Smith, Elder and Co. first edition - 1845
G.P.R. James had taken up a house in Upper Walmer, Kent - some quarter of a mile from the sea - in the spring of 1841. Towards the end of 1843, he moved to another abode, a mile or so away, called The Oaks, close to Upper Deal Church. Here he wrote, among other novels, Agincourt and Arabella (1844) and The Smuggler (1845). I have all three in three-decker first editions, with Arabella still to read.
When James wrote The Smuggler, reminiscences of the smuggling age were yet fresh, with many an elderly hearty ready to tell wonderful, if occasionally exaggerated, stories of bygone years. James, ideally placed at Walmer and Upper Deal, will have heard at first hand such stories and was able to weave into his tale the exploits of the Ransley Gang (whom he styles 'Ramley'). The geographical position, its local features, its variety of coast, all afforded the county of Kent the greatest advantages - the fine level of the Marsh, Sandwich Flats and Pevensey Bay presented harbours of refuge and places of hiding for the kegs and bales. Moreover, the interior of the county - large masses of wood, numerous gentlemen's parks, hills and dales, roads only fit for horses or men on foot - offered the land smugglers the secrecy and safety no other county afforded.`
The story of Smuggling in east Kent in the 1820s is dominated by the Blues (supposedly due to them wearing blue smocks to work), who were a gang based in Aldington and who worked the area between Rye and Deal. The nucleus of the group came from that village and picked up support from a larger area. From Sandgate to Dungeness, and in every town in the Marsh there were confederates and hiding places. They were engaged constantly in conflicts with revenue officers as well as with the dragoons who finally were employed to put an end to smuggling. The cargoes were usually tobacco, spirits and salt. On arrival, the land party of 250 or so usually formed a corridor of armed men stretching about 40 yards inland. Protected by this cordon, the contraband was moved quickly. Prominent in such smuggling was George Ransley and his family. They were from Ruckinge and were originally farmers and waggoners. Profits from smuggling paid for his house at Aldington, the unlicensed Bourne Tap. The gang were renowned for their violence. Ransley organised his business methodically and professionally. He kept a surgeon, Dr Ralph Papworth Hougham, to attend to wounded smugglers; his solicitors in Ashford, Langham and Platt, defended him when necessary in court. At Aldington, the gang used the Walnut Tree as their H.Q., but he also profited from the sale of smuggled liquor from the Bourne Tap.
Ransley's long career ended at his home 'one stormy night' (shades of G.P.R. James!) in 1826. The authorities had finally had enough. A party of preventative authorities aided by a couple of Bow Street runners encircled the house and captured Ransley (who was in bed). A further 18 smugglers were also taken. They were all sentenced to death but the punishment was reduced to transportation.
James weaves a credible and quite exciting story into the 'factual' aspects of the time. I think it is possibly one of his best tales. Each character stands up and is 'alive'. The two 'heroes' - Sir Henry Leyton and Sir Edward Digby are well-drawn and have quite distinct personalities; as do their two 'belles' - Edith Crowland and Zara Crowland. Moreover, the author's portrayal of the latters' father, Sir Robert Crowland, is realistically developed from a weak, pathetic figure into the man who comes good at the end, dying with a modicum of peace and happiness. His sister, Mrs [sic] Barbara Crowland, could equally be found in the pages of Sir Walter Scott or Jane Austen. The younger brother, Zachary Crowland, was surely drawn from someone James knew, so well-rounded does he appear: there was nothing on earth which he considered so foolish as good-nature; and he was heartily ashamed of the large portion with which Heaven had endowed him. Richard Radford Snr. and Richard Radford Jnr., are more than arch typical 'baddies', with very differentiated personalities. As for the Ramleys (James merely changed two letters), that unsavoury family appeared drawn from real life. The two boys grew up into as fine, tall, handsome, dissolute blackguards as one could wish to look upon; and for the two girls, no term perhaps can be found in the classical authors of our language...they were two strapping wenches [with] the invincible arm of their mother.
The lesser characters - Jack Harding, the Widow Clare and her daughter Kate (whose tragic end veers on the right side of pathos), and the customs officer Mr Mowle, are also realistically delineated. The story of the latter's infiltration of the smugglers' gang may well have come from the real life events surrounding the [in]famous Battle of Brookland on 11 February 1821, where 4 smugglers were killed and 16 seriously wounded, a midshipman James McKenzie was the only blockader to lose his life. Cephas Quested mistook one of the blockade officers, who was wearing a smock as a disguise, for one of the gang. Quested put a musket in his hand and ordered him to Blow some of the ---officers' brains out. This mistake cost him his life. Only Mr Warde (later unmasked as Mr Osborn, Harry Leyton's uncle) doesn't quite ring true.
My only irritation with the novel is something that James was well known for as a writer. His all too regular musings on 'aspects of life' in general, which serve to break up the flow of the narrative and rarely add anything of real value. The very first paragraph in Volume One compares the improvements in clocks and watches during the last half century with society, which is but a clock, a very complicated piece of mechanism... The second volume commences: What a varying thing is the stream of life! How it sparkles and glitters! Now it bounds along its pebbly bed, sometimes in sunshine, and sometimes in shade...Now it runs like a liquid diamond along the meadow; now it plunges in fume and fury over the rock...Oh dear!
First edition title page
I also have a lovely paperback edition in the famous Routledge Railway Library Sixpenny unabridged Novels series. The illustration on the front shows a sinister smuggler with a black eye patch - the 'Major' - who recognises the disguised Customs Officer, Mowle. However, in recalling that the latter had 'saved' him at a magistrates' hearing, he allows him eventually to escape.
George Routledge and Sons paperback edition - 1887
I also referred to some of the books on Smuggling in my Library, in particular:
1909: Charles G. Harper - The Smugglers (Chapman & Hall)
1959: Neville Williams - Contraband Cargoes. Seven Centuries of Smuggling (Longmans, Green)
1991: Richard Platt - The Ordnance Survey Guide to Smugglers' Britain (Cassell Publishers)
1999: Tom Quinn - Smugglers' Tales (David & Charles)
Amazingly, as I was putting the finishing touches to this Blog, I read the account of Paul O'Grady's (better known as the drag artist Lily Savage) funeral in his local village of Aldington. One of the photographs was of villagers lining the street outside none other than the Walnut Tree. I wonder how many in the crowd were descended from the Aldington Gang!
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