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

Rations of prisoners: See under Food

Registers:

   Description and value of those at Norman Cross, 50–56

   Verdun prisoners, kept by Rev. J. Hopkinson, 312–341

Réunion, frigate, sailors from, sent to Norman Cross, 49

Révolutionnaire, man-of-war, sailors from, sent to Norman Cross, 49

Ribout, prisoner of war, 97

Richards, James, chief clerk and interpreter at Norman Cross, 49

Riviere, M., of the French Admiralty, 199

Robert, Captain, duel with Captain Decourbes, 217

Robinette family, family tradition erroneous, 59–69

Roelans, Adrian Roeland Robberts, marriage to Mary Kingston, 206–207

Roelans, Mary, marriage to Joseph Little, 207, 208

“Romans” of Dartmoor Prison, 111, 112–123

Rose, Lucy, marriage with C. P. Vanderaa, 207

Rose, Nancy, marriage with Antoni Staring, 207–208

Roubillard, Jean, trial for forgery, 66–67

Ruddle, Dan, purchase of block of Norman Cross Prison, 23, 37

Salmon du Chattelier, C. L. de, formerly Vicar-General of the Diocese of Mans, 179

Salvert, M., marriage with Helen Govstry, 216

Sands, H. B., proposal to erect monument at Norman Cross, 174

Sands, Mrs., 139

Sarrazin, Jean:

   Career, 85–86

   Refutation of statements made by Pillet, 85–86

Savary, M., French surgeon at Norman Cross, 77–78

Schank, John, Transport Commissioner, 7

Seamen, British:

   Conduct as prisoners of war, 237–238

   Efforts to induce prisoners to enter French service, 234

Serle (Searle), Ambrose:

   Appointed Transport Commissioner, 7

   Correspondence and report on treatment of prisoners, 100, 127, 152, 275–284

Sievwright, William, on illicit straw-plait trade, 144

Sissinghurst Prison, 109

Sixtieth Foot (60th): See King’s Royal Rifle Corps

Sixtieth Royal Americans: See King’s Royal Rifle Corps

Sleigh, History of Leek, on parole prisoners, 215–217

Smith, Captain Sir Sidney, efforts to obtain release, 79, 195, 273

Snow, Elizabeth, marriage with Jean Habart, 209–219

Spilsbury, Sarah, marriage with Joseph Vattel, 216

Squire, Thomas, agent for supervision of parole prisoners, 49–50, 193

Stapleton Prison, prisoners of war sent to, 246

Staring, Antoni, marriage with Nancy Rose, 207–208

Stephenson, General, inquiry into condition of prisoners, 123

Stilton cheese, origin of name, 34

Story of Dartmoor Prison, quoted, xiii., 65–66, 112–123, 253

Straw hats and bonnets, illicit trade by prisoners, 133–145

Straw marquetry: See Marquetry work

Straw plait:

   Manufacture by prisoners, 134–145, 302–319

   Splitter machine invented by prisoners of war, 138–139

   “Straw-plait hunts” described by Borrow, 34, 137, 143

Strazynski, Captain A., escape and recapture, 194–195

Strong, Archdeacon, 22, 127

Stuyver, privateer, capture, 53

Suicides, large number, 159

Sunday trading at Norman Cross Prison, 98–99

Swinburne, Mr., agent for British Government in France, 57

Tableau de la Grande-Bretagne, by Jean Sarrazin, 85

Tartuffe, La, frigate, capture, 51

Taylor, A. C, 128

Thesiger, Captain, agent for prisoners of war, 247

Thomson, Basil:

   Indebtedness to, acknowledged, xiii.

   Story of Dartmoor Prison, quoted, 65–66, 111, 112–123, 253

Thornhill, Cooper, sale of Stilton cheese, 34

Thorpe, John T., on Masonic Lodges of prisoners, 204–205

Todd, William, store-clerk at Norman Cross, 59, 247, 262

Tong, Pierre Marie, release of, 198–199

Toufflet, Jean, marriage, 216

Trafalgar, battle of, 129

Transport Office:

   Creation and duties, 6, 37–38

   Prisoners’ traffic in obscene articles reported to, 148

Tucker, Lieutenant, description of life as prisoner of war, 234–235

Usury, misery caused by, and efforts to prevent, 107–111, 113–123, 276, 281, 283, 285

Valenciennes, prisoners of war sent to, 236

Vanderaa, Charles Peter:

   Career, 208

   Marriage with Lucy Rose, 207

Vandome, naval officer, linguist, 216

Vattel, Emérie de, on treatment of prisoners of war, 4

Vattel, Joseph, marriage with Sarah Spilsbury, 216

Verdun, British prisoners of war at:

   Experiences of, 223–238

   Register kept by the Rev. John Hopkinson, 312–341

Vergette family, descent, 69

Victoire, Mme, of France, patroness of the Bishop of Moulins, 183, 293

Ville de L’Orient, La, capture, 51

Vinter, Mr., 133

Vird, Lieutenant, 217

Wages:

   Paid to prisoners of war, 125

   Rates of, in Norman Cross district (1797), 16

Walker, George, Surgeon:

   Appointment, salary, and allowances, 168, 287, 288, 289

   Marriage, 24–25

   Reference to, 260

Wallis, Lieutenant, on allowance to parole prisoners, 199–209

Warne, General, suicide at Verdun, 87

Wellington, Duke of:

   On exchange of prisoners, 218

   Prisoners of war sent from the Peninsula, 259

Whitwell, Ann, marriage with Albertus Coeymans, 206

Wilberforce, William, Yorkshire election of 1807, 182–183

Wood, Timothy, tried for murder, 151

Wood carving by prisoners of war, 132

Woodriff, Captain, R.N.:

   Agent at Norman Cross, 38, 40, 45–46

   Biography, 265–267

   Charges against, refuted, 86

   Epidemic among prisoners, 164

   Gambling and usury in prison, report on, 107–108

   House at Norman Cross let (1802), 243

   Inquiry into causes of mutiny on the Marquis of Carmarthen, 48–49

   Letter on clothing for prisoners, 275–276

   Order to prevent malingering, 171

   Price of provisions and rates of wages, report on, 16

   Prisoner of war in France, 235

Wotton, Sarah, marriage with Berthold Wyeth, 208

Wyeth, Berthold J. J., marriage, 208

Yeomanry, class enlisted from and duties of, 8

Yorkshire election 1807, 182–183

Ysbrands, J., Captain of the Courier, 207

PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

[0a]  Fortescue: History of the British Army, iv. 904–6.  Clode: Military Forces of the Crown, i. 240.

[0b]  The Story of Dartmoor Prison, by Basil Thomson.  (London: William Heinemann. 1907.)

[0c]  The French Prisoners of Norman Cross.  A Tale by the Rev. Arthur Brown, Rector of Catfield, Norfolk.  (London: Hodder Brothers, 18, New Bridge Street, E.C.)

[4]  Vattel, Les Droits des Gens, book iii, chap, iii, sec. 49, p. 150.

[5]  “Prisoners of War,” Chambers’ Journal, No. 21, 1854, p. 330.

[6a]  It will be seen in a later chapter what class of men the prisoners were to whom these words would come home.

[6b]  July 1797—Reports House of Commons, “18th Report of Committee of Finance.”

[7]  Schomberg, Naval Chronology, chap. v., p. 213.

[9]  In 1803 the Earl of Carysfort of the Irish Peerage took the title of Lord Carysfort of Norman Cross, as a Peer of the United Kingdom.

[12]  The price of timber had risen in December 1806 to £8 8s. a load; at one date the contractor complained that even by paying £12 a load he could not obtain fifty loads in Plymouth.  The Story of Dartmoor Prison, Basil Thomson.  (London: William Heinemann, 1907.)

[14]  The sum of £14,800 was paid to Adams between the 1st January 1797 and 29th November 1797 in the following instalments:

The total amount paid to 19th November 1797 for the Norman Cross Prison was £34,518 11s. 3d., for Hull £22,600, for Lewes £12,400, and for Colchester £15,620.

[16]  As illustrating the hardship which, already in its fourth year, this war had imposed upon the nation, the following extract from the report furnished to the Transport Office, by Captain Woodriff, R.N., agent to the Commissioners, of the average price of provisions and the rate of wages in the district in which the Depot had been established, during the time that the prison and barracks were erecting, may be of interest.  Mutton was 10½d. per lb., beef 1s. per lb., bread 1s. per quartern loaf.  Carpenters’ wages were 12s. per week, shoemakers’ 10s., bakers’ 9s., blacksmiths’ 8s., and husbandmen 7s.  Starvation wages were then a literal truth.  Four years later from a Parliamentary Report we find the Government granting a bounty on all imported wheat, in order to keep the price down to £5 a quarter, other grain being treated in the same way.  We can well understand that, as the price of provisions went up, and the taxation increased with the prolongation of the war (a war which, however it originated, was prolonged for years by the ambitious projects of Buonaparte for the aggrandisement of himself and of France), the animosity not only of the actual combatants, but also of the suffering men, women, and children, steadily grew against the man and the nation whom they regarded as the authors of all their misery.

[18]  Appendix A.

[23a]  Auctioneer’s Catalogue, (Jacobs’ Peterborough, 1816).

[23b]  M. Foulley’s description of his model on Key Plan, Pl. xx., p. 251.

[24]  The following entry in the Register of Marriages in St. John’s Church, Peterborough, probably explains the reason for the housing of the surgeon in a comfortable brick house within those prison walls, instead of in the very indifferent quarters in the hospital casern:—

“October 18th, 1808, George H. Walker of Yaxley to Elizabeth Colinette Pressland of St. John’s.—Witnesses: Thomas Pressland, Thomas Alderson Cook, James Gibbs.”

Mr. George H. Walker was the surgeon to the Prison, which was in the Parish of Yaxley, and Captain Pressland, R.N., had been for some years, after the renewal of the war in 1803, Superintendent of the Prison, so among all these dry details crops up the picture of our human life.  We see the young medical officer passing through the door in the Prison wall which communicated with the Superintendent’s house (the door over which the wall is seen rising with a ramp in the photographs of the only fragments of the wall now remaining) to spend happy hours with Captain Pressland’s family.  We see friendship ripening into love, the story told by the entry in the Register of St. John’s Church, Peterborough, and then in the Register of St. Peter’s, Yaxley, we are brought face to face with a tragedy, for the last entry of a burial from the Depot is “Captain Thomas Pressland, Norman Cross.  March 21st, 1814.  59 years.  Signed, J. Hinde, Curate,” and there can be little doubt that from the house to which, mainly through his future father-in-law’s influence, Surgeon Walker was able in the third year of its existence to bring Elizabeth Colinette Pressland as his bride, while the bells of Yaxley Church rang out a merry marriage peal, six years later passed the body of Captain Pressland himself to be laid in Yaxley Churchyard, while the death bell tolled its solemn note.  For six years this house was the house of the couple for whom it was built.  It was in the auctioneer’s catalogue, when it was sold on the 2nd October 1810, nothing more than “An excellent brick dwelling-house, containing a cellar 12 ft. 6 in. by 11 ft. 2 in., parlour 13 ft. 3 in. by 13 ft. 8 in., etc., etc.”  To us, 100 years later, it is a part of the great tragedy of Norman Cross, and by the light of the registers we see it in those short eight years from its building to its destruction the scone of the brightest joys and the deepest griefs of men and women whose names we know, whose persons we can imagine, and who help to clothe those cold, dry records with the warmth of human life.

[28a]  On a range of the stabling purchased in 1816 to be re-erected as farm buildings in a neighbouring village, over one of the doors there stands out in bold relief, owing to the protective influence of the paint, the letters B. A. T., and in the auctioneer’s catalogue the Range is described as Bathorse Stable Range.  From Stœqueler’s Military Encyclopædia, we learn that “Bat” signified a pack saddle; “Bathorse,” one which carried a pack; “Batman,” the man in charge of the Bathorse.  The latter term came to be used for an officer’s servant, while the Bathorse Stable was applied to a military stable for draught and other horses.

[28b]  In his interesting romance, The French Prisoners of Norman Cross, the Rev. Arthur Brown speaks of Mr. Vise as Chief Surgeon at the Prison; this, of course, is an error, the prisoners were not attended by the neighbouring practitioners.  The statement that the surgeons were all English is also erroneous.

[29]  Major Kelly was highly esteemed and at the time of his death (when the Indian Mutiny was not yet quelled) the following lines were published in a local newspaper:—

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.

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

[31]  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.

[34]  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.

[38a]  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.

[38b]  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.

[40]  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.

[42]  Lavengro, chap. iii.

[44]  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.

[46]  Appendix B, Biographical Sketch of Captain Woodriff.

[49]  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.

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

[52]  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.

[59]  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.

[65]  Loc. cit., 93–95.

[69]  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.”

[70]  When Greens are issued in lieu of Pease, one pound stripped of the outer leaves and fit for the copper shall be issued to each prisoner.

Each prisoner shall receive two ounces of Soap per week.

[71]  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.

[74a]  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.

[74b]  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.

[75]  This will be dealt with in the following chapter.

[76]  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.

[77]  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.)

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

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

[90]  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.

[99]  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.

[100a]  Appendix D.

[100b]  Loc. cit., p. 131.

[103]  Capt. Woodriff’s letter, Appendix D.

[104]  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.

[105]  Appendix A.

[107]  Appendix D.

[109]  No. 10, Appendix D.

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

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

[125]  Basil Thomson, loc. cit., chap, xix., p. 202.

[126]  Vide Appendix A.

[129]  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.

[131a]  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.

[131b]  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.

[133a]  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.)

[133b]  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.

[134a]  Parliamentary History, xxxvi. 450.

[134b]  There were two rates for the tax on hats, those of a wider diameter being taxed at the higher rate.

[134c]  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.

[135]  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.”

[136]  Vol. 106.

[137]  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.