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Confessions of a Dorset Smuggler

In the Bridport News of Friday 6th February 1903, nonagenarian Digory Hopkins Gordge recalled his time as a Charmouth smuggler. With agricultural wages depressingly low, at around 16 old pence (6p) per day, merely carrying goods from a smuggling vessel to shore could earn around 30 old pence (12p) per night. This was an attractive proposition and could help to put food on the table. While farmers might complain about the effects of smuggling on their workforce, they would also be grateful to make gains from the trade themselves.

Born in Bridport in 1809, Digory remembered in the 1830s a French lugger, carrying kegs of brandy, lying about four miles off shore. French crews, mainly from Cherbourg, would ship cargoes to the Dorset coast. They were guided to favoured landing places by fast growing clumps of trees planted on hills behind each inlet. Only the darkest nights were chosen for a smuggling job. As many as 70 men, drawn from local villages, put off in boats and came back with two large kegs of brandy to each man. 

Travelling inland and keeping to the byroads, suddenly a sky rocket went up. This was a warning that the excise officers were about led on horse back by Chief Excise Officer Wilson. Fortunately, Digory’s brother had the key to a local church where the smugglers hid. When the excise officers could be heard passing the church gate, according to Digory ‘never was a more serious congregation inside the sacred edifice!’

When it was safe to do so the smugglers proceeded to a destination near Chard where they left the kegs of brandy in a yard. On another occasion, the Chief Excise Officer was overcome by the smugglers bound hand and foot to a five-barred gate and left overnight.

Digory Hopkins Gordge also remembered how the smugglers would carry a coin to place in the mouth to cloak recognition by the voice. He died on 7th February 1904 at the age of 95 years. Hopkins was his mother’s maiden name.

Smuggling in the 1800s was certainly a vigorous and flourishing industry.

(Credit: British Newspaper Archives & Charmouth Local History Resource Centre.)

Illustration: a smuggler of the period.

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