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

A MONODY ON THE LATE MAJOR KELLY

Peace to the virtuous brave!

   Another son of chivalry lies low:

Not in the flush of youth he finds a grave,

   Not stricken to the dust by foreign foe

He fainting falls;—but laden with full years,

   With white-hair’d glory crown’d, he lays him down

   In earth’s maternal lap, and with him bears

   Benevolence, high honour, renown,

And love-begetting mem’ries, such as throw

A halo round the thoughts of mortals here below.

Earth! keep thy treasured dead

   Awhile, in holy trust!  Not with vain tears

Wail we the loss of him who bravely bled

   For England’s might and weal, in early years,

When life’s warm pulse beat high, and buoyant hopes

   On tip-toe look’d afar at distant fame;

When views of greatness fill’d his vision’s scope,

   And daring deeds lent glory to a name:

Here on our soldier’s grave no tear should fall;

All hidden be our grief, as ’neath a funeral pall.

O! that in this, our need,

   This hour of trial, when the swart Sepoy

Blurs the fair front of nature, with each deed

   Of villainy conceiving; when the joy

That, like the sun, lights up affection’s eyes,

   Is blotted out by Indian hate and lust—

O! that a host of Kellys could arise,

   And with avenging steel, unto the dust,

Smite down the Smiter, that the world might know

How true the Briton as a friend, how mighty as a foe!

O. P. The Peterborough Advertiser, 13th February 1858.

This monody not only shows the esteem in which the Major was held by the local poet and his neighbours, but in the last stanza it revives the memory of a crisis in the history of the empire, and of the throes of the Indian Mutiny, from which our country was suffering when Major Kelly died.

19

  Auctioneer’s Catalogue (Peterborough: G. Robertson, Bookseller.  1816!)

20

  The most valuable direct evidence as to the appearance of the barracks and prison which I was able to obtain in 1891, was from an old Mr. Lewin of Yaxley, who was born in 1802, and had been very familiar with the Depot in his childhood.  He used frequently to ride in through this west gate in the tradesmen’s carts, but he spoke always of the entrance on the south front as the main entrance.  This old gentleman’s memory was wonderfully clear, and his accounts I regarded as thoroughly trustworthy.

21

  The well-known Stilton cheese was never made at Stilton, which was not in a dairy district; it was made in Leicestershire and sent to Stilton, where Mr. Cooper Thornhill, the sporting landlord of the old sixteenth-century coaching inn, The Bell (he once for a wager rode 218 miles on horseback in 12 hours and 15 minutes), used to supply it to his customers, selling the cheeses, it is said, at half a crown a pound.

22

  To the post of agent at Norman Cross there were appointed, during the seventeen years in which the prison was occupied, two civilians and four naval officers.  Of the two civilians, Mr. John Delafons sent in his formal resignation eight days after his appointment.

Mr. James Perrot, appointed on the 7th April 1797, held his office until January 1799.

Captain Woodriff, R.N., appointed January 1799, held his office until the Peace of Amiens, April 1802 (see Appendix B).

Captain Thos. Pressland, R.N., was appointed after the War was renewed in May 1803, and served from 18th June 1803 until August 1811.

Captain J. Draper, R.N., succeeded to the post, and held it until his death in February 1813.

Captain W. Hansell, R.N., became agent on the death of Captain Draper, and relinquished the post in August 1814 after the Abdication of Buonaparte and his retirement to Elba.

23

  There is evidence in correspondence still extant, that much friction arose between the commander of the Military Guard and the agent, as to the power of the latter to interfere in the steps required for the safe custody of the prisoners.

24

  This shows that about 4,000 prisoners were to be removed from Falmouth to Norman Cross, their hammocks, added to the 1,000 on the way from London, making the number correspond with the 5,000 sets of bedding.

25

  Lavengro, chap. iii.

26

  Evidence that two years later meat could be obtained at a much lower rate has come under my notice, from an unexpected source.  On the fly-leaf of a copy of Batty’s Bible, in the possession of a descendant of Mr. W. Fowler, is written below the name W. Fowler (in the same writing, but in paler ink), “Came down to Norman Cross March 10th, 1799, to serve the prisoners of War at Yaxley.”  In a different handwriting has been inserted after “Came down,” “from London,” and after Yaxley, “with Beef at 28s. the cwt.”  The date 1799 has also been altered in dark ink to 1795, which was of course a wrong correction, as there was no prison at Norman Cross until 1797.—T. J. W.

27

  Appendix B, Biographical Sketch of Captain Woodriff.

28

  So slowly did the Government inquiry which followed on Captain Woodriff’s report progress, that it was not until two years later that judgment was pronounced.—Naval Chronicle, vol. i., pp. 523–6.

29

  For examples of the individual entries in the General Register, the Death Register, and the Register of Prisoners on Parole, see Appendix C.

30

  Cartel is an agreement between foreign states as to the exchange of the prisoners; its meaning was extended to the document authorising the exchange of an individual prisoner, and it was even used to signify the transport vessel engaged to convey the exchanged prisoners to their native country.

31

  In All Souls’ Church at Peterborough is preserved the Register, kept by the resident Priest at King’s Cliff, of the baptisms performed by priests within the mission of his church.  Stilton, the Depot, and the surrounding villages were within that district.  Two of the entries are baptisms of the sons of Delapoux; they will be referred to in a future chapter.  They have always been supposed to be those of the baptism of the children of a French prisoner, who had married an English wife (these marriages were of rare occurrence), and the discovery in the Record Office of this entry of John Andrew Delapoux’s appointment as a clerk is an instance of the way in which research upsets old traditions.  I find the entry of Delapoux’s marriage to Sarah Mason on the 2nd September 1802, in the Register of Stilton church.  His children were baptized as Catholics, and the priest specially calls Sarah Mason his lawful wife.  Another instance in this list, selected haphazard by Mr. Rhodes from papers in the Record Office, shows how in two generations a false family tradition may arise.  In 1894 I visited, in search of information, the daughter-in-law, then a widow aged eighty-six, of the James Robinette whose engagement as a permanent mason and labourer at the Depot is recorded on page 61.  She told me her husband’s father was a French prisoner, who had been made a turnkey at the Barracks!  On searching the church Register, 1 found that the Robinettes had been residents in Yaxley fifty years at least before the arrival of the prisoners at Norman Cross, and between 1748 and 1796 the records of three generations appear in the register—James, the son of James and Catherine Robinette, born in 1780, was doubtless the man appointed in 1813 to the job at the Barracks.

The Robinettes were probably some of the many French Huguenots who came over after the repeal, on the 15th October 1685, of the Edict of Nantes, and settled in the neighbourhood of Peterborough to further reclaim and cultivate the lately drained fens.  The fallacy of coming to conclusions, founded on names only without other evidence, is illustrated by the following sentence in a series of papers on Norman Cross published in the Peterborough Advertiser by the late Rev. G. N. Godwin: “At Stilton the names of Habarte, of Drage, and of Tesloff, and near Thorney the name of Egar, and at Peterborough, among others, the name of Vergette, still speak of the old war time.”  Of these names, Habarte alone is that of descendants of a French prisoner, the majority of those bearing the others are of the old Huguenot stock, while the Vergettes, who formerly believed themselves to be descendants of an ancestor of this same stock, now know that they were an old-established English family in 1555, when their ancestor, Robert Vergette, was Sheriff of Lincoln.

32

  Loc. cit., 93–95.

33

  In a Parliamentary Report for the year 1800 it is stated that the price of wheat was only kept down to £5 a quarter by the system of bounties on imported wheat, the same applying to the prices of other grain.  The present proprietor of “The Oundle Brewery” kindly extracted from the Books of the Firm particulars as to the beer supplied to the Regiments quartered at Norman Cross in the year 1799.  The total amount was 4,449 barrels of 36 gallons each.  This gentleman adds, the beer could not be very good, the price being about 6d. a gallon.  His father said that he had often been told by his father, that the great expansion of the business was due to the contract with the Barracks.  Buckles Brewery, a Peterborough business, also flourished on a large contract to supply the prisoners with “Small Beer.”  Mr. George Gaunt, who was formerly in a large business as a butcher, informed me that, taking the figures which I gave him as a basis, and the average weight of a bullock at about 850 lb., he considered that from five to six would be required every day, if beef alone and no other meat were supplied.  These figures give some idea of the advantages derived by the neighbouring traders from this great Government Establishment.

The following extract from a letter addressed to me by Mr. Samuel Booth shows how many people in one family group alone found employment in connection with the Depot:

“I send you a few particulars about my relatives, which may, or may not, be useful to you.

“My great-grandmother, Mrs. Allen, who lies in the old graveyard, used to carry green-grocery to sell to the prisoners.

“My father’s father was Pay-Sergeant at the Barracks.

“My grandfather, Samuel Briggs, of Ailsworth, was constable; he was also in the Militia, and was told off to keep guard on Thorpe Road, at the entrance to Peterboro’, on the escape of some prisoners, but who went the way to Ramsay.  I have a box made by the prisoners, presented to my grandfather, who was also a carpenter, and at times went to work there.  The prisoners used to beg pieces of wood and other materials of him.  He used to speak of their cleverness in the making of fancy articles, and of their endeavours to escape—one got in the manure cart, and got away.”

34

  Knowing how dogs as a rule refuse to eat meat impregnated with herbs and condiments, we probably have here the explanation of little George Borrow’s impression of the food of the prisoners, which forty years later made him write of it, “Rations of Carrion meat and bread from which I have seen the very hounds occasionally turn away.”  Every one who knows the habit of dogs, knows that many of them would turn away from the meat which had been boiled for four or five hours with a broth impregnated with herbs.

35

  In the light of modern science, we can well understand the origin of the accusation by the British that the wells had been purposely poisoned in order to kill the English prisoners.  Enteric fever had not then been differentiated from typhus, the mode of its spread was unknown, and probably defective sanitation had led to poisoning of the well, as it has done and still is doing in many a British town and village.

36

  Correspondence with the French Government relative to Prisoners of War Supplement, 1801, to Appendix No. 59.  Report of the Transport Board to the House of Commons, 1798.

37

  This will be dealt with in the following chapter.

38

  Report of the Transport Board to the House of Commons, 1798, Appendix No. 59—Most valuable information on the merits of the dispute between the two Governments has been obtained from the Report and its Appendix, and from an imperfect copy of a Supplement to the Appendix, issued from Downing Street, 6th Jan. 1801.  This supplement is not to be found either in the Library of the House of Commons or in the British Museum, and the Fragment which contained thirty-nine out of fifty-three letters indexed in the table of contents, in the course of its travels through my hands and my agents’ and the typewriters’, has been lost.  This loss is irreparable, but I am able to publish in the text or in the Appendix five of the fifty-three letters which were printed in this supplement to the report.  Appendix D.

39

  AFFIDAVITS OF PERROT, THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH SURGEON

Copy of an Affidavit made by Mr. James Perrot, Agent for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross.  Dated Peterboro’, 15th December 1797.

These are to certify, that James Perrot, Agent for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, voluntarily maketh Oath, that to the best of his knowledge and belief, the Certificate and Affidavits given by Dr. Higgins, Physician, Mr. James Magennis, Surgeon, and Messiours Chatelin and Savary, the French Assistant Surgeons to the Hospital at Norman Cross Prisons, are strictly true, and corresponding with the accounts, daily brought to him; and that the number of Patients in the said Hospital on the 19th day of November last, were one hundred and ninety-four, including twenty-four nurses, and the whole number of Prisoners, including the Sick, were on that day confined in the said Prisons, 5028, and from the first the establishment never exceeded 5178, and that to the present date only 59 have died in the said Hospital; and further to the best of his knowledge, neither contagious or epidemic disorders have ever prevailed in the said Hospital or Prisons.

(Signed) J. Perrot, Agent.

Given under my hand at Peterboro’ this 15th day of December 1797.

(Signed) H. Freeman.

Copy of an Affidavit made by Dr. Higgins, Physician, and Dr. Magennis, Surgeon.

We the undersigned do voluntarily certify upon Oath that the number of Sick in the Hospital under our care at Norman Cross, on the 19th November last, was 194, including 24 nurses; that the daily number from the 7th August was always less; and that at no one period since the commencement of the establishment did the actual number exceed 260.  That the prisons are systematically visited and searched every morning by the surgeon or his assistants, and that every prisoner having feverish symptoms, however slight, is immediately removed to the hospital.

No epidemic or contagious Fever.

(Signed) James Higgins, M.D., Physician,James Magennis, Surgeon.

Translation of a certificate by the French Surgeons, M. Savary of the Hardy, and M. Chatelaine, Surgeon-Major of the Ville de l’Orient.

The 24 men were employed as nurses.  Whenever the prisoners are sent to the Hospital, they are admitted, whether their disorders are slight or violent, and while there, they are treated with humanity and attention, and provided with everything necessary for the re-establishment of their health.  No epidemic or contagious distemper.

(Ref. Parly. Paper, 1797–8, vol. 50. pp. 131–3.)

40

  These extracts are from the lost supplement of date 1801 to the Parliamentary Report, 1798.

41

  Alison’s History of Europe, from the commencement of the French Revolution in 1789 to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815.

42

  The total number of prisoners in Britain increased greatly during the second period of the war, until in 1814, after the abdication of Buonaparte, there were 67,000 prisoners to be returned to France.  To provide for this vast body, Dartmoor and Perth, each capable of holding as many prisoners as Norman Cross, had been built.

43

  My mother, who remembered being driven over at the age of five to the stalls at the prison gate to buy a toy, could recall the appearance of the stalls and the toys, but nothing more.  It was probably one of the fixed stalls shown at the eastern gate in MacGregor’s plan.  The materials of the stalls, the pebble paving, and the paled fence in front of the market were sold, when the prison was demolished, for £20.

—T. J. W.

44

  Appendix D.

45

  Loc. cit., p. 131.

46

  Capt. Woodriff’s letter, Appendix D.

47

  In July 1799 the Dutch prisoners applied for the use of a building for theatrical exhibitions, but “My Lords” would not hear of such a thing, as “not being according to law, and might be attended with inconvenience to the neighbourhood”; but about ten years later, as seen in Foulley’s model, there is a theatre in the centre of the south-west quadrangle.

48

  Appendix A.

49

  Appendix D.

50

  No. 10, Appendix D.

51

  When M. Foulley knew the prison seven years later, this block was set apart for petty-officers and civilians.

52

  The remainder of this chapter is quoted verbatim from the Story of Dartmoor Prison (Basil Thomson).

53

  Basil Thomson, loc. cit., chap, xix., p. 202.

54

  Vide Appendix A.

55

  In the great action off Cape Trafalgar on 21st October 1805, the Leviathan, seventy-four guns, under Captain Bayton, was next to the Victory.  After passing through the enemy’s line she dismasted her opponent, raked the Santissima Trinidad, and passed on to the San Augustin, one of seven coming to surround her; this ship was silenced in fifteen minutes, and the crew of the Leviathan, making her fast with a hawser, towed her into the English Fleet with the English Jack flying.  The French ship L’Intrépide had by distant firing cut into the sails and rigging of the Leviathan, but three more British ships coming up, L’Intrépide was, after a noble resistance, also compelled to surrender, and was set on fire by the Britannia.  The crews were landed at Portsmouth and transferred to Norman Cross, where they were received on 8th January 1806.  One was Corporal Jean De la Porte, whose name appears as the maker of signed straw marquetry pictures, and to whom are attributed many other unsigned pictures of the same character.  Mr. Jean De la Porte is spoken of as an officer; had he been of that rank he would not have been in the prison, but out on parole.  He was a Petty Officer, and would be in the Petty Officers’ prison.  He was confined at Norman Cross for nearly nine years, and during this long captivity his artistic skill and taste must have enormously mitigated his suffering.

56

  On Horn and Tortoiseshell, by H. Akin, late Secretary of the Society of Arts, London.  Journal of the Franklin Institute, London.  Series vol. xxvi., pp. 256–9.  1840.

57

  I have a drinking-horn, given to me by the daughter-in-law of the man for whom it was made, engraved with his name—J. Bates—surrounded by a floral pattern.—T. J. W.

58

  This art was practised by amateurs in the 18th century.  In 1875 an attempt was made to reintroduce the work.  “Mosaicon, or Paper Mosaic,” W. Bemrose, jun.  (Bemrose & Sons, 10, Paternoster Buildings, E.C., and Irongate, Derby.)

59

  The authenticity of the wine slides as Norman Cross work is absolute.  Mr. Vinter, who gave them to the author for presentation to the museum, affirmed that his mother had known them all her life in the house of her parents, an inn opposite the prison.  Her father had purchased them in the prison market.  Mr. Vinter’s mother had herself seen from a window of the house a prisoner shot by a sentinel as he was attempting to escape.  Of the caddies, one is in the possession of the Countess of Lindsey at Uffington Park, twelve miles from Norman Cross (Plate VII., Fig. 2, p. 40).  Mr. Bodger has the second; it is of beautiful design, but dilapidated.  The third is in the collection of Miss Paull, of Truro, and is known as the work of a French prisoner at the Falmouth Depot (Plate VIII, Fig. 1, p. 46).  It is possible that the three caddies were all the work of the same artist, who may have been one of the thousands of prisoners who were sent from Falmouth to Norman Cross.

60

  Parliamentary History, xxxvi. 450.

61

  There were two rates for the tax on hats, those of a wider diameter being taxed at the higher rate.

62

  Norman Cross.  Correspondence with the French Government relative to prisoners of war, issued from Downing Street 1st January 1801, as a supplement to Appendix 59.  Report of the Transport Board to the House of Commons, 1798.

63

  The Rev. E. Bradley (Cuthbert Bede), who half a century ago was the incumbent of Denton, a village a little over a mile from Norman Cross, left the following note among the MSS. which were prepared for a history of Huntingdon, or, as he called it, Cromwell’s County, which was never completed:

“The French prisoners at the prison made beautiful straw plaits, which were purchased by people in Stilton and sold at a high rate.  For a long time they were forbidden to sell these plaits, but they found means to do so through the soldiers.  No doubt the soldiers made a great deal of money in this way, although the plaits were sold so cheaply that many people in Stilton made very respectable fortunes by their sale.  The soldiers secretly brought the straw plaits to the houses, sometimes wrapped round their bodies under their clothes; in this case they would go upstairs and undress, and then come down with the straw plaits.

“I do not know how the prisoners got the straw, but as they could no more make straw plaits without straw than the Israelites could make bricks, I suppose the soldiers helped them to it.  Much of the plait (which was more neatly made than the English manufacture) was made up and sold in Stilton.  Other was hawked about round the district; also sent to wholesale houses in London or elsewhere.  One vendor of the straw plaits cleared a thousand pounds in a few years.”

64

  Vol. 106.

65

  An old lady friend of mine, recently deceased, remembered in her childhood seeing the children following a woman in the streets of Peterborough, and singing, “Wind or storm, hail or snow, To the Barracks she will go,” a doggerel which had been fastened on to her when she carried over goods for sale at the market, and was supposed to smuggle in cut straw and to bring back concealed about her person straw plait, which she disposed of to the bonnet makers.—T. J. W.

66

  Chambers’ Journal, xxiii. 327.  In the same journal (issue of September 1908) is an article by A. F. Morris upon straw marquetry, in which the introduction of that art into this country is ascribed to the French.

67

  Historical Sketch of the Old Depot, Perth, William Sievwright, 1894.

68

  Vol. ix., chap. lxiv., par. 127.

69

  This information Alison gave from his own personal recollection.  I can confirm his account from what I have been told by my father, who in his sixteenth and seventeenth years was living in Perth, and was in the habit of going to the prison to take lessons in French and in fencing from one of the officers confined there.—T. J. W.