The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816. Thomas James Walker
the ever-increasing number of captives. To supplement these it became necessary to fit up special ships and maintain them as hulks, in the harbours of Portsmouth, Plymouth, and the Medway. These hulks were later used as places of confinement for malefactors among the prisoners, and also to relieve the prisons from overcrowding whenever an extraordinary accumulation took place in the country.
In an article published in Chambers’ Journal in 1854, the writer points out “the ships were large battleships, they were cleared of all obstructions in each deck, and would hold 900 men prisoners and the guard, without much overcrowding; the mortality was very low.” 5
The French in the hulks and the English prisoners in France had undoubtedly to endure great hardships, but these hardships did not justify the exaggerated charges brought by each nation against the other—Englishmen pointing to Verdun as the embodiment of French cruelty and oppression, while Frenchmen enlarged with bitter invectives on the condition of their countrymen in the hulks and prison-ships in English harbours. This exaggeration and these bitter recriminations went on to the end of the war. Buonaparte himself was never tired of seeking to arouse in the hearts of his soldiers a spirit of hatred towards England by allusions to this subject, and before Waterloo he included these words in his address to the Army: “Soldiers, let those among you who have been prisoners of the English describe to you the hulks, and detail the frightful miseries which they have endured.” 6
The number of prisoners of war was so great that their care had been handed over to a new department of the Admiralty thus described:
“The Transport Office is a newly created Board, and was instituted in July 1794 at first for the superintendence of the Transport Service only; but to that employment has since been added the management of the Prisoners of War, in health, at home and abroad.” 7
To this department all communications in reference to the prisoners of war had to be addressed, and through them all information reached the Admiralty. There was another special department of the Admiralty, that for the care of the sick and hurt, into whose charge the prisoners of war passed when they ceased to be “in health.”
The following extract gives further details of the Transport Department, on which for twenty years the lot of the prisoners of war so greatly depended. The paragraph was written in 1803, when the war was supposed to be at an end.
“Transport Office, Dorset Square, Westminster, established in August 1794, for the purpose of conducting the transport business which had hitherto been transacted by the Navy Office; it has also the care of the prisoners of war. It was at first managed by three commissioners, but the business having much increased two more were added in the year 1795. The salary of each commissioner is a thousand a year. They have under them, several resident agents at the different sea-ports both at home and abroad, to superintend the particular service of embarking, re-embarking of troops, etc., and seeing that the contracts made in this particular service are strictly adhered to. These agents are captains and lieutenants of the Royal Navy. There are also several agents afloat. The captains have one guinea a day; the lieutenants fifteen shillings, and nineteen shillings more per month for a servant. At the conclusion of the war in 1802, the Board was reduced to three commissioners; Capt. Schank retired on a pension of £500 per annum, and Joseph Hunt, Esq., was removed to the ordnance as clerk of the deliveries.
[7] Schomberg, Naval Chronology, chap. v., p. 213.
In order properly to understand the establishment of the Depot at Norman Cross, it is necessary to briefly review the events which led up to it. It arose at a very momentous era in our history. It was not officially called a barracks, or a prison, but a Depot. At that time there were few barracks in England, practically none, and what we term garrison towns were very scarce. Our regular army was abroad fighting, and the internal defence was in the hands of the Militia and Yeomanry. Service in the former was compulsory, but substitutes could be purchased, so that it is easy to judge who would actually serve, especially at a time when scarcity and high prices were the rule, while the Militia were well fed. In the Yeomanry were enrolled the gentry and well-to-do persons of each locality; this was a very large force. There was a special troop of Norman Cross Yeomanry, in which the farmers and others from the neighbouring villages gave their services, and there were one or more troops in Peterborough and the neighbouring towns. The duty mainly consisted in putting down the various small riots that arose in different parts of the country. In their travels they were “billeted” on the publicans and the public at a tariff fixed by the Government, and which, not being very extravagant, gave rise to much dissatisfaction, oppression, and fraud.
As the foreign wars continued, the number of prisoners sent to Britain multiplied and the military duty increased. In 1793 the Supplementary Militia Act was passed, and it was determined to spend about £2,000,000 in erecting barracks, and out of this sum Norman Cross was built. It was always hoped that peace was at hand, and the prisoners of war had hitherto been confined not in places built for, or exactly suitable for, their retention, but in fortresses or castles or ships, and when these became overcrowded, in empty warehouses or similar buildings specially hired. It was not considered safe to keep prisoners of war in sea-ports, or even near the coast. Ireland was in a state of rebellion, and had to be kept down with a strong military force, hence the great Depot at Kinsale was formed.
We must bear in mind that at this period the Parliamentary Reports were very closely watched by our enemies, and information which might be of service to them was suppressed and consequently is sought for in vain to-day. The country was in a state of turmoil, the Government departments were overladen to a terrible degree, and red tape, far more than now, reigned supreme. These conditions led to careless supervision and defalcations even in high positions; the Barrack Master-General, General Oliver de Lancey, was dismissed from the Army after a Commission had investigated his accounts. He was responsible for Norman Cross, and it is in accordance with the finding of the commission referred to in this preface that no official account of the original cost can be found. The ground was purchased from Lord Carysfort. 8 It is from measurements of foundations remaining on the site, from plans, and from scattered and brief references to reports, of which the originals cannot up to the present be found, that a history and description of the original buildings can be given. They were begun in haste, hurriedly built, and in a continual state of repair and alteration during the whole of their existence.
In 1793 a large sum of money was voted by Parliament for barracks both permanent and temporary. A Barrack Master-General had already been appointed. The first measure taken by this official was the conversion of existing buildings to meet their new object—viz. the safe custody of the captive soldiers and sailors, and the provision of suitable accommodation for lodging and maintaining them and the troops who guarded them. Even in the first three years of the war these efforts were barely sufficient to meet the requirements, and in February 1796 the matter of prison accommodation had become most urgent. The Dutch Fleet was at sea, and a meeting with the English Fleet being probable, it was reported to the Admiralty, in reply to their inquiries as to the means of disposing of the large number of prisoners expected in the event of a successful battle, that Porchester Castle was capable of containing 2,000 men, and the Dutch prisoners could be kept separate from the French. Forton would be of little use, as not more than 300 extra could be accommodated; it was already full, 6,000 being incarcerated in the hospital there.
On the 20th June of the same year it was reported that the number of prisoners had increased, until every prison was overcrowded. At Mill Prison, Plymouth, calculated to hold 3,300, there were confined 3,513, and in consequence of the report 200 were transferred from this prison into a ship; this in turn also became crowded, and another ship had to be pressed into the service. Fresh prisoners still poured into the country. Sir Ralph Abercrombie reported that he was sending upwards of 4,000 from the West Indies, and the urgency was such that it became absolutely necessary to construct with the utmost rapidity a new prison.
In selecting a site, several requirements had
“Prisoners of War,”
It will be seen in a later chapter what class of men the prisoners were to whom these words would come home.
July 1797—
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.