monarchy (1750)

Source: Own work

A.- A city charged throughout history with segregation andviolence.

Ferrol was founded as the result of a political decision. Aftersigning the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 the new Bourbon dynasty optedto reorganize the Navy, since it was necessary to defend the Spanishcoast and the American colonies, and to protect trade. The coast ofthe Iberian Peninsula was divided into three maritime departments,and naval bases and dockyards were set up around their capital cities.Whilst Cartagena became the seat of the Department of Levante (theMediterranean Sea), and Cadiz for the South [Atlantic], the capital ofthe Northern Department was located in the northwest of thePeninsula, on the Galician coast. The Ferrol estuary was strategicallysituated as regards sea traffic, and it could threaten Britishcommunications with America and the East Indies route. The deepdraught estuary was easy to defend since it had a narrow mouthsurrounded by mountains. The only obstacle was the absence of any

urban settlements apart from the small town of Ferrol, henceforthreferred to as ‘Ferrol Viejo’ (Old Ferrol), with just over one thousandinhabitants. The monarchy decided to found a new city, also called‘Ferrol’, and which became the capital of the Maritime Department ofthe North in 1726.5

Map of the inlets of Ferrol, Coruña and Betanzos, by Vicente Tofiño (1787)

Source: Colección Carlos Martínez Barbeito de Estampas de Galicia, Ayuntamiento de ACoruña

The first stage took place during the reign of Felipe V andlasted until 1740. Warehouses, offices and shipyards wereprovisionally located in the small village of A Graña. Two castles (SanFelipe and La Palma) and seven coast batteries made the estuaryimpregnable. In the reign of Fernando VI and under the rule of the


Marquis of Ensenada (1746-54), the shipyards and the civil andmilitary sheds were moved to their current location out at the estuary.The aim was to look for waters of deep draught and an area adjacent tothe coast that was a suitable site for the new city.

The remote situation of the city set midway up the estuarysurrounded by a rugged coast did not aid land communications or thediversification of the economy. The nearby city of A Coruña absorbedthe trading and the administrative functions,6 and communications byland between the two cities were poor. The new enclave’s industrydepended on external decisions, funds and technology. And thestrategic advantages linked to the location and impregnability of theestuary would gradually vanish due to the changes brought about byinternational geopolitics and the art of war. In consequence, thereactivation of the facilities depended increasingly on politicaldecisions in favour of Ferrol or of other different centres. Connectionswith influential national politicians became extremely important.

Ships built in Ferrol (1750-1860)

Source: Own work

The city underwent periods of prosperity and decline,depending on whether the political and economic circumstances ofthe day were favourable for the Navy and shipbuilding industry. Theexpansion during the second half of the 18th century coincided withthe reactivation of the colonial trade and a new naval policy duringthe reigns of Fernando VI and Carlos III. The shipyards, where up totwelve warships could be built at any one time, employed more than5,000 workers. The population grew from 455 ‘vecinos’7 registered inthe 1746 census to 1,208 ‘vecinos’ in 1751, and by the end of thecentury numbered approximately 4,100. This last figure represents atotal of around 20,000 or 25,000 inhabitants. Ferrol by 1800 was themost important city in Galicia.8

The vessel Santísima Trinidad, launched in Havana in 1769

Source: Museo Naval de Madrid


During his time as Secretary of Finance, War, Navy and theIndies, the Marquis of Ensenada worked out a geo-strategic vision, adefensive naval policy and the budgetary funds for the creation ofFerrol. Naval reforms at that time gave priority to warships that couldcombine speed with heavy artillery. Not only were shipyards of Ferrolrefitted for building this kind of vessel; its dockyards were alsoremodelled to fit them out and repair them.9 Installations that includedspecific buildings were needed to facilitate the technical and labourorganization. Navy officers were sent in 1749-50 to spy on the English,French and Baltic dockyards.10

The city of Ferrol, 1859

Source: Colección Carlos Martínez Barbeito de Estampas de Galicia, Ayuntamiento de ACoruña

The most urgent task was to start work on the first vessels. Forthis reason separate shipyards were built in advance in 1749-53, andlocated in Esteiro to the east. Next to the Shipyards, the Dockyards

were built in 1752-70. These consisted of a large dock protected by abreakwater armed with a battery of cannons. The ‘Park Dockyard’acted as a storehouse for the supplies of arms and equipment and thefacilities where masts and spars were assembled. Maintenance andrepair work was carried out in the ‘Dock Dockyard’, particularly thedelicate operation of careening the ship hull. The careening docks wereemptied using pumps, an exhausting –practically lethal- task. That iswhy a ‘Presidio’ was built in the ‘Dock Dockyard’, with a gaol whichcould house 1,000 convicts.11 Moreover, the authorities resortedmassively to forced labour during the early stages of building:hundreds of gypsies and vagabonds, and thousands of unskilledGalician labourers, who attempted to escape en masse.12

Park Dockyard, showing the breakwater and the Arms Hall (1850)

Source: Lithograph of José Alonso Esquivel (1850), Museo Naval de Madrid. Modified byJ. Gelpi

The people who worked in shipyards and dockyards werecalled the ‘maestranza’.13 They were organized in trades, and it was notan easy task to discipline them. Indeed, discipline was made even moredifficult due to the arrears of several months’ payment, a situationwhich would grow steadily worse towards the end of the 18th century.The paralegal practice of picking up ‘splinters’ –surplus pieces of


wood– became an essential complementary income, because it allowedworkers to obtain immediate funds. But this fact might conceallarceny, which was the authorities’ nightmare together with theshirking of duty and insubordination. Sabotage was easy in dockyardswhere combustible materials abounded,14 and pamphlets containingthreats of arson were common weapons in labour disputes.15 Theauthorities tried to suppress the habit of smoking at work, and theystrived to restrict, although unsuccessfully, the popular custom ofburning bonfires during the celebration of ‘Saint John’s Eve’.16

Military control was needed, either over the forced labourersor the free ‘maestranza’ workers, hence the early presence in the cityof regiments of marines, a total of 3,000 soldiers in 1753. Newdisciplinary technologies that operated through a coerciveorganization of space were also developed. The naval facilities wereisolated from the inhabited areas. The Esteiro shipyards weresurrounded by a wall, which had a single entrance. The seven-metre-high wall that enclosed the dockyards was surrounded by a deep andwide moat. It also had a single entrance, the ‘Dock Gate’. The walland moat managed to prevent the theft of materials and tools, and the‘maestranza’ from shirking their duties. They also helped to stopconvicts from escaping, and if the ‘maestranza’ revolted the wall andthe moat blocked the access to the Dockyard, particularly to the‘Arms Hall’ where the cannons and guns were kept. ‘Maestranza’ andseamen were subject to military discipline. The Commander-in-chiefof the Department was chief of both the squadron and the dockyards.In addition, both groups fell within the Navy’s jurisdiction. In 1785,the ‘Penal Acts for the Rule of the “Maestranza” in the RoyalDockyards of the Navy’ established the daily review, and all forms ofoffence were punished with imprisonment or by locking the victim’shands and legs in the stocks situated at the Dock Gate.17

Arms Hall, in the Park Dockyard (1903)

Source: Postcard collection. Property of Ferrol City Council

Such a coercive organization of space was also the basis forthe development of the policies of memory. The dockyards showedan impressive architecture, proclaiming the power of Monarchy. Themonumental ‘Dock Gate’, which was crowned by Carlos III’s coat ofarms, not only welcomed the workers; it was also displayed beforethe whole population. The large clock at the top set the pace of work,as well as that of the city life, as did the siren that indicated when the‘maestranza’ were to start and finish work. In front of the Dock Gate,a fountain-obelisk was built and crowned with an image of ‘Fame’,blowing its clarion in honour of the King.


Dock Gate, Ferrol’s Dockyard (c. 1900)


As the old town of Ferrol Viejo was very small and couldn’thouse the new inhabitants, it was necessary to build a new city that alsowas divided into two neighbourhoods. In 1750s Esteiro was built forthe ‘maestranza’, at the foot of the Shipyards. Opposite the Dockyards,the new neighbourhood called La Magdalena was to house the Navyofficers.

Due to the decision to build the shipyards in advance, theworkers had to be accommodated in nearby areas: first, in barracks,later in wooden huts, and finally in stone houses. The militaryengineers created a grid design for Esteiro. It was more than a centurybefore work on the city installations – the paving and the sewersystem- got underway. The engineers designed a rectangular squarebetween the neighbourhood and the Shipyard, called ‘Esteiro Square’.The Navy Quartermaster offices, the military church, a hospital and abarracks were built there. The ‘Battalions Barracks,’ a magnificent

building, was situated on a vantage point, overlooking the bay, theDockyards, the Shipyard, and the town. The 4,000 soldiers housed inthat building carried out manoeuvres in front of the barracks: theydisplayed their military prowess and were a warning to the‘maestranza’. The ‘Navy Hospital’ depended on military jurisdiction. Itwas also funded by the collecting of ‘splinters’ -surplus pieces ofwood- to the detriment of the workers’ income. Whereas Navy officersand their families were cared for in this hospital, the ‘maestranza’could only be looked after in the event of a labour accident, whilst theirfamilies were not entitled to this hospital care. They would have to goto the ‘Charity Hospital’, situated to the north of La Magdalena.18

A 'Battalions' marine and an Artilleryman (late 18th century)

Source: Watercolour on display in the Museo Naval de Madrid.

A sharp division was established between the ‘maestranza’ andseamen, and the Navy officers, particularly the ‘General Corps’ – theelite in command of a troop or a vessel –. Bourbon reforms ended thestandard practice of promoting seamen to officers. The latter would berequired to show proof of purity of blood and noble origin as aprerequisite to join the new Royal Naval Academy. Besides, in this


region, where two languages coexisted unequally – Galician, spokenby most of the population, and Spanish, the prestige language spokenby the city educated elite – the alien Navy officers would speakSpanish, the ‘maestranza’ Galician. This linguistic segregation lies inthe names of both neighbourhoods: Esteiro is a Galician word meaning‘Tideland’, whereas La Magdalena – in Spanish - means ‘MaryMagdalene’. The Napoleonic Wars had a democratising effect on thesocial origin of the Army officers, but the consequences were differentin the Navy, where an inner recruitment was reinforced by the rotationof officers between the headquarters in Ferrol, Cadiz and Cartagena.

Map of the city of Ferrol (1859)

Source: VVAA, El Barrio de la Magdalena del Ferrol (Santiago de Compostela, 1980).COAG

La Magdalena was designed by military engineers, and its firststage was built at around the same time as the Dockyard.19 By 1755 acity was being planned where the different social classes were mixed,

since Esteiro was a temporary solution and was set to be demolished atsome future stage. But following the fall of the Marquis of Ensenada anew offensive naval policy took hold. The war expenses monopolizedan increasing part of the budget, in detriment to work on the Dockyardsand the new city. In 1761, the military engineer Francisco Llobetconsidered Esteiro a ‘fait accompli’, and designed a smaller LaMagdalena, which was ‘de facto’ set apart for the military men.

San Julián Church (early 20th century)


In 1763, military engineer Julián Sánchez Bort came up withthe final version of the plan: six longitudinal streets, nine cross-streets,identical in width and crossed rectangular blocks of equal size. Twosquares were planned at each end, ‘Dolores [Our Lady of Sorrow]Square’ and the ‘Parade Ground’, which the three main streets led into.The result was a stage, suitable for civil and military parades. It also


facilitated the movement of troops in the event of a revolt (asprescribed by military engineering treatises). Sánchez Bort designedthe first major public ‘tree-lined walk’ in Galicia, called ‘Alameda’,situated between La Magdalena and the wall surrounding theDockyards. This would be a favourite area for strolling and thecelebration of civil ceremonies until the second half of the 19th century.A careful setting was displayed before whoever walked along the‘Alameda’: towards the Dockyards, the ‘Battalions Barracks’, the‘Dock Gate’ and the ‘Arms Hall’; towards La Magdalena, themagnificent San Julián Church, the public Prison (1802), and the‘Capitanía Palace’ (1760), headquarters of the Commander-in-chief ofthe Naval Department and watchtower over the city and theDockyards.20 And it was Sánchez Bort himself who designed the finalplans of the first four buildings, which were officially opened between1765-66. 21

The military authority took charge of the construction of thecity. The Commander-in-chief of the Navy was the ‘Military Chief ofthe Fortress’, and the marines carried out police tasks until 1774.22 Inthat year, the city walls were finished. From a military point of viewtheir poor construction made them useless, but they were anomnipresent reminder of the military jurisdiction, and a valuable aidin the collection of local taxes on food and drinks. Civil authority wasplaced in the hands of an ‘Alcalde Mayor’ (Mayor), who wasappointed at first by the military authority, but from 1774 becameelective. The civil power was lacking in financial resources, and forthis reason the town hall was located opposite the ‘Dock Gate’ inbuildings which it did not own, as occurred with both the Prisonbuilding or the ‘Cátedra de Latinidad’ (a municipal school). Theweakness of the civil power and its subordination to the Navyauthorities would go beyond the first stage of design and the city’searly beginnings. Indeed, the lack of funds and the thorny question ofthe delimitation of jurisdiction meant that the sewer system drainedLa Magdalena sewage into the Dockyard’s moat for more than a

century, causing a stench that failed to be eradicated due to theinability of the Civil and Naval authorities to reach an agreement.

The Navy authorities organized the provisioning of the city andimposed taxes on food and drinks. After 1769, transactions of foodswere carried out around ‘Dolores Square’, near ‘Capitanía Palace’. In1784, peddlers –most of them women- were settled there by force.23 Amoral issue prevailed beyond the desire for controlling prices: todiscipline women’s sexuality since it could carry syphilis, the diseasethat decimated the troops.24

As the “women of the town” do not want to work or serve, they lookfor a scandalous way to spoil humankind [...] the havoc that theGallic disease [syphilis] has been causing for some years in Spain[…] So these women damage the Royal Treasury and the State, hurtthe troops and the seamen, who are always sent to Hospital, andsome of them die and some of them are badly cured [...] In Ferrolthere must be one hundred impure women who meet soldiers,seamen and other lustful people.25

Those women who went along the streets, as peddlers, walkingto their jobs or taking lunch to their relatives, played havoc with theplans to divide the city into watertight compartments, as they passed oninformation and created possibly subversive solidarity networks. But ifin peacetime this reality threatened the coercive organization of spacethat was displayed in Ferrol, the situation became positively explosivein wartime. As the city was unable to get supplies from the outlyingareas and had to obtain most of its grain by sea, the various warsprovoked food crises in the second half of the 18th century. Since themajority of the 30,000 people who lived in the city depended directlyor indirectly on the salaries paid by the Navy,26 social tension rose tounprecedented heights and the coercive organization of space showedits vulnerability whenever the monarchy found itself in financialdifficulties. The ‘maestranza’ revolts to protest wage arrears becamemore and more frequent as the century went on: a riot in 1754, strikesin 1781 and 1791, and a revolt in 1795. The situation became more


serious due to the Napoleonic wars, when in 1805 the Spanish fleetwas destroyed at Trafalgar and many people from Ferrol lost theirlives. Coinciding with the Spanish revolt against the Napoleonicoccupation, convicts rioted in Ferrol in May 1808, followed by theseamen in June.

Scene from a Spanish shipyard (1748)

Source: Royal Acts for the Rule of the Dockyards of the Navy(1748), Museo Naval deMadrid

Late that same month, a ‘Board for the Pacification of Ferrol’was created. It was formed by the most important civil and militaryauthorities, and exceptionally comprised all jurisdictions ‘to take inadvance and beforehand the necessary steps and measures to avoidthe insults and disturbances of the mob, which this big town issuffering’. 27 In order to keep the population under control, the ‘Board’organized the city into four ‘quarters’: Ferrol Viejo, Esteiro and LaMagdalena (which included two districts). In this way the ‘Board’actually sanctioned the social segregation of the city.28 Navy officers,important businessmen, and liberal professionals lived in LaMagdalena, whereas most of the ‘maestranza’ and the overwhelmingmajority of unskilled workers and labourers lived in Esteiro.29 LaMagdalena, which was built in such a way that allowed for militarycontrol and the ceremonial rituals of the state and the elite, also

underwent a series of improvements and housed the buildings thatsymbolized the power of the Navy. Spatial segregation increased thesense of social distance, laying the foundations for undercurrents ofhatred among the social classes. As early as 1771, a royalcommissioner complained about the attitude of the inhabitants of LaMagdalena, calling them ‘a load of privileged people’. In 1807, arevolt of the ‘maestranza’ culminated in the burning of the Teatro dela Comedia (‘Theatre of the Comedy’) situated in La Magdalena, andexclusively reserved for Navy officers.

Launching of the frigate 'Restauración' in Ferrol (1825)

Source: Museo Naval de Madrid

In January 1809 a crowd attacked the house of the Commander-in-chief of the Department, accusing him of being ‘Frenchified’. Somedays later, the Napoleonic army occupied Ferrol. The British armyarrived in June, but left in August, taking with them all the usefulvessels and equipment. The city lived in chaos, wages remainedunpaid, and hunger arrived in 1810. On 10th February General Vargas,the new Commander-in-chief of the Naval Department, was murdered.


A group of women from the scum of society gathered riotously at thedock gate of the dockyard [demanding payment of their men’swages...] The “maestranza” who were at the workshops […]crowded together at the inner iron gate […] that wild mob draggedthe badly beaten and wounded General down the stairs that led fromhis room. The dreadful cry of “drag him out” rose up from amongstthe mob; [they] tied a rope round the poor commander-in-chief’sfeet, and in front of his soldiers they took him out through thedockyard gate and dragged him in the midst of a terrific clamour[along the “Alameda”] as far as Esteiro [Square] where they left hiscorpse [at the gate of the Shipyard].30

E.P. Thompson explored those popular rituals in which ahumiliating punishment is meted out in public, and explained howoften they develop and subvert the ceremonial rituals of the state andthe elites.31 Lynching such as that endured by General Vargas tookplace in a number of Galician and Spanish cities during the three-year-period that followed the Napoleonic invasion, and it was usuallydirected against the highest authorities. These lynching were in factadopted by the mutinous mob as their own adapted version of theancient ritual used in capital punishment when, following execution,the criminal’s corpse would be dragged around the town to theaccompaniment of insults hurled at it by the incensed crowds, before itwas finally put on public display.32 In Ferrol, the 1810 riots took placethroughout the borders which strictly isolated the dockyards andshipyards from the city. Notice the itinerary adopted for the lynching.The women went through the ‘Dock Gate’ which led to an area offlimits to the civil population, they joined the ‘maestranza’, attackingtheir master’s house, from which they dragged him out along the‘Alameda’. He was then stabbed in front of the building housing thePrison and the Town Hall, and his body dumped at the Shipyard Gate,next to the treasury office from which the wages were paid. The riotquestioned the prevailing disciplinary system, in the face of the passivereaction of soldiers who also suffered the effects of the exorbitantprices of bread and late payment of their wages.

The Mayor of Alcoy 'dragged out' during the revolt of 1873

Source: La Ilustración Española y Americana' Magazine, in J. M. Jover (dir), Historia deEspaña Tomo XXXIV: La era isabelina y el sexenio democrático (1834-1874), p. 743. Ed

Espasa

In January 1811, the ‘Audiencia’ (High Court) of A Coruñapassed a sentence against two women and a man accused of being themutiny leaders, and stated that one of them ‘is to be hanged by theneck and until dead and after the execution, her head must be cut andseparated from her shoulders [… and] must be fixed on a Stickopposite the Dock Gate [... and there] the same officer must tell thecrimes that she has committed and the punishment that theaforementioned was given’.33 The itinerary of the execution, whichreturned to the scene of the crime, tried to restore the spatial divisionand the initial disciplinary system. But new times demanded newsolutions. Council authorities promoted a scheme of public works thatoffered jobs and reduced the vulnerability of the city during the foodcrises. The construction of ‘Carretera de Castilla’ (Castilla Road)began. The aim was to find an alternative plan to the provision of thecity by sea. The new road led directly to La Magdalena through ‘PuertaNueva’ (New Gate), which was opened through the city walls in 1811,a year after the mutiny. Therefore it avoided Esteiro, the main access tothe city up till then. The two squares of La Magdalena were also beinglaid out, in order to organize markets.34 The public works were also the


basis of new policies of memory. On the Parade Ground a fountain,which was crowned by a cenotaph-obelisk, was built in honour ofBrigadier Cosme Damián de Churruca in 1813. Churruca was secondin command of the Spanish fleet during the Battle of Trafalgar, andsince he died as heroically as Admiral Nelson, he would havesupposedly saved the honour of his squadron. The cenotaph meantsymbolic reparation for the murder of General Vargas, who had alsocommanded a warship in Trafalgar. But its meaning went far deeperthan this. In the iconography of the new Spanish liberal regime, wherepolitical elites tried to throw off the yoke of subordination to anabsolute monarchy, cenotaphs dedicated to the fallen heroes of theFatherland had come to supplant the ancient ephemeral catafalquesdedicated to the kings. Such a reading was reinforced in Ferrol by thefact of the similarities existing between the new fountain-obelisk thatwas built in the market place in honour of the Navy officer,35 and thatone which had been raised in front of the Dock Gate in honour ofCarlos III.

Parade Ground, with the Obelisk and fountain of Churruca (c. 1905)

Source: Collective Work, A Memoria de Ferrol (Vigo, 2002), p. 48. Edicións Xerais

B.- Looking for alternatives to social segregation and dependencyon the Navy.


Source: Bernardo Castelo

During the first half of the 19th century the population fell by50% to less than 12,000. The paralysis of the ship industry coincidedwith the loss of the American colonies and the economic and politicalcrises that affected the country. A new period of recovery in the middleof the 19th century was linked to the reconstruction of the state and to anaval policy of prestige. The city reached 21,400 inhabitants in 1864.Ferrol was suffering the effects of its inherent vulnerability to theeconomic dependency on the Navy. But the consequences for theworking class were becoming increasingly serious due to thesegregation that existed in residential areas. The neighbourhood ofEsteiro had begun to deteriorate when the shipyard crisis brought about


unemployment among the ‘maestranza’. During the first half of the 19th

century the neighbourhood lost about 1/3 of its population, whilst itsdemographic weight in the city fell from 40% to 30%.36 The militarychurch was moved near ‘Capitanía Palace’ as did the offices of theNavy Quartermaster, so their staff left the neighbourhood, andtherefore the Navy officers no longer had any reason to frequent thearea. Shops also closed down. Only a small barracks of the new‘Guardia Civil’,37 which was responsible for keeping public order, wasestablished there.

Calle Real' (Main Street), in La Magdalena district (early 20th century)


Improvements to city infrastructures (a sewage system in 1831-46, gas lighting in 1847) were mainly carried out in La Magdalena

neighbourhood, which in 1867 had six fountains and a ‘lavaderopúblico’.38 Meanwhile in Esteiro there were only two fountains in verypoor condition, and only one street was paved and fitted with drains.Doctor Pastor Nieto described that neighbourhood in 1895 as ‘the mostpopulous and poorest [... where] the most shameless and strayprostitution […] takes shelter […] with old, humid, dark, unventilatedhouses [...] without latrines and with cesspools [...] with a deficientsewer system, which has all of its streets except one without paving’.39

He also underlined how that neighbourhood alone had suffered fromepidemics of measles, smallpox and diphtheria in the precedingdecade.

Whilst the city remained vulnerable to crises and conditions inEsteiro were growing steadily worse, most working-class people nowlived ‘outside the city walls’, in towns and villages by the Ferrolestuary, and commuted to the city on foot or by boat. Part-timefarming, the evasion of local taxes placed on food and drinks, and theaccess to cheap housing, and to healthier living conditions reduced theexpenses that those workers had to meet. However, the social distancewas reflected in the spatial segregation between the city and itsoutskirts. At the end of the 19th century, the council authorities tried toforce the workers, who travelled to the Dockyards or to the Shipyardsfrom the commercial port or from the west outskirts of the city veryearly in the morning, not to use the central streets of La Magdalenaand to walk along the Dockyard wall, so that their voices or the soundof their footsteps could not bother the sleeping neighbours.40

As new subversive political ideas spread among the workingclass, the move towards the outskirts reduced the chances of revolt in acity whose coercive plan was proving to be increasingly ineffective. Inthe 1880s Ferrol was a pioneer city in the Galician labour movement.A few years earlier in 1872, a republican insurrection had taken placein Ferrol. Non-commissioned Navy officers led about 200 marines,1,500 seamen and 200 workers of the ‘maestranza’ and quartered for aweek in the Dockyards, which were filled with arms and, as we have


seen, designed to be impregnable by land and sea. As the insurrectionfailed, the Navy authorities proceeded partly to disarm the Dockyards,filling up the moat which surrounded them, and moving part of thetroops and arms to new barracks that were to be built outside the citywalls.41

Monument to Navy Officer Sánchez Barcaiztegui, in the 'Alameda' (2003)

Source: Photograph by the author

During the Restoration (1875-1923), relations between thenative bourgeoisie and the Navy authorities were somewhatambiguous. During the first two decades the Ferrol town council builtpublic monuments, developing a nationalist rhetoric linked to theNavy, which was seen as a defender of the city, the country and thecolonial Empire. As early as 1869 a statue of Jorge Juan, the Navyofficer who had planned the original Ferrol was placed next to‘Capitanía Palace’. In 1881 in the ‘Alameda’ King Alfonso XII

unveiled a monument dedicated to Sánchez Barcaíztegui, a native ofFerrol and Commander-in-chief of the North Navy forces, who haddied while fighting for his monarch’s claim to the throne. In 1894 amonument was dedicated in ‘El Callao Square’ to Méndez Núñez, theNavy officer who had been acclaimed as a national hero after leadingthe Spanish squadron in the Battle of El Callao in Peru in 1866.42

Ball at the 'Capitanía' Palace (1907)

Source: G. Allegue, O Oficio de vivir. A Cidade (Vigo, 1996), p. 34. Ed Nigra

However local middle-class men who remained firmly in controlof the town council resented being under military tutelage. The Navyand its officers were legally exempt from council taxes. Thedelimitation of jurisdictions was another controversial issue. In 1859Ferrol had lost its sea front, and its main public space had beenmutilated when the closing wall of the Dockyards was moved forwardand devoured part of the ‘Alameda’. The city was also oppressed byuseless city walls that the Army refused to give up. Moreover, thetechnological and geo-strategic changes gradually eliminated theadvantages of the estuary as the site for a naval base, while its


eighteenth-century fortresses became obsolete. In 1898 the Spanishfleet was annihilated in the Hispano-American War and the remnantsof the colonial Empire were lost. Ferrol citizens realized that the citywas openly vulnerable to enemy attacks, and even more so in theadvent of air warfare.

A public launching at the Spanish Society of Shipbuilding (c. 1925)

Source: Collective Work, A Memoria de Ferrol (Vigo, 2002), p. 101. Edicións Xerais

New forms of management were tried out in 1909, when theShipyards and part of the Dockyards were rented by a private company,the ‘Spanish Society of Shipbuilding’, with a British held stake thatshould have guaranteed the exchange of technological know-how.Together with the warships that the Navy required, the companylooked for new clients in the civil sector. In 1910s and 1920s thereform of Ferrol town (electrification, water supply and sewer system)and the construction of a transport system (train, electric tramway andcommercial port) were concluded, helping to connect the city to theoutskirts and indeed the rest of the country. By 1930 Ferrol had 35,000inhabitants, and was still the third most important city in Galicia. It

was the ‘golden age’ of a prosperous local middle-class, who,influenced as they were by the innovative ideas and habits of the newlyarrived foreign experts, seemed to be able finally to rid themselves ofNavy tutelage and to lead a project of coexistence on the basis of thestrategies played out by political parties, employers’ organizations andtrade unions.

English employees of the Spanish Society of Shipbuilding (c. 1910-1920)

Source: Cadernos Ferrol Análisis, Ferrol en fotos un século atrás (Ferrol, 1998), p. 72

But Spain went a different way. After the Hispano-AmericanWar the Spanish Navy received the new mission of assisting theArmy in struggles against civilians, either in the Rif War in Morocco,or in order to put down any form of social conflict in Spain. Between1910 and 1920 strike followed strike, and the Army and trade unionsconfronted each other openly on the streets of Ferrol. In 1918 protestsagainst the high cost of living broke out as hundreds of women raidedfood warehouses and forced prices to be lowered. In 1921, the deputymayor who also was the President of the local employer’sorganization was murdered in La Magdalena.43


The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-30) imposed aprovisional truce, as the ambiguities of the local policies of memoryclearly show. In 1927, the council government dedicated a plaque tothe founder of Spanish socialism Pablo Iglesias, and gave his name to asquare in Esteiro, where he was born in 1850.44 Some months later thecouncil authorities unveiled another plaque dedicated to two militarymen at their native house in La Magdalena: the Franco brothers.Francisco Franco was an army general, and a leader among theveterans of the Rif War in Morocco. In 1926 he had visited Ferrolwhere he was hailed as a national hero. The ‘Industrial andCommercial Circle’ made him their honorary president, and thepresident of the ‘Casino [Social Club] of Ferrol’ proposed the creationof a monument dedicated to the people from the city who had died inthe ‘Africa War’.45 The tributes paid to Pablo Iglesias and FranciscoFranco involved two very different policies of memory: the formercorresponding to a working-class city with close ties to the socialistinternationalism, and the last to a military city committed to colonialventures.

Proclamation of the Second Republic, in front of the 'Capitanía' Palace (1931)

Source: Cadernos Ferrol Análisis, Ferrol en fotos un século atrás (Ferrol, 1998), p. 14

From 1931 onwards, the II República underwent aradicalisation process in both Ferrol and the rest of Spain. When the‘Frente Popular’ won the general elections in February 1936, somemembers of the political and financial elite decided to organize amilitary rising. On 18th July it was started in Morocco by troops led byFranco. Two days later the revolt triumphed in Ferrol, and thememories of violence and segregation were once again brought to thesurface. Both the trade unions and the many seamen in the Dockyardstried to resist, but they were poorly armed and were eventually forcedto surrender. The repression was a blood bath, its victims the shipyardworkers, the seamen and non-commissioned officers. During the firsttwo years of war 215 Navy personnel were executed following a trialby court-martial, and 239 citizens ‘died after assaulting the police’,that is, most of them were murdered without trial. The number ofexecutions and/or murders in the whole Ferrol region would amount to2,000 during the three years that the war lasted.46

Spanish Society of Shipbuilding workers (1931)

Source: Cadernos Ferrol Análisis, Empresa Nacional Bazán: 50 Aniversario (Ferrol,1997), p. 40

During the war, Ferrol played a strategic role as the mostimportant pro-Franco centre for the construction, repair and


provisioning of warships. It guaranteed the supremacy of the pro-Franco Navy in the Cantabrian Sea and played a key role in theconquest of the mining and industrial centres located between Asturiasand the Basque Country, which had remained loyal to the II Republic.Ferrol’s coercive spatial plan was updated in the sense that a single-and accessible- enemy was identified both inside and outside: thepolitical repression against the working-classes became a central issuein the victory against the Republic. The cemetery wall, the walls of SanFelipe and La Palma castles and the Dockyards became favouritesettings for executions. San Felipe castle, the military facilities in AGraña, the Dockyards’ breakwater, and two vessels anchored therebecame prisons, from which the convicts left to be executed. In theeyes of the ‘maestranza’ who worked in the Dockyards, in the eyes ofthose people who crossed the estuary by boat to get to work, thefacilities of the Ferrol of the Age of Enlightenment became places ofmemory - of repression.

Last honours for Admiral Luis de Castro (1939)

Source: Portafolio: Entierro del Almirante Luis de Castro, 1939', en Ferrol Análisis, 17(2002), p. 260

C.- ‘El Ferrol del Caudillo’.

The violent political repression lasted throughout the whole ofthe post-war period: a further 1,000 people would be murdered in theFerrol region during the fifteen years immediately after the end of theCivil War.47 The Franco regime resorted to policies of memory,portraying the II Republic as a period dominated by poverty andanarchy, and the military uprising and Civil War as a ‘Crusade’ againstcommunism and in defence of Catholicism. A segregated andmilitarised Ferrol returned. The construction of monuments and theorganization of rituals dedicated to the ‘founding fathers’ were held inLa Magdalena:48 its main street was now called ‘General FrancoStreet’; on 18th July 1940, ‘Anniversary of the [Military] NationalRising’, a ‘Cruz de los Caídos’49 was founded in Dolores Square; in1949, the dictator unveiled a ‘Monument to the people from Ferrolwho died in the Africa campaigns’ located opposite the Dock Gate; andthe Parade Ground was totally remade when a huge Town Hall wasbuilt in 1953.

The Interior Minister salutes the public from the 'Capitanía' Palace (1938)

Source: Cadernos Ferrol Análisis, A Guerra en Ferrol (Ferrol, 1999), p. 38


At the same time the figure of the dictator was raised to thestatus of the undefeated victor who brought with him peace andprosperity, and to whom all ‘true and worthy Spaniards’ owed bothobedience and gratitude. The local elite decided to take advantage ofthe dictator’s personal power, and exploit his personal connectionswith the Ferrol region where he had been born and raised. In 1938,coinciding with a visit to Ferrol by the Interior Minister, SerranoSuñer (Franco’s brother-in-law), a major gathering was organized infront of ‘Capitanía Palace’. The reason was a petition unanimouslyapproved by the council corporation to change the city’s name. It wasrenamed ‘Ferrol del Caudillo’ (an honorary title given to thedictator), and the petition was quickly approved by the Cabinet.Franco’s triumphal entry into the city took place shortly after the warhad finished. He disembarked from a warship wearing the uniform ofCommander-in-Chief of the Navy. He returned to Ferrol on twentymore occasions.50

Meirás Manor House, Franco’s summer residence (1992)

Source: FOAT SL

That same year, through the ‘Diputación Provincial’ (A CoruñaCounty Council), a local group of major figures managed to purchaseMeirás Palace, situated on the outskirts of A Coruña, which they gave

to Franco as a gift. Since then and up until his death, he spent much ofhis summer holidays there. Members of the government, members ofSpain’s elite also gathered round Franco in Meirás, some decisivecabinet meetings took place there, and public funds were invested inthe area.51 The State’s aid and favour was unquestionably behind thereactivation of the ship industry in Ferrol. The ‘Spanish Society ofShipbuilding’ was now nationalized and renamed Bazán: it waslocated in Esteiro and its main job was to supply the Navy. Astano wasestablished in 1941, in the adjoining town called Fene, its maincustomer being the merchant marine. Astano experienced rapidgrowth, above all from 1962 onwards when the ‘First StateDevelopment Plan’ provided Ferrol with major investments. As theship industry employed more than 20,000 workers, the city doubled itspopulation, increasing from 35,000 inhabitants in 1935 to 77,000 in1950.52

The Minister of Industry standing in front of the model of Astano (1964)

Source: M.A.Pérez Rodríguez, Astano. Un estaleiro na ría (Ferrol, 2000), p. 82

More than a half of that growth corresponded to the populationof the adjoining town called Serantes, which Ferrol annexed in 1940.The extra land meant that the city now spread beyond its walls53. Thesuburban development work was carried out round the ‘Castilla Road’,


renamed ‘Generalísimo’ Avenue (another honorary title given to thedictator). At the end of 1940s, Recimil, a new working-classneighbourhood, sprang up on one side of the ‘Generalísimo Avenue’and just outside the city a thousand council houses were built. Theconnection between the Avenue and La Magdalena was made bybuilding a magnificent ‘España Square’.54 It was surrounded on all foursides by elegant buildings housing institutional headquarters andhomes for the Navy and Army officers, as well as for the Shipyardmanagers.

New Town Hall in the Parade Ground (c. 1955)


In 1959-64 some equestrian statues were built in honour ofFranco in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Santander. These statuesshowed Franco full of vitality at a moment when the physicaldegeneration associated with old age was starting to appear. In 1964, a‘Commission for establishing a monument dedicated to CaudilloFranco’ was organized on the initiative of the ‘Casino de Ferrol’. Themonument was financed by popular subscription. The bronzeequestrian statue, which showed the dictator wearing the uniform ofCommander-in-Chief of the Army, was made in Bazán. The metal

came from the propellers of an old warship, and the statue wasinaugurated in ‘España Square’ in 1967.55 Spatial segregation was onceagain present: on one hand, around ‘España Square’, the city of theNavy and the middle-class, and on the other, the working-class city, inthe adjacent neighbourhood of Recimil; and the statue of Francostanding between both of them.

Equestrian statue of Franco, in España Square (1999)


But hardly five years later, in 1972, the first consequences ofthe international economic crisis, as well as the first steps for theindustrial rationalization became evident in Ferrol. Besides, the agonyof the regime was taking place, as the dictator approached his owndeath, and political parties and trade-unions of the opposition began


making early tentative moves. On 10th March, Bazán workersdemonstrating outside the Shipyards were shot at by the police. Theresult was two dead workers and sixteen wounded. The strike spread tothe factories, shops closed, and the police took control of the streets.‘España Square’, which was a symbol of the dictator’s generosity,would from then on be associated with memories of repression. In1974, this new symbolic meaning was endorsed by the decision of thepro-Franco town council to establish a statue dedicated to CamiloAlonso Vega, a native of Ferrol, lieutenant-general of the Army, anexpeditious man on whom the dictator liked to rely to coordinatepolitical repression. Moreover, shortly after Franco’s death, the towncouncil decided to fix a big bronze plaque on the podium of theequestrian statue, where his last will was written and he guaranteedthat his regime would outlive him.

Demonstration by Bazán workers, in España Square (10th of March 1972)

Source: Fundación 10 de Marzo (ed.), España século XX: escenas do traballo (Santiago deCompostela, 1999), p. 135

D.- Between the transition to democracy and the rationalization ofthe shipbuilding industry.

In 1975, the dictator’s death and the transition to democracycreated a new political situation. The fact that the Franco regime’spolitical culture had fallen into disrepute, combined with the lack oforganisation amongst the social forces that had formerly providedbacking for it, plus the introduction of a new political culture based onpublic liberties, universal suffrage and free elections would result inthe victory of the ‘Partido Socialista’, that was to govern Spainbetween 1982 and 1996. Yet the re-organisation of the State based onregional autonomy has enabled the conservative ‘Partido Popular’ toremain in power in Galicia, a markedly rural region with an ageingpopulation. Ferrol and its neighbouring municipalities were anexception. The working class population employed mainly in the shipbuilding industry and with a tradition in trade union movement andorganisational strategies provided the electoral basis that would placeleft wing parties firmly in power in local authorities. From the firstdemocratic elections held in 1979, and up until 1987, Ferrol wasgoverned by a coalition headed by the ‘Partido Socialista’.56

Meanwhile, the globalisation of the Spanish economy wouldreveal that the enclave economic model the city had employed duringthe Franco period was no longer viable. Spain’s entry into theEuropean Economic Community meant that the Spanish –Socialist-government implemented a programme of rationalization of the shipindustry which had a major impact on Ferrol’s shipyards. Theadmission of Spain into NATO also caused a profound reorganizationof the Navy and the Army, and a significant reduction in the number ofarmed forces in the city. Ferrol lost 10% of its population in just undera decade. The trade unions and citizens’ associations constantly calledstrikes and demonstrations, distancing themselves from the ‘PartidoSocialista’ that combined local and national government.57



Source: La Voz de Galicia (modified by the authors)

The new global economic and political conditions were thecause of continuing political unrest in Ferrol. In the local elections thatfollowed, a total of six different political parties were returned,including several ‘independent’ electoral groups. This led to the needfor coalition governments whose evident instability meant that theywere unable to remain in power for any considerable length of time.The 1987 local elections were won by the conservative ‘PartidoPopular’; in 1989, a censure motion brought the left back into power;in 1991, the council elections were won again by the ‘Partido Popular’;just six months later, yet another censure motion meant that they wereunseated by the ‘Partido Socialista’; and in the 1995 elections the‘Partido Popular’ again regained the majority.58

This lack of stability was also partly the result of thecontradictions that existed in the Spanish political situation – and notmerely those arising from the tensions existing between the regional

Galician government, controlled by the ‘Partido Popular’, and theSpanish Socialist government. The transition to democracy was basedon an agreement between the more moderate forces of the Francoregime and the opposition. Excluded from this agreement, the moreradical positions on both sides opted for terrorism and militaryuprisings. Both phenomena would eventually have an impact on acity in which the memory of Franco’s militarism and working-classmovement inevitably came into conflict, causing serious difficultiesfor local authorities. Until 1985, two of the most outstandingcharacters of the unsuccessful military coup of February 1981 wereimprisoned in military installations close to the Ferrol estuary: theeighteenth-century La Palma castle housed Lieutenant-ColonelTejero, who had taken House of Congress; and Lieutenant-GeneralMilans del Bosch, who had sent tanks out onto the streets ofValencia, was imprisoned in the Dockyards. Adherents of theextreme right travelled long distances to the city in order to visitthem, which led to clashes with anti-Franco groups and placed theSocialist local authority under considerable strain. 1987 saw the briefappearance of ‘Exército Guerrilheiro do Pobo Galego Ceibe’ (the‘Guerrilla Army for the Galician Free People’), the only -and small-terrorist group in the history of radical Galician nationalism. Two ofthe group’s most significant acts were to vandalise Franco’s statue inFerrol twice, using explosives, the first time in 1987, coinciding withthe Partido Popular’s victory in the local elections, the second just ayear later. 59

When such radical groups chose Ferrol for their protests, theycompeted for the control of the city’s history, reinterpreting it to suittheir own needs. This fact provides us with a valuable insight in orderto understand recent local history. Ferrol’s spatial plan, militarised,segregated and associated with an enclave economy, is the repositoryof a memory of conflict between the Navy and the working classes,which became even more inflamed following the military uprising of1936 and the Franco regime. Any alternative development project forthe city required an in-depth reformulation of the city map, taking


advantage of the new urban administrative powers conferred uponlocal authorities by the democratic constitution. This affected not onlythe interests of various social groups but also the city’s memory itself:in other words, it provided an opportunity to reinterpret the city’shistory through the use of policies of memory that form the basis usedby the various political forces in order to obtain a solid electoral base.In short, two policies of memory have coexisted in Ferrol: the first isbased on a working-class memory deeply rooted in the defence of theship building industry, which attacks the segregation of the citybrought about by the Naval base and military facilities and whichquestions the monuments that recall the Franco regime; the seconddefends the continuity of those places of memory of the pro-Francoregime -considering them to be ‘apolitical monuments’- and thesegregation of the Navy installations, advocating the demolition of theworking class districts and the closure of the shipyards.

During its time in local power, in 1979-87, the left was unableto oppose the rationalisation policies of Spanish Socialist government,and made only timid attempts to question the memory of the Francoperiod. The socialist local authority proposed the suppression of thecity’s name ‘del Caudillo’, but they did not dare to remove Franco’sequestrian statue due to the strong opposition by part of the populationled by the Navy officers. Only at the end of their time in office, during1986-7, did the town council seem to have found a means of payingtribute to its more ‘progressive’ citizens associated with the defence ofthe working classes. Two statues dedicated to social reformerConcepción Arenal, and Pablo Iglesias -founder of the SpanishSocialist Party- were situated at the foot of the Esteiro working-classneighbourhood.60 When in 1989, a censure motion brought the leftback into power, they decided to dedicate a monument to the workerswho died on 10 March 1972: people whose memory had beenintensified since the democratic trade unions had named theanniversary celebration as the ‘Working Class Day in Galicia’. In 1990the monument in honour of the ‘Victims of the 10th of March’ wouldbe established in Recimil, the working-class neighbourhood built

during the Franco period, which was scarcely 100 metres from EspañaSquare. The two statues –that of the workers, that one of the dictator-were placed practically opposite each other, each one in its ownneighbourhood.61

Detail of the monument to the Victims of 10 March, in Recimil (2003)


In turn, the conservative political forces remain opposed to theidea of those places of memory of the pro-Franco regime beingeliminated, and have failed to suggest alternative celebrities whichcould be commemorated. Only in 1999, during the final period of theirterm in office, did they opt to erect a monument in honour of GonzálezLlanos, the Navy officer responsible for the boom in the shipbuildingindustry during Franco’s period. It was positioned in the centre of thenew residential developments under construction at the time in theformer Esteiro, a neighbourhood that was expropriated and demolishedin 1974 by the last pro-Franco municipal corporation, claiming itsurban deterioration.62 The demolition of Esteiro erased the memory ofa proletarian Ferrol; La Magdalena, which averyone associated withthe Navy, absorbed the memory of the Ferrol of the Age ofEnlightenment. Twenty-five years later, at the end of the 1990s,


various political actors started to call for another working-classneighbourhood, Recimil, to be demolished. They claimed that its fiftyyears of history had plunged it into a disastrous situation, and that itwas now located in what had become the city centre.63

The 1999 council elections brought a mayor from the ‘BloqueNacionalista Galego’ (Galician Nationalist Party) to power, supportedby the Socialist Party. The new council government designed aninnovative urban policy based on four strategies. First, the reactivationof the shipbuilding industry and the service activities related to theNavy, all of which seemed to be favoured in 2000 by the fusion of thecivil and military sections of the Spanish public naval industry. Theintegration of Astano and Bazán was finally consolidated in Ferrol.64

Besides, rumours claimed that Ferrol could be promoted as a NATOnaval base. Secondly, in 2001 the possibility arose to overcome thecity’s secular isolation, thanks to the commencement of work on alarge exterior port at the mouth of the estuary. This also coincided withthe start of work on the final section of the motorway that wouldconnect Ferrol with the Iberian Peninsula’s motorway network.65

Thirdly, the city was to become a hub for services and urban tourismthanks to the fortresses, military installations, and La Magdalena, ‘anexample of a city of the Age of Enlightenment’. The demolition of theDockyard wall was seen as the starting point for a programme aimed at‘opening the city up to the sea’.66 In December 2000, a campaign waslaunched for the district to be declared a World Heritage Site byUNESCO.67 And finally, urban renewal was promoted, but trying tokeep residents, thereby weakening the process of ‘gentrification’. A‘Plan of Reform of La Magdalena’ was passed. And a rehabilitationplan was drawn up for the neighbourhood of Recimil, which includedownership, previously held by the council, being conferred upon thetenants.

During 1999-2000, both the academic world and the mediabegan to debate regarding the overriding presence of places of memorythat recalled the Franco period to be found all over Spain.68 Essentially,

this debate constituted a discussion and judgement regarding the causesof the Civil War, the harshness of the Franco regime and the‘agreement to forget’, upon which the transition to democracy hadsupposedly been based.69 Ferrol’s new municipal corporation couldtherefore justify its plans for development within the context of a moresolid memory policy. Indeed, the start of its term of office was markedby the erection in 1999 of a statue in the ‘Alameda’ in honour ofCamilo Díaz Baliño, a member of local intelligentsia who was shotduring the early stages of the military uprising. Nearby, the first plaquein honour of the victims of the pro-Franco repression was inauguratedin 2002. And finally, a project to remodel ‘España Square’ wasdesigned, which involved the suppression of the equestrian statue. Thenew Town Hall of Democracy would be built instead, and thedemolition of Franco period’s town hall in La Magdalena wouldrecreate the original plan of the ‘Parade Ground’. After a long debate,70

in July 2002 the council corporation moved the statue of Franco to aless visible place. Most fittingly, this was to be the Navy Museum – inthe Dockyards, near the Dock Gate!

In spite of this, and following the elections held in May 2003,the left-wing coalition that had governed Ferrol fell victim to itsinternal conflicts, and lost its power to a right-wing coalition. Today,the debate regarding the demolition of the Recimil working classdistrict is once again the order of the day, but the ‘Plan of Reform ofLa Magdalena’ remains on course, and even though the plan todemolish the Town Hall has long since been abandoned, there are noplans to move the statue back to its original place. The monument toFranco, situated in such a prominent position as ‘España Square’, wasnot only a symbol that stigmatised the city and caused controversyamong the political forces and the citizens,71 but also an emblem ofdubious appeal to a NATO naval base and its recognition as a WorldHeritage Site. Paraphrasing Paul Krugman we could say, ‘It’s theeconomy, stupid!’. Anyway, it could also be argued to be quite simplya question of dignity.


Proposal to remove Franco’s equestrian statue (1983)

Source: R. Vilariño: Fotomontaje, 1983 (Ateneo de Ferrol)

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* This essay includes some results from the research project ‘El Area Metropolitanade A Coruña: Uso de la vivienda, participación ciudadana y planificación urbana’,financed by the ‘Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo’ of the ‘Xunta de Galicia’(code PGIDT01SCX10201PR) in 2001-2003. I would like to thank Philip Ethingtonfor the patience he has shown by reading and exhaustively commenting the successiveversions of the original text and translation. I also would like to thank Xan Moreno,Iñaki Mendizábal, José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez and Ester Nasarre for their comments onthe text, and Marisa López Schmidt for drawing the illustrations I-V, and for thegenerous help and assistance she has given me in general.1 M. Foucault, Surveiller et punir (Paris, 1975).2 P. Nora, Les lieux de mémoire, 3 Volumes (Paris, 1984-93).3 M. Gluckman, ‘An analysis of a social situation in Modern Zululand’, AfricanStudies, 14 (1940), 1-30, 147-74.4 E.P. Thompson, ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the EighteenthCentury’, Past and Present, 50 (1971), 76-136. The author shows how traditions ofpopular protest were associated with a set of political ideas regarding people’srights.5 E.C. Cubillas, Desarrollo urbano y crisis social en Ferrol (Santiago deCompostela, 1984).6 It was headquarters of the Real Audiencia de Galicia until the early 19th century,and later the capital of the new province of La Coruña.7 ‘Neighbours’. The meaning of the Spanish term is similar to that of ‘head of thehousehold’.8 At the end of 18th century, Galicia, a 29,400 km² region, had 1,340,000inhabitants. A mere 10% of the population lived in urban areas with more than2,000 inhabitants. 9 See A. Vigo Trasancos, Arquitectura y urbanismo en el Ferrol del S.XVIII(Santiago de Compostela, 1984) for the design and building of the Dockyards. Seealso J.A. Rodríguez-Villasante, Arte e tecnoloxía na construcción de Ferrol, in theCollective Work, Historia de Ferrol (A Coruña, 1988), 232-303.10 J.L. Gómez Urdáñez, El proyecto reformista de Ensenada (Lleida, 1996).

11 After 1795, the introduction of steam pumps meant that convicts were no longerneeded.12 A. Martín, ‘Levas honradas y levas de maleantes: los trabajadores forzosos en unarsenal del Antiguo Régimen’, Obradoiro de Historia Moderna, 8 (1999), 231-260.13 For the organization of the ‘maestranza’ see M. Santalla, La familia obrera,Ferrol 1750-1936 (unpublished Universidad de Santiago de Compostela Ph.D.thesis, 1995), Chapter 4. 14 In 1750, two vessels caught fire, in 1794 the sailcloth and rope factory wereburned down. J. Montero y Arostegui, Historia y descripción de la ciudad deFerrol (Ferrol, 1859), 45, 52-53. 15 Santalla, La familia obrera, 161.16 M. Sánchez, ‘Ferrol 1750-1800’, Estudios Mindonienses, 7 (1991), 227-292.17 ‘Appendix II’, in Santalla, La familia obrera, 455-818 Ibid, 136.19 By 1789, 2/3 of La Magdalena were built. See Vigo Trasancos, Arquitectura yurbanismo, the reference work for the history and design of La Magdalenaneighbourhood. In the reign of Carlos III the Military Engineer Corps had beencreated and its corresponding Academy, where future engineers learnt how todesign new cities. B. Castelo, ‘A nova poboación: o barrio da Magdalena’, in J.R.Soraluce &X. Fernández (dirs.), Arquitecturas da provincia da Coruña. Vol. XIV:Ferrol (A Coruña, 2001), 136.20 Vigo Trasancos, Arquitectura y urbanismo, 237. There was a sentry box on‘Capitanía Palace’ roof from where signals from the Dockyard’s guardsmen couldbe received.21 Ibid, 206, 255-8.22 Santalla, La familia obrera, 401.23 Ibid, 399.24 Continuous provisions with regard to this matter are found in Sánchez, ‘Ferrol1750-1800’.25 ‘Apéndice III: Hospicio para mujeres’, 1782. Quoted in Santalla, La familiaobrera, 458.

Ferrol 28 Urban history

26 In 1797, 61% of the ‘vecinos’ were paid by the Navy. A. Martín, Una sociedaden cambio. Ferrol a finales del Antiguo Régimen (Ferrol, 2003), 34.27 ‘Archivo Histórico Nacional, Estado’, File 74-A. In A. Martín, ‘Espacio urbano,población y sectores profesionales en El Ferrol del Antiguo Régimen’, EstudiosMindonienses, 18 (2002), 1098-9.28 Ibid, 1099. This division was legally sanctioned in 1845.29 Ibid, 1106-9. The most skilled workers of the ‘maestranza’, the Navy non-commissioned officers and the Quartermaster Staff lived in both neighbourhoods.30 Montero y Arostegui, Historia y descripción, 104-5.31 E.P. Thompson, ‘Rough Music’, in Customs in Common (New York, 1993).32 F. Tomás y Valiente, El derecho penal de la Monarquía Absoluta (Siglos XVI,XVII y XVIII), (Madrid, 1992). I am currently working on an article that discussesthis topic.33 ‘Archivo del Reino de Galicia, Real Audiencia, Causas’, File 73, nº 20. I foundthe reference in Santalla, La familia obrera, 171.34 Castelo, ‘A nova poboación’, 150-1.35 In Ferrol, in 1805 the Navy had dedicated an ephemeral tumulus to the Spanishvictims of the battle of Trafalgar. See J. Varela, ‘La muerte del héroe’, HistoriaSocial, 1 (1988), 19-28.36 Martín, ‘Espacio urbano’, 1114-16.37 The police force created in Spain in 1844.38 A public washing place where women would wash clothes.39 P. Nieto, Memoria acerca de las condiciones higiénicas y estado sanitario de ElFerrol (Ferrol, 1895), 32.40 Santalla, La familia obrera, 348-9.41 A. Gomis, La insurrección de Ferrol de 1872 (A Coruña, 2000).42 C. Reyero, La escultura conmemorativa en España (Madrid, 1999).43 G. Llorca, ‘Ferrol Contemporáneo’, in Collective Work, Historia de Ferrol (ACoruña, 1998), 344-6.44 B. Castelo, Ferrol: Morfología urbana y arquitectura civil, 1900-1940 (ACoruña, 1991), 175.

45 Ibid, 177-846 B. Maíz, Resistencia, guerrilla e represión. Causas e Consellos de Guerra:Ferrol, 1934-1955 (Vigo, 2003). 47 Ibid. The research, carried out using military archives, only goes as far as 1954,since legislation prevents access to documents that are less than 50 years old.48 B. Castelo, ‘A expansión urbana: O Ferrol del Caudillo’, in J.R Soraluce & X.Fernández (dirs.), Arquitecturas, 212.49 A monument dedicated to the dead who fought on the pro-Franco side during theCivil War.50 Llorca, ‘Ferrol Contemporáneo’, 381-382.51 R. Villares, ‘Un truncado lugar de memoria’, La Voz de Galicia (12 November2000), 28-30.52 Cubillas, Desarrollo urbano, 63-4.53 B. Castelo, ‘A la manera de epílogo: 1936-1940. La involución urbanística’, inFerrol: Morfología urbana, 483-500.54 ‘España Square’ had already been planned in 1940 around a monument dedicatedto Franco. As it surpassed the most urgent needs –and budget- of the city, thesquare was not established until 1953.55 J. González, ‘La escultura pública de Ferrol’, Estudios Mindonienses, 7 (1991),293-330.56 J.M. Cardesín, ‘Redes flexibles y redes rígidas: urbanización, producción, ytransporte en la Galicia litoral’, in B. Ruiz & J.M. Cardesín (coord.), AntropologíaHoy: Teorías, técnicas y tácticas (Murcia, 1999), 117-135.57 Ibid.58 Ibid.59 J.M. Cardesín, ‘Que faire de la statue de Franco? Mémoire historique et actionpolitique à Ferrol (Espagne)’, Histoire Urbaine, 6 (2002), 131-150.60 Castelo, ‘A expansión urbana’, 264, 268. And González, ‘La escultura pública deFerrol’.61 M. Santalla, Los sucesos de Marzo de 1972 (Santiago de Compostela, 1996).


62 Castelo, ‘A expansión urbana’, 252-3. Three years later, 500 families of Esteiro,who had been temporarily accommodated in prefabricated huts, were still waitingfor the council houses under construction on the new housing estate calledPolígono de Caranza. All these families would participate in a mass squat in thenew dwellings.63 See ‘Nuevo Barrio de Recimil’, in Un proyecto de ciudad (political manifesto).64 La Voz de Galicia (19 July 2000), 45-7.65 Dossier ‘Comunicados con el futuro’, La Voz de Galicia (15 February 2003).66 J. Gelpi, Una ciudad irrepetible. Ferrol ante el futuro. Conversión deinfraestructuras Navales Militares (A Coruña, 1994).67 Fundación Ferrol Metrópoli, Ferrol de la Ilustración hacia el Patrimonio de laHumanidad (Ferrol, 2001). The text is a catalogue for the exhibition organised thatsame year by the Foundation, which received the institutional backing of both themunicipal corporation and the Autonomous Government of Galicia.68 Cardesín, ‘Que faire de la statue de Franco?’.69 This question was the subject of two monographic issues of the annual journal ofthe ‘Asociación [Española] de Historia Contemporánea’. E. Moradiellos (ed.),‘Dossier La Guerra Civil’, Ayer, 50 (2003), 11-234. And C. Mir (ed.), ‘Dossier Larepresión bajo el Franquismo’, Ayer, 43 (2001), 11-190. 70 Cardesín, ‘Que faire de la statue de Franco?’.71 A survey carried out by the newspaper La Voz de Galicia in November 2000,showed that the population was divided by almost 50% about the issue whether itwas convenient to suppress the statue or not.


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