The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816

About 8 o’clock on the Sunday night a sergeant and corporal of the Durham Division, out on leave from the Depot, encountered the escaped prisoners near Stamford, recaptured two, marched to the inn and placed them in security.  The prisoners were found to be a French naval captain and a midshipman.  These officers would normally have been on parole; they were probably in prison for having broken their parole, which was a crime punished severely.  Two more were captured near the neighbouring village of Ryhal, having been concealed in Uffington thicket for twenty-four hours without food.

The following narrative of an escape from Pembroke Prison illustrates the application of the maxim, “Cherchez la femme,” to these cases of escape:

“Five hundred prisoners 71 were confined in a building on Golden Hill, near Pembroke, and, as was the custom, they were allowed to eke out the very meagre allowance voted for their subsistence by the sale of toys, which they carved out of wood and bone.  Two Pembroke lasses were employed in bringing the odds and ends requisite for this work, and in carrying away refuse from the prison.  These girls not having the law of nations or the high policy of Europe before their eyes, dared to fall in love with two of the Frenchmen, and formed a desperate resolve not only to rescue their lovers, but the whole of the prisoners in the same ward, 100 in number.  It was impossible to smuggle any tools into the prison, but a shin of horse beef seemed harmless even in the eyes of a Pembroke Cerberus.  With the bone extracted from this delicacy the Frenchmen undermined the walls, the faithful girls carrying off the soil in their refuse buckets.  When the subway was complete, the lasses watched until some vessel should arrive.  At length a sloop came in loaded with a consignment of culm for Stackpole.  That night the liberated men made their way down to the water, seized the sloop, and bound the crew hand and foot, but unfortunately the vessel was high and dry, and it was found impossible to get her off.  Alongside was a small yacht belonging to Lord Cawdor which they managed to launch.  This would not take them all; but the two women and twenty-five men got on board, taking with them the compass, water casks, and provisions from the sloop.  In the morning there was a great hue and cry.  Dr. Mansell, a leading man in Pembroke, posted handbills over the whole county, offering 500 guineas for the recovery of these two traitorous women, alive or dead.  In a few days the stern of the yacht and other wreckage being picked up, the patriotic party were satisfied that the vengeance of Heaven had overtaken the traitors.  They were, however, mistaken, for the Frenchmen captured a sloop laden with corn, and, abandoning the yacht, compelled the crew to carry them to France.  When they were safe, it is pleasant to read that the commissary and engineer married the girls.  During the short peace, the engineer and his wife returned to Pembroke and told their story; they then went to Merthyr and obtained employment in the mines, but on the renewal of hostilities went back to France, where it is to be hoped they lived very happily ever afterwards.” 72

What happened in Pembroke probably happened in Hunts, and it is a simple sum in proportion.

If 500 prisoners won the sympathy of two Welsh lasses, of how many Huntingdon girls did 5,000 prisoners at Norman Cross win the sympathy?

Seven prisoners got away in April 1801.  Three privateer officers were retaken at Boston, when they had already reached a port; three others stole a boat at Freiston, and were taken, off the Norfolk coast, by a Revenue cutter—one of them had a chart of the Lincolnshire coast in his hat. 73

Maps of England showing the best lines of escape were said to be made in the prison and sold at twenty francs each.  Attention was directed in an earlier chapter to the few words in Franco-English designating incorrectly in several instances, some of the buildings in the Washingley plan (Plan A), which makes it probable that this plan had fallen into the hands of a prisoner, who intended it to be an aid to his escape.  Although the sympathy of the public with the French prisoners was not general, there were many outside Norman Cross who had been in the habit of making money out of them in the straw-plait traffic; these would be willing for a consideration to help them when once they were beyond the prison walls and the lines of sentries.

An extraordinary recapture occurred in May 1804.  Two of the French prisoners who had escaped, on clearing the precincts of the barracks pursued different routes.  One of them was fortunate enough to get clear away; the other, quitting the public road, had pursued his course a few miles when he met with a most singular obstruction.  In crossing a stile he was beset by a shepherd’s dog, “of the ordinary and true English breed,” which absolutely opposed the poor fellow’s progress.  Neither enticement nor resistance availed, the dog repeatedly fastened on the legs and heels of the fugitive and held him at bay, until the continued noise of the quarrel brought some persons to the spot and ultimately led to the detection of the prisoner, and his reincarceration at the Depot. 74  Whether the dog got any share of the 10s. usually given for the recapture of a prisoner is not recorded.

In the register of the Dutch prisoners confined at Norman Cross between 1797 and 1800, is the record of Jan Cramer, one of the sailors who were taken in the great victory of Admiral Duncan off Camperdown, 11th October 1797; he was received at Norman Cross 23rd December of that year, and the four words in the register which describe the method of his leaving the prison, “escaped in a chest,” are sufficient to enable an imaginative writer to compose an exciting narrative “founded on fact.”

Mention has already been made of the escape of one prisoner in a “manure cart.”

With the dread of the hulks before them, on 18th August 1809 twelve out of a party of thirty prisoners marching from Norman Cross to Chatham, having nearly reached the place of their punishment, were lodged for the night in a stable at Bow and managed to escape.  A party of the Westminster Militia formed the escort.

The mere dread of the long imprisonment before them and probably the greater facility for the adventure led to several escapes while the prisoners were on the march from the coast to Norman Cross; these were sometimes successful.  Thus in September 1797 a batch of 142 left Yarmouth for Yaxley; but only 141 entered Norman Cross, one having slipped away at Norwich.

A cruel fate awaited some of the unfortunates who made such attempts.  Two deaths occurred in Peterborough.  On the 4th February 1808 a party of prisoners were lodged for the night in a stable in the yard of the Angel Inn, and one of them attempting to escape was shot by the sentinel, dying in twenty minutes; the verdict at the inquest was, “justifiable homicide.”  On another occasion, one of a company of the poor fellows crossing the bridge, leapt over the low rail at the side, into the river, and was shot by the escort.  On the 6th October 1799 a prisoner, Jean de Narde, son of a notary public of St. Malo, escaped and was recaptured on his way to the sea; he was confined for the night in the Bell Tower of East Dereham Church, from which he again attempted to escape, but was shot as he clambered down by a soldier on guard.  He was buried in the churchyard, and fifty-eight years after a tombstone was erected by the vicar and two friends “as a memorial to Jean de Narde and as a tribute of respect to that brave and generous nation, once our foes, but now our allies and brethren.”  The inscription on the stone is:

In Memory ofJEAN DE NARDESON OF A NOTARY PUBLICOF ST. MALOA FRENCH PRISONER OF WARWHO HAVING ESCAPEDFROM THE BELL TOWEROF THIS CHURCHWAS PURSUED AND SHOTBY A SOLDIER ON DUTYOCT. 6, 1799AGED 28 YRS

Terribly handicapped as were the captives in their efforts to escape, the game was not entirely in the hands of the man with the firelock, if a tradition of the seven years’ war, 1756–63, is to be credited.  An old family mansion at Sissinghurst was in that war used as a place of confinement for the French.  In the Register of Burials is an entry in 1761, “William Bassuck, killed by a French Prisoner at Sissinghurst”; this is supposed to be the sentry killed by a prisoner who, like poor Jean de Narde forty years later at East Dereham, mounted the tower, and dropping a pail of water on the head of the sentry below, killed him on the spot. 75

Newspaper paragraphs are not always in strict accordance with fact, but these few examples of escapes which took place may be accepted as types of the many.  A narrative told with much detail and a vraisemblance, which makes it excellent reading, supposed to be written by the prisoner himself, but actually written by Mr. Bell, a schoolmaster of Oundle, who was said to have been familiar with the Depot, where he was employed in his early life, appeared first in Chambers’ Miscellany. 76  This has since been reproduced in other journals and local almanacs.  It was, according to local authorities, founded mainly on facts communicated to its author, Mr. Bell, by a prisoner who had escaped, but at the end of the article in Chambers’ Miscellany the following note is appended:

“The above narrative, which is a translation from the French, appeared a number of years ago, and has been obligingly placed at our disposal by the proprietors.  We believe we are warranted in saying that it is in every particular true.”

The following story would have appeared absolutely incredible had not Basil Thomson 77 recorded the escape of eight prisoners from Dartmoor by the same stratagem as that attributed to a Norman Cross prisoner in a note in The Soldiers’ Companion or Martial Recorder, l. 190.  1824:

French Ingenuity

“A French Prisoner in Norman Cross Barracks had recourse to the following stratagem to obtain his liberty: He made himself a complete uniform of the Hertfordshire Militia, and a wooden gun, stained, surmounted by a tin bayonet.  Thus equipped, he mixed with the guard (consisting of men from the Hertford Regiment), and when they were ordered to march out, having been relieved, Monsieur fell in and marched out too.  Thus far he was fortunate, but when arrived at the guard room, lo! what befel him.  His new comrades ranged their muskets on the rack, and he endeavoured to follow their example; but as his wooden piece was unfortunately a few inches too long, he was unabled to place it properly.  This was observed, and the unfortunate captive obliged to forego the hopes of that liberty for which he had so anxiously and so ingeniously laboured.”

Before concluding this chapter, which has dealt with the conduct of the prisoners, two other facts may be mentioned.  Shortly after the opening of the prison a disturbance among a batch of prisoners from Chatham led to the construction of the Black Hole and the requisition for two dozen handcuffs.  In October of the following year the Depot narrowly escaped destruction by fire—whether accidental or the work of an incendiary is not known; two thatched huts adjoining the wooden buildings were in flames, but the exertions of the Military were sufficient to prevent the spread of the conflagration which would so easily, in unfavourable conditions as to wind, etc., have consumed the whole building.  It was after this fire that an application was made for a fire-engine.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SICK AND THE HOSPITAL

Dangers stand thick through all the ground,      To push us to the tomb;And fierce diseases wait around,      To hurry mortals home.Dr. Watts.

The general health of the prisoners was good, but occasional epidemics led to a temporary very heavy mortality, the miserable men who had sold their rations and clothes to provide money for gambling dying off so rapidly, and in such numbers, that no room could be found for them in the well-equipped hospital.

In November 1800 there broke out an appalling epidemic, which raged for five months and then began to abate; the daily average of deaths of the prisoners at this Depot during the four worst months of the pestilence was over eight.  In this epidemic, 1800–01, during the six months with the heaviest mortality, 1,020 died.  In the corresponding six months, 1801–02, when the mortality had been almost restored to what was normal, the deaths were only twenty.  The staff could evidently not keep abreast of their work, the hospital was full to overflowing, and many of “Les Misérables” died in their hammocks in the caserns.

Enteric or typhoid fever was not known as a distinct disease until the last century was well advanced, and the epidemic was probably typhoid to which “Les Misérables” succumbed at the first shock, the cause of their death being registered as debility.  It is a safe conjecture that some of the wells had been infected.  That the authorities did not take this tragic visitation, without efforts to cope with it, is evidenced by short notes among the certificates of death; delicate prisoners and invalids were apparently sent to France, and others to special hulks.  How inadequate was the meagre staff to meet an exceptional case such as this is proved by the fact that twenty-nine prisoners in the first four months of the year were taken out of their hammocks, dead or speechless, and could not be identified for entry in the register, of which a copy was regularly supplied to the French Government; they were buried unknown.  It was not until the epidemic had abated, and a special investigation had been held, that Captain Woodriff was able to establish the identity of these twenty-nine persons; a special list of them is inserted in the register, and another list of five who were found to be alive in prison, and who had been returned as dead owing to mistaken identity.

In 1804 the total mortality among all the prisoners for the whole year was only eighteen.  On 1st January 1801 nine died in one day, and to this day’s entry there is added the explanatory note, “These men being in the habit of selling their bedding and rations, died of debility in this prison, there not being room in the hospital to receive them.”  This is a terrible indictment against someone, even though the victims were the lost bestial creatures whose fuller history was written at Dartmoor—prisoners ostracised by their comrades, banished to some one compartment of the prison, apparently No. 13, and left to die there by their compatriots who occupied the same quadrangle.  This single day’s record justifies what was said in the introductory remarks as to the lot of prisoners of war, but—Laus Deo—the advance in humanity, and the consequent change of opinion as to the suitable treatment of prisoners of all kinds, and the progress of hygienic, medical, and other sciences, make it inconceivable that, under any circumstances, similar tragedies could now occur in any European country.

No exact percentage of mortality for the seventeen years during which the prison was occupied can be given, the records being incomplete, and the population of the prison changing continually from week to week and month to month, owing to the accession of fresh prisoners and the departure of others, due to death, transference to other prisons, or exchange.  The reports to the Commissioners for the sick and hurt, except in the incomplete bundles of certificates, do not appear until the second period of the war, although the sick and hurt passed at once under the care of this Board as soon as they ceased to be prisoners in health.  The actual number of deaths certified is 1,770, of which 1,000 occurred during the epidemic 1800–01, the remainder being distributed over the remaining fifteen years in which the prison was occupied.

It is possible that the original register kept at this prison before the Peace of Amiens, 1797–1802, might have been sent to France and may yet be found, but at present separate bundles of single certificates are for many years the only records from which these figures are obtained.  The total number of deaths registered of French prisoners who died at Norman Cross in the second period of the war, 1803–14, was 559.  The highest number recorded in any one year, was 98 in 1806.  The lowest, in any complete year, was 18 in 1804.  One of those whose death is recorded in that year is a boy of ten, a native of Bordeaux, captured on a privateer; he died of consumption.  The diseases, phthisis, hæmoptysis, scrophula, which appear again and again under the heading “Cause of Death,” were all, as well as many of those entered as catarrh and debility, tubercular diseases, due to the condition so favourable to contagion in which the prisoners slept, herded together in closely packed chambers, ventilated very imperfectly.  In all probability, in cold weather, every aperture by which fresh air could enter was closed by the inmates themselves, who would not be imbued with twentieth-century ideas as to the need of fresh air.

Putting on one side the tubercular cases and the rare epidemics, there was comparatively little sickness among the prisoners.  When an epidemic occurred, “Les Misérables,” whose powers of resistance had been lowered by the semi-starvation which they had brought upon themselves, naturally sickened and in too many instances succumbed.

Owing, doubtless, to three causes—the absence of facility for getting drink, the spare but sufficient diet, and the regulation which appointed that the prisoners should, unless in bad weather, live through the day in the open air [“They have free access to the several apartments from the opening of the prisons in the morning, until they are shut up on the approach of night, with the exception only of the times when they are fumigating, or cleansing for the preservation of health” (Commissioner Serle, Appendix D, No. 31)]—the rate of mortality among the prisoners in confinement was lower than that among those on parole, and, as far as it has been possible to come approximately to the percentage rate of mortality, than that also of the British soldiers who constituted the garrison.  The absurd statements of Mr. Charretie, the falsehood of which he had to acknowledge, and Colonel Lebertre’s lie, that at Norman Cross 4,000 out of 10,000 died, 78 gave rise to an impression which, once made, has not been easily effaced.  Of those who read these statements in France, few read the statement of facts which prove them false.  Taking the total number of those who had been imprisoned at the Depot, up to 1813, as at least 30,000, and the deaths at 1,800 (these figures being approximate only), the actual proportions of deaths would be 6 per cent., instead of 40 per cent. as affirmed by Lebertre.  A return showing the total number of prisoners and the number of sick in every Depot or other place of confinement for prisoners of war, called for on 10th April 1810, and a similar return presented in the following year, show the extraordinary healthiness of the prison at Norman Cross, and of all the other prisons in Great Britain on each of those days. 79

In August 1812, in answer to the calumnies in the columns of the Moniteur, a return was obtained as to the health of the prisoners in the prison ships in Herne Bay and at the Dartmoor Depot.  In the former there were 6,100 in health, 61 sick; in the latter, 7,500 well, 70 sick.  The proportion of sick was less than in other prisons not of war. 80

This was at a time when the influx of prisoners from the Peninsula and elsewhere had caused the prisons to be so crowded, that it had become necessary to again spend large amounts in building new prisons.  At the time of the return in 1810, £130,000 was being expended on a new prison at Perth; Norman Cross contained 272 more than the highest number for whom it was calculated to provide accommodation, and there must have been 2,000 men in each quadrangle, except that for the sick.

In these two years the number of deaths at Norman Cross was respectively only forty-one and thirty-three.  When a prisoner fell ill, and was admitted into the prison hospital, he was treated as well as, or better than, the soldiers in the military hospital outside the prison walls.

We have already dealt with the reckless statement of the French while dealing with Mr. Pillet.  They are wicked calumnies, which, even on a casual examination, carry with them their own contradiction.  The British Government expended an enormous sum on the prisoners, and in 1817 made a claim on the French for the maintenance of French prisoners in England. 81  The correctness of that claim was never questioned; whether it was settled is another matter.  According to Alison, the British Government generously forgave the debt.

The prisoners in each quadrangle were visited daily by the surgeons, and any prisoner complaining of illness, and found by the doctors to have good ground for his complaint, was removed at once to the hospital, where he was, according to the sworn evidence of the French surgeons themselves, carefully and liberally treated.  From the pay-sheets accompanying the hospital accounts, the earliest of which at the Record Office is for the year 1806, the staff of the hospital appears to have been at that time, the surgeon (Mr. Geo. Walker), two assistant-surgeons (M. Pierre Larfeuil and Mr. Anthony Howard), a dispenser, an assistant-dispenser (prisoner), dispensary porter (do) and messenger (do), two hospital mates and clerk, a steward of victualling, a steward of bedding, with two assistants (prisoners), two turnkeys, matron, and seamstress (the two last named and the wives of the married turnkeys being, up to the advent of the surgeon’s bride in 1808, the only women within the prison walls), a messenger, and the following thirteen, who were all prisoners, two interpreters, one tailor, one washerman, one carpenter (who made bed-cradles and other appliances for the ward and did odd jobs), an assistant lamplighter (a more important post than it sounds, as it would be very convenient for any prisoner or prisoners wanting to escape to find a careless lamplighter, who would forget to light, or supply with sufficient oil, one or two of the numerous lamps which lighted the prison and its environs), two stocking-menders, two labourers, one barber for the infirm and itchy, and two nurses—in all, thirteen British and twenty French prisoners, the staff of nurses being, of course, increased if necessary. 82  The hospital was evidently conducted on a liberal scale.  The dietary was ample; it was as follows:

Established Diet1st.  Full Diet

Tea, or water-gruel with salt, for breakfast; the same for supper.  Meat 12 oz., with potatoes or greens, and 1 pint of broth, for dinner.  Bread 14 oz., sugar 2 oz., beer 2 pints (of beer at 16s. the 38 gallons), and if any other drink is wanted, water, or toast and water.

2nd.  Reduced Diet

Tea, or water-gruel with salt, for breakfast; the same for supper.  Meat 6 oz., with potatoes or greens, and 1 pint of broth, for dinner.  Sugar 2 oz.  The same quantity and quality of bread and beer as on full diet.

3rd.  Low Diet

Water-gruel or tea for breakfast.  Water-gruel or barley-water for dinner.  The same or rice-water for supper.  Bread 7 oz.  Patients on low diet are supposed to require no stated meal, drinks only being allowable, or even desirable; a small quantity of beer may be given when anxiously wished for and permitted by their surgeon.  The bread is supposed to be chiefly for toast and water, or, should the patient incline, a bit of toasted bread without butter, with a little of his gruel or tea.  Sugar 2 oz.

4th.  Milk Diet

Milk, 1 pint, for breakfast.  Rice-milk, 1 pint and a half (sweetened with sugar when desired), for dinner.  Milk, 1 pint, for supper.  Bread 14 oz.  Drink—water, barley-water, or rice-water.  Sugar 2 oz.

5th.  Mixed Diet

Milk, 1 pint, for breakfast.  Meat 4 oz., with potatoes or greens, and 1 pint of broth, for dinner.  Milk, 1 pint, for supper.  Bread 14 oz.  Drinks as on milk diet.  Sugar 2 oz.  Beer 1 pint.

Notes

The meat mentioned in the different diets to be beef and mutton alternately.  Should any patient particularly require a mutton-chop or beefsteak, instead of either the beef or mutton boiled and made into broth, the surgeon may direct it accordingly.

The matron is allowed to purchase ripe fruit, or any other article not comprehended in the several diets, by permission and direction of the surgeon.