Transcribed from the 1913 Constable & Company Ltd edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: The Block House, Norman Cross Barracks, 1809, where French
Prisoners of War were confined. Drawn by Captain George Lloyd, 2nd West
York Militia, 1809. Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall]
THE DEPOT FOR PRISONERS
OF WAR AT NORMAN CROSS
HUNTINGDONSHIRE. 1796 to 1816
* * * * *
BY
THOMAS JAMES WALKER, M.D., F.R.C.S.
Fellow (Member of Council 1908–9) of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Associate of the British Archæological Association. Past President of
the Peterborough Natural History Antiquarian and Scientific Society.
* * * * *
“I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.”
SHAKESPEARE’S “OTHELLO.”
* * * * *
LONDON
CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD
1913
* * * * *
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORDS ix
CHAPTER I
THE URGENT NEED FOR PRISON ACCOMMODATION, NORMAN CROSS, 1
HUNTS, SELECTED AS THE SITE, AND THE PRISON BUILT
CHAPTER II
THE PRISON AND ITS ESTABLISHMENT 17
CHAPTER III
ARRIVAL AND REGISTRATION OF THE PRISONERS 47
CHAPTER IV
ADMINISTRATION AND DISCIPLINE 58
CHAPTER V
PRISON LIFE 89
CHAPTER VI
“LES MISÉRABLES” OF NORMAN CROSS AND THE “ROMANS” OF 112
DARTMOOR
CHAPTER VII
EMPLOYMENTS OF THE CAPTIVES—STRAW PLAIT 124
CONTROVERSY—CONDUCT—ESCAPES
CHAPTER VIII
THE SICK AND THE HOSPITAL 163
CHAPTER IX
THE CEMETERY—RELIGIOUS MINISTRATIONS—BISHOP OF MOULINS 173
CHAPTER X
PRISONERS ON PAROLE—SOCIAL HABITS—MARRIAGES—EXCHANGE OF 190
PRISONERS
CHAPTER XI
BRITISH PRISONERS IN FRANCE—VERDUN—NARRATIVE OF THE REV. J. 223
HOPKINSON
CHAPTER XII
THE TRUCE AND THE PEACE—PRISON EVACUATED, 1802—FINALLY 239
CLEARED, 1814—DEMOLISHED, 1816
APPENDICES 257
INDEX 343
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE I.—THE BLOCK HOUSE, NORMAN CROSS BARRACKS, _Frontispiece_
1809, WHERE PRISONERS OF WAR WERE CONFINED
Drawn by Captain George Lloyd, 2nd West York
Militia, 1809
PLATE II, FIG. 1.—THE WASHINGLEY PLAN OF THE DEPOT, 18
1797 TO 1803, EAST ELEVATION
FIG. 2.—MR. HILL’S PLAN OF THE DEPOT, 1797 TO 1803, 18
WEST ELEVATION
FIG. 3.—MAJOR KELLY’S PLAN OF THE DEPOT, 1800 TO 18
1805, (_a_) NORTH ELEVATION, (_b_) GROUND PLAN, AND
(_c_) PICTORIAL PLAN FROM THE EAST
FIG. 4.—BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF NORMAN CROSS BARRACKS AND 18
PRISON, EAST ELEVATION, EXECUTED BY LIEUT. E.
MACGREGOR, 1813
PLATE III.—THE BLOCK HOUSE WHICH STOOD IN THE CENTRE 22
OF THE PRISON
PLATE IV.—THE OUTER SIDE OF THE WALL 24
PLATE V.—THE INNER SIDE OF THE PRISON WALL AS IT NOW 26
STANDS
PLATE VI.—THE HOUSE OF THE BARRACK MASTER, ENLARGED 30
IN 1816, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF J. A. HERBERT, ESQ.,
J.P.
PLATE VII.—LODGE REMOVED FROM THE PRISON IN APRIL, 37
1816, AND RE-ERECTED AS COTTAGES IN ST. LEONARD
STREET, PETERBOROUGH
PLATE VIII, FIG. 1.—WOODEN TEA-CADDY RICHLY 46
DECORATED WITH “PAPER MOSAIC,” THE WORK OF THE
PRISONERS OF WAR AT THE FALMOUTH DEPOT. THE
SPECIMEN IS IN THE COLLECTION OF MISS LILLEY PAULL,
OF TRURO. FIG. 2. TEA-CADDY SIMILARLY DECORATED IN
THE POSSESSION OF THE COUNTESS OF LINDSEY, UFFINGTON
PARK (_v._ p. 133)
PLATE IX.—EMBLEMATIC GROUP OF SEVEN FIGURES ARRANGED 94
IN THREE TIERS CARVED IN BONE (_Peterborough
Museum_)
PLATE X.—MODEL OF GUILLOTINE: BONE WORK 102
(_Peterborough Museum_)
PLATE XI.—WORK-BOX MADE BY THE FRENCH PRISONERS OF 126
WAR AT NORMAN CROSS (_Peterborough Museum_)
PLATE XII.—PAIR OF FIRE SCREENS DECORATED IN STRAW 128
MARQUETRY (_Peterborough Museum_)
PLATE XIII.—NORTH-WEST VIEW OF PETERBOROUGH 129
CATHEDRAL, EXECUTED IN STRAW MARQUETRY
(_Peterborough Museum_)
PLATE XIV.—ELABORATELY CARVED ORNAMENTAL DESIGN IN 130
BONE WORK, REPRESENTING A THEATRE, WITH FIGURES IN
CARVED BONE ON THE STAGE, THE WORK OF THE NORMAN
CROSS PRISONERS OF WAR (_Peterborough Museum_)
PLATE XV.—DESK MADE FROM THE BONES OBTAINED FROM THE 131
COOK-HOUSE BY THE FRENCH PRISONERS OF WAR AT NORMAN
CROSS (_Peterborough Museum_)
PLATE XVI, FIG. 1.—MECHANICAL BONE WORK GROUP OF 132
MOVING FIGURES ON PLATFORM AND PEDESTAL. FIGS. 2
and 3.—GROUPS OF FLOWERS IN PAPER WORK
(_Peterborough Museum_)
PLATE XVII.—PLAIT MERCHANTS TRADING WITH THE FRENCH 136
PRISONERS OF WAR AT NORMAN CROSS, HUNTS.
Photogravure of painting by A. C. Cooke, Esq., and
reproduced here by the kind permission of the
artist.
PLATE XVIII.—THE BELL INN, STILTON 141
From a photograph by Mr. A. C. Taylor.
PLATE XIX.—FACSIMILE OF ORDER FROM BOARD OF 241
TRANSPORT, 9TH APRIL 1802, TO CAPTAIN HOLDITCH,
OWNER AND MASTER OF CARTEL “ARGO”
PLATE XX.—MODEL OF THE PRISON OF NORMAN CROSS, 251
ENGLAND, IN THE COUNTY OF, AND 4½ LEAGUES FROM,
HUNTINGDON (_In the Musée de l’Armée_, _Hôtel des
Invalides_, _Paris_)
PLATE XXI.—KEY PLAN OF M. FOULLEY’S MODEL OF THE 251
PRISON OF NORMAN CROSS, ENGLAND
ONE OF THE WELLS ON THE SITE OF THE PRISON 254
From a photograph by the Rev. E. H. Brown, July
1910.
FOREWORDS
IN April 1894 an exhibition was held at the Grand Assembly Rooms,
Peterborough, under the auspices of the Local Natural History and
Antiquarian Society, the major portion of the exhibits being articles of
various descriptions made by the French prisoners of war at the barracks
built in 1796–97 for their confinement at Norman Cross. On that
occasion, Dr. Walker drew up a short account of the buildings and their
inmates, derived principally from recollections of old people and from
old newspaper files. Now that most of the relics then exhibited, and
many others collected from various quarters, have found a permanent home
in the Society’s Museum, it has been thought that the lecture embodying
that history, which exists to-day only as a newspaper report, should be
expanded and reproduced in the more accessible and permanent form of a
small volume.
The lecture was incomplete, and to produce an exhaustive history it has
been necessary to carry out systematic researches in the British Museum
Library, in the Public Record Office, and in other repositories of
information.
The general reader of a book is not concerned with the method of its
construction, the complete structure is the only thing regarded, yet a
very amusing digression could be given describing the difficulties
attending the search, especially in the Government stores, for the
material which is incorporated in this volume. Many of the documents
utilised had never been looked at since they were placed in sacks at the
close of the war, when Red Tape was more rampant than to-day, and when
the jurisdictions of several departments overlapped, causing obstructive
friction and consequent confusion. The official calendars and indices
afford little or no indication as to the nature of the contents of
bundles and rolls; in several cases valuable information has been
obtained from bundles giving no hint of the contents, and simply marked
“Various” or “Miscellaneous.”
Under the cumbersome and complicated system in vogue in the various
offices at the close of the eighteenth century, the very limited staff
employed could not keep pace with the pressure of the war. At Woolwich,
Sir William Congreve reported that in some branches of his department the
accounts were three and four years in arrears, in one branch as many as
seven years, and pleaded for an extra clerk, which request, after some
correspondence, was granted. This pressure led to laxity of supervision,
culminating in corruption even in high places, and at last in 1804
General De Lancey, the Barrack Master-General, the head of the department
responsible for the buildings at Norman Cross and other depots, was
dismissed for defalcations, and the report of a Commission appointed to
investigate his accounts from 1792 to that date, affirms that he had
“made the most extravagant bargains both for land and buildings, and
actually entrusted the contract for the fittings of barracks to a single
individual, upon the easiest and most insecure of agreements. . . . The
Commissioners of Audit were ignored, and the authority of the Treasury
set aside on the most ridiculous pretexts; and when inquiry was at last
made in 1804, it was found that over nine million pounds of public money
had been issued to the Barrack Master-General’s department, and that no
accurate account could be produced either of the public or private
expenditure of the same.” {0a} This Report led to an inquiry by an
eminent firm of accountants as to the method of keeping the accounts, and
the following extract from their long and detailed report may be of
interest, as showing the confused nature of the materials through which
we have had to search for facts throwing light on our subject:
“The Variety, extent and importance of the Business conducted by the
Barrack Department, seems to require perhaps more than any other,
that all the Accounts should be entered in the Books in such order,
and with such precision as that a true Statement of the whole, or of
any particular branch of the business may be produced whenever
required without constant recurrence to the Vouchers and papers from
which these Books are formed. This cannot be effected in any way so
well as by regular Books kept in a manner that has been in use for
many hundred years, is familiar to Men of Business in all Countries,
is equally applicable to the finances of a Kingdom as to the Accounts
of a private family, and upon which the best Accomptants have not
been able to make much improvement: but in the Barrack Office, so far
from adopting this method, they have no Waste Book or Day Book, nor
have they any Journal which is the most essential of all Books, where
there is a number of Entries to make, and without which they cannot
record any transfer of property, nor any transaction whatever which
does not come through the Cash Book. Their Ledgers are posted
chiefly from Vouchers and accounts, and resemble more what is
commonly called a Check Ledger, than one which has a regular
reference to a Journal and Cash Book, from which only every Entry in
the Ledger should be made. Their Ledgers can never be regularly
balanced, nor can an error that may be made, by placing a sum of
money to a wrong account, be easily detected—indeed no Examination of
any Account in the Ledger can be made without referring to the
Vouchers. Much time and labour is often uselessly spent in searching
for them, and replacing them.”
This report led to an immediate reform, and research through the
documents bearing dates later than 1806 was far easier than that through
those of the previous decade, at the commencement of which the Norman
Cross Prison came into existence.
It is needless to say that the documents of the various Government
departments now concentrated in the Public Record Office are numbered by
millions, and of those relating to Prisoners of War there are over 700
volumes, besides hundreds of rolls, bundles, and packets, pertaining to
the Admiralty and War Office departments; these include various branches
now completely transformed, such as Transport Board, Commission for Sick
and Hurt, etc. Huge Ledgers are not indexed, nor are the accounts
entered consecutively. Rough minute books and letter books on all
conceivable subjects are in the same chaotic condition, so that whole
days have been wasted on a fruitless search, while on the other hand
important results have been unexpectedly obtained in unlikely and
unlooked-for quarters.
It may pardonably be allowed to refer to what little has been done by
others in the same direction, both with regard to barracks and to
prisons. A comparison with the following pages will show that earlier
researches have been of a very superficial character. Matters have been
left doubtful which a little further search would have made certain, and
points, which tradition and writers with some claim to authority had left
obscure, would have been cleared up. It would be invidious to go into
further particulars, but it may be stated that Huntingdon, in which
county Norman Cross is situated, although it has an important and
eventful history, has as yet no exhaustive County History, and that the
local guide books are of little value.
The results of these researches through official documents, through old
newspaper files, and topographical works, in the British Museum Library,
are, in the following pages, incorporated with information obtained
locally from persons who in their early youth knew the prison, from
topical traditions, from printed narratives founded more or less on fact,
from parish registers, and from old private letters and diaries.
To the officials at the British Museum and the Record Office our thanks
are due for valuable assistance courteously rendered.
Unfortunately, for the completeness of this narrative, no record of the
life at the Depot, written by a Norman Cross prisoner or by any official,
is known to exist. Such sources of information exist in the case of at
least one of the other prisons, and to fill a blank, which must have been
left in this history, we are, by the kind permission of the author, Mr.
Basil Thomson, enabled to include in this volume a reprint of Chapter V.
from _The Story of Dartmoor Prison_, {0b} and to make other extracts
which throw light on the life of Prisoners of War confined in Great
Britain between the years 1793–1815.
The Rev. E. H. Brown, Vicar of Yaxley, son of the late Rev. Arthur Brown,
author of a tale _The French Prisoners of Norman Cross_, {0c} and Mr. A.
C. Taylor have kindly taken photographs for the illustrations; Mr. C.
Dack, the Curator, and Mr. J. W. Bodger, the Secretary, of the
Peterborough Natural History and Scientific Society, have been assiduous
in collecting information.
Our thanks are also due to other friends too numerous to specify, who
have given items of valuable information, or have communicated traditions
the greater number of which have some foundation on fact.
The critical reader is asked to bear in mind the circumstances—so ill
adapted to literary work, especially of an historical character—under
which this book has been conceived and matured, to be lenient in his
criticisms, and to accept it as a humble contribution to the history of
those eventful twenty-two years, 1793–1815, when the pens of those
recording the contemporary history of their country were occupied with
the deeds of the British Army and Navy beyond her shores to the exclusion
of the minor details of her social and domestic life.
T. J. W.
A. R.
[Without the aid of Mr. A. Rhodes, the author, whose time, except during
his rare holidays, is wholly devoted to the active work of his
profession, could not possibly have carried out the researches by which
so much information has been obtained. Mr. Rhodes has in these
“forewords” described some of the difficulties encountered, and the
author is desirous to emphasise his appreciation of the work of the
colleague whose services he was able to secure, and who now, unhappily,
is totally incapacitated from work by severe illness.—T. J. W.]
CHAPTER I
URGENT NEED FOR PRISON ACCOMMODATION, NORMAN CROSS, HUNTS, SELECTED AS
THE SITE, AND THE PRISON BUILT
I watched where against the blue
The builders built on the height:
And ever the great wall grew
As their brown arms shone in the light.
Trowel and mallet and brick
Made a wedding of sounds in the air:
And the dead clay took life from the quick
As their strong arms girdled it there.
LAURENCE HOUSMAN: _The Housebuilders_.
THE Depot for Prisoners of War, at Norman Cross in Huntingdonshire, was
the first, and during twelve years the only prison specially constructed
for the custody of the prisoners taken captive in the Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars between 1793 and 1815. The Norman Cross Depot received
its first inmates on the 7th April 1797; while of the other great prisons
built for the same purpose, Dartmoor (since 1850 the Convict Prison) was
not occupied until 24th May 1809, and Perth (converted into the general
Prison for Scotland in 1839) received its first batch of 399 prisoners on
the 6th August 1812.
Eight years before the building of the Norman Cross Prison the French
Revolution had commenced. The storming of the Bastille had taken place
in 1789, and during the following years events had advanced rapidly. In
1792, Louis XVI, yielding to the demands of the assembly, the Girondists,
and the populace of Paris, had declared war against Austria. In 1793 the
Republican Government had been established, Louis had been deposed and
executed, and on the 1st February of the same year France had declared
war against Britain, thus commencing that struggle which lasted, with two
short intermissions, to the final overthrow of Buonaparte at Waterloo on
the 18th June 1815.
This war—of which the historian Alison, writing in the first half of the
last century, said, “It was the longest, most costly and bloodiest war
mentioned in history”—cost England above two thousand millions of money,
a colossal sum, which represented a proportionate number of lives
sacrificed, and a proportionate amount of misery and want, not only to
the combatants on both sides, but to the great mass of the civil
population of every nation drawn into the conflict.
In recent years there have been wars of shorter duration, more costly and
more deadly, but none in which so fierce a spirit of animosity reigned in
the breasts of the combatants, none in which the miseries of war were
dragged out to the same calamitous length.
The history of the prison at Norman Cross brings forcibly before us those
prolonged miseries incidental to war, which are liable to be overlooked
by such students as contemplate only
The neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
The poet paints the close of a hard-fought day when
Thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep and the wounded to die.
The matter-of-fact chronicler records the exact number of killed,
wounded, and missing, and of guns, standards, and prisoners captured on
either side; but the after-history of those prisoners is left unwritten,
their sufferings are unrevealed! And yet, between 1793 and 1815,
literally hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war were held in
captivity by the various nations engaged in the conflict, and this
confinement meant for the great bulk of them years of misery, long vistas
of monotonous restraint, periods of indifferent treatment, occasionally
great physical suffering, and, worse than all, for many, moral
deterioration and degradation inseparable from the conditions in which
they dragged out their existence. However humane the captors might be,
these consequences to the unfortunate captives were inevitable during the
protracted Napoleonic Wars of the close of the eighteenth and
commencement of the nineteenth centuries; and there is only too much
evidence that when matters on which not only the comforts, but the actual
lives of the prisoners depended, were being debated by the two hostile
Governments, the political and military interests of the nations
concerned were regarded before those of the wretched captives.
The great Napoleon revolutionised the art of warfare, as the great
Gustavus revolutionised the military organisations of Europe, and one
result of this revolution was that the chivalrous treatment of prisoners
of war and non-combatants, which prevailed up to Napoleon’s accession to
power, was materially changed. A great French authority on International
Law, writing in 1758, said:
“As soon as your enemy has laid down his arms and surrendered his
body, you have no longer any right over his life. Prisoners may be
secured, and for this purpose may be put into confinement, and even
fettered, if there be reason to apprehend that they will rise on
their captors, or make their escape. But they are not to be treated
harshly, unless personally guilty of some crime against him who has
them in his power. . . .
“We extol the English and French, we feel our bosoms glow with love
for them, when we hear accounts of the treatment which prisoners of
war, on both sides, have experienced from those generous nations.
And what is more, by a custom which equally displays the honour and
humanity of the Europeans, an officer, taken prisoner-of-war, is
released on his parole, and enjoys the comfort of passing the time of
his captivity in his own country, in the midst of his family; and the
party who have thus released him rest as perfectly sure of him as if
they had him confined in irons.”
Abundant testimony can be adduced to the truth of what Vattel asserts
from contemporary records as to both nations. {4} But between 1758 and
1773, the dates of the first and second editions of the French work just
quoted, there was born, in Ajaccio in Corsica, a man who was to change
all this—Napoleon Buonaparte, who, contemporaneously with the building of
Norman Cross Prison, was erecting the pedestal on which he afterwards
stood as Emperor, who for twenty years hung over Europe as a great
shadow, keeping our ancestors in this country in very pressing terror of
invasion, whom the British feared and hated, and whose dominant passion,
as time went on, was hatred of England as the insuperable obstacle in his
path of conquest. This little history will reveal to some extent the
results of his methods as they affected the unfortunate soldiers and
sailors who became prisoners of war. This is no place for discussing the
right and wrong of the devastating Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars; the
treatment of the prisoners of war, as shown in their prison life, alone
finds its place in a History of the Depot at Norman Cross.
At the commencement of the war the prisoners on either side were
comparatively few, but early in its progress embarrassment arose on the
British side from the large numbers of French and Dutch taken in the
great naval victories of Howe, Jervis, Collingwood, and Nelson. To
maintain these prisoners on a foreign shore or in the face of the enemy
was impossible, and as their number increased it became evident that the
existing prisons, and the few fortresses remaining in Britain, such as
Porchester Castle near Portsmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth, and Fort George in
Scotland, which had been hurriedly fitted up and converted into war
prisons, were insufficient for the ever-increasing number of captives.
To supplement these it became necessary to fit up special ships and
maintain them as hulks, in the harbours of Portsmouth, Plymouth, and the
Medway. These hulks were later used as places of confinement for
malefactors among the prisoners, and also to relieve the prisons from
overcrowding whenever an extraordinary accumulation took place in the
country.
In an article published in _Chambers’ Journal_ in 1854, the writer points
out “the ships were large battleships, they were cleared of all
obstructions in each deck, and would hold 900 men prisoners and the
guard, without much overcrowding; the mortality was very low.” {5}
The French in the hulks and the English prisoners in France had
undoubtedly to endure great hardships, but these hardships did not
justify the exaggerated charges brought by each nation against the
other—Englishmen pointing to Verdun as the embodiment of French cruelty
and oppression, while Frenchmen enlarged with bitter invectives on the
condition of their countrymen in the hulks and prison-ships in English
harbours. This exaggeration and these bitter recriminations went on to
the end of the war. Buonaparte himself was never tired of seeking to
arouse in the hearts of his soldiers a spirit of hatred towards England
by allusions to this subject, and before Waterloo he included these words
in his address to the Army: “Soldiers, let those among you who have been
prisoners of the English describe to you the hulks, and detail the
frightful miseries which they have endured.” {6a}
The number of prisoners of war was so great that their care had been
handed over to a new department of the Admiralty thus described:
“The Transport Office is a newly created Board, and was instituted in
July 1794 at first for the superintendence of the Transport Service
only; but to that employment has since been added the management of
the Prisoners of War, in health, at home and abroad.” {6b}
To this department all communications in reference to the prisoners of
war had to be addressed, and through them all information reached the
Admiralty. There was another special department of the Admiralty, that
for the care of the sick and hurt, into whose charge the prisoners of war
passed when they ceased to be “in health.”
The following extract gives further details of the Transport Department,
on which for twenty years the lot of the prisoners of war so greatly
depended. The paragraph was written in 1803, when the war was supposed
to be at an end.
“Transport Office, Dorset Square, Westminster, established in August
1794, for the purpose of conducting the transport business which had
hitherto been transacted by the Navy Office; it has also the care of
the prisoners of war. It was at first managed by three
commissioners, but the business having much increased two more were
added in the year 1795. The salary of each commissioner is a
thousand a year. They have under them, several resident agents at
the different sea-ports both at home and abroad, to superintend the
particular service of embarking, re-embarking of troops, etc., and
seeing that the contracts made in this particular service are
strictly adhered to. These agents are captains and lieutenants of
the Royal Navy. There are also several agents afloat. The captains
have one guinea a day; the lieutenants fifteen shillings, and
nineteen shillings more per month for a servant. At the conclusion
of the war in 1802, the Board was reduced to three commissioners;
Capt. Schank retired on a pension of £500 per annum, and Joseph Hunt,
Esq., was removed to the ordnance as clerk of the deliveries.
_Commissioners_.
Hugh Cloberry Christian, Esq., afterwards Sir Hugh, K.B.
Philip Patten, Esq.
Ambrose Serle, Esq.
September 1795.
Rupert George, Esq.
John Schank, Esq.
Wm. Albany Otway, Esq.
John Marsh, Esq.
Ambrose Serle, Esq.
January 1799.
Joseph Hunt, Esq., _vice_ March. {7}
In order properly to understand the establishment of the Depot at Norman
Cross, it is necessary to briefly review the events which led up to it.
It arose at a very momentous era in our history. It was not officially
called a barracks, or a prison, but a Depot. At that time there were few
barracks in England, practically none, and what we term garrison towns
were very scarce. Our regular army was abroad fighting, and the internal
defence was in the hands of the Militia and Yeomanry. Service in the
former was compulsory, but substitutes could be purchased, so that it is
easy to judge who would actually serve, especially at a time when
scarcity and high prices were the rule, while the Militia were well fed.
In the Yeomanry were enrolled the gentry and well-to-do persons of each
locality; this was a very large force. There was a special troop of
Norman Cross Yeomanry, in which the farmers and others from the
neighbouring villages gave their services, and there were one or more
troops in Peterborough and the neighbouring towns. The duty mainly
consisted in putting down the various small riots that arose in different
parts of the country. In their travels they were “billeted” on the
publicans and the public at a tariff fixed by the Government, and which,
not being very extravagant, gave rise to much dissatisfaction,
oppression, and fraud.
As the foreign wars continued, the number of prisoners sent to Britain
multiplied and the military duty increased. In 1793 the Supplementary
Militia Act was passed, and it was determined to spend about £2,000,000
in erecting barracks, and out of this sum Norman Cross was built. It was
always hoped that peace was at hand, and the prisoners of war had
hitherto been confined not in places built for, or exactly suitable for,
their retention, but in fortresses or castles or ships, and when these
became overcrowded, in empty warehouses or similar buildings specially
hired. It was not considered safe to keep prisoners of war in sea-ports,
or even near the coast. Ireland was in a state of rebellion, and had to
be kept down with a strong military force, hence the great Depot at
Kinsale was formed.
We must bear in mind that at this period the Parliamentary Reports were
very closely watched by our enemies, and information which might be of
service to them was suppressed and consequently is sought for in vain
to-day. The country was in a state of turmoil, the Government
departments were overladen to a terrible degree, and red tape, far more
than now, reigned supreme. These conditions led to careless supervision
and defalcations even in high positions; the Barrack Master-General,
General Oliver de Lancey, was dismissed from the Army after a Commission
had investigated his accounts. He was responsible for Norman Cross, and
it is in accordance with the finding of the commission referred to in
this preface that no official account of the original cost can be found.
The ground was purchased from Lord Carysfort. {9} It is from
measurements of foundations remaining on the site, from plans, and from
scattered and brief references to reports, of which the originals cannot
up to the present be found, that a history and description of the
original buildings can be given. They were begun in haste, hurriedly
built, and in a continual state of repair and alteration during the whole
of their existence.
In 1793 a large sum of money was voted by Parliament for barracks both
permanent and temporary. A Barrack Master-General had already been
appointed. The first measure taken by this official was the conversion
of existing buildings to meet their new object—viz. the safe custody of
the captive soldiers and sailors, and the provision of suitable
accommodation for lodging and maintaining them and the troops who guarded
them. Even in the first three years of the war these efforts were barely
sufficient to meet the requirements, and in February 1796 the matter of
prison accommodation had become most urgent. The Dutch Fleet was at sea,
and a meeting with the English Fleet being probable, it was reported to
the Admiralty, in reply to their inquiries as to the means of disposing
of the large number of prisoners expected in the event of a successful
battle, that Porchester Castle was capable of containing 2,000 men, and
the Dutch prisoners could be kept separate from the French. Forton would
be of little use, as not more than 300 extra could be accommodated; it
was already full, 6,000 being incarcerated in the hospital there.
On the 20th June of the same year it was reported that the number of
prisoners had increased, until every prison was overcrowded. At Mill
Prison, Plymouth, calculated to hold 3,300, there were confined 3,513,
and in consequence of the report 200 were transferred from this prison
into a ship; this in turn also became crowded, and another ship had to be
pressed into the service. Fresh prisoners still poured into the country.
Sir Ralph Abercrombie reported that he was sending upwards of 4,000 from
the West Indies, and the urgency was such that it became absolutely
necessary to construct with the utmost rapidity a new prison.
In selecting a site, several requirements had to be considered. To be
suitable for its purpose the prison must be within easy reach of a port,
in order that prisoners might be landed, and conveyed rapidly and at
small cost to their place of confinement. At the same time it must not
be too near an unfortified port, as such a situation would offer
facilities for escape, and there would be danger of support from the sea,
in the event of a general rising, and a combined attempt to restore to
the fighting ranks of the enemy the thousands of captive soldiers and
sailors who were in captivity _hors de combat_. The site must be
healthy, well supplied with water, and conveniently situated for the
provision of the necessaries of life—and further, it must be near trunk
roads, for convenience of administration, and in order that in the event
of a rising, troops sufficient to quell the mutinous prisoners could be
concentrated on the spot.
The site chosen for the Norman Cross Depot possessed all these
advantages. It was situated on the Great North Road, one of the most
important in the country, the Ermine Street of the Romans, and it was
only seventy-six miles from London. The situation was altogether
suitable from a sanitary point of view, although later, at a period when
the bulk were ill clad, the poor half-naked French, accustomed to a
warmer climate, complained bitterly of its cold and exposed position. An
abundant supply of excellent water could be obtained by sinking deep
wells, the surrounding country was agricultural, the land fertile and
well stocked; there were small towns near from which supplies could be
obtained, and, finally, the transports could be brought to the ports of
Yarmouth, Lynn, or Wisbech, and the prisoners landed there could be
cheaply conveyed by water to Yaxley, Stanground, and Peterborough, all of
which places were within a few miles’ march from the prison gates. As an
alternative the prisoner could march direct from the ports to the prison.
On the 8th December 1796 the Transport Commissioners applied to the
Barrack Office for estimates for a building to contain 10,000 prisoners,
but official red tape could not be disregarded, and the Barrack
Master-General replied that as the Admiralty had not authorised the
construction of any such buildings, he could not give any opinion on the
subject. In the Transport Office, however, were officials who recognised
the urgency of the situation, and when at length on the 13th February
1797 the Barrack Master-General wrote to the Transport Board, referring
to his letter of the 19th December of the previous year, and asking for
an order for the building, he was too late. The Transport Commissioners
were already at work, the prison had been planned, and the work, started
in the previous December, was, under the direction of William Adams,
Master Carpenter to the Board of Ordnance, already making such rapid
progress that portions were nearly complete.
The material selected for the structure was wood; this was economical,
and suited to the temporary character of the building. No one, however
pessimistic, thought in 1796 that the prison would be required to house
prisoners of war, with only two short intervals, for another nineteen
years. Such wooden buildings, the outer walls constructed of a strong
framework, with feather-edged boards overlapping one another covering and
casing in the framed work, were much used in domestic architecture at
this period, and many houses thus constructed may be seen in the
neighbourhood of London. A good example of a village mansion of this
kind may be still seen in Lower Sydenham, where it is at present occupied
by Lady Grove, the widow of Sir George Grove. The wooden buildings were
erected on a buried brick or stone foundation.
Above all, wood lent itself to rapidity of construction, which was an
urgent and essential requirement at this crisis.
When nine years later, in 1805, fresh accommodation for the
ever-increasing number of prisoners flowing into Great Britain was
necessary, and Dartmoor was selected as the site for a new prison,
granite was the material adopted for its construction. The stone was
obtainable on the spot, while the price of timber was prohibitive, in
consequence of the blockading of the Prussian ports. {12} The granite
prison at Dartmoor, commenced in 1805, received its first batch of
prisoners in May 1809. The stone building took four years to build, it
served its original purpose for seven years, stood empty for thirty-four
years, and is at the present time, and has been for sixty-one years, a
convict prison. The wooden buildings of Norman Cross, commenced in 1796,
were ready for use in four months, served their purpose for eighteen
years, and were rased to the ground in 1816.
The earliest official information, as to the plan and the buildings of
the Depot, is found in a long report by General Beathand dated 13th
January 1797; later official reports and documents, paragraphs in the
newspapers, and other sources of information show that the original plans
were modified and expanded as the work of the prison progressed.
The timber framework of the building was made in London, and was carted
down to Norman Cross, where 500 carpenters and others were employed day
and night, and seven days a week, those who would not work on Sunday
being discharged. The erection of the prisons, the accessory offices,
and the barracks for the Military Guard progressed very rapidly, and on
the 4th February (nine days before the Barrack Master-General applied for
the order to start the work!) such progress had been made that the
Admiralty instructed Mr. Poore, a surveyor, to proceed to Stilton “to
survey the buildings erected near there for the confinement of prisoners
of war.” He did so, and reported that a portion of the building was
already complete. General Nicolls, the officer commanding the district,
was sanguine enough to report on the 13th February that the prison at
Norman Cross would be ready in about three weeks for the reception of
prisoners from the citadel (Plymouth).
This estimate of the date when the barracks would be finished was too
sanguine, although the work was being carried out with all possible
speed. By the end of January the sum of £6,000 had been paid to and
disbursed by Mr. Adams in wages alone. {14}
The total amount paid on account of the Norman Cross Depot up to the 19th
November 1797 being so large, while the large expenditure on the
alterations of old prisons and fortresses in the country was going on
simultaneously, it is not surprising that on the 14th April 1797 a
question was asked by an economist in the House of Commons as to the
extraordinary expenditure on barracks; nor, looking to the rate at which
the building of the Norman Cross Depot was being pushed forward, can we
be surprised at the curt reply of the Secretary of State: “Extraordinary
exertions involve extraordinary expenses.”
There is reason to believe, however, that the question was not put
without good reason. The want of method and the overlapping of
departments were not conducive to clear statements of accounts. The
action of the newly appointed Transport Board in commencing the building
of the prison, while the Barrack Master was refusing to undertake this
urgent work because he considered that official routine had been
neglected, has already been alluded to. The Barrack Master’s Accounts
were very confused. In the Records of the Audit Office (Roll 354, Bundle
146, Declared Accounts) the total expenditure by the Barrack Master at
Norman Cross, from 1st January 1797 to Christmas 1802, is only £5,175
3_s._, and it is evident that the sum of £34,518 11_s._ 3_d._ does not
appear in the Barrack Master’s account. The total expenditure of his
department amounted, when an inquiry was held, in 1802 to £1,324,680
12_s._ 5_d._ and there was a deficiency of £40,296 9_s._ 11¼_d._
Out of the confused chaos of figures there emerges the interesting fact
that, between the 25th December 1796 and the 24th June 1797, £390 10_s._
1_d._ was spent on coals supplied to the Norman Cross Depot! A large
coal bill for half a year, when we consider that in none of the blocks
occupied by the prisoners, excepting the hospital blocks, was there any
artificial heat.
As the work went on, there were, as has been already stated, various
alterations in the plans; thus in February and March 1797 it was ordered,
that a hospital for the sick should be provided by adapting some of the
blocks originally intended as prisons to this purpose, and that increased
accommodation for prisoners should be obtained by adding a storey to each
block in course of erection, in preference to multiplying the buildings.
On 21st March a payment was made to Mr. Poore of £142 2_s._ for his
services in surveying and _settling the establishment_ at Norman Cross.
This shows that within three months from the commencement of the
buildings they were in a sufficiently advanced condition to make the
consideration of the necessary staff for the administration of the prison
when it should be opened, a matter requiring Mr. Poore’s immediate
attention.
By the 25th March the staff had been engaged, and on that day it was
reported that a section of the buildings, sufficient for the custody of
1,840 prisoners, was ready for their reception. On the day before this
report was sent, a portion of the military barracks had been occupied by
the small number of troops considered sufficient for the moment. These
marched in on the 24th, and were ready to mount guard over the expected
prisoners.
The work of building went rapidly on during the rest of the year, and
nine months from its commencement Mr. Craig, a principal architect of the
department, was sent down for the final inspection. As will be seen by
the footnote, page 14, payments to W. Adams, Chief Carpenter, went on up
to 29th November 1797, when we may assume that the prison in its first
form was complete.
From the time of its occupation, this prison was, like others of its
class, known as a “depot”—“The Norman Cross Depot for Prisoners of War.”
Locally it was frequently spoken of and written about as the Norman Cross
Prison, or the Norman Cross Barracks, or even Yaxley or Stilton Barracks.
The term depot included the prison proper, the barracks, and all other
Government buildings. In the succeeding chapter this Depot is fully
described, and its necessary establishment touched upon. {16}