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

In this quadrangle, as shown in Lieut. Macgregor’s plan, was, in the year 1805, erected the surgeon’s house, which was a substantial brick building, with an enclosed garden; this was built in the second period of the war after the Peace of Amiens, about eleven years before the demolition of the barracks.  After the closing of the Depot, when peace was declared in 1814, we find Mr. George Walker the surgeon, on vacating his post, making application for permission to remove the young fruit trees which he had planted in the apparently newly laid-out garden. [15 - 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.]  In each quadrangle a space of about two acres was unoccupied by buildings, and constituted the airing-ground, in which the prisoners spent the greater part of their waking lives.  This outdoor life, from sunrise to sunset, except in bad weather, was enforced by the Prison Regulations.

These airing-courts were bordered by a flag pavement, which enabled the prisoners to use them in any but the worst weather.

Completely surrounding the four quadrangles, and enclosing around them a vacant space, varying in width from 25 to 30 yards opposite the cross roads, to as many feet at the abutting angles of each quadrangle, was the prison wall.  This in the earlier years was a strong stockade fence, and is so represented in the three earlier plans reproduced in the plates; but at a later date it was replaced by the brick wall shown in Macgregor’s plan, and it is described in the auctioneer’s catalogue of the sale, when the prison and its contents were disposed of in September 1816, as “a substantial brick wall measuring 3,740 feet round, and containing 282 rods of brickwork more or less.”  Of this wall, 30 yards are still standing, forming a portion of the garden wall of the house originally occupied by the superintendent.  The auctioneer’s description does not altogether agree with that of the surveyor Mr. Fearnall, who in 1813 reported that it was “very indifferently built, and not of the best materials,” and that much of it was in danger of falling, owing to the excavation at its foot within the enclosure of a ditch.  This ditch, for its full length of nearly three-quarters of a mile, can be traced at the present day, with the deep embrasures shown in the plans, at each of the four prison gates.  It was, at the time the buildings were demolished, about 9 yards wide and 5 feet deep, and it was paved with stone flags; this is supposed to be the “silent walk” of the sentries, excavated in 1809.  An item in the barrack master’s accounts for July in that year is £420 19s. 6d., for the making a walk for the “silent sentries.”  The area of the actual prison enclosed within the wall was in 1816 sold in one lot, and is described in the catalogue as “containing by admeasurement 22 acres, 2 roods, and 14 perches more or less.”

In the boundary wall were four gates, opening on to the ends of the cross streets, which separated the four quadrangles.  The north gate opened into a space at the back of the prison occupied by sheds and other accessories; the east and west gates on roadways which ran between the military barracks and the prison from the Peterborough Road; the south gate was opposite the central main entrance from that road into the Depot.  Later, as shown in Macgregor’s plan, there were, in addition to these four large gates, a door in the south wall adjoining the house of the agent, or superintendent, and another in the north wall, giving admission to a court outside the wall, in which had been erected a separate prison for the boys.

At each gate outside the prison wall was a guard house, a one-storied building fitted with separate rooms for the officers and men of the guard, with cells for prisoners, and with a wide-open shelter, or verandah, in front.

The ground between the boundary wall and the quadrangles was not built upon, but was studded over with the boxes of the sentries, who, with muskets loaded with ball cartridge, day and night patrolled the vacant area, ready to fire on any prisoner attempting to escape across it who did not obey the order to halt.

Beyond the boundary wall of the prison were situated east and west the military barracks.  These comprised at each end three large caserns, similar to those in the prison, built to enclose, with the guard house, the barrack square.  The casern facing the guard house was the officers’ quarters, and was partitioned off into twenty-three separate officers’ rooms, a mess-room, kitchen, and other offices.  Those at either side accommodated the private soldiers; they were divided into ten separate rooms, each with sleeping-berths for sixty men.  There were two smaller buildings for the non-commissioned officers, a large canteen, sutling-house, and various offices.  The whole of these buildings, with the barrack yards, were enclosed by strong stockade fencing.  Outside this fence there was, in the space allotted to the accommodation of the troops, east and west of the prison, a detached house for the field officers, two smaller houses for the staff sergeants, the powder magazine, a fire-engine house, a range of stabling, with stalls for thirty-five horses, [16 - 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.] rooms for the batmen, a schoolroom, and various other necessary offices and sheds.

The Military Hospital occupied the north-west corner of the forty-two acres; it served for the whole of the troops in both barracks, and was complete in itself.  It was enclosed within a separate stockade fence.

On the south side of the area, between the boundary wall and the Peterborough Road, were the houses of the barrack master, and of the agent (or superintendent).  These are still standing, the former having been purchased, when the prison and barracks were demolished and the site and materials sold, by Captain Kelly (Brevet Major, 1854), the last Brigade-Major.  This officer had, in 1814, married the daughter of Mr. Vise, a surgeon practising in Stilton, [17 - 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.] and, wishing to settle in the neighbourhood, he purchased the first of the lots into which the freehold was divided, and in which was situated the barrack master’s house, described in the catalogue as “a comfortable house in the cottage stile,” “built of substantial fir carcase-framing and rough weather-boarding on brick footings, and covered with pantiles.”

To this house Major Kelly made considerable additions.  It was occupied by him for forty years.  He died, aged seventy-eight, in 1858. [18 - 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 KELLYPeace 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 foeHe fainting falls;—but laden with full years,With white-hair’d glory crown’d, he lays him downIn earth’s maternal lap, and with him bearsBenevolence, high honour, renown,And love-begetting mem’ries, such as throwA halo round the thoughts of mortals here below.Earth! keep thy treasured deadAwhile, in holy trust!  Not with vain tearsWail we the loss of him who bravely bledFor England’s might and weal, in early years,When life’s warm pulse beat high, and buoyant hopesOn 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 SepoyBlurs the fair front of nature, with each deedOf villainy conceiving; when the joyThat, 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 knowHow 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.]  His son Captain J. Kelly succeeded him, and the property has now passed into the hands of Mr. J. A. Herbert, J.P., the present occupant of the house.  It is a useful landmark to those who visit the locality, as with its grounds it occupies the south-east corner of the forty-two acres, which were covered by the prison and barracks, and it forms a useful point from which to start in an attempt to conjure up the Depot as it was at the beginning of the last century.  The first effort of the imagination must be to blot out the charming residence with its well-wooded grounds, and to substitute the bare, treeless (except for one old ash) spot on which stood the “comfortable house in the cottage stile, consisting of one room 20 ft. by 12 ft. 2 in., one ditto 14 ft. 8 in. by 12 ft. 3 in. . . . built of substantial fir carcase-framing and rough weather-boarding on brick footings, and covered with pantiles”—which was what Captain Kelly bought in 1816. [19 - Auctioneer’s Catalogue (Peterborough: G. Robertson, Bookseller.  1816!)]

Immediately to the west of the barrack master’s house was the straw barn and yard, in which was stored the straw for the beds of the soldiers.  Beyond the barn was a gate, from which a road or street ran across between the prison proper and the east barracks.  Through this gate passed all those who came to attend the market at the east gate of the prison, or on other business.  Beyond this gate was the house of the superintendent, or agent, who was practically the governor of the prison.  The block contained two houses, the second being occupied by other officials.  These houses, like the barrack master’s, remain at the present time where they stood in the twenty years of the prison’s existence, but they have been much altered, and are now surrounded by trees and shrubs, of which the ground was absolutely bare in the days of the prison.

The superintendent’s and the adjoining house were cased with brick in 1816 by the purchaser, Captain Handslip, and were thrown into one house, which is now occupied by Mr. Franey.  In the catalogue of the sale they are described as “two excellent contiguous dwelling-houses, built of substantial fir carcase-framing, and stuccoed, with lead flat top.”  Another range of buildings, 100 feet long, “comprising a large storeroom, coach-house, stable, etc.,” also stood on this south side between the prison wall and the road, while in the centre was the main entrance, with, beyond and to the west of the gate, the south guard house.

On the ground plan are shown four entrances to the depot—three from the Peterborough Road, the centre entrance just mentioned, and two others, one at either end, the roads from which ran between the barracks and the prison.  The fourth entrance was approached from the North Road by a broad drive, crossing the narrow field lying between the prison and the Great North Road, from which it is now, as then, fenced off on either side.  This entrance was exactly opposite the centre of the Western Military Barracks, the main guard facing it.  It was by this western entrance that the stores and provisions were daily brought into the prison, [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.] and through it the bodies of those who died were carried to the prison cemetery on the opposite side of the North Road.

Macgregor’s plan shows a paled fence surrounding the forty-two acres and forming the outer boundary of the whole site, but this may have been a mere artistic finish to the plan.

The prison and barracks were excellently planned, although, as a place of safe custody, the former would have been practically useless without the latter.

The guns of the block house commanding the whole prison, the cordon of sentries frequently changed, always alert, ceaselessly pacing their beats within and without the wall, day and night; the strong guard mounted at each gate of the prison, and the large force of military in the two barracks, ready to act on the slightest alarm, constituted a more efficient safeguard against mutiny or escape than would have been afforded had trust been placed in strong stone structures instead of in the wooden walls and buildings which had been so rapidly run up.

In the summer of 1911, when the heat and drought were exceptional, the stone and rubble footings upon which the wooden buildings were erected were, after the first few showers of rain, in many parts of the site, mapped out clearly in brown on a field of green, the grass upon them having withered, so that it could not spring up fresh as it did in the surrounding pastures.  This enabled the author to demonstrate the actual size of the buildings, and to correct many measurements which had been taken from the plans.  It also proved that none of the extant plans were drawn to scale.

These are the dry details taken from actual measurements on the ground, from surveyors’ plans, and similar documents, but we have a word-picture of the effect produced by these wooden buildings and their inhabitants on the mind of an imaginative and emotional boy, who afterwards became one of the most picturesque writers of the middle part of the nineteenth century.  George Borrow’s father was quartered at Norman Cross in 1812–13, and his little boy, not yet in his teens, was moved from Norwich to this place.  Forty years later, in the pages of Lavengro, he thus describes in eloquent language the vivid, if not absolutely accurate picture which the prison had impressed upon his receptive and observant brain.

“And a strange place it was, this Norman Cross, and, at the time of which I am speaking, a sad cross to many a Norman, being what was then styled a French prison, that is, a receptacle for captives made in the French war.  It consisted, if I remember right, of some five or six casernes, very long, and immensely high; each standing isolated from the rest, upon a spot of ground which might average ten acres, and which was fenced round with lofty palisades, the whole being compassed about by a towering wall, beneath which, at intervals, on both sides sentinels were stationed, whilst, outside, upon the field, stood commodious wooden barracks, capable of containing two regiments of infantry, intended to serve as guards upon the captives.  Such was the station or prison at Norman Cross, where some six thousand French and other foreigners, followers of the grand Corsican, were now immured.

“What a strange appearance had those mighty casernes, with their blank blind walls, without windows or grating, and their slanting roofs, out of which, through orifices where the tiles had been removed, would be protruded dozens of grim heads, feasting their prison-sick eyes on the wide expanse of country unfolded from that airy height.  Ah! there was much misery in those casernes; and from those roofs, doubtless, many a wistful look was turned in the direction of lovely France.  Much had the poor inmates to endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England be it said—of England, in general so kind and bountiful.  Rations of carrion meat, and bread from which I have seen the very hounds occasionally turn away, were unworthy entertainment even for the most ruffian enemy, when helpless and a captive; and such, alas! was the fare in these casernes.  And then, those visits, or rather ruthless inroads, called in the slang of the place ‘straw-plait hunts,’ when, in pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners, in order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries and comforts of existence, were in the habit of making, red-coated battalions were marched into the prisons, who, with the bayonet’s point, carried havoc and ruin into every poor convenience which ingenious wretchedness had been endeavouring to raise around it; and then the triumphant exit with the miserable booty; and, worst of all, the accursed bonfire, on the barrack parade, of the plait contraband, beneath the view of the glaring eyeballs from those lofty roofs, amidst the hurrahs of the troops, frequently drowned in the curses poured down from above like a tempest-shower, or in the terrific war-whoop of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’”

Another writer records his impression of the Depot, which he visited in 1807.  The quotation is from an article in Notes and Queries, 8th series, vol. x., p. 197, which gives an account of a trip to Peterborough made by the Rev. Robert Forby, vicar of Fincham, and a Mr. G. Miller of the same place.  They started on their tour on the 25th June 1807, and the vicar chronicles his visit to Norman Cross in the following words:

“Pursuing our journey through suffocating clouds of dust, in the evening we reached Stilton, a miserable shabby town, where all we found to admire was some excellent cheese for our supper. [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.]  Having disposed of our horses at the inn and secured our own lodgings, we walked back a mile or so to Norman Cross to see the barracks for French prisoners, no less than 6,000 of whom are confined here.  It is a fine healthy spot.  Among them there is very little disease; their good looks in general prove the excellent care taken of them.  In particular the boys are kept apart and taught, so that in all probability their captivity is a benefit to them.  Their dexterity in little handicraft, nick-nacks, particularly in making toys of the bones of their meals, will put many pounds into the pockets of several of them.  We were very credibly assured that there are some who will carry away with them £200 or £300.  Their behaviour was not at all impudent or disrespectful as we passed the pallisades within which they are cooped.  Most of them have acquired English enough to chatter very volubly and to cheat adroitly.  They are guarded by two regiments of Militia, one of them the Cambridge; we had the advantage of knowing Captain Pemberton of that regiment, who gave us tea in his luggage-lumbered hut.  The country is under very great obligations to gentlemen of family and fortune who will forego the comforts of home for the miserable inconveniences of barrack service.  We had never seen it before, and have not the least wish to see it again.  It is horrible.  The only privacy of an officer by day or night is in these wretched hovels, in which they must alternately sweat and shiver.  The mess-room is open indeed at all hours.  It is a coffee-room, news room, lounging-room, at all times, as well as that of dinner, to the officers of a regiment.  Between eight and nine o’clock we found two who had outstayed the others; they were boozy and still at their wine, merely perhaps from having nothing to do.  Our friend, who is a man of great good sense and exemplary manners, must be strangely out of his element here.”

The wretched hovels of which Mr. Forby speaks were the rooms in the officers’ barracks, the walls of which were only one thickness of boards.  There were sixty such little rooms, not luxuriously furnished, for at the first day’s sale of the contents of the barracks, on the 18th September 1816, twenty-seven lots of the officers’ furniture, consisting of six Windsor chairs and one deal table, realised for each lot from 9s. to 32s.; for twenty-six lots, each comprising one table and two chairs, the price varied from 2s. to 17s. 6d.; while for sixty lots, consisting of one officer’s shovel, poker, tongs, fender and bellows, the price per lot varied from 1s. to 2s. 6d.  The bellows in each room suggest that the fuel supplied was the peat from the adjoining fens, which was usually burned in the district, and which, although it warmed the thatched cottage with thick walls, would give poor comfort to the shivering officer with only a board between him and the outer air.

The account of the Depot is incomplete without the mention of a detached field, situated a few hundred yards north of the site of the prison, on the opposite, that is the west, side of the Great North Road.  Shortly after the prison was occupied, the lower part of this field was purchased by the Government for a burial place for the prisoners, and was resold in 1816.  To it, during the occupation of the Depot, were carried across the bodies of some 1,750 prisoners, whose fate it was to die within the prison walls.  There is nothing now to distinguish this prison cemetery, except the mounds, called by the inhabitants of the district “The Lows”; it will be dealt with in a further chapter.

It must be borne in mind that the buildings which have been described were originally only intended to be of a temporary character, and that from various causes detailed in the report given in the Appendix, certain portions of the woodwork had perished during the seventeen years of the Depot’s existence before the date of that report.  That document also shows that there was occasional “scamping” by those employed in the work required to maintain the fabrics.  The general excellence and durability of the materials are however proved by the fact that even now, at the end of a century, portions of them are still serving the purposes of cottages, workshops, or farm buildings in the neighbouring towns and villages to which they were transported at the sale in 1816.

Examples in Peterborough include the portion of a casern, already alluded to as purchased by Mr. Ruddle and re-erected at his works—it still forms part of a carpenters’ shop in the extensive works of the firm of John Thompson, contractors, so famous as cathedral restorers; a group of tenements known as Barrack Yard; and two cottages, the latter being one of the turnkeys’ lodges reconstructed.  These cottages are still inhabited, but are clearly destined to be very shortly improved off the face of the earth.  That they were in old days vulgarly called “Bug Hall” gives a hint as to one minor discomfort which the densely packed French prisoners endured in these wooden buildings.  Such was the Depot, which term included the prison, with its various necessary adjuncts, official residences, offices, etc., and the military barracks, complete for a force of two infantry regiments, with hospital, a sutling-house and canteens, the two latter let to contractors at rents respectively of £12 and £10 16s. a month, bringing into the Government the sum of £270 6s. a year.  The Depot was unfortunately under a divided control, the barrack master-general was responsible for the buildings and a barrack master appointed by him resided in a detached house at the Depot.  The “Transport Office” was responsible for the management of the prisoners of war at home and abroad.  The responsibility of the Transport Commissioners included the arrangements for the feeding and the discipline of the prisoners.  The details were left to their representative agent, who also resided in the Depot. [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.]

The military commander, the brigade-major, of course had control of the troops (usually two Militia regiments) quartered in the barracks, east and west of the prison. [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.]

As the first portion of the buildings approached completion, it became necessary to make provision beforehand for the reception and maintenance of the prisoners waiting to occupy it, and from the buildings attention must now be directed to the officials and the organisation of the Depot.  To each Depot in the country an agent was appointed, who was at every other prison a post captain in the Royal Navy on full pay; but at Norman Cross in the first instance a departure from this rule was made.  The following extracts from a letter written by the Transport Board to Mr. Delafons on his appointment to the office are of interest as throwing light on the nature of his duties.

    “Transport Office,
    “18th March 1797.

“To John Delafons, Esq.

“Sir,

“We direct you to proceed without delay to the prison at Norman Cross, to which you are appointed Agent, and report to us the present state thereof, as well as the time when in your judgement it will be ready for the reception of prisoners of War.

“We have ordered bedding for six thousand prisoners to be sent to Norman Cross as soon as possible, and we expect it will arrive there before the end of this month.

“As you are provided with a list of such articles and utensils as will be necessary for carrying on the service, we direct you to make enquiry at Peterborough respecting the terms on which those articles may be procured at that place; and you are to transmit to us a list of such of them as you may think are to be obtained at more reasonable rates, or of a better quality in London.  We have appointed Mr. Dent, now one of the clerks at Porchester Castle, to be your first Clerk and Interpreter, with a salary of £80 per annum, and have directed him to proceed forthwith to Norman Cross.  We have appointed Michael Brien as one of the Stewards in consequence of your recommendation.  A supply of printed Forms will be sent to you from this Office, and you are to be allowed ten guineas per annum for the stationery.”

This letter went on to authorise the agent to procure tin mess-cans, wooden bowls, platters, and spoons for 3,000 prisoners at Wisbeck [sic] and Lynn, and to inform him that 1,000 hammocks, 1,000 palliasses, 1,000 bolster-cases, also 5,000 sets of bedding, were on their way from London, and that the prisoners from Falmouth would bring their own hammocks with them. [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.]  At the end of the letter is a note as to stores as follows:

These stores, it must be borne in mind, were only for the use of the occupants of that portion of the prison which was complete, about one fourth of the whole.

Mr. Delafons does not appear to have taken up the duties assigned to him, for on the 26th March, only eight days after the date of the letter appointing him agent, he sent in his formal resignation.  Mr. Dent, the storekeeper, in conjunction with Captain Woodriff, the transport officer, acted till the appointment of James Perrot on 7th April 1797, at a salary of £400 a year and £30 for house rent, until quarters could be built for him in the prison.  This amount was double that of any other agent, but it must be remembered that Mr. Perrot was not a naval officer in receipt of full pay.  There was a difficulty in finding lodgings in the vicinity, and the clerks were allowed 1s. a day extra till accommodation could be found for them also at the prison.

To assist the agent, Mr. Challoner Dent was appointed storekeeper from 1st April 1797 on getting two gentlemen as security for £1,000.  There were clerks and ten turnkeys, twelve labourers at 12s. a week, and a lamplighter at 13s. a week.  The chief clerk and Dutch interpreter was Mr. James Richards.

The transport officer in charge, Captain Woodriff, had to make arrangements for the conveyance of the expected prisoners to Norman Cross, and for the victualling.  As to the former, he was on the 23rd March directed without loss of time to proceed to Norman Cross near Stilton, and thence to Lynn to report as to the best anchorage there, and the best mode of transporting the prisoners of war expected.  He was to consult a Mr. Hadley, who proposed 1s. a head for removing the prisoners, which was considered exorbitant and quite out of the question.

On 29th March, however, he was directed to enter into an agreement with Mr. Kempt, to convey the prisoners from Lynn to Yaxley at 1s. 6d. per head, and Kempt’s partner was to victual them on the following daily ration: 1 lb. of bread or biscuit, ¾ lb. of good fresh or salt beef.

The time occupied by the barges in which the men were to be conveyed would probably be about three days, and the dietary could not be much varied.  At the date when this contract was made, nearly fifty years before the first railway in this district was opened, the waterways offered the easiest and cheapest channel for the transport of heavy goods across the great Fen district.  The rivers, natural and artificial, and the navigable drains and cuts, fulfilled a double purpose, and were maintained by taxes and tolls not only for the drainage of the Fens, but as waterways for the lucrative traffic which was constant along their surface.

It was by water that George Borrow and his mother travelled to join his father in his quarters at Norman Cross, and we have again a graphic account of the impressions left on the child’s mind by the journey from Lynn to Peterborough when the washes and Fenlands were flooded—an account written long after the child had come to man’s estate, when distance had lent enchantment to the view and certainly depth to the pools on the towing paths.

“At length my father was recalled to his regiment, which at that time was stationed at a place called Norman Cross, in Lincolnshire, or rather Huntingdonshire, at some distance from the old town of Peterborough.  For this place he departed, leaving my mother and myself to follow in a few days.  Our journey was a singular one.  On the second day we reached a marshy and fenny country, which owing to immense quantities of rain which had lately fallen, was completely submerged.  At a large town we got on board a kind of passage-boat, crowded with people; it had neither sails nor oars, and these were not the days of steam-vessels; it was a treck-schuyt, and was drawn by horses.

“Young as I was, there was much connected with this journey which highly surprised me, and which brought to my remembrance particular scenes described in the book which I now generally carried in my bosom.  The country was, as I have already said, submerged—entirely drowned—no land was visible; the trees were growing bolt upright in the flood, whilst farmhouses and cottages were standing insulated; the horses which drew us were up to the knees in water, and, on coming to blind pools and ‘greedy depths,’ were not unfrequently swimming, in which case the boys or urchins who mounted them sometimes stood, sometimes knelt, upon the saddle and pillions.  No accident, however, occurred either to the quadrupeds or bipeds, who appeared respectively to be quite au fait in their business, and extricated themselves with the greatest ease from places in which Pharaoh and all his host would have gone to the bottom.  Nightfall brought us to Peterborough, and from thence we were not slow in reaching the place of our destination.” [25 - Lavengro, chap. iii.]

A Mr. James Hay of Liverpool was the first contractor for victualling the prisoners at Norman Cross, the specification for the quality of the food supplied being as follows:

The reader must bear these conditions in mind if he would be in a position to discount George Borrow’s description (in the passage quoted a few pages back) of the food supplied to those prisoners whom he remembered with such sympathy in his later life; and he must, in forming his judgment of the treatment accorded to the prisoners, remember that, as evidence, the stern facts of a contract, with penalties of fine and imprisonment for its breach, are of more value than the recollections of a child, given in the rhetorical language of a romantic enthusiast.

The victualling under the terms of the contract commenced on the 12th April 1797.  The contractor was called upon to supply per head daily, 1 lb. of beef, 1 lb. of biscuit, 2 quarts of beer, and to find casks and water at 11d. per day, being the same terms as those on which the goods were supplied at Plymouth and Falmouth.  Mr. Hay wrote that no butcher within fifty miles of Norman Cross would supply cow, heifer, or ox beef for less than 44s. per cwt., but he offered to supply it at 43s., and this was agreed to. [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.]

No tables or benches were to be provided.  Hammocks were supplied, but no clews nor lanyards (the cords to suspend them by); these the prisoners had to make for themselves, jute being supplied to them for that purpose, one ton to every 400 men.

The new agent, Mr. Perrot, who came from the prison at Porchester Castle, appears to have applied for other comforts, as we infer from the following communication addressed to him from the Transport Office:

“We cannot allow any razors or strops for the use of the prisoners at Norman Cross.  We see no reason for your appointing barbers, to shave the prisoners, the razors sent to Porchester having been intended more for shaving the Negro prisoners from the West Indies.”