Lighterman

1622, Ben Jonson, The Masque of Augurs, The First Antimasque, in The Works of Ben Jonson, London: D. Midwinter et al., 1756, Volume 6, p. 122, A poor lighterman, sir, one that hath had the honour sometimes to lay in the king’s beer there […]

One Dobson, a lighterman, undertook, for a wager of five guineas, to swim on his back from Westminster bridge to Putney bridge in an hour and three quarters, without turning himself in the water; which he performed 19 minutes within the time.

At that the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting, and collision, and for some time a multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern arch of the Tower Bridge, and the sailors and lightermen had to fight savagely against the people who swarmed upon them from the riverfront.

[Alex Smith] was a lighterman on the Thames at the time Bligh was signing on the Bounty men, but he hated the business and was only waiting for a suitable opportunity to go to sea again.

"[…] We shall want the navigation stopt^([sic])—we shall want the good will of fishermen, lightermen, steamboat men and indeed of everybody, therefore seek any opportunity of getting and keeping on good terms with everyone—and of course you must be particularly courteous to the Dockyard Authority."