The Smuggling Gangs

by Helen Hollick

Brandy Kegs - a smuggler's treasure chest!
© Nctfalls – Purchased Adobe Stock

Fiction, movies and TV tend to portray the smugglers of the past as small groups of local fisher-folk from isolated coastal villages hoping to make an extra penny or two to feed their starving children. Or you see the lone villainous ruffian out to bully some vulnerable young lad into breaking the law by smuggling in a keg or two of brandy in his poor, very ill pa’s rowing boat. Both are true to a point. But only to a point.

The Big Trade, the big money-makers were very far from this romantic idealistic view. The smuggling gangs were little more than vicious thugs, especially when smuggling became organised by efficient gang leaders – an 1700-1800 Mafia equivalent.

The ‘smuggling companies’ mostly operated in the south-east of England, from Sussex, Kent and Hampshire. (Not our fictional vision of a rugged, isolated Cornish cove as in Poldark… although the West Country did have smugglers – but that will come later in a different article!)

Gang members were not always seamen, but landsmen based along the roads leading to London and the larger, inland towns. Seamen brought the cargo in, the gangs collected and dispersed it, and if there was trouble from the Revenue Men... the gangs were well ready for them!

These gangs often comprised of forty to fifty men, but on a prosperous run with a large haul of contraband the different gangs would unite into as many as two or three hundred men. The Revenue, ill-informed, under-manned, under-armed and under-paid rarely had any hope of intervening, let alone putting a stop to such formidable opponents, especially when burly smuggler bodyguards formed two lines of protection by wielding stout ash poles. (Think Robin Hood fighting Little John and his quarterstaff on the bridge in Sherwood Forest.)

Smuggling soon started to hit the purses and coffers of the government, and the wealthy. Something had to be done. By the mid-to-late 1780s the militia and customs men were getting their act together. Better equipped with better firearms, better ships, with better firepower and more reliable ‘intelligence’ meant they stood more chance of stopping the gangs and seizing the contraband. Even so, these gangs were no pushover. They were armed, rough, tough men, and were ruthless when ensuring potential informers kept their mouths shut. Betray a gang, and it was very likely you would end up dead with no hope of your murderer even being identified, let alone caught.

A FEW OF THE GANGS

The Colonel of Bridport Gang operated in Dorset, under the leadership of ‘The Colonel’. One contraband cargo was nearly intercepted by the revenue men, and had to be hastily sunk in the sea to hide it, but it floated free of its makeshift anchor and was washed ashore near Eype Mouth, not far from West Bay and Bridport, to the great delight of the locals who discovered and ‘liberated’ it!

 

Lyme Bay, Dorset

© Tony Smith 

Apart from this mishap, the Colonel’s gang was highly successful, and were never caught. They supplied many of the taverns in Bridport and the Lyme Bay area with contraband liquor from France.

The Groombridge Gang named for a village a few miles west of Tunbridge Wells were active from about 1730. Several of them had wonderful nicknames such as ‘Yorkshire George’, ‘The Miller’, ‘Old Joll’, ‘Towzer’, ‘Flushing Jack’ and my favourite, ‘Nasty Face’. Nicknames, were commonly used among smugglers and highwaymen not as familiar terms of friendship but because they hid a true identity.

The Groombridge Gang was first mentioned in legal documents in 1733 when thirty men were bringing a cargo of tea inland using fifty or so horses. A group of eager militiamen challenged them, but outnumbered, were disarmed and forcibly marched en-route at gunpoint until the cargo was safely delivered. An inconvenience for both sides, for the whole affair lasted four hours. The militiamen were eventually set free, unharmed, but on oath not to renew their interfering.

The oath was made, but did not last long.

The Hadleigh Gang from the Suffolk town of the same name were known for fighting against the local dragoons in 1735, with the intention of recovering a seized cargo that had been confiscated and stored in a local tavern. More than twenty men of the gang were determined to retrieve their property. In the fight which followed several dragoons were injured and one was killed, the smugglers, however, managed to reclaim their goods. Seventeen of them, alas, had been recognised and were arrested, with two of them hanged immediately after their trial.

The interesting thing about Hadleigh is that it is not a coastal town, but lies a good forty miles inland!

The North Kent Gang worked along the coast from Ramsgate to the River Medway. In 1820 their use of violence increased when the Blockade Men came across the gang. A fight followed in which one officer was seriously injured, but the gang fled with their cargo. During the spring of 1821 forty of the gang gathered at Herne Bay to land a cargo, with more than twenty more men armed with bats and pistols to protect them.

Unfortunately for the gang, the batsmen had partaken of too much pre-run ‘hospitality’ at the nearby inn. Led by Midshipman Sydenham Snow, the men of the blockade appeared - drawn by the rowdy noise that the drunken smugglers were making. Eighteen of the smugglers were arrested. Four went to the gallows, with the others transported for life to Tasmania.

TWO OF THE WORST GANGS OF THE LOT

The Northover Gang were from Dorset and named for their leaders. In December 1822 Preventative Men, William Forward and Timothy Tollerway were on patrol: hearing whistling they saw two boats coming into shore with four men already on the beach. Forward and Tollerway then met with three of the men who dropped the kegs they were carrying and ran off. Tollerway kept guard on the abandoned contraband, while Forward seized a dozen more kegs after firing his pistol to summon help, but the gang surrounded him and forced him towards the waterline. Tollerway ran to give assistance. The gang leader, James Northover Junior, was subsequently arrested when more Preventatives arrived, and he was sentenced to fourteen months in Dorchester gaol.

Lessons were obviously not headed. James Northover was to serve time in gaol twice more and was then impressed into the Royal Navy in 1827 for yet another offence. We do nor know what subsequently happened to him.

The Hawkhurst Gang. Hawkhurst is about ten miles inland from the Kent and East Sussex coast, and between 1735-1749 the gang became known as the most notorious and feared in all England. They brought in silk, brandy and tobacco which had been landed at Rye or Hastings, with up to five-hundred men able to help out when needed.

Tobacco. The smuggler's fancy
© Stephen Orsillo –  Purchased Adobe Stock

The gang joined with the Wingham Gang in 1746 to bring ashore twelve tons of tea (that is a lot of tea!) but the Wingham men were set upon by their so-called partners. Seven Winghams were injured and the Hawkhurst lot made off with the tea and several valuable horses. There is no account of whether the horses were ever returned, either amicably or by stealth.

Inevitably, despite the benefits of smuggling, villagers grew fed-up with the gang’s increasing tyranny and led by local militiaman, William Sturt, a retaliation was made in April 1747. Confident of their power the gang jauntily marched to the village not expecting to meet with a small army of people determined to put a stop to their bullying. One of the gang’s hierarchy, George Kingsmill, was shot dead and he is buried in Goudhurst churchyard. His brother, Thomas, was later arrested and hanged at Tyburn in London, with his body taken back to Kent to be hung in chains and left to rot on the gallows.

Does his ghost linger in the village I wonder?

  © stocksnapper

Smuggling in Fact and Fiction by Helen Hollick is due to be published by Pen & Sword Press in January 2019

Bibliography

Smuggling In The British Isles by Richard Platt
Smuggling: A History 1700-1970 David Phillipson
Smuggling In Fact and Fiction Helen Hollick (not yet published)

This article is an Editor’s Choice from the #EHFA archives, originally published April 20, 2018.

~~~~~~~~~

Helen Hollick lives on a thirteen-acre farm in Devon, England. Born in London, she wrote pony stories as a teenager, moved to science-fiction and fantasy, and then discovered historical fiction. Published for over twenty years with her Arthurian Trilogy, and the 1066 era she became a USA Today bestseller with her novel about Queen Emma The Forever Queen (UK title A Hollow Crown.) She also writes the Sea Witch Voyages, pirate-based nautical adventures with a touch of fantasy. She has written a non-fiction about pirates and one about smugglers in fact and fiction.

Website: www.helenhollick.net
Newsletter Subscription: http://tinyletter.com/HelenHollick
Main Blog: www.ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com
Twitter: @HelenHollick

Amazon Author Page (Universal Link)
viewAuthor.at/HelenHollick

Helen is also the founder of Discovering Diamonds, a review blog for historical fiction, submissions welcome.

Barbarous Usage – A Murder Case that Shocked the Nation

By Chris Thorndycroft

In February of 1748, an elderly customs official named William Galley was escorting a witness called Daniel Chater from Southampton to Chichester to testify against a gang of smugglers who had broken into the customs house at Poole earlier that year. The pair stopped at the White Hart in Rowlands Castle for refreshment before the final leg of their journey. Unfortunately for them, the inn was a regular meeting point for members of the Hawkhurst Gang; the very smugglers whom the witness was to testify against. Once aware of the mission of the two men, the smugglers plied them with drink and spirited them away into the night. 

Galley’s body was later found shoved inside an enlarged foxhole at Harting Coombe. His arms were raised upwards as if shielding himself from being buried alive. Chater was found at the bottom of a well in Lady Holt Park, his body crushed by debris that had been pelted down on him. Both men had been cruelly tortured. The hunt for their killers began in earnest and the village of Rowlands Castle became the centre of a criminal investigation that shocked the nation. 

This was the village I was born to. 

The smugglers finish off Daniel Chater after throwing him
down a well at Lady Holt Park.

For the first eight years of my life I lived in a little cottage a mile down the road from where the White Hart once stood (it was torn down around 1853 to make room for the railway). Other than an old rumour that the track way past my terrace was once used by smugglers in the 18th century, this colourful chapter in the village’s history was wholly unknown to me until much later.

The gruesome events of February, 1748 were first described to me simply as a violent altercation between smugglers and customs men. Imagining some sort of Wild West gunfight occurring in my local village pub, I did a bit of digging. The truth was not hard to find. As well as the Old Bailey records and an entry in the Newgate Calendar, the whole nasty affair was recorded in a series of illustrated pamphlets entitled The Genuine History of the Inhuman and Unparalleled Murders of Mr. William Galley, a Custom-House Officer, and Mr. Daniel Chater, a Shoemaker. 

Written by ‘a gentleman of Chichester’, the pamphlets were published in 1758 and began by outlining the background to these appalling crimes. In September of 1747, a smuggling run organised by the notorious Hawkhurst Gang went awry when their cutter, the Three Brothers and its cargo of two tons of tea and thirty casks of spirits was seized by a revenue ship. The cargo was stored at the customs house at Poole. 

Incensed by this, the Hawkhurst Gang held council in Charlton Forest and, on the 6th of October, they raided the customs house and stole back the tea and spirits. Making their way back east, they passed through the village of Fordingbridge where a crowd tuned out to greet them as heroes. One of the smugglers - John ‘Dimer’ Diamond - shared a few words with Daniel Chater (an old acquaintance) and passed him a small bag of tea. This exchange did not go unnoticed. 

Frontispiece for the collected pamphlets
that sensationalised the case

Soon Dimer was arrested and put in irons at Chichester jail. The rest of the Hawkhurst Gang were thrown into a panic. If Dimer turned king’s evidence, he could name every last one of them. Fortune favoured the gang and, on the 14th February, customs officer William Galley and his charge Daniel Chater, wandered into the yard of the White Hart. 

The smugglers’ decision to remove this threat to them was unanimous although the means were a matter of heated debate. Should they kill them? Kidnap them and hold them until the trial had been held? Ship them to France? 

Whatever their decision it was clear that the two strangers had to be made as drunk as possible. Round after round of drinks was bought and, as the two inebriated men were escorted to their beds, a letter was pilfered from the pocket of William Galley. The contents of the letter – a request to the local Justice Battine to examine the witness – emphasised the danger to the smugglers. The most senior of them – William Jackson and his accomplice, William Carter – seized the men in their beds and dragged them out into the yard where they were put on horses, their legs tied underneath. 

The unfortunate men were horsewhipped for five miles in the direction of Lady Holt Park where the smugglers intended to dispatch them and toss their bodies down a well. William Galley begged for his life which drove Jackson (a sadistic villain even in these circles) to further savagery. 

The gang made a detour for Rake where Daniel Chater was chained up in a turf hut to await further punishment. William Galley, who was now presumed dead after sliding off his horse and having his skull kicked in by its hoof, was taken to Harting Coombe and buried, although not before regaining consciousness it seems.

After showing their faces at their respective employments the following week, the smugglers returned to the turf hut to finish off Chater. Ben Tapner, a smuggler who showed a nasty streak almost the equal of Jackson’s, slashed Chater twice across the face with his knife, severing his nose and nearly blinding him. The wretch was then taken to the well at Lady Holt Park where, after failing to hang him (the rope was too short) the gang threw him into the well and hurled rocks and bits of timber down on him until his screaming stopped. 

William Galley’s coat was found on the road, torn and bloody, but of the two unfortunate men, no further trace could be found.

Charles Lennox, the 2nd Duke of
Richmond was instrumental in
bringing the smugglers to heel.

Enter Charles Lennox, the second Duke of Richmond. This local aristocrat, whose seat was Goodwood House (now famous for its racetracks), hated smugglers with a passion. He was a staunch anti-Jacobite (he served under the king’s son against the ’45 rebellion) and the support smugglers often lent the Catholic cause only fuelled his wish to see them destroyed. The mysterious disappearance of a customs official and his witness while travelling through the duke’s domain would likely have roused his personal interest. 

Somebody clearly counted on this for an anonymous letter was sent to the duke, telling where Galley’s body was buried. A second letter even named one of the smugglers – William Steele – as an accomplice in the murders and he quickly joined his comrade Dimer at Chichester jail. A confession was wrung out of him along with thirteen other names. The manhunt began and in January, 1749, the villains went on trial for the murders of Galley and Chater.

The case was sensational for its time, no doubt helped by the series of illustrated pamphlets written by our anonymous ‘gentleman of Chichester’ (widely believed to have been the Duke of Richmond himself). The sadistic violence of the smugglers shocked the public and dispelled the belief that smuggling was a harmless crime committed by heroic types brave enough to flaunt King George’s harsh tax laws. The trial and media coverage turned the public’s opinion against smuggling and the days of its golden age were numbered. 

The Duke of Richmond died the following year and is perhaps better remembered for his patronage of cricket, but his contributions to stamping out smuggling in Hampshire and Sussex cannot be ignored. The trial effectively broke up the Hawkhurst Gang and various other leaders of the group were apprehended, tried and executed shortly after. The life of the duke and his relationship with his four rebellious daughters formed the basis of Stella Tillyard’s book Aristocrats and the 1999 BBC miniseries of the same name. 

The Castle Inn at Rowlands Castle stands on the same site
the White Hart once did.

Having learned the details of what I had previously thought of as a quick battle between smugglers and excise men in my local area, I knew that I had to work them into a novel somehow. The Hawkhurst Gang and its practice of murdering witnesses and intimidating judges smacked of an 18th century English mafia that extended from Kent to Dorset and was a thrilling piece of local history I had been wholly unaware of before my investigations. 

The White Hart, sadly gone, is remembered in the bricks and mortar of the Castle Inn which was built very nearby purportedly using the same materials. Rowlands Castle now has a railway station, at least three other pubs, countless shops and small businesses and a housing estate. It looks little different from any other village in the south of England but it will always have this dark chapter in its history that recalls casks of brandy deposited on shingle beaches, shadowed types leading packhorses down moonlit country lanes, and murder, torture and violence employed to ensure that people kept their mouths shut.  

Chris Thorndycroft’s new novel The Rebel and the Runaway is told from the point of view of Alice Sinclair; a young girl who runs away from home and winds up as a barmaid at the White Hart. In love with one of the smugglers, she becomes embroiled in the dreadful events surrounding the murders of Galley and Chater. On the run, in peril and torn between family and love, Alice’s story is one of passion and defiance, entwined with one of England’s most shocking murder cases.

Chris Thorndycroft is also the author of the Hengest and Horsa Trilogy and the ghost story novella The Visitor at Anningley Hall (a prequel to M. R. James’s ‘The Mezzotint’). He also writes Steampunk and Retropulp under the pseudonym P. J. Thorndyke.

Visit his blog here.