The kidnap, torture and heinous murder of farm labourer Richard Hawkins in 1748 sent a vicious smuggler gang to the gallows. The crime marked the beginning of the end for the most notorious smugglers operating along England’s South Coast. Within a year, the Hawkhurst Gang had added two more murders and large amounts of “back-door goods” to their tally.

By Allen MisslebrookAS19112416 minute read

The King’s Men were closing in on the Hawkhurst Gang and recovering smuggled spirits, silk, tobacco and tea from hoards discovered across the counties of Kent and Sussex.

Smuggling in the 18th and 19th centuries was a big business. A night out at sea could earn a smuggler the equivalent of a week’s wages for labouring in the fields. They kept tight control of their swag and hid it in diverse locations throughout their territory. Local villagers helped out for a share in the proceeds of fear of smugglers.

It was the heavy import duties charged by the government that made smuggling very lucrative for gangs, who were taking the risk of bringing in luxury goods through the “back door”. The shallow sandy beaches such as Middleton, Clymping and Ferring were ideal for these night-time ventures.

The Hawkhurst Gang, named after the village in Kent where they originated from, were a vicious breed of men. They would not hesitate to commit murder should they deem it necessary. Their evil actions were experienced in Yapton, Sussex.

Double murder ended at the gallows

It was in January 1748 that the Hawkhurst smugglers started on their road to decline: A road that ended at the gallows…

In a barn belonging to Mr. Boniface, Richard Hawkins, a farm labourer, was threshing corn that day. Unbeknown to him, members of the Hawkhurst gang had hidden 12 bags of tea in the building. Two gang members, Jeremiah ‘Butler’ Curtiss and John ‘Smoker’ Mills, came to collect the smuggled goods and found that two bags were missing.

They assumed that Hawkins had taken them. After they had discovered his whereabouts, they held him at gunpoint and sat him in the saddle of Mills’ horse. They then rode to an alehouse on Slindon Common by the name of The Dog and Partridge.

Here, according to accounts of the inquest and subsequent trial, he was taken into the back room where other members of the gang were waiting. A “Smugglers Court” was held with Mills, Curtiss, Thomas Winter, and a fourth smuggler by the name of Robb, alias ‘Little Fat Back’, who was the judge and jury. Hawkins was tortured, punched, kicked and whipped by them. To stop further beatings, Hawkins implicated his father-in-law, John Cockrel Senior of Walberton, and his brother-in-law, also named John Cockrel, a Yapton alehouse keeper.

Pardon given by the Crown

While two of the smugglers left to find the father and brother-in-law and take them prisoner, Hawkins died of his injuries. The two smugglers, on their return, released their prisoners after swearing them to secrecy. They took the body of Hawkins and carted it to Parham Park, owned by Sir Cecil Bishop, weighted it down with rocks and immersed it in a lake where it lay undiscovered for 9 months.

Following an investigation and a pardon being given by the Crown to a smuggler who had nothing to do with the murder but supplied incriminating evidence, John Mills and John Reynolds, Master of the Dog and Partridge, were arrested. They were tried at East Grinstead Assizes. Unfortunately, Curtiss, by this time, had escaped arrest by fleeing to France. Reynolds was found not guilty of murder. He was, however, tried later, along with his wife, for withholding information.

John Mills, aged 30, was found guilty of murder and hung from a gibbet on Slindon Common near the Dog and Partridge. His body was hung in chains from the same gibbet as an example to other would-be murderers.

During a further search of the barn, the missing bags of tea were found.

Smugglers retrieve their tea swag

Smuggler gangs steal back their two tons of tea from the Crown Revenue.
Smuggler gangs steal back their two tons of tea from the Crown Revenue.

Contraband owned by the Hawkhurst Gang and other Chichester smugglers was seized in 1747 and taken to Poole Customs House for safekeeping. A group of thirty smugglers from Chichester joined forces with seven members of the Hawkhurst Gang to ride to Poole and reclaim the goods.

As there was no resistance put up at the Customs House, the smugglers were able to carry away two tons of tea. After stopping for breakfast at Fordingbridge in Hampshire, they dispersed the goods throughout the southern counties. There was a long search for the smugglers, and eventually, one of them was apprehended in 1748.

The Poole Customs House Officer, William Galley and another witness to the crime, a shoemaker named Daniel Chater from Fordingbridge, were called to give evidence at his trial near Stansted in West Sussex. On their way to the trial, the men were intercepted at Rowlands Castle by the other members of the smuggling gang. Both William Galley and Daniel Chater were tortured and brutally murdered.

The public was shocked by the barbarity of their deaths. When the gang were finally caught, they were brought to trial at a special Court held in Chichester’s Guildhall on January 16, 1749. Seven members of the smuggling gang were tried and sentenced to hang the day following their trial.

As a warning to other smugglers, their bodies were placed at various sites around the major routes to Chichester and the stone was put up at the Broyle, where it now stands.

The stone, which is now no longer legible, says that Richard Mills, one of the smugglers, died in his prison cell the night before he was executed: “He thereby escaped the punishment which the heinousness of his complicated crimes deserved, and which was the next day most justly inflicted upon his accomplices.

“As a memorial to posterity and a warning to this and succeeding generations this stone is erected AD1749.”

A Smuggler’s Song

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark –
Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!
by Rudyard Kipling

Do you come from Yapton?

The phrase ‘Do you come from Yapton?’ was often directed at anyone who entered a room or building and left the door open. The phrase is even stencilled on the saloon bar door of The Murrell public house in nearby Barnham.  The reference is believed to be associated with the custom of villagers leaving their doors open at night to allow smugglers to evade the “King’s Men” or to leave contraband as payment for their silence.

Because of the poverty that existed in the 18th and early 19th centuries, it is highly possible that many villagers were not averse to turning a blind eye or even assisting the smugglers. They could probably earn in a night as much as they could in a week of toil in the fields.

This article has been compiled from several different sources published at the time and since the event. All give subtly different accounts from which I have attempted to portray as near accurate sequence of events as possible.Allen Misselbrook, author.

UPDATE

18th Century smuggling was usually organised by gangs, who were funded by investors or venturers. They chose secluded parts of the coastline to land cargos from ships. There were many suitable areas along the south coast of England and west Wales, including small coves and river estuaries. Check out your ancestors from John Andrews, so-called King of Smugglers, proved that smuggling was not a barrier to respectability and polite society. Born in Scotland, Andrews moved to Saltburn in 1780 and became landlord of the village’s Ship Inn.

The Aldington Gang, some from Newchurch and the surrounding villages, worked on the marsh in the 1820s, and were also called ‘The Blues’. George Ransley was their leader and he came from a family steeped in crime.  His two cousins were both hanged for highway robbery in 1800. Many of his relatives lived in Newchurch and the surrounding villages of the Hundred of Newchurch.  Many cases of ‘run goods’ were found there. Now it was the smugglers themselves rather than the contraband that the revenue men were after, and any captured and found guilty were likely to be hanged or transported to Australasia. 

The Smugglers Gangs: Aldington Gang (Alias ‘South Kent Gang‘ or ‘The Blues‘) were notorious and theireEarly leader was Cephus Quested, hung 4 July 1821. George Ransley took over leadership along with two cousins James and William (the ‘Rascally Brothers‘). The cousins died on the gallows at Penenden Heath in August 1800 for horse stealing and robbing the King’s mail. George Ransley 1780-1856 died of yellow jaundice in Tasmania where he had been deported. Hawkhurst Gang Formed 1740’s by Arthur Grey. Leadership was taken over by Thomas Kingsmill in 1747. 1749 saw the end of the main leaders Groombridge Gang Said to be run by the Bowra family. Young John Bowra, grandfather Thomas Bowra and father John Bowra The gang was betrayed by Jerome Knapp 1749. Mayfield Gang Leader Gabriel Thompkins otherwise Kit Jams 1717-1750. Hawkhurst, Groombridge and Mayfield gangs worked very much together. Callis Court Gang leader Jos Snelling 1741-1769 involved in the battle of Botney Bay between Foreness Point and Kingsgate. He was the most famous Broadstairs smuggler He died aged 96, but his son George Snelling and grandson both took part in smuggling. North Kent Smugglers, first recorded in 1820, used the coastline between the River Medway and Ramsgate, Reculver was a favourite landing place. Burntwick Island at the mouth of the Medway was also used. Whitstable Smugglers: The best known episode was a raid on an escort of nine soldiers carrying a toad of captured gin with 53 smugglers involved; they recovered their gin. Retribution followed when 18 year old John Knight was tried and hung at Maidstone. During the war years a profitable business was made shipping out French prisoners of war.

John Carter: Also known as the “King of Prussia”, Carter led one of the most successful smuggling gangs in Cornwall in the 18th century. William Owen: Operated in Wales in the early 18th century, smuggling salt and brandy. Isaac Gulliver: Known for his exploits along Dorset’s south coast. Cruel Coppinger: Known for his cruelty, Coppinger’s name was given to some roads in Cornwall. John Andrews: Known as the “King of Smugglers”, Andrews was the landlord of the Ship Inn in Saltburn. The Hawkhurst Gang: A notorious gang that terrorized the coast from Shoreham to the Romney Marsh. Samuel Jackson: Also known as “Slippery Sam”, Jackson was the son of a smuggler and was shot in battle at the age of thirty. Foy, Riley, and their associates: Known as the “gentlemen smugglers” because of their college educations and aversion to violence. – Wikipedia