Pirates, Smugglers and Wreckers

History

The Isle of Wight's position in the English Channel, its indented coastline of hidden coves and creeks, and its proximity to the busy shipping lanes of the Solent made it a natural centre for piracy, smuggling and wrecking for centuries. The island's maritime lawlessness is woven into its history as deeply as its castles and churches, and the stories of the men and women who operated outside the law along these shores are among the most colourful chapters in the island's past.

Piracy was a serious problem in the waters around the Isle of Wight from the medieval period onwards. French raiders attacked the island repeatedly during the Hundred Years War, sacking Yarmouth, Newport and other settlements. But piracy was not simply something that happened to the island. Isle of Wight men were active pirates themselves, and the island's harbours provided shelter and supplies for privateers operating in the Channel. In the 16th century, the distinction between piracy and legitimate privateering was blurred, and Cowes and Yarmouth harboured vessels that preyed on French and Spanish shipping with varying degrees of official sanction.

The most notorious pirate associated with the Isle of Wight was arguably not a local man but a frequent visitor. The French corsairs who raided the south coast in the 14th and 15th centuries used the island's geography against its inhabitants, landing in sheltered bays and withdrawing before defences could be organised. The devastating French raid of 1377, which burned Yarmouth, Newtown and parts of Newport, was effectively a pirate attack on a grand scale, and it prompted the construction of new coastal defences including Yarmouth Castle.

Smuggling was the island's other great maritime crime, and it flourished from the 17th century through to the early 19th century. The Isle of Wight was ideally placed for the smuggling trade. Its south coast, with its remote chines, hidden coves and crumbling cliffs, faced directly towards France and the Channel Islands, from where brandy, tea, tobacco, silk and lace were shipped in small, fast boats. The north coast creeks and estuaries, particularly Newtown Creek and the Medina estuary, provided concealed landing points for contraband that could then be distributed across the island and smuggled to the mainland.

The scale of smuggling on the Isle of Wight was enormous. In the 18th century, it was estimated that more than half the tea and spirits consumed on the island had been smuggled. The trade was organised by networks of local men who knew the tides, the currents, the hidden paths through the cliffs, and the locations of the revenue officers. Farmers, fishermen, publicans and even clergymen were involved, and the community largely supported the smugglers against the excise men. The penalties for smuggling were severe, including transportation and death, but the profits were large enough to justify the risk.

The south-west coast was the heartland of Isle of Wight smuggling. The villages of Chale, Niton, Blackgang, Brook and Brighstone all had strong smuggling traditions. The Buddle Inn at Niton, the oldest pub on the island's south coast, is said to have served as a smugglers' meeting point, and the cellars of many south coast cottages and farms were used to store contraband. The chines, the narrow ravines that cut through the cliffs to the sea, provided natural routes for carrying goods up from the beaches. Whale Chine, Blackgang Chine and Shepherd's Chine were all used by smuggling gangs.

Wrecking, the practice of luring ships onto rocks to plunder their cargo, is harder to prove historically than smuggling, but the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight has a grim reputation. The stretch of coast between St Catherine's Point and The Needles was one of the most dangerous in the English Channel, and hundreds of ships were lost here over the centuries. St Catherine's Oratory, the medieval lighthouse tower known locally as the Pepper Pot, was built in 1328 as a penance by Walter de Godeton after he was caught plundering wine from the wreck of the St Marie of Bayonne. Whether local people actively caused wrecks by showing false lights is debated, but they certainly profited from the ships that came to grief on these shores.

The end of large-scale smuggling came gradually in the 19th century, as the revenue service became more effective, the coastguard was established, and the reduction of import duties made smuggling less profitable. The last significant smuggling operations on the island were in the early Victorian period. Today the smuggling heritage survives in pub names, local legends, the architecture of cellars and tunnels, and the atmospheric landscape of the south-west coast where the trade once thrived.

The Shipwreck Centre at Arreton and the collections at the island's local history museums preserve artefacts from the wrecks and smuggling operations that shaped the island's coastal communities. Walking the south-west coast path, past the remote chines and crumbling cliffs where smugglers once landed their cargoes, the sense of a lawless maritime past is never far away.