Historical
We all have a very different opinion of life in the 1700’s from the stories we have read, and how life must have been, and our opinions of how everyday life’s struggle would have been made easier by a small bag of tea, coffee, tobacco or spirits, things that we now take for granted, but if you see in the news smuggling still goes on to this day. Think how you might have coped in the days of old, put yourself in their shoes for a minute and think, maybe, just maybe for that easier life, to end your struggle, would you do the same?
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The gang’s criminal activities were not just limited to smuggling. Supposedly, “They supported themselves by highway robberies and house-breaking. One eighteenth century newspaper reported an attack by the outlaw gang of smugglers in April of 1747.
"Apparently, the gang lost their goods at sea and were so exasperated at the loss, they fell upon unarmed townsmen in Folkestone, in Kent, and cut and abused them at a sad Rate. With no way to protect themselves, the townsmen offered little resistance. Because there was little resistance, villains carried off three horses, broke into a house, and then “went to several publick sick Houses and drank what they pleased, threatening to shoot those that asked them for Money.”
Introduction
15th century Briton was never going to be a good time. Charles Dickens picture of Briton in the 1800 is of rough times so imagine life going further back in time to the 1700’s, hardship, meagre living. It was in fact a story of two different classes, the haves and the have nots. It seems a far cry from what we have today, this is civilisation as we know it now, although not perfect, most of us can go home to our warm houses, working for a full day to earn money so that we can have these luxuries. In the ye olden days, things were a lot different, if you became ill then you couldn’t work, can’t work you can’t eat. Many had poor houses and a lot became ill through disease, plagues, sanitation was poor and life expectancy low, the average person who was living in slums had an average age of around 35 years old. About 25% of the population died before they were 5 years old, perhaps around 40% of people died before they reached adulthood, a different story if you were brought up in a well-off family the figures were much higher. At the top were the nobility. Below them were the gentry. Gentlemen were not quite rich, but they were certainly well off. Below them were yeomen, farmers who owned their own land. Yeomen were comfortably off, but they often worked alongside their men. Gentlemen did not do manual work! Below them came the mass of the population, craftsmen, tenant farmers and labourers working in industries such as glass, brick making, iron and coal mining
For the upper class and the middle-class life grew more comfortable but for the poor life changed little. A writer of the times estimated that half the population could afford to eat meat every day. In other words, about 50% of the people were wealthy or at least reasonably well off. Below them about 30% of the population could afford to eat meat between 2 and 6 times a week. Then there were the poor, the bottom 20% could only eat meat once a week if they were lucky.
If life wasn’t already harsh and just to make life that little more difficult there was the taxes that they had to pay. Nothing has changed, everyone has been paying taxes, but how to pay taxes when you have nothing to give.
Throughout the 1700 many people viewed criminals and law breaking as heroic and courageous, and the activities of thieves and villains were often widely celebrated. The Stories of daring criminality were widely reported in a host of printed pamphlets, books, and newspapers, and generated high levels of public interest across the country.
Highwaymen were held in high esteem by many people. Tales of highway robbery often became the stories of folklore and legend; several highwaymen became popular celebrities in their own lifetime. When notorious English thief and gaol-breaker Jack Sheppard was hanged in 1724 after making four escapes from prison, 200,000 people attended his execution that was at the time one third of London's population. When the celebrated 18th-century highwayman John Rann was let off for a theft in 1774, he was mobbed by a crowd of adoring admirers as he left court in London. He enjoyed cheerful banter with both the hangman and the crowd, then he danced a jig, before being publicly executed at Tyburn at the age of 24.
Probably the most famous of all was Dick Turpin, the Highway man. Famous for highway robbery. Dick Turpin most likely became involved with the Essex gang of deer thieves in the early 1730s Not becoming famous till after his death 7th April 1739
For others, however, rising crime was the cause for much concern. Theft remained alarmingly high and by the second half of the century many people were beginning to question the effectiveness of the methods used to investigate and arrest wrongdoers.
Law enforcement was quite different from modern-day policing. The prosecution of criminals remained largely in the hands of victims themselves, who were left to organise their own criminal investigations. Every parish was obliged to have one or two constables, who were selected every year from local communities, and were unpaid volunteers. These constables were required to perform policing duties only in their spare time, and many simply paid for substitutes to stand in for them.
From the 1750s, however, this patchwork system of local policing was strengthened by a more professional force of officers. In 1751 London magistrate Henry Fielding founded the Bow Street Runners, who for the first time provided a permanent body of armed men to carry out investigations and arrests.
Most criminal cases during the 1700s were brought before local magistrates, who dealt with crimes without the benefit of a jury. Magistrates were themselves unpaid officials who were drawn from the ranks of the wealthy and were expected to defend the English law as amateurs. Thus, many magistrates were easily corrupted. In London, Horace Walpole believed that ‘the greatest criminals of this town are the officers of justice’. Though magistrates were extremely powerful men, many found their duties extremely burdensome and often dealt with their heavy caseloads with great reluctance.
For more serious crimes, such as rape or murder, cases were referred to Crown courts, in large towns. For the ordinary citizen, trials at these higher courts were hugely intimidating experiences. Most felony cases did not involve defence barristers until the end of the century, and witnesses were usually examined directly by the judge and even by members of the jury. The vast majority of cases lasted for only a matter of minutes, and it was not uncommon for dozens of cases to be heard in a single day.
Guilty verdicts in cases of murder, rape and treason or even lesser offences such as poaching, burglary and criminal damage could all possibly end in a trip to the gallows.
Most punishments during the 18th-century were held in public. Executions were elaborate and shocking affairs, designed to act as a deterrent to those who watched.
A range of other punishments were, however, also frequently imposed. Many felons were transported to the American colonies (and later in the century, to those in Australia), where they served out their sentences in hard labour. Other criminals convicted of lesser crimes were fined, branded on the hand by a hot iron, or shamed in front of the general public: by being whipped ‘at the cart’s tail’, for example, or being set in the pillory and pelted with rotten eggs and vegetables. Long-term prison sentences in ‘Houses of Correction’ were also more widely imposed towards the century’s end.
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Something had to change, and something was done, by a small group of individuals who changed their fortunes around. We could think that they in fact changed it out of necessity and hate of the system that they were in. Taxation too high. Areas were relatively lawless or not policed at all.
So, although you can’t forgive the life they chose, looking at the life style of the common person in the 1700’s and with the taxation of the time, one can only imagine what life was like back then and see why, despite the punishments they would choose the life they did. The way they saw it, the spoils from their exploits outweighed the risks of what they saw as their chosen profession, smuggling.
HAUNTS OF THE EAST SUSSEX GANGS
The smuggling beaches of east Sussex were largely controlled by highly-organized gangs: the Hawkhurst Gang was the most notorious. These "smuggling companies" were frequently based in coastal hamlets, but were as likely to conduct their business operations from an inland centre on the route to the main market in London. The core of gang members would thus not have been seamen, and farmed out the channel crossing to others — often local fishermen — or to French ships. As landsmen, the gang's talents lay in raising capital and arranging distribution.
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The Hawkhurst Gang
TQ7630 12m NW of Rye (map 199/188). . Seacox Heath is on the Flimwell Road at TQ 730308; Seacox House
Much of the contraband entering the country across the sand and shingle coasts of Romney Marsh was shipped on packhorses to London, soon passing through the sleepy hamlet of Hawkhurst ten miles or so inland. In the 1730s this collection of scattered farms and houses was the headquarters of the most notorious gang in the history of English smuggling.
The Hawkhurst gang probably don't hold any special records: other gangs were longer-lived; a few could probably muster as many tub-carriers and batsmen on the beach; and it's likely that individuals in other smuggling gangs were equally violent. However, the Hawkhurst gang had the questionable benefit of especially good (or bad) public relations. The account of the trial of two of the gang members for the torture and murder of two men in 1748 makes grisly reading, and almost certainly played a major part in turning the tide of public opinion against the smugglers.
The Hawkhurst gang formed as a separate entity in the mid-1730s. An isolated reference to the gang appeared in 1735, and within five years the company had been consolidated into the powerful fighting force that was to dominate Kentish smuggling for the next decade.
In 1740 the gang ambushed a group of customs officers at Robertsbridge, and recovered a cargo of contraband tea that had been seized in a barn at Etchingham. The gang soon escalated their operations, and perhaps because of the sheer scale of the landings, they cooperated with other local smugglers. However, these joint ventures were somewhat unequal partnerships, and it was always clear who was in command. When the Hawkhurst and Wingham gangs joined forces in 1746 to unload 11½ tons(!) of tea, an uneasy alliance evidently turned to open warfare. The Wingham men tried to leave the landing site at Sandwich Bay prematurely, and were set upon by their collaborators. After a sword-fight in which seven of the Wingham men were injured, the Hawkhurst gang left the scene taking with them 40 horses belonging to the other gang.
In Hawkhurst village various prominent members owned property in the area that was extensively used — or even purpose-built — for smuggling activity. Highgate House used to be a hiding place for contraband; Hawkhurst Place was said to have had a tunnel linking it to Island Pond; and Tudor Hall was supposedly linked by another tunnel to the Home Farm on the Tonges Estate. Tubs Lake and Smuggley were staging posts for contraband coming up from the coast. However, the most imposing monument to the profits to be made from smuggling was probably the mansion built by the gang's financier Arthur Gray at Seacox Heath (the smugglers were known locally as 'Seacocks' but the name of the heath is very much older). The mansion, nicknamed 'Gray's Folly', incorporated various hiding holes for smuggled goods and even a bonded store. Unfortunately the grand mansion has been demolished but Seacox Heath still remains.
It is widely stated that Oak and Ivy Inn was the headquarters of the Hawkhurst gang, but the deeds of the pub do not bear this out: it was not licensed as an inn or alehouse before the mid 19th century.
By the late 1840s, the Hawkhurst gang had developed unprecedented power, and boasted that it could assemble 500 men in the space of a couple of hours. In the absence of any effective policing, this disreputable group soon became a law unto themselves, taking without payment whatever they wished from the local farmers and merchants, and answering tolerance and patience with aggression and insult. Their activities did not go entirely unresisted, though. The most spectacular instance of rebellion by the much-abused Men of Kent came in 1747, with a showdown at Goudhurst (see below).
The gang suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the citizens of Goudhurst, but the battle proved to be only a temporary setback, and Hawkhurst men continued to operate in the area albeit with a lower profile. The final break-up came at the end of the 1740s, with the execution of the gang’s leaders, Arthur Gray (1748) and Thomas Kingsmill (1749). You can read the account of Gray's trial by clicking here, and that of Kingsmill here.
Pushing a rod through the bung-hole 1 of a barrel would reveal a full depth of water 4 . Compartments at the ends 3 hid tobacco. Openings 2 gave access to the contraband. The illustration below shows how the wheeze fooled customs men. Cigarette card image courtesy of the Bristol Radical History Group.
Man-size packaging
This cooperation is hardly surprising because smugglers and their agents were big spenders. For example, one day in 1766 an enterprising smuggler bought at a Nantes warehouses 229,282 livres of tea — that's nearly 110 tons. Furthermore, it cannot be said that the French and Dutch supplied goods in all innocence, because the smugglers' needs were quite different from those of legitimate traders. An honest importer required goods in the largest possible containers, to make economies of scale at the dockside: the hogshead was one standard packaging, and could hold up to 140 gallons, though 54 was more usual. Large packages like these were impossible for smugglers to conceal or to land without winches, so contraband was packed in much smaller quantities. Tobacco came in bales of a convenient size for a one-man lift and wrapped in oilskin to make a virtually watertight bundle. This approach was highly effective, and bales of tobacco tossed overboard by smuggling ships to destroy the evidence stayed afloat in the sea for hours. People in coastal towns were quick to seize this jetsam when it was washed up, since the bundles contained a substantial core of smokable product to which the seawater had not penetrated.
Tubs of spirits
Tea was protected in a similar way, and spirits were packaged in small barrels or 'tubs' called half ankers, which contained a little over four gallons. Ankers, holding 81/3 gallons, were less commonly used. The coopers made both sizes of barrel with flattened sides for easier carrying, and usually supplied them slung together in pairs on ropes. This arrangement meant that 'Tubman' on the English side of the Channel could easily carry a pair of ½ ankers across their shoulders, one at the front and one at the back. When pony transport was available, the rope slings on ½ ankers fitted neatly across the beast's back.
To save tubs, and space in the ships, spirits were supplied just as they came out of the still: over-proof, and virtually colourless. Dilution prior to sale was — at least theoretically — a simple matter, but who would buy crystal-clear brandy? To solve this problem, the French distillers offered caramel, to be added to the kegs along with the water.
Over-proof spirits as they came out of the keg were just about drinkable, but lethal in any quantity: there are numerous stories of people opening washed up or seized barrels, and dying of the effects of drink (see Harwich for example).
Sometime in the early 1740s Jeremiah Curtis, who had been part of a violent gang in the Hastings area, joined forces with the Hawkhurst Gang, and was one of its most brutal members. It was Curtis who led the whipping and beating to death of Richard Hawkins, a farm labourer from Walberton whom they suspected of stealing two bags of the gang's tea. Hawkins was taken to the Dog and Partridge inn at Slindon to be interrogated. When he died of his injuries, his body was found weighted with rocks in a lake 12 miles (19 km) away at Parham Park in the spring of 1748. Parham Park was owned by Sir Cecil Bishopp, 6th Baronet.[4]