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The north Kent coast illustrates a great variety methods and personalities. For two short periods it became a battleground for major gangs, but for much of the time smaller organisations carried on the trade, with a fair degree of connivance from those employed to prevent it. Among the leading personalities are the flamboyant Joss Snelling of Broadstairs, the discreet Dr Rutton of Seasalter and the hypocritical Rev Thomas Patten of Whitstable. Moreover, there are two quite different types of coastline in north Kent, and accordingly the story of what happened here divides naturally into two sections. The more typical episodes, involving gangs running goods ashore on open beaches, took place along the coast eastwards from Seasalter and Whitstable round Thanet and into Sandwich Bay. The opportunities within the muddy waters of the Thames estuary were distinctly different; characteristically too we know very much less about what took place here.
The best prospects in the Thames estuary lay either in offloading part of a cargo from vessels engaged in legitimate trade, or else in small scale ventures which could be carried out unobserved within the narrow channels and creeks. The shores of the Hoo Peninsular and Isle of Grain to the west of the Medway, Stangate Creek, the Isle of Sheppey and the creeks at Sittingbourne, Conyer and Faversham to the east, were the regular landing sites. Charles Dickens was to describe this landscape, when prison hulks and plague ships were anchored offshore, in the opening chapters of Great Expectations. (A pathetic row of small tombstones in the churchyard at Cooling on the Hoo Peninsular is believed to have inspired part of the story.)
During the smuggling years these marshes were still malarial; even today it is easy to to visualise the landscape the smugglers knew. This is particularly true at the extremely isolated Shades House in Halstow Marshes north of Cooling, among old farm buildings near Allhallows or at the Hogarth Inn on the Isle of Grain, and all have known associations with the trade. Equally evocative is the small wharf at Conyer, west of Faversham. This was regularly used by the smuggling community at nearby Teynham, and the boatyard and Ship Inn at Conyer are strong reminders of this lawless past.
The story of one small scale enterprise, which must have been typical of many more, concerns the Roots family of Chatham. Edward Roots, his brother Richard and several other local men formed a consortium to bring goods from Flushing and Ostend during the 1720s. Londoner Thomas Pigmore put up the capital, and Edward Roots owned a vessel called the Mermaid which could carry about five hundred pounds of tea on each trip. Between September 1727 and June 1728 they managed ten voyages, landing cargoes on the Hoo Peninsular, which then had a preventive force of a mere two Riding Officers. On five occasions they used Chalk Marshes (close to Gravesend) and a hide near Chalk church. They also used Cliffe Marshes, and hid goods near Higham, and twice risked using quays in the Medway.
The goods were then taken on horseback to 'Yorkshire Tom' (the Duke of Montague's gardener at Blackheath) who met them on Blackheath or Shooters Hill, and the tea was finally sold in the alehouses of Deptford at ten shillings per pound. This profitable business survived the seizure of the Mermaid; Edward Roots bought another vessel and continued trading.
The Thames marshes lay within the customs control of the port of Rochester, and a desperate official was to describe the situation around 1740 as an infestation of smugglers. Officers were assaulted and fines for minor offences went unpaid. Part of the trouble came from the goods shipped directly into the Medway, and one informer spoke of five cutters, able to bring in between them six tons of tea and 2,000 tubs of spirit in a week. There was also smuggling out of vessels held in quarantine at Stangate Creek, near the Medway mouth. But a great deal of contraband passing through Rochester along the Roman road had been landed on beaches much further to the east. This was a continuing problem throughout the smuggling years; at its worst around 1780 when armed convoys rode through every few days.
The ancient port and market town of Faversham was equally notorious. Dutch oyster boats and local vessels brought goods up Faversham Creek (some had sailed right round Sheppey to avoid detection). Supplies also came from the beaches between Seasalter and Reculver, and were regularly and openly sold in the market below the timber-framed Guildhall. When Daniel Defoe came here in 1724, the main feature was still the owling trade, and he commented on the fortunes to be made by this. The many fine houses (often with Georgian facades masking an earlier structure) are an indication of the prosperity brought by trade, both legitimate and otherwise. The local community invariably sided with the smugglers. At a time when known free traders were outlawed during the 1740s, a Faversham smuggler called Millaway confessed to a local Justice of the Peace that some years previously he had shot an Exciseman; nevertheless he went free.
Faversham stood at the western extremity of the major smuggling beaches. From Seasalter round to Sandwich Bay there were innumerable opportunities for illicit trading on the coast relatively sheltered from prevailing winds and conveniently close to continental suppliers. The oyster fishermen of Seasalter and Whitstable, and the seamen of the Thanet ports had an intimate knowledge of the whole coastline, and sometimes had family links with the Low Counties. Around 1700 a gang of a dozen Frenchmen were living in Canterbury alongside Walloon wool combers, and were well placed to ship out wool from flocks on the rich coastal pastures nearby.
Continental clothiers came to rely on the fine quality product they knew as 'Canterbury Wool'. Apart from the small ports of Whitstable, Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate, the farms and hamlets then lay inland, leaving an empty shoreline and dandy beaches accessible but happily unobserved, at least until the late 18th century. Where the coast was backed by cliffs (of unstable clay near Herne but chalk on Thanet) it was easy to construct trackways leading inland. The Blean woodlands behind what later became Herne Bay were particularly useful hiding places on routes to the markets at Canterbury and Faversham. The recognised alternative route ran through Grove Ferry and Fordwich inland.
The coastal cliffs provided caves for storage and divided up the shoreline into separate bays, a particularly striking feature along the coasts of Thanet. Here, generations of local people improved access to the beaches below the soft chalk cliffs by excavating stairways and steep canyon-like cartways. The older villages stood back from the coast - St Lawrence behind Ramsgate, St Peter's and Reading Street behind Broadstairs - and it was from these villages that farm tracks radiated out towards the various gates and gaps where the shore could be reached. Much later these were to become the roads round which the modern housing estates have developed, but in the 18th century each provided an enterprising landowner with discreet access to his own beach, and caves for storage.
Today's holiday makers know them well: Sackett's Gap down to Palm Bay, Foreness Stairs and Kemp's Stairs to Botany Bay, Kingsgate itself, and at Broadstairs, Stone Gap, Waterloo Stairs and Dumpton Gap. In their day each must have proved a veritable goldmine, and some of the older farmhouses, resplendent with Flemish gables, bear witness to this prosperity. Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate were small fishing ports at this time, but had once held the privilege of exemption from customs dues as minor members of the Cinque Ports Confederation. When Daniel Defoe came to Broadstairs (then known as Bradstowe) in 1723, he noted that only a small fraction of the inhabitants appeared to be supported by legitimate activities, and he found it unwise to inquire too closely how most people lived.
It was probable because the landing beaches were often relatively restricted, even near Herne and Whitstable, that smuggling tended to be carried on by a number of small local gangs. And since smuggler and preventiveman had to live side by side, there are clear signs that a degree of quiet accommodation was worked out which left both sides better off. We may suspect that this was the case at the ancient village of Herne, clustered round the fine medieval church of St Martin on the hillside a short distance above what is now Herne Bay. Around 1700 Herne was home to both a smuggling community and the local Riding Officer; it lay on one of the main routes from the coast into Canterbury, and storage facilities were presently developed both in the village and at nearby farms. The Herne smugglers had direct access to beaches at Hampton, Herne Bay, Bishopstone and Reculver.
The first Riding Officer based at Herne was Francis Pilcher, and in 1698 he was awarded forty pounds for seizing a parcel of wool as it was being shipped out. Two officers that succeeded him reported that they were being threatened by local smugglers. Despite this intimidation William Eads, who was Riding Officer at Herne in the 1730s, became sufficiently wealthy to have a vote in Parliament (an achievement which could hardly have come from his official salary of twenty-five pounds per year). On the other side, William Chamberlain of Herne was leader of the local wool smugglers. In ten years he too rose from poverty to become a substantial freeholder who could also claim a parliamentary vote.
By 1730 the main activity had become the landing of tea and spirits, but this had not yet developed into a major industry or been backed up by armed force. The local Petty Sessions record numerous minor cases. The fine for selling contraband tea was apparently three times its legal value, and one of the largest fines recorded was for two hundred pounds on Edward Goatham, a victualler at Ramsgate, for selling uncustomed spirits. This situation changed rapidly once the large gangs moved in around 1740. A gang based at Wingham and their notorious associates from Hawkhurst now began to use some of the larger beaches near Margate and Reculver. Much later the Rev Richard Barham (who had personal experience of what went on) was to set his poem The Smuggler's Leap at Reculver, with a graphic account of a typical run.
In march 1744 Mr Ketcherell, Supervisor at Canterbury, wrote to his superior John Collier to alert him to the increasingly serious situation. He explained that gangs taking goods to London stopped in Canterbury almost daily, and that they regularly spent one of two days in Thanet. He instanced a gang who had spent a whole day in Birchington, each man armed with a pair of pistols and a blunderbuss. Local officials everywhere faced threats and intimidation, and farmers were browbeaten into supplying horses and feed. This violence increased partly because, as one bitter official pointed out, there had been no Revenue vessel on patrol offshore for months.
In April 1746, following the landing of eleven and a half tons of tea in Sandwich Bay, the Hawkhurst men turned on their associates from Wingham and took away their horses. It was believed the same Hawkhurst men then went on to rescue some nine tons of tea which had been seized at Margate. In the months that followed there were reports of two hundred men passing through St Peters, and of other major landings at Reculver and Kingsgate. In March 1747, a ton of tea and quantities of coffee, cambric, linen and firearms were captured and held in Margate, and it took the combined forces of all the preventive services of Thanet and Sandwich, with naval help, to prevent recapture.
In 1714, Mr Ketcherell sent another telling account to John Collier. One hundred and thirty men had landed a cargo between Reculver and Birchington; they then split into two parties, sixty three men and eighty or ninety horses went via Herne Bay and Faversham, and the rest followed the alternative route via Grove Ferry and Canterbury. Part of this information had been passed on to Mr Ketcherell by Rev Thomas Patten of Whitstable. His parsonage stood beside the shore at Seasalter, and apparently he dabbled in smuggling himself. Moreover, he was accustomed to levying a tithe on local contraband, as on all other production. But his group, whom he described as 'such rugged colts' refused to comply, and the Rev Patten felt justified in reporting their conduct. Later, accounts confirmed that members of the Hawkhurst gang were responsible for these violent episodes. Jeremiah Curtis was named in connection with an armed struggle at Epple bay, Birchington, and John Munton of Sittingbourne and other known gang members assembled at Chislet for a landing at Reculver, just to the north. Fortunately for the people of north Kent, the Hawkhurst gang was broken shortly after this, and the local communities reverted to quieter tactics.
Seasalter was the heart of another smuggling organisation whose very existence has only recently been revealed through detailed work by Wallace Harvey. Seasalter takes its name from the old-established salt works there. In the early 18th century it was a small fishing community on the edge of the marshes, yet for more than a century the lease of Seasalter Parsonage Farm (immediately above the shore) was held by a succession of well-established gentlemen who came from outside the area. The farm was occupied by their nominees, men who took on relatively arduous and ill-paid employment in the customs service as Riding Officers, Coastwaiters and Tide Surveyors, but who then retired to settle down as bankers, builders and lawyers. In all, Mr Harvey has traced some sixteen men, all of whom made a very handsome living in no very obvious fashion. The details of their web of of relationships within an organisation which was perhaps controlled from Dover, are too complicated to be readily summarised, but it is worth looking at the known facts about two key members. Incidentally, not one of them was caught doing wrong, though one was certainly suspected, and was for a time removed from his post as local Riding Officer and Coastwaiter.
The founder member of what Mr Harvey calls the Seasalter Company was Dr Isaac Rutton of Ashford, who leased Seasalter Parsonage Farm in 1740. At this stage the contraband was brought ashore beside the Blue Anchor Inn and stored at local farms if necessary. Pink Farm in Seasalter Lane was one of these, and when it was demolished in 1953, a secret room was discovered behind a door disguised as a cupboard, also accessible by a shaft from a windowless room above. There were later stories of ditches temporarily filled with tubs, and haystacks which suddenly doubled in size and reeked of tobacco. The pack horse convoys headed for Blue House Farm on the North Downs above Lenham, and the road to London. They used the old byways south of the present main road (A229), and continued up Brogdale Road and through White Hill. To ensure safe passage, Dr Rutton installed his eldest son first at White Hill and then at Chapel House, Ospringe (which stood above a spacious crypt). His other son was vicar of a local parish. The need to bring horses to fresh marsh pastures masked the necessary movement of pack animals, and it would have been an easy matter for contraband to be picked up at Lenham and taken on towards London.
Dr Rutton, his sons and associates all benefited handsomely from their unspecified activities at Seasalter, as the company continued trading through the 18th century, but it was Mr William Baldock who reaped the richest rewards. He began life in extremely modest circumstances, looking after cows. From builder's labourer he graduated to managing a Whitstable inn, and then to owning a sailing vessel. By 1776, he was advertising the services of two ships which regularly sailed from Whitstable to London and back, and he soon began buying and renting out land. By 1792, he was living in Canterbury in some style, as a Justice of the Peace and owner of St Dunstan's Brewery. At this point Dr Rutton died, and his sons assigned the unexpired lease of Seasalter Parsonage Farm to William Baldock. The changes he brought to the organisation deserve further consideration later; at this stage it is appropriate to report that when he died in 1812, this erstwhile cowherd had amassed 1,100,000 pounds.