THE ULTIMATE CHILVERS TRANSGRESSOR
by George Chilvers
Among the CHILVERS family history are a number of members of the family who found themselves shipped off to the Antipodes, and certainly more than one who was (or maybe still is) detained at His or Her Majesty’s pleasure. But to our knowledge only one suffered the ultimate criminal penalty – at the end of a rope.
Samuel CHILVERS was born around 1721 in Long Stratton in Norfolk. A hundred or so years later Long Stratton was said to have a population of 690. According to the records he was a “labourer in husbandry”, an agricultural labourer. Unfortunately for him he fell in with a bad crowd, and he was persuaded that there was easy money to be had smuggling.
Poor Samuel actually doesn’t appear to have been the sharpest knife in the box, as he didn’t really seem to know what he was getting into. On 5 December 1747, when he was 26, along with about a dozen or so others he was in Eastbridge in Suffolk. One of the Customs officers in that area spotted a smuggling cutter approaching Southwold. A smuggling cutter was a small vessel used for running tea and brandy, the brandy being hidden in barrels hung over the side.
Duty on tea was 119%, so smuggling was a profitable industry. Ships from Holland and Scandinavia brought tea to the British coast, then stood offshore while smugglers met them and unloaded the precious cargo in small vessels. The smugglers, often local fishermen, snuck the tea inland through underground passages and hidden paths to special hiding places. One of the best hiding places was in the local parish church!
Samuel and his colleagues went down to meet the cutter, but in a scene that would, except for the consequences, appear laughable were told that the goods were for another smuggling gang, so they made their way back empty-handed from the shore.
The Customs men had however by now mobilised the local troops who were thwarted in their initial attempt to locate the smugglers using the novel and subtle ploy of going to a public house known to be used by smugglers and asking if there were any smugglers there. But despite the ridiculously blunt approach someone did blab, presumably to throw the scent off the local band that the goods were originally destined for, because the troops then went to the stable where our band of smugglers were hiding. The latter started firing upon the troops, and while there were no casualties two horses in the stable were wounded, and one of Samuel’s colleagues of whom we shall hear later, Robert SCOTT, had a hole put through his hat.
After some discussion the smugglers decided to play Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and burst out from the stable making their get-away. SCOTT’s horse however stumbled and he was captured in possession of “a brace and a half of pistols” (in other words – three). Samuel tried to run away on foot, but hampered by a greatcoat with a blunderbuss hanging from his back he only managed to make it a couple of hundred yards down the road until he was apprehended by John THOMPSON, one of the soldiers.
Samuel’s musket was found to be not charged when he was stopped, but it showed signs of having recently been fired.
It’s not clear what happened to the other smugglers but it seems they made good their escape as only Samuel and Robert SCOTT were captured and tried.
An 18th century blunderbuss
The Assize hearing before Sir Robert LADBROKE, Lord Mayor of the City of London, took place at The Old Bailey on 15 January 1748. Unfortunately for Samuel and Robert only a couple of years earlier in 1745 a law had been introduced in an attempt to eradicate smuggling “with armed force” which made it a capital offence to assemble in a group of three or more while armed for the purpose of running and landing uncustomed goods. The fact that they didn’t actually get any goods - a point made by Samuel himself at the trial – was irrelevant. They were in a group that accounted to more than two in number, they were armed, and they had the intent of smuggling. That was enough for the pair to be sentenced to death.
Records then show that both Robert and Samuel became serious, pious and devout. John TAYLOR, the Ordinary (chaplain) of Newgate Gaol reports that they had attended chapel regularly, and drew the comment from him that “their Appearance was always with such decent Deportment, as I never before observed, though I could heartily wish it were always the Case with these unhappy Wretches”.
On execution day, Monday 18 March 1748, Samuel and five other felons including Robert SCOTT were taken at noon from Newgate to Tyburn in two carts, Samuel being in the front one probably seated on his coffin, the parade being followed by a troop of soldiers on horseback. The whole event was as always a huge public spectacle with crowds numbering tens of thousands lining the route.
Hogarth’s The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn was painted just a year before Samuel met his fate and portrays the typical chaos. Remember that Samuel was a simple young Norfolk lad from a village with just 690 inhabitants so the crowds and the mayhem must have had a terrifying effect on him. The Ordinary accompanied the condemned on their journey, allegedly to see to their spiritual needs, but actually to be able to provide a witness account of events, final words etc which he then published and sold to supplement his income.
En route the procession would stop at alehouses to enable the condemned to have a last drink (“one for the road”, although the soldiers couldn’t join in because they were “on the waggon”). This practice often meant that the romantic image of final stirring words from the gallows was actually less likely than the condemned being paralytic drunk. The whole journey from the prison in Newgate Street near the present Old Bailey along Holborn, St Giles and theTyburn Road (now Oxford Street) took two to three hours through the crowds.
Tyburn stood near the present Marble Arch, and consisted of a uniquely shaped gallows in a triangular shape, so that up to 24 felons could be hanged at once. The enterprising villagers of Tyburn erected large spectator stands so that as many as possible could see the hangings (for a fee) and apprentices were given the day off. There were eight execution Mondays a year, and the public made sure they enjoyed the holiday.
John TAYLOR reports in his pamphlet relating to Samuel and his unhappy colleagues that “Their Behaviour to the last Moment of their Lives was consistent with what is said before of them; and having for some Time continued in Prayer, they seemed to meet their Fate with composed Minds”.
Hogarth’s The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn (1747)
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The Chilvers Connection 11 December 2007 |