The Allonby Smugglers

Writing about smuggling poses a particular problem for the local historian. The only contemporary accounts are of events when the smugglers were caught. The successful ones are never mentioned.

In 1731, eighteen casks of brandy were found on the shore, near Dubmill Point. Two local men, Joseph Simm and Daniel Miller reported this to the authorities. They were asked to keep watch on the contraband. While they awaited the return of the customs men, two of the smugglers, John Sharp and John Osborn, turned up and gave them a beating. The two informers brought assault charges against the smugglers. A jury of local men dismissed the charges!

In 1764, Customs Officers found ‘a very considerable gang of smugglers, armed with guns and pistols, escorting about forty horse loads of brandy and tea’ on the road between Allonby and Hayton. The smugglers managed to beat off the officials and escaped.

A smuggler's pannier or belly flask. It would hold about two gallons and could be hidden under a man's coat or disguised as a woman's pregnancy.

Such reports are quite rare in the area, although there were many, many cases on the other side of the Solway. Throughout Dumfries and Galloway there is a great deal of folklore about the trade and a large number of caves where the contraband was allegedly stored. For any more information, it is necessary to ‘read between the lines’ elsewhere.

The 1841 Census for Allonby lists twenty-six men as either sailors, mariners, fishermen or boatmen. It is difficult to imagine they could all make a living purely from catching fish. Even more telling, in a village of around three hundred souls, there were five innkeepers, two wine and spirit merchants and, most telling of all, two full-time customs officials.

The Customs Vessell 'Ferret' was stationed at Skinburness.

There is also a lot of circumstantial evidence suggesting that one highly respected, Quaker family were involved in the illicit trade. The Beeby’s fish yards could just have been a ‘front’ for a whisky smuggling operation.

Most of this evidence comes from Mary Beeby’s own ‘Memorandum’. In it, she gives details of two shipwrecks in which her father, Daniel, was involved. The first occurs off the coast of Islay in the Hebrides. This is not a herring fishing area but the island is world-famous for its malt whisky. After carrying out emergency repairs to the vessel, it was able to return safely to Maryport with both crew and cargo unharmed.

The second shipwreck was in Ireland. After being caught in a violent storm, the ‘Assistance’ put in for repairs at Dunfanaghy – not a million miles from the famous distillery at Bushmills.

Mary says the local people ‘behaved with great kindness . . . those of respectability deterring others who might otherwise have been disposed to have taken liberties with the property of strangers’. After a month ashore there, the crew re-shipped the cargo and returned home safely. It is difficult to imagine a cargo of fish lasting that long!

It is also rather strange that, in both these cases, Mary refers to the ‘cargo’ rather than the ‘catch’.

It is said that, on the other side of the Solway, the smugglers often used barrels with false bottoms to hide their cache. The fish yards had their own cooperage. It would have been a simple job for Richard Harker to produce such items; salted fish on top, illicit spirits below.

The Beeby family's fish yards can be seen centre left on this old postcard.

Some of the Beeby family wills also make interesting reading. John Beeby died in 1768 and an inventory of his personal possessions was compiled. They were valued at £527, about £74,000 at 2012 prices. In addition to these items he owned a lot of property in Allonby and several houses in Maryport. It is puzzling how a man listed as a timber merchant could have achieved such wealth.

When his son, another John, died in 1789 he was £321 (£42,000 today) in debt. It was around this time that Mary Beeby’s family moved into the John’s house and fish yards. We can only guess at the family dramas surrounding their move.

Around the 1860s, most of the family seem to vanish from the local records. 

This was when the government finally equalised the duty on whisky in Scotland and England. The Beeby’s property in Allonby seems to have descended to Ann Satterthwaite. There was a complex court case over the will of a William Beeby which ended when the Court of Chancery ordered the entire estate to be sold. In July 1871, the whole lot was auctioned in the Ship Hotel; it made a total of £5,405 – just over half-a-million pounds at 2012 prices.

This article was originally written for Peter Ostle's book “Allonby – A Short History and Guide” but was not included in the final version due to pressure on space.

The text of Mary Beeby's Memorandum is available at http://www.ianewilliamson.co.uk/gen/sources/memo0.html

Allonby Disasters

In the early years of the twentieth century, Allonby saw two events which might have proved to be major disasters. In both cases the village had a lucky escape.

In March 1903, the barque 'Hougomont' ran ashore. She was bound from San Francisco, via Cape Horn, to Liverpool. She was driven north by heavy weather and was standing off Maryport when she dragged her anchors and was swept into Allonby bay.

Crowds of spectators gather on the shore

The Wigton Advertiser reported: “Telegrams were sent by the postmaster and Mr Twentyman for the lifeboat from Maryport. . . heavy breakers landed with awful crash over the decks and rigging of the helpless barque. . . the surging mass of storm-driven billows presented an awe-inspiring spectacle, never to be forgotten . . . the main topmast and fore topmast broke off . . . the men hung on for dear life but no lifeboat could be seen.” Eventually the lifeboat arrived and the crew were all rescued. 

The cargo was washed ashore, it included 32,000 cases of tinned pears and peaches plus 24,000 cases of salmon. The locals examined the crates, the tins had no labels. The only way they could tell which was which was by shaking them. If the contents moved it was fruit!

Crowds arrived from the surrounding towns and village to see the spectacle and help themselves to a few tins too.

The ship was later towed into Maryport docks for repair.

Two years later, there was another near disaster. Until then the beck had been crossed by a iron bridge built as part of the Maryport-Wigton turnpike road.

The old bridge

On 28 November 1905, a traction engine approached the bridge hauling three large wagons containing Caris & Fox's Venetian Gondolas – a steam-powered fairground ride.

The beck was swollen at the time due to recent heavy rain and, when the engine was half-way over, the bridge collapsed. The engine crashed through the railings into the beck. The driver and his mate jumped clear and nobody was hurt.

Sometime later, a new stone bridge was built and this still carries the coast road over the beck.

Click on any of the pictures for a larger view

Allonby Characters - 2

Moore Kitchen
Moore was brought up in the Reading Room house at Allonby. He was not always dressed as smartly as he is in this photograph. He was a coal miner and walked from Allonby to work at Birkby Pit every day. Even if he took the footpath over the fields this would have meant an eight-mile (13km) round trip - six days a week.

He was an amateur taxidermist with a particular fascination for seabirds. On his walk to work, he would often find dead specimens along the way. He took them home for mounting and, eventually, his collection was put on display in the Reading Room.

Captain Joseph Osborn

Captain Osborn in his retirement, at home in Osborn House,
Browtop, Workington.

Joseph Osborn was born at Allonby in 1823, the son of a yeoman farmer and one of seven children. He first went to sea in 1840 aboard the ‘Concorde’ sailing, out of Maryport, to the West Indies and South Africa. In 1846 he married Jane Roper; they had at least ten children. By 1850, he had moved to Liverpool and was making long voyages to Canada, Cuba and South America.

Between 1853 and 1875, Joseph kept a record of all his voyages, first as a Mate and then as Master. These were purchased by the National Maritime Museum in 1980 and are now available for research there. As well as containing the standard information one would expect, (bearings, weather details, journal entries, etc), the logs also contain nearly one hundred drawings and sketches in ink, pencil and watercolour of various ships, coastline profiles, and sea-birds.

Capt Osborn was at sea for over thirty-five years. He traded out of Liverpool to Cape Town , Calcutta , Amoy , Singapore , Hong Kong , Foochow , Demerara, Bombay , Madras , Sydney , and many other ports around the world. For eight months he was on Government Service, carrying supplies from Bombay to Abyssinia for the war that Britain had declared, in 1855, on the "King-of-Kings" Theodore.

Joseph Osborn outside his home in Liverpool

His longest period of service was the twelve years he spent on the barque 'Recorder'. His last command was the ‘Jane Sprott’ on which he made several voyages to Australia . He retired from the sea in 1875 due to failing eyesight and spent the next eight years overseeing the building and fitting of Liverpool ships for the firm of Fisher and Sprott. He retired altogether in 1883, at 60 and died in 1908, aged 85.

The 'Jane Sprott'

Silloth Shipping through the decades

Click on the pictures for a larger image

1894: 'Guldbringa'

1910: Outer Dock, paddle tug 'Petrel' on the left

1914: Tug and 'Scotia'

1927: 'Uddeholm'

1930: The long vessel behind the coal hoist had brought phosphate
from Tampa, Florida.

1946: The 'Bomb Boats' dumping unused ammunition at sea.

1950s: Dredger at work

1960s: Shipbreaking

1970s: 'Silloth Trader'

1987: 'Tequila Sunrise' one of the largest vessels ever to visit Silloth

1991: 'Erika Bojen'

2000s: The 'Ben' boats were regular visitors to the port

The history of Silloth Docks

In 1857, just after the railway arrived at Silloth, a timber jetty was built. This allowed vessels to load and unload. A regular steamer service to Liverpool was established by the “Silloth” and the construction of an enclosed dock commenced. This opened in 1859.

This engraving was published by Hudson Scott and Company of Carlisle in 1856 three years before the docks opened. "Artist's Impressions" are nothing new!

Trade in the early days included timber from the Baltic and Canada, flour and grain from Continental Europe, while coal was the main export. The Liverpool steamer carried cotton for the Carlisle mills and other regular passenger services were established between Silloth and Dublin, Belfast, the Isle of Man and, for a time, London. By the late 1870s, North American wheat began arriving mainly for Carr’s, the biscuit makers in Carlisle.

In 1879, the dock entrance gave way and put the harbour out of action for several weeks. Repairs were carried out but, in 1882, work began on a new, larger dock which was completed with the help of the newly invented ‘Steam Navvy’, the first mechanical excavator. This picture shows the work in progress.

The new dock opened in June 1885 and, two years later, Carr’s flour mill was built alongside it.

The new dock in September 1897. The large, white sailing ship is the 'Sierra Cadena' which had arrived with 3,000 tons of grain from San Francisco. The steamer is the SS 'Byron' from Baltimore with a cargo of wheat for Carr's Flour Mill which can be seen in the background.

The next twenty years were the port’s heyday. Wheat came from Australia, America and ports on the Danube and Black Sea. Timber arrived from Canada, the Baltic and Romania while ore came from Spain. The fertilizer factory imported phosphate from South Carolina and, later, Tunisia together with bones and guano from South America. Coastal trade included coal to Ireland, flour to Belfast and slate from North Wales.

A coaster is moored in front of the hydraulic coal lift at the eastern end of the new dock. Railway wagons, full of coal from the West Cumberland pits, would be hoisted up the gantry and tipped over into the ship's hold. The sailing vessel is the Norwegian barque 'Telefon'.

As the twentieth century progressed, things changed. Ocean going ships got bigger, fewer were able to dock at Silloth and coasters became the main callers. Sailing ships disappeared, the last large vessel visiting in 1914, although a few coastal schooners remained into the 1930s. The daily steamer service to Liverpool ended in 1917.

The Yarrow was built in 1893 and operated a regular service for passengers goods and cattle to Douglas in the Isle of Man and Dublin. In the late 1920s, she was sold to Palgrave Murphy of Dublin and renamed the Assaroe. Under her new name she continued to operate the route until the outbreak of the Second World War.

The Crew of the Yarrow in 1912. The stewardess is Sarah Mahony Cunningham who came from Dublin. The lad at the top of the ladder is thought to be Duncan Chisholm Junr who later became the ship's chief engineer.

In 1907, the 'Ailsa' ran aground at the port entrance. The 'Yarrow' can be seen in the distance, unable to enter the harbour, the steam tug 'Petrel' is ferrying the passengers ashore. 

Also in 1907, the fully rigged sailing ship 'Nereide' arrived from Portland, Oregon, USA with 2,800 tons of wheat for Carrs.

A third picture from 1907. The 'Sagamore' shortly after arrival from Braila, Romania. Her unusual design was known as a whale-back or turret and she caused much interest during her stay in port. Behind her, the 'Ailsa', now safely docked, is unloading her cargo of Baltic timber.

The 'Sigurd' arriving on June 23rd 1914 with phosphate from Sfax, North Africa.

Research and text by Stephen Wright