The Smugglers of Sennen
By Sandra Pritchard (nee Vingoe)
There is no doubt that William Bottrell of St Levan had relatives who were engaged in both piracy and smuggling, and he relates a number of stories about pirates and smugglers in his three volumes. Many people think that these relate to events in the 15th and 16th centuries as it is generally not known that in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the fast sailing Cornish luggers were very profitably employed, during peace time in smuggling. However, at the end of the 18th century the Government had put a lot of effort into bringing the trade to an end. Many of the Sennen smugglers had fled to the Channel Isles in order to escape prosecution amongst them some of Bottrell's relatives.
In 1803, the forces of the Crown
were once again involved in fighting the Napoleonic War. This meant that the
Smugglers of Cornwall took on a new lease of life. One might even say that the
Government was in some measure responsible for stimulating it. For in the early
months of the war, owing to the need of men for the services and home defense,
Royal Proclamation was made that any smuggler who had fled the country should,
provided he was not charged with murder, be permitted to return without fear of
arrest, on his entering
The noted Cornish historian A. K.
Hamilton Jenkin in his book “Cornwall and its People” tells the story and says:
“The principle witness for the
prosecution was a certain Anne George. This woman, it appears, was a person of
notorious character. At the time of the trial she is described as being the wife
of Joseph George who up to a short time before, had been the keeper of the
Sennen inn – a place which had the reputation of being “the resort of all the
idle blackguards in the county”. During the time in which he had kept the inn,
Joseph George had acted as smuggling agent, for his landlord, a well to do
farmer of the parish names Dionysius Williams. Presuming on the secret hold,
which they possessed over their landlord, through the knowledge of his illicit
transactions, the Georges had for some time refused to pay any rent for the inn,
and at length the owner, very unwisely, had decided to eject them. Infuriated by
this, the innkeeper’s wife had thereupon turned king’s evidence against
Williams, and reaped her revenge in seeing the latter served with a long term of
imprisonment.”
Hamilton Jenkin, tells us that he got
this story from a Brief to Counsel which he was shown by Penzance solicitor Mr
J. A. D. Bridger. He continued as follows:
The villainy of the woman’s character, however, is best revealed by the account, given in the same brief, of a quarrel which she had some years previously with her brother-in-law, John George, over a few pounds of tobacco. In this case also she had turned king’s evidence, accused the victim of her malice of firing on a revenue officer, and so incriminated him that the poor wretch was actually convicted and hanged on 5th June 1802. In a district in which almost every inhabitant had probably had some hand in smuggling at one time or another, the presence of such a malicious and wholly unscrupulous informer caused widespread fear, and no doubt accounted for the difficulty which was experienced in obtaining witnesses for the defence. ‘The terror and dismay, indeed, which this woman had been the means of spreading throughout the county are not to be described,’ stated the counsel’s brief. ‘Independent of the present prosecution no less than five persons have been capitally indicted by her means, one of whom had already been executed, and so callous is her conscience, and deadly her revenge, that persons who may have given her slight cause for offence ars now trembling for fear of the consequences, expecting to be made the next victim of the detestable passion with which she is accused.”
In a district in which almost every inhabitant had probably had some hand in smuggling at one time or another, the presence of such a malicious and wholly unscrupulous informer caused widespread fear, and no doubt accounted for the difficulty which was experienced in obtaining witnesses for the defence. On this occasion the jury chose not to believe her evidence and Pollard was found not guilty and allowed to go free.
The above is the story as told by
Hamilton Jenkin but how much of it is provable some 200 years later.
The George brothers lived in Sennen Cove.
The story goes that the first two, Joseph and John George, the eldest
members of the GEORGE family, were concerned in a smuggling venture with
the owner of the inn, one Dionysius Williams. Joseph and his wife Ann
GEORGE ran the inn and refused to pay the rent to their landlord, as they had
something on him. ie they had smuggled his goods.
Her husband, Joseph George, had been his agent. Dionysius eventually threw them
out for non-payment of rent and Ann George, in a fit of rage, turned King's
Evidence and shopped Dionysius to the Revenue Men. circa 1804.
I presume both she and her husband had got immunity from prosecution when they
accused Dionysius as she....................
"reaped her revenge in seeing the latter served with a long term of imprisonment" A K Hamilton Jenkin
In another legal brief in 1805, where she again turns King's Evidence, a
Christopher Pollard is accused of running a valuable, cargo into Sennen. Ann
George is the principal witness for the prosecution. The brief describes her
former 'evidence' against Dionysius Williams and the council attempts to
discredit her, by recounting her notorious character and her past record.
As well as the above case the defence quotes another case, in which she
quarrelled with her brother in law, John GEORGE over some tobacco deal and had
shopped him to the authorities, accusing him of firing on a revenue officer.
She is supposed to have so incriminated him that the "poor wretch was actually
convicted and hanged on 5 June 1802"
A K Hamilton Jenkin in 'Cornwall and its People' goes on to say that
"no less
than 5 people have been capitally indicted by her means, one of whom had already
been executed" [her brother- in law- John George] Probably due to her
evidence being so discredited, Pollard was acquitted.
I have NOT seen the 'briefs to solicitors' mentioned myself but I have seen
the talk that was given by Mr Bridger to the Old Cornwall Soc. in the 1950's,
where he describes the foregoing but, said Dionysius Williams was found not
guilty. His talk was written up in one of the 'Old Cornwall' publications and in
the local press at the time. I would have been very surprised if any jury had
convicted him, let alone one composed entirely of his peers. His grandfather,
also a Dionysius Williams, was an eminent mathematician and astrologer, and had
married into the family that owned the Manor of Maen/Mayon [the Tremewans.]
Dionysius Williams III, although base born, had inherited the Manor under the
Will of his
natural father Dionysius Williams II. He thus owned considerable property
in Sennen, including the Cove. He was to die, with no direct male heirs, in
early 1830.
The 'briefs' were on loan to the Cornwall Record Office
Now, what I CAN say is fact is :-
John and Joseph GEORGE were brothers. They were from the large family of Richard
GEORGE and his wife Rebecca
NICHOLAS.Rebecca's father was a Mathew NICHOLAS and from this date on there were boys
named Mathew in the GEORGE family.
As well as these brothers John & Joseph & Mathew [and a Richard, of which no
further trace other than baptism can be found] there were Peter, Henry and
James.
John GEORGE b1775 married Grace PENROSE: 1802 Sennen [widow,b1762: her
birth name was Grace NICHOLAS]
Joseph GEORGE b1777 " Ann NICHOLAS: 1798 St Buryan
Peter GEORGE b1779 " Sarah ROBERTS: 1803 Sennen
Henry GEORGE b1781 " Margaret NICHOLAS:1810 Sennen
James GEORGE b1783 " Jane PENROSE: 1806 Sennen
Mathew GEORGE b1790 " Sarah PENROSE: 1813 Sennen
Jane PENROSE: b 1786 & Sarah PENROSE: b1790 were sisters
were daughters of Grace PENROSE: the widow
As you can see the NICHOLAS family name figures often.
According to the valuation on the 1840 Tithe Apportionment records for Sennen,
3 plots of land and the Inn were leased to Henry & Mathew GEORGE,
from the heirs
of Dion. Williams. [bur: 19 Mar 1830: age 58: Sennen ]
Dionysius WILLIAMS III [1772- 1830] was the base son of Margaret NICHOLAS
[father Dion. WILLIAMS II]
His father had married in 1773 ,not to Margaret, but to his first cousin Ann
TREMEWAN and had 3 daughters.
When Dion. WILLIAMS II died in 1799, his illegitimate son inherited under his
natural father's will.
When Dionysius WILLIAMS III died in 1830, again there were no male heirs and the
manor and lands were inherited by his daughter, Ann Tremewan WILLIAMS or more
accurately, by her husband, James TREMBATH of St Just [another long story]
After much research I am now sure that the Henry and Mathew GEORGE mentioned
above were the two brothers of John and Joseph GEORGE. Mathew goes on to be
landlord of the INN at the COVE through all the Census; 1841 -1891
On an old map of Norden's it is called "The Ship" inn. This map was surveyed
in the 1600's but not published until the end of the 1700's - hence the anomaly
in the names of landlords not being those current at the time of publication.
Sometime in late 1800's the name was changed to the "Old Success" after the
seine net company of that name. It was painted by the
artist Farquhar, who lived in his studio in one of the net lofts near the inn.
On the 1901 Mathew GEORGE is listed as a fisherman and the inn is not
mentioned. Leases were usually on 3 lives and the landlords could not demand
eviction from the property at short notice.The GEORGE family would not have paid rent in the manner of today. There were
High rents & Rack Rents, due per the original agreements but not payable with
the frequency of today. The nominated 3 lives lease[or 99 years] could only be
changed by the leaseholder. The family members who held the lease would have
paid the rents due, possibly annually, but not necessarily Joseph and Ann who
were running it at the time. However, if she was responsible for splitting on
her brother in law, John GEORGE, they may have been regarded as pariahs by the
rest of the family , who threw them out.
The GEORGES continued with the lease until at least 1891. It might
have run out then, with Mathew GEORGE, being perhaps the last life, did not want
to renew as he was unmarried and had no heirs. By the 1920's it was known as the
Whitesand Bay Hotel, when the thatch was ripped off and a proper second story
added rather than a few attic rooms on a talfat type floor. [Talfat is the
Cornish word for a wooden loft, reached by a ladder much like
a hay loft].
There is also another family by the name of GEORGE in Sennen. and this has led to confusion as to which of the two Sennen inns was the home of Joseph and Ann George. The VINGOE family owned and ran the FIRST & LAST INN in Churchtown. They also owned much else in Trevescan, Trevilley and Escalls and the Land's End piece itself . Some of this confusion comes from the fact that an Eleanor Vingoe married a John George in 1761 and a Sarah Vingoe in 1786 also married a John George, however this is another group of the GEORGE family, distantly related to the 'Covers' of the same name.
A study of the Sennen parish registers shows that there is a tangle of George, Vingoe, and Nicholas names and they intermarried frequently to consolidate the land interests. The names Vingoe and Nicholas were in Sennen at the time of the 1642 Protestation return but I believe the George family came in from St Levan / St Buryan sometime after the Civil War.
As regards John GEORGE, allegedly shopped by Ann GEORGE for shooting a Revenue Man, I have not found this execution carried out at Bodmin on the date mentioned. I have a list of Bodmin Trials and there was a John George, age 30 who was tried and executed at Newgate in 1808 for smuggling. It is possible those writing the story got their facts muddled somewhat. If the John George above IS the one who marries the widow Grace Penrose on 19 Oct of 1802 he cannot be the one allegedly hung in June of the same year.Many smugglers had their sentence commuted to either transportation or service in HM Ships of War, especially at this time when we were at war with France. I can find no further trace of John George or his wife Grace in Sennen.