At this time several small gangs in the northern part of Kent began to work together on smuggling runs. A loosely knit organisation developed, which eventually became known as the North Kent Gang
It was in 1820 that the first example of violence by the North Kent Gang was recorded. In March that year a large number of men were unloading goods in Stangate Creek, when they were surprised by two members of the blockade forces, who demanded their surrender. The skirmish that followed left one officer seriously wounded.The gang escaped undaunted with their cargo.
In June of the same year the smugglers again met blockade officers with force, this time at Bishopstone Gap, east of Herne Bay. The gang let off a volley of gunfire, seriously injuring several of the blockade men. Two wounded smugglers were carried off to safety with the cargo. The next run, to Whitstable, was not so lucky. Two smugglers were captured by blockade officers and taken to Faversham gaol. But within a few days the gang had launched an attack on the gaol, armed with oak cudgels (known as `bats') and pickaxes, and freed the prisoners, who were not recaptured despite the
circulation of their descriptions and the temptation of a £100 reward.
The smugglers had several more encounters with the blockade men. In April 1821, the gang gathered to land a cargo at Herne Bay. Forty men were ready to carry the goods ashore, protected by a further twenty men armed with pistols, blunderbusses and bats. The batmen and tub carriers had spent the evening at a Herne inn and were very much the worse for drink. A small party of blockade officers, led by Midshipman Snow, heard the noise of the cargo being landed and challenged the gang. They we: met with gunfire, and the midshipman fell, wounded in the shoulder and leg. The smugglers made off with their goods, and Snow was carried to the Ship Inn, where he died the next day, after passing on sufficient information to ensure the arrest of five of the gang. The men went on trial in London, to ensure impartiality, but were acquitted on a legal point.
A few weeks later, over sixty smugglers were ambushed in Marsh Bay at Westgate.on Sea by a small, but resolute blockade force. The cargo was captured, but the men escaped after wounding another midshipman in the head with his own sword. Other blockade officers recognised one of the smugglers, calling to him by name, and this proved the final undoing of the North Kent Gang. Eighteen men were eventually arrested and sentenced to death. In the end four were hung at Penenden Heath, Maidstone, and the others were transported for life to Tasmania.
Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs were small fishing ports in the eighteenth century. They had all been associated with the Cinque Ports and `free trade' flourished. Local gangs were busy all along the coastline. The small bays in this area are backed by chalk cliffs, and over the centuries trackways had been carved to enable farmers to collect seaweed to use as fertiliser on their fields. These tracks and the natural caves, hidden by bushes, proved invaluable to the smuggling business. In some places hundreds of tons of the soft chalk were excavated by gangs of smugglers in order to link tunnels which had been dug during the Reformation for the safety of priests.
When Daniel Defoe visited Broadstairs in 1723, he noticed that few of the local people had obvious forms of employment, but did not feel it wise to enquire further. One well?known figure at this time was Richard Joy, the Kentish Giant, who was over seven feet (2.134 m) tall and weighed twenty?five stone (159 kg). He was a farm labourer from St Peters, near Broadstairs, and possessed enormous strength. Caught by the revenue men on a smuggling run, Joy was pressed into the navy, where he demanded a double ration of rum. When he was told by the bosun that two men's rations would mean two men's work, Joy carried a loaded cannon from the port to the starboard side of the ship and left it there. It took six men to replace the cannon, and Joy was given his double ration. In later years he was presented at Court to William III, and finally drowned in May 1742 at the age of sixtyseven, while on a smuggling run. He is buried in St Peters.
Another famous smuggler, who was born in St Peters in 1741, was Joss Snelling. Snelling was so successful that few of his activities are recorded, but in 1769 his gang was involved in an episode which became known as the 'Battle of Botany Bay'. They had almost finished unloading goods from a smuggling boat on the shore between Foreness Point and Kingsgate when they were surprised by some revenue men. A fight ensued which left ten smugglers fatally injured. Eight men were captured. Joss Snelling himself shot a riding officer as he made his escape up Kemp'a Stairs with four others. One of these was seriously injured, and another died soon after. Snelling remained free, to continue his smuggling career.
On 10 August 1803 'Snelling was captured by revenue men on Kingsgate beach, in the company of Jeff Mutton, together with sixty?one kegs of spirits. They both pleaded innocence, saying they had come across the kegs by chance while walking on the beach. The judge reluctantly released them, with a fine of £100, which it was reported was paid without difficulty. Another episode, in 1830, in St Mildred's Bay also led to a fine of £100.
Snelling spent his whole life smuggling, assisted by his son, George, and grandson, and was presented in 1829 to the future Queen Victoria as 'the famous Broadstairs smuggler'. He died peacefully, at the age of ninety-six.
George Snelling and his son had a particularly memorable experience when arriving at Dumpton Gap on 16 September 1817 aboard a smuggling vessel. There was no signal light from the prearranged spot and George began to suspect that something had gone wrong. Hurrying to the top of the cliff to investigate, George and his son found seven horses with empty pistol holsters hanging from their saddles. Further searching revealed that a large part of the cliff had slipped, burying a group of revenue officers who had been waiting in ambush.
Charles Dickens, who often stayed in Broadstairs with his family in the middle of the nineteenth century, was a regular visitor to the Tartar Frigate inn. He was, in his own words, 'a small fortune to the innkeeper, who sells beer and cold punch', and it is said that when Dickens died, he left a total of 2,400 bottles of wines and spirits, many of them unlabelled and perhaps therefore from unofficial sources.
The Dickens family spent the summers and autumns of many years in Bleak House, perched on the cliff above the bay. Known at that time as Fort House; this was an ideal viewpoint from which to watch events at sea. In fact in earlier years, at the time of the coastal blockade, the house was the site of North Cliff Battery and was used as a coastal observation station from which suspicious vessels could be watched. Messages were sent to passing warships from 's telegraph station on the roof. The cellars of Bleak House now contain a museum dedicated to the art of smuggling.
Smugglers were still active in Ramagate in the late nineteenth century. Andreus Koster was arrested in Ramsgate harbour on 10 November 1882, after 110 flasks of Holland gin were found in his eel pots. The local court fined him £150 and confiscated part of his legitimate cargo.
Pegwell Bay was a popular landing spot. Caves in the cliffs were used to store contraband, and a tunnel led up to the clifftop. In Pegwell village another smugglers' tunnel led from the Belle View Tavern.
