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What is less well known is that at Cranbrook nearby a similar local defence force, called the Cranbrook Association, was formed. This group was responsible for capturing William Potter, a Benenden smuggler, later imprisoned at Maidstone. Then in October 1747 they captured William Gray, but he was released from Newgate on the grounds that he had not been named in the London Gazette as a smuggler, although everyone knew his record. Arthur Gray, meanwhile, was arrested for highway robbery, so the leadership of the Hawkhurst gang devolved on Thomas Kingsmill.
The Hawkhurst gang was not the only one responsible for a spate of violent incidents throughout the whole length of the east Kent coast during the mid 1740s. Secure in their superiority of numbers and weapons, the smugglers cursed and assaulted officers and landed their goods in broad daylight without serious interference. The authorities knew that as much as five tons might be hidden in Brockman's Barn, near Folkestone, and they received four reports in ten weeks about goods runs at Dymchurch Wall, but could do little to prevent it. When a smuggling cutter and its load of tea was being held in Dover harbour, two hundred me with cocked pistols rode through the town to recover the vessel. Another gang, not content with making a successful landing on a favourite beach between Hythe and Sandgate, returned a few days later to attack the officer on duty in Sandgate Castle. Finally, in 1749, there began a series of trials end executions which broke up the major gangs, and relative peace descended on the Wealden and coastal villages of Kent for a generation.
Smuggling was already increasing again, in response to higher Customs duties, by the time John Wesley first visited Rye in 1758, and he was to preach constantly against the practice. A shadow was cast over his later visits by the failure of his campaign, and still more when his daughter's fiancé, Captain Henry Haddock, who commanded the Rye Revenue vessel, was shot by a smuggler off Dungeness. When the whole country was denuded of fighting men during the War of American Independence which began in 1775, the way was open to defiant gangs to operate once more, particularly at Deal, Folkestone and Sandgate.
One of the richest seizures ever made took place in 1773, when silk and lace worth fifteen thousand pounds was captured near Hythe, but it was the seamen of Deal who caused the greatest problems. Deal boatyards had perfected the building of open galleys, often called 'centipedes', up to seventy feet long, with twenty oarsmen and a small sail. It was said one could reach the French coast in two hours. The local seamen regularly brought back goods from shipping in The Downs (including vessels in quarantine), and the government decided that firm action was necessary. In October 1781, over a hundred cavalry and nine companies of infantry were sent to ransack the town for contraband.
timely hint had enabled the townsmen to ship back the bulk of this across the Channel, so the amount seized was said to be worth a mere ten or fifteen thousand pounds instead of the one hundred thousand pounds worth which had previously been stored there. But then in January 1784, when the local boats were beached to avoid the winter storms, William Pitt again took action, and sent a regiment of soldiers and an offshore force of naval cutters. The men of Deal watched what they believed was a military exercise, and discovered too late that their boats were to be burned. It was terrible retribution, but it did not stop the smuggling traffic.
In common with seamen at Folkestone and elsewhere in Kent. men from Deal developed a lucrative trade carrying gold guineas across to France by galley during the Napoleonic Wars. They also continued to bring goods ashore in the more traditional fashion. In December 1801, when two Revenue vessels had driven a smuggling lugger onshore near Deal, the crew jumped overboard and went to seek local help. Then, while the Revenue men were struggling to refloat their prize, they were set upon by a horde of armed residents! Beside tobacco, the lugger had been carrying fashionable fabrics and playing cards, and it is noticeable that luxury items figured among the goods carried at this time. A king's messenger was arrested for bringing in silk kerchiefs, and an Excise officer found four thousand yards of French lace and two hundred and forty six pairs of gloves in a post chaise leaving Deal.
Further down the coast at Sandgate the chief problem was an illicit tobacco factory operating in buildings close to the castle. Despite the establishment of a Watch House in the castle itself, there were regular landings along this beach. In 1786, when two Riding Officers and dragoons had successfully captured some tobacco, the preventive men had themselves to be rescued from the wrath of the local population through the intervention of the Mayor of Folkestone. Three years later officers, supported by a constable and armed with the appropriate search warrant, tried again to gain entry to the tobacco factory, but were driven off ignominiously. There was even a revival of the owling trade. In 1787, smugglers were imprisoned in Dover for attempting to ship live sheep to France from Dymchurch, but in characteristic fashion they were able to escape with outside help and an 'iron crow'. Huge quantities of wool were seized in Romney marsh before these could be shipped, and were then sold at Rye. At a single sale in 1778 nearly eight thousand pounds of wool were on offer.
In 1792, England was again at war with France, and fighting continued until the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. The fighting did not necessarily prevent smuggling, and Napoleon had good reason to encourage it, but the concentration of troops along the Kent coast, the activities of the press gang and preparations designed to resist invasion certainly made it more difficult.
In 1803, after two thousand six hundred and fifty of gin had been landed near Dungeness in circumstances which threw doubt on the loyalty of the Waterguard, the Collector of Customs at Dover reported to his superiors that smuggling at Deal and Folkestone was greater than ever. However, the smuggling community now had to contend with Watch Houses at key points, and the men of the Waterguard offshore, improved fortifications at Dover, the barracks at Deal and the new Shorncliffe Camp behind Sandgate.
In 1795, a chain of signal stations linked to London was established along the coast. Potentially the greatest threat to the smugglers came when the building of a chain of Martello Towers began in 1805, and the Royal Military Canal and Military Road cut Romney Marsh off from its hinterland in 1806. The complete their discomfiture, galleys suitable for taking gold to France were to be destroyed under legislation of 1812. For a time, at least, smuggling languished.
Following the victory at Waterloo, and almost as soon as the former fighting men returned to restart the smuggling trade, Captain McCulloch (Flogging Joey to his men) put forward the idea of a Coast Blockade to protect the most notorious coasts. In 1817, this was tried out between Margate and Dover and soon extended to cover all the shores from Sheerness to Seaford, in Sussex. McCulloch organised it from his headquarters on a Man-of-War off Deal. Parties of naval seamen patrolled offshore, and manned the Watch Houses which were sited at interval of three or four miles (several remain; the one at Old Stairs Bay near Walmer is now a private house). It was McCulloch's boast that he would make grass grow in the streets of Deal! Though the system was both expensive and unpopular, and some Blockade men succumbed to bribery, the impact on smuggling was considerable, and was to continue until the Coastguard Service took over here in 1831.
But if circumstances had changes, public attitudes had not. The free traders could still count on popular support, as when the crew of a smuggling vessel (who came from Folkestone and Sandgate) were caught in 1820, and imprisoned in Dover gaol. Local people discovered exactly where they were being held, and a strong band of citizens attacked the gaol, got on the roof and began to demolish the place. They succeeded in rescuing the seamen (while the Mayor of Dover tried unsuccessfully to read them the riot act) and carried them off to hiding, pausing briefly at the Red Cow in Dover for their manacles to be struck off.
Local seamen continued to own and crew the smuggling vessels. The large galleys which had been used for the gold smuggling trade were now replaced by smaller, cheaply-built open boats, known as 'cocktails'. Men rowed out to pick up rafts of tubs which had been left in mid Channel, but this technique soon fell victim to the Coast Blockade. Guile and deceit worked better. A very good example was later recalled by William Wills, otherwise Yan Yenner, who was born in 1800. He went to sea as a fisherman at the age of thirteen, and became a smuggler at twenty because it paid better.
After various successful runs to Ireland, he was among the crew of the Four Brothers (owned by his uncle and captained by his father) which left Flushing for Ireland in January 1823 with a cargo worth eleven thousand pounds. The Revenue cutter Badger caught them at daybreak off Dieppe. Unable to escape, the Four Brothers hoisted Dutch colours and opened fire. They were forced to surrender, and were later tried at Bow Street, but were acquitted on the bogus grounds that the vessel and more than half the crew were Dutch. To add insult to injury, the Badger cutter had to escort the Four Brothers out of Dover harbour.
Other seamen came to rely on vessels with specially devised hiding places, many of which were built at Rye. The most famous was the Sally, of Hastings, which was constructed as a boat within a boat, leaving a five inch gap between her inner and outer shells for the carrying of contraband. Concealment on land was also becoming more ingenious. Blockademen found one of the cleverly contrived hides in Sandwich Bay in 1817. Tubs had been hidden in a deep wood-lined pit, with a thick layer of shingle on top to defeat its discovery by probing.
The land smugglers also returned to their old techniques and were soon involved in serious fighting with the Blockademen. Contemporary newspaper reports and the recollections of those who took part provide a wealth of detail about episodes in the 1820s right along the coast. One revealing account concerns two Customs men who in 1819 agreed to avert their eyes (in return for a handsome gift of spirits) when smugglers brought a boat into Rye harbour. Unfortunately, HMS Severn arrived unexpectedly and 'helped' to capture the whole cargo. The aggrieved smugglers thereupon reported the conspiracy, calling as witness their look-out man.
But many stories illustrate the courage of the preventive services. Lieutenant Peat, a Blockademan at Folkestone, showed particular devotion to duty. He had the grim task at Dymchurch of escorting ashore a prisoner called Walker. The local people rioted and threw stones, and in the fight which followed, Peat killed his prisoner. Thereafter, he was a marked man. He was twice attacked and ambushed, and on the second occasion survived fourteen wounds. Richard Morgan, a Blockade midshipman at Dover, was later to die for his zealous service. His story is bound up with that of the last Kent gang, the Blues or the Aldington gang.
The first direct reference to this gang came in November 1820, though it must have been responsible for earlier episodes at Deal, St Margaret's Bay and on the Marsh. It was led by Cephas Quested until has capture in 1821, and thereafter by George Ransley. We know many details about the gang because Lord Teignmouth (Henry Shore) later talked both to George Ransley's son and to one of his tub carriers. More recently, John Douch has taken the story further, with help from Mr Terry Ransley.
In November 1820 the Aldington gang carried out a landing in the traditional style close to Sandgate Castle. Three hundred men were involved, and armed guards protected each flank of the convoy right from the beach up the Military Road leading inland. They were challenged by local Blockademen and others coming off duty at nearby Martello Tower 4, but the main preventive force had been lured elsewhere. One smuggler was recognised, but none were captured; they left behind their boat and part of their cargo. Moreover, a servant of a gentlemen visiting Sandgate was confronted by a wounded man with a blackened face seeking help!
The following February a battle took place outside Brookland which lest five men dead and twenty-five injured, the most savage encounter in the smuggling records. Some two hundred and fifty men had gone down to the coast east of Camber. A third had been detailed to fight if necessary, while the rest carried the cargo. They were spotted, and a party came from Camber Watch House. A running battle developed across Walland Marsh in which one preventiveman and four smugglers died. In the confusion and darkness, gang leader Quested mistakenly ordered one of the Blockademen to fire on an officer. He was captured and subsequently tried and hanged (but without betraying his colleagues).
The wounded were treated by Dr Ralph Hougham, who lived in Pear Tree House, which still stands in the main street of Brookland. He had become accustomed to treating both sides in these struggles, and had a special wallet containing medicines and instructions for use on these occasions. He was also used to being blindfolded and led on his own horse to treat an injured smuggler.
After the battle of Brookland George Ransley took over as gang leader. He was born at Ruckinge in 1782, and spent his early life blamelessly as a carter and ploughman. It is said that soon after his marriage he found a cache of sprits, and raised enough money from its sale to build his own house. Known as the Bourne Tap, this can still be seen. Ransley now turned to smuggling. According to his son, he used to go to France by packet boat to buy supplies (two hundred tubs of spirit was was a normal load). Folkestone men in his pay would bring the cargo over, to be met by a well-organised and locally-recruited landing party. He could sell up to one hundred tubs per week from his house, and his customers came from thirty of forty miles around! He retained his own firm of solicitors and a resident surgeon against eventualities!
Under Ransley's leadership the gang continued to land cargoes at points between Deal and Rye. In May 1826, when a galley trying to evade pursuit ran aground at the mouth of the Rother, two hundred men emerged from behind Camber sand hills to stop interference from those at Camber Watch House. The smugglers killed a Blockademan, but then fled, taking their wounded with them. (Camber Watch House, now a private residence, is the last house on the road from Camber towards Lydd.)
The fate of the gang was finally sealed in July 1826 when they were caught unloading tubs onto the beach at Dover (where Marine Parade now stands). Midshipman Richard Morgan from HMS Ramillies had come off duty from the Blockade station at Townsend Battery about 1am when he heard men calling to one another on the beach. He fired a shot to summon assistance, but in the ensuing battle among the bathing huts, he was fatally wounded. No one came forward to claim the five hundred pounds reward which was offered for information.
However, two other gang members who had been captured in earlier fighting now provided the necessary evidence. Ten weeks later, Bow Street Runners and Blockade officers went to Aldington at 3am and surprised the gang leaders in their beds. They were duly tried, but since darkness had made it difficult to identify Morgan's killer with certainty, the death sentences passed were commuted to transportation for life. George Ransley became a convict labourer on a free settler's farm in Tasmania. He was eventually pardoned, became a free settler himself, and seems to have ended his days there with the rest of his large family.
The break up of the Aldington gang effectively ended large scale smuggling in east Kent. Following the landing at Jury's Gut in 1829, the last convoy went openly through the middle of Lydd while the local people cheered! Desultory efforts continued, particularly south of Rye, where Toot Rock in Pett Level was a recognised meeting place. On one occasion several smugglers were drowned in the Royal Military Canal near Pett, when they failed to find the recognised fording place.
A fiddler from Winchelsea was the last man to be killed in east Kent in a smuggling affray near Camber Castle in 1838. However, the stories of what had taken place lived on. The Rev RH Barham, who ministered to the joint marsh parishes of Snargate and Warehorne, wrote a poem about smuggling which appeared in The Ingoldsby Legends. He regularly met smugglers on his journeys through the marsh, and claimed that he could find Snargate church on a dark night by the smell of tobacco stored in its tower. (Virtually all the marsh churches were used in this way, and a vault under the nave at Ivychurch was especially useful.)
The story of the Aldington Gang was the inspiration behind GPR James' novel The Smugglers and Russell Thorndike's series of stories on the adventures of Dr Syn. It is entirely in keeping with tradition that the sea washed up a dog kennel holding thirty pounds of tobacco at Dungeness in 1843, and bales of leaf tobacco near Sandgate in 1877! The men of Deal kept going even longer, and tobacco, brandy and gin were still being seized by Coastguards during the 1880s.