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April 24th, 2010:

Isaac Gulliver – Dorset’s Smuggler King

Apr 24th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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He was a smuggler, as was his father before him. He flouted the law of his day, yet always managed to present a façade of respectability. Isaac Gulliver, it has been said, was “the gentle smuggler” the Raffles of the Hanoverian duty-free culture; an audacious genius of an illicit occupation.

In the 18th century the Napoleonic wars forced the price of continental wheat and liquor to a prohibitive level for the poor. As journeymen’s wages were also very low there was a great incentive for many men and some women to smuggle as a means to supplement a meagre income. Since agricultural wages were typically only 3s to 6s a week the prospect of making 10s a night by smuggling proved irresistible. Venturers were often in league with captains and were regularly running the risk from or confrontation with excise officers or “Preventive Men”, as they were sometimes known.

But Gulliver was in a league of his own regarding his resourcefulness in the lengths he could – and did – go to give customs the slip on at least three occasions. He is said to have had himself carried through the streets of Poole in a barrel. On another occasion he even feigned death by whiting his face with chalk and lying in an open coffin while excise officers were raiding the house he was in.

Little however is known about Gulliver’s early life in the Wiltshire border village of Seamington near Melksham where he was born on September 5th 1745, the son of a man himself actively involved in smuggling in the Poole area. At this time Bournemouth as a developed resort did not exist, and the narrow wooded valleys (chines) which ran down to the shore were ideal for concealing un-shipped contraband. Coy Pond at Westbourne was a popular rendezvous for smugglers, and Gulliver’s father. And later Isaac himself regularly used this and Branksome Chine for concealing their offloaded cargoes.

When Isaac was 19 in 1765, his father made a will. By this time his son possessed a strong physique and constitution, and had begun to follow in his father’s footsteps. 1765 saw him in collaboration with Robert Trotman, another smuggler who was shot dead in mysterious circumstances on the Poole shore, causing suspicion to be cast upon Gulliver as the possible murderer on the night in question. But as with so many of the other accusations which were to follow in the years to come, Gulliver’s possible complicity in the killing could not be proved. He was also said to have been implicated in a confrontation between 40 smugglers and 6 dragoons at about this time, which resulted in the outlaws’ horses being stolen. Trotman was buried in Kinson Churchyard.

By the time his daughters had arrived Isaac was in league with William Beale and Roger Ridout. Running much contraband on the shore between Poole and Christchurch. As his wealth from smuggling accrued, Gulliver was in a position to enter into property speculation and investment on a grand scale, as well as being a moneylender for mortgaging.

In 1775 for instance, Gulliver bought Pitts Farm and other properties and lands in the Kinson area. Prior to this he also held land at Cudsell and Ensbury and had styled himself as a wine merchant and innkeeper at Thorney Down. Between 1775 and 1783 he bought Eggardon farm from the Revd. William Chafin and had sub-let 75 acres of land at Kinson while living at the King’s Arms for a while as a tenant. In 1783 he sub-let the shop he ran as a winery at Kinson.

The same period also witnessed notable incidents arising from the smuggling operations on the coast. In 1777 a man called Levi Payne stole Gulliver’s 10 year-old grey horse and £21.16s collected on his behalf. In response Gulliver, who was living at Thorney Down at the time, advertised a handsome reward for the return of his property. But in 1778 he offered 10 guineas as a bounty and 5 guineas “to drink the King’s health” to any young men who were prepared to serve in the Navy or Army. December 1779 found Gulliver boarding at the White Hart in Longham while he was selling off some horses.

A few months later customs officers raided a granary thought to have been near the Dolphin Inn at Kinson. 541 gallons of brandy and rum, with 1,871 lbs. of raw coffee were seized from J. Singer, one of Gulliver’s servants. Then in 1782 Gulliver’s name appeared on a customs list for un-shipping 4 pipes (480 gallons) of wine without payment of duty. About four years earlier the King’s Commissioners for Customs in London asked their counterparts in Poole for a report on Gulliver’s activities, but for neither of these indictments were the authorities able to make any charge stick.

But there were few who did not benefit from Gulliver’s activities. The gentry were directly or indirectly the recipients of his imports. And by 1780 Gulliver had established a network of distribution points as far west as Lyme Regis. He also had a force of about 10 men in his service, called “Whitewigs” after the distinctive uniforms of white coiffures and smocks, which they wore.

The broad, solid redbrick and cobble tower of Kinson Church has a band of dripstones around it which today are worn and chipped, but the damage is not due solely to time and the elements. It was caused by knocks from kegs of liquor being winched up the tower, probably under cover of darkness by Gulliver’s men during the heyday of Dorset smuggling.

Gulliver even planted trees on the ancient Eggardon Hillfort to act as a landmark for the luggers making for the coast with their cargoes. Then the contraband would be landed at West Bay, Swyre or Bexington. The Preventive Men were well aware of the activities of Gulliver and his cahorts, but virtually no action was ever taken to curb them. Possibly a certain amount of bribery went on to account for this, but the smugglers had to be caught in the act to be arrested and charged.

In 1784 customs raided a barn at Kinson, generally believed to have been at Pitt Farm, which Gulliver had ought from Mary Barnes. Another tenant of Mary’s was John Potter, whose wife Hannah was questioned by the officers at the Dolphin Inn.

In 1788 Gulliver put his Kinson home up to let and by the following year he was living at West Moors. Three years later he was at West Parley, where he is noted for bringing an injunction against the unlawful removal of the Hampreston/Parley parish boundary marker. But in the 1790’s he moves to Long Crichel to lead a quieter life.

In 1796 Gulliver’s second daughter Ann married Edmund Wagge of Burton House, but found herself a widow after only three years. Gulliver himself was to experience a family tragedy when in November 1798 at the age of only 24 his son Isaac died and was buried at Wimborne. Gulliver officially retired in 1800 but an 1867 edition of the local paper The Poole Pilot carried a story that at the turn of the century Gulliver had landed a record amount of contraband from three luggers anchored near Bournemouth Pier.

The year 1815 saw the Gullivers settled at Kinson House (now superseded by modern flats) and the retired smuggler entering into a legal agreement for a cottage in Kinson to which was attached an ancient enclosure called Le Cocqs, situated behind the Kinson Baths. Gulliver’s daughter Elizabeth, who had married a respectable Wimborne banker, called William Fryer, made her marital home at Pelham House. In 1822 Gulliver was awarded a deed of land at Bourne Farm, Canford, but could scarcely have lived to enjoy it. Ominously, on Friday, 13th of September that year, he died and was interred in Wimborne Minster. The Canford Award revealed that he owned or leased over 390 acres in the Kinson area. His 12,000-word will revealed that he also held extensive property in Wiltshire, Hampshire and Somerset.

(See our story Sixpenny Handley, published 26th November 2012 in Sixpenny Handley category.)

Dorset – Smugglers Coast

Apr 24th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The south coast of England in particular has had a long tradition of smuggling, especially where there are many coves or inlets ideal for concealing contraband. Devon and Cornwall are particularly well endowed in this regard, but Dorset has hardly been less important as a focus for the trade. The life of Isaac Gulliver, the ‘smuggler’s king’ of Dorset, has been covered in a biographic feature on the site, here I am considering the more general look at smuggling and what motivated people to become involved in its illegal operations.

Usually thought of as a male preserve, what may at first surprise many people is the extent to which women were also involved. Some of these would have been smugglers wives, though this is not invariably the case. Dorset, in the heyday of smuggling, was of course a very rural and sparsely populated county, with much agrarian poverty. The business of importing goods, usually liquor, from cross-channel boats under the cover of darkness in order to flout excise regulations was a lucrative sideline that impoverished families living within a few miles of the coast would find too great a temptation to overlook.

The register for Dorchester Gaol 1782-1853 lists the names and occupations of no fewer than 64 women convicted of various smuggling related offences. Twenty one of these (32%) were from Portland alone, while just six resided in Weymouth, five in Bridport, three in Bere Regis and two in Lyme Regis. The parishes of another nine are not recorded. Wool and Woolbridge, Preston, Pulham, Sutton Poyntz, Langton Matravers, Marnhull, Morecombelake, Beaminster, Bradpole, Broadwindsor, Buckland Ripers, Charmouth, Chetnole, Chickerell, Corfe, Dorchester and Kington Magna account for the remaining sixteen.

Three notable examples are Charlotte Drake of Bridport and Ann Maidment, a Bridport buttoner, who both assaulted and obstructed excise officers, and Mary Applin of Langton, who committed an excise offence. Martha Lumb of Weymouth was sentenced to three months hard labour in 1822 for smuggling, while Catherine Winter, a Weymouth seamstress, served an 18-day sentence in 1844 for smuggling at the age of 70!

But regardless of the sex of the offender, for the populace as a whole, smuggling was generally considered an honourable trade. The customs officers or the “King’s Men” were responsible for ensuring that contraband was impounded and fines levied. At Poole the problem of smuggling was so rampant and the customs men so understaffed and overworked that Dragoons had to be deployed to assist them as early as 1723. Typically the customs officers were brave and resourceful with a strict code of conduct; so that names were never banded about and nothing ever put in writing.

Poole was especially ideal for smuggling operations because of the exceptional size and highly indented nature of its harbour, the second largest natural harbour in the world. Goods were disembarked into inlet hideaways at Hamworthy and then transported by waggoners to Bristol via Blandford. Furthermore, goods could be offloaded on the south Purbeck coast and hauled overland to be temporarily laid up in the deep inlets such as those at Arne or the Goathorn Peninsula for later distribution to Poole markets without the smugglers having to risk detection by passing through the harbour mouth. Longfleet and Parkstone farmers constructed secret tunnels down to the water’s edge for bringing goods ashore.

After 1759 the volume of smuggled goods passing through Poole significantly increased, though raised vigilance on the part of the Preventatives gradually brought this down. The Commissioners of Customs based in London frequently requested reports on the amount of smuggling going on in the Poole area.

Although landings and disembarkation operations took place from Lyme Regis to Christchurch, the coast from Portland westwards to Lyme attracted special attention. This was because most of the coast is occupied by the Chesil Bank, a shingle spit enclosing a lagoon (the Fleet) which was a convenient storage-sink to hold casks (“tubs”) for collection at a more appropriate time. One memorable incident took place in 1762 when a Cornish vessel was broken up on the Chesil in a winter storm and its cargo washed into the sea. There then followed a desperate attempt by Weymouth citizens to salvage what tubs of liquor they could before the customs house officers could reach them! In the end the citizens claimed 26 tubs to the revenue’s 10; another ten were cast out to sea but recovered the next day.

Probably the greatest hideout and smugglers haunt along this coast was Lulworth Castle, the seat of the Weld family, but which had a connection with smuggling throughout the 18th century from 1719 onwards. In 1719 revenue officers from Weymouth raided the castle and the entire Lulworth area. It has been said that maids working at the castle would routinely warn smugglers when the customs men were in the vicinity by showing a light at a window to indicate when it was safe to come in, but also act as a bearing. The gangs at Lulworth could comprise as many as 100 disguised and heavily armed men, who used Mupe Rocks as the disembarkation point, but the deep ravines and inlets along the coast west of Kimmeridge were also ideal for concealing kegs. A gap in the cliffs at Worbarrow Bay was a special favourite and tubs were raised to the top of Gad Cliff, and brought ashore at Arish Mell and for storage at Tyneham Church.

On a knoll near the coast between West Bexington and Puncknowle there still stands an unusual monument. This is The Lookout, a square building constructed as a signal-station for the Fensibles, but which may also have been used by Isaac Gulliver, who used the Bexingtons, Swyre and Burton Bradstock as landing sites after 1776.

Lyme Regis has had an especially long smuggling history extending back at least as far as the 16th century, when certain merchants were suspected of smuggling bullion out of the country by sea. In 1576 a revenue man called Ralph Lane was sent to Lyme with a deputy bearing a warrant to search ships alleged to be involved in the operations. His arrival however, provoked a riot during which the warrant was seized and Lane’s deputy was thrown into the sea. From Lyme contraband was traditionally floated up the Buddle River, often under the noses of the Preventives, who were frequently understaffed and restrained by bureaucratic regulations. Booty offloaded onto the Cobb could not be inspected until it had been carried half a mile to the Cobb Gate. Lyme is believed to be the birthplace of Warren Lisle, a customs officer who at 17 was appointed Patent Searcher at Poole and who made his first seizure of a cargo from a small vessel in Portland Harbour in 1724.

Weymouth was central to excise operations for the sea, but the town’s revenue officials had a long and shameful history of ineptitude and corruption. Enter George Whelplay, who in the 16th century failed to make any headway in countering popular local support for smuggling. Originally a London haberdasher, Whelplay came to Dorset to try his fortune as a public informer, and as such could claim a fifty per cent commission on each fine he imposed upon those he caught, but in 1538 he incurred the wrath of smugglers and fellow customs officers alike when he exceeded his remit. Whelplay twice stumbled on a cargo of horses being illegally shipped to France, but instead of coming to his assistance in rounding up the French boats the officials joined a gang of merchants and attacked him.

Around 1830 smuggling reached a climax in the Weymouth area, where, it is said; tunnels were constructed from the harbour to merchant’s houses and even to the residence of King George III. The leading figure in smuggling to be connected with Weymouth was Pierre Latour, otherwise known as French Peter, who functioned as a prominent gang-leader in the town. In Wyke Regis churchyard there is a grave of one William Lewis, a smuggler shot dead by a revenue officer on board the schooner Pigmy.

In conclusion, anyone who has anything to do with Dorset will know of Thomas Hardy, the well-known novelist-poet. Less well known is that Hardy was an authority on smuggling – and not without good reason. His birthplace cottage at Highter Bockhampton was actually a capacious safehouse for smuggled contraband that could accommodate up to 80 casks of brandy. “But this isn’tall.” When a child, Hardy was regaled with smuggling stories from his grandfather and his own father had a manservant who was actually involved in the trade. The Bockhampton cottage lay on the smugglers route between Osmington Mills and their markets in Sherborne and Yeovil.

Dorset’s Clocks and Clockmakers

Apr 24th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The history of clock-making or horology is one of a constant battle to improve the means of timekeeping. Craftsmen in Dorset no less reflected that in their work from the earliest beginnings in the 11th and 12th centuries to the decline of hand-made clocks in the 19th century.

The earliest clocks ever made in Dorset (as probably elsewhere) were those made for churches. During medieval times smaller versions of church clocks were being hand-made for the home elsewhere in the country, but this type was unknown in Dorset. However these clocks would have been very poor timekeepers until technical advances such as the pendulum in the 17th century enabled timepieces to become reliable enough for use in the home.

By the end of the 18th century and from then until the mid-19th century technical refinement and reliability in hand-made clocks reached as far as it would ever go. Henceforth a steady decline in standards set in with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and mass production.

Dorset exactly reflected this pattern. Its earliest known clock is that residing in Wimborne Minster, dating from 1409, though it is quite possible that this clock or another was in use well before this date. But the earliest sources of our knowledge of clocks in the county come from Churchwarden’s records. These list the names of the clockmakers and repairers – or blacksmiths or whitesmiths – who maintained church turret clocks for over 100 years.

As to when horology became clearly defined as an industry in Dorset, this is difficult to place. For example, when the borough of Dorchester organised its trades into guilds some clock-makers, though included, elected to be registered as braziers or ironmongers as late as the 19th century.

One place where the clock-maker/blacksmith connection can most clearly be seen is in Stourton Caundle parish church. A funerary hatchment of John Biddlecombe bearing the arms of the Worshipful Company of blacksmiths hangs in this church and states “With hammer in hand all artes do stand.” The blacksmith and clock-maker records were lost in World War II but an earlier John Biddlecombe left his blacksmith and clock-working tools to his son upon his death in 1741. The hatchment therefore probably commemorates John junior, who in fact made the church clock still in use today. Indeed, Biddlecombe was just the first in a long succession of smiths to style themselves as clock-makers as well.

One interesting instance of wounded pride has survived showing how clock-makers would consider themselves a cut above other trades. In a letter written in 1772 James Norman, a Poole-clock maker, replies to a complaining minister or churchwarden about his charge for installing a church clock that includes this line: “You may get bunglers or white or blacksmiths to work at a cheaper rate!” Early turret clocks needed constant attention and repair, and as public clocks the cost of their purchase and maintenance was accountable.

A little later than the earliest Wimborne record, accounts of churchwardens in Bridport record a clock in 1425 and in Corfe Castle one is recorded in 1570. It is further noted that Weymouth and Melcombe Regis bought a new clock for St. Mary’s church in 1619. In this instance the maker kept the old clock’s movements in part exchange, indicating that the church’s first clock went back at least 70 years before the replacement. It is not known whether or not these clocks were made in Dorset.

By the 18th century church clocks were being signed and dated. The earliest known signed and dated clock is that set into the tower of Sydling St. Nicholas Church and is inscribed “1593 E.T.C.”

There is no record of a domestic clock in Dorset until the 16th century, but by 1620 records show that the county clearly had clock-makers, and from then a comprehensive list of makers can begin. The earliest records are in the Dorchester Domesday Book at the time of Henry V till Elizabeth I, and the first mention of a clock-maker in the borough records minute of 15th September 1625. As expected the principle-line of clock-makers was centred on Dorchester, though Poole and Weymouth were also centres of some importance by the late 18th century.  Bridport, Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Blandford and Wimborne had a less significant, but strong and continuous tradition of clock-making, while Stalbridge, Puddletown and Bere Regis were home to minor cottage horologists. Shaftesbury and Sherborne were the earliest producers of 17th century lantern clocks.

Most domestic clocks made in Dorset were 30-hour long-case clocks fashioned to suit the lifestyle of the county, and these were the cheapest. By the 1760’s clocks powered by falling weights had appeared and the most common type after LCC’s were the so-called “classroom” or wall clocks which could indicate the time for a large number of people at once without the disadvantage of the long-case clock. Early wall clocks of the late 18th century generally had large dials, well-cast brass bezels and factory movements mass-produced in Birmingham, Germany or the US.

An Act of Parliament in 1797 taxing the possession of all clocks (and watches) – though repealed after just one year – effectively halved the number of makers as public clocks became more important. These were the “Act of Parliament Clocks” which James Kenway of Bridport and Thomas Wood of Dorchester specialised in making.

In Dorchester the earliest recorded clock-maker seems to have been Richard How, who had relations and apprentices with connections to many other makers. Also of importance in the 19th century was James Bunn, who’s clocks retained typical features of the late 17th or very early 18th centuries. However, James Wood of Dorchester (1741-1803) relied on quality of engraving for effect and specialised in making clocks of exceptionally high quality. These were probably the last of an era of true hand-made clocks before the custom of buying in more finished parts made clock-making less exacting.

But probably the county’s most innovative clock maker was Henry Ward of Blandford, who even has timepieces exhibited at the British Museum and in Rockford, Illinois. Another horologist in Blandford was Sam Pegler, who was predominantly a maker of bracket clocks that superceded long-case clocks in popularity during the 19th century, and the town’s Charles Baker made three noteworthy long-case clocks with fine marquetry casings. Members of the Bastard family were also involved in horology.

In Bridport a little-known horologist called Lovelace made a particularly unusual long-case clock in a “black-japanned” case about 1700 that was eventually sold at Sotheby’s. Also in Bridport, a maker called Daniel Freke made a clock equipped with a primitive “half-lantern” pinion drive to the count-wheel.

Weymouth’s John Harvey produced the first fine wall clock between 1790 and 1800. In the 18th century Lawrence Boyce of Puddletown was a quite prolific maker of long-case clocks, while Ralph Norman, an apprentice of Richard How, left Dorchester in the 1720’s to make timepieces in Poole of very grand styles and equal in quality to those being made in London.

There is a record of one William Clark, then clock-making in Stalbridge, but originally from Cerne Abbas or Frome, producing some 28-day clocks, while Simon Aish (1690-1735) made some clocks in Sherborne.

Finally, I can note that much more recently Geoffrey Booth of Bere Regis produced a clock for which the case was made by master carpenter and craftsman John Makepeace of Parnham House near Beaminster.