shipwrecks and smugglers

Smugglers & Shipwrecks

DUNGENESS BAY, in the lawless days of smuggling and privateering, is a hotbed for the covert landing and transport of contraband by daring gangs of smugglers out to defy the Excise men. During the Napoleonic Wars, their traffic is tolerated for, Sir John Moore finds, they and their relations in Flushing can be useful as spies.

John Gough remembers a well-organised gang in the village - a bold and hardy set of men, operating under pseudonyms, their favourite haunt being the 'Fleur de Lis' tavern. Sandgate is well served with tunnels and cellars.

Local customs authorities here were quite clear about the allegiances of the Folkestone people. One commented... 'As most of the Inhabitants of Folkestone, Sandgate and Hythe are in the confidence of the smugglers, no information can be expected of them.'

To guard the shore a Watch House stands just west of the Castle (Radnor lease 1798) and an 1843 survey of Shorncliffe Ordnance Ground marks a narrow site as 'Coastguard'.

SHIPWRECKS, indeed, are numerous along this often merciless Bay. In westerly gales or fog, schooners, ironclads, steamboats founder and heroic rescues follow. They are a tragic, haunting scene to those on shore.

In 1825, John Gough a small boy of seven, beholds the wreck of an East Indiaman The Lady of Calcutta in which 790 passengers, returning troops and seamen perish: For weeks after I saw in my dreams the hair of women floating on the water as I had seen it in reality when the boats when out to fetch the scores of bodies, or they were washed ashore.

In 1878 two German ships the Grosser Kurfurst and the Koenig Wilhem veer to avoid a Norwegian barque, and collide while floundering in the sea. Lifeboats and fishing vessels are able to save 218; the rest perish and finders of bodies on Sandgate beach are rewarded with a pound.

In January 1883 the iron sailing ship Plassey is beached off Sandgate.

In 1891 gales blow with unprecedented violence. Among vessels in distress, the 2000 ton full-rigged Benvenue breaks from a tug and sinks 300 yards off Wellington Terrace while the crew takes refuge in the rigging. The lifeboat now the Coastguards try to launch/To rescue those poor fellows in the mast/They fail; the liquid mountains hurl them back/Nor can a rocket face the roaring blast (Verse 4, C.H.1891).

As a small boy, Victor Foley of Wellington Terrace, witnesses the horror. His epic painting done in later life, hangs in Sandgate's Public Library.

The November gales of 1893 reach 90 miles an hour and the Sandgate Lifeboat is launched 60 times to aid vessels in distress.

The wreck of the Benvenue - this long and detailed account of two wrecks within hours of each other is written by the editor of the Hythe Reporter in November 1891.
When the Benvenue was wrecked - a tribute to Mr. Wright Griggs who was awarded the silver medal for his gallant work in connection with the wreck of the ship Benvenue, off Sandgate
The Ship Wrecks List website was first established in August 1999, to help those seeking the details of their ancestors' ships; passenger records; contemporary immigration reports; newspaper records; ship wreck information; ship pictures etc.

Wreck of the three-masted BENVENUE November 1891. Coastguards attempt rescue with rocket apparatus and field gun

Content for Sandgate-Kent Local History pages is mostly taken from 'Rise and Progress of a Village" - by Linda Réne-Martin