SUFFOLK has always been associated with smuggling. Even today we hear some pretty strange stories of smuggling on the coast. It is only the failures we hear about.

A recent example was two men calling a taxi close to the beach at Aldeburgh. They were soaking wet and had obviously been in the sea. It seems they had landed their yacht on a sandbank. As the boat contained a cargo of drugs they decided to abandon ship and swim ashore. They were caught.

On another occasion, a few years ago, a smuggling boat was wrecked and the cargo of drugs floated free. The local National Trust were informed as the boat was close to Orford Ness. At high tide they went down to the beach and collected packet after packet of drugs. So it seems an age old tradition continues.

The story of Margaret Catchpole is known to many but a recent book, Smuggling in the British Isles: a History by Richard Platt, is a really good read for anyone interested in the history of smuggling and smugglers in the UK.

Whilst some of the commentary below is my own, I have extracted a number of passages from Richard Platt’s book and taken his information about Suffolk direct from his website. So do go to www.smuggling.co.uk or buy his book (£16.99) for a much more in depth understanding of Smuggling.

Here in Suffolk many of the pubs have smuggling associations and you really don’t have to travel far to find some dramatic and visible associations. Here at Alderton Hall, just a mile from the coast and the river Deben there lies an underground passage (now sadly filled in) which travels from our inner hall through to the Swan Pub, by way of the church – I would like to believe that it was for the convenience of previous householders to avoid getting when wet when going to worship but it seems far more likely that it was for the smuggling of contraband.
As a great devotee of Rudyard Kipling, I knew the words of A Smuggler’s Song by heart:

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson.
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

I had therefore assumed that alcohol and tobacco were the common cargo of every Suffolk smuggler but much more was landed on the shores of England. According to some contemporary estimates, 4/5 of all tea drunk in England in the 18th century had not paid duty, not quite as exciting as brandy and gin but highly taxed and therefore worth smuggling.

Sailing ships brought the goods from the continent, and kegs and bales were man-handled — often up sheer cliffs — to a waiting file of men. These carriers then transported the goods either in carts or caravans of ponies, or lashed the tubs to their own backs for the journey inland to large towns and cities for sale onward.

The burgeoning industry was simply a natural and inevitable result of punitive taxation imposed by a succession of governments each more desperate than the last to pay for costly wars in Europe.

The English Crown had for centuries claimed a proportion of all cargoes entering the country — or a financial levy in lieu of the fine wine or bolts of fabric. In 1688, though, the customs duties were streamlined and restructured into a form that would — in theory at least — generate more revenue for the exchequer. A new tax, excise, was levied specially to pay for the costs of war. Excise covered many different items, but its scope was reduced ten years later to cover just chocolate, coffee, tea, beer, cider and spirits. However, after 1688 it was progressively widened to include other essentials such as salt, leather, and soap.

By the middle of the century, the tax on tea was nearly 70% of its initial cost, and the double burden of customs and excise duties was widely resented by a rural population often close to starvation. It is hardly surprising them that more and more of the population collaborated with and benefited from smuggling.

Collection of customs duties was haphazard and bureaucratic, largely based on a system, established in the 13th century, of custom houses at ports around the coast. Customs men and coastguards were in constant battle with the smugglers and many were killed or injured in their efforts to catch the smugglers. But life was cheap and
For more information on smuggling in Suffolk go to:

Smuggling in and around Woodbridge
Smuggling in and around Dunwich
Smuggling in and around Framlingham
Smuggling in Aldeburgh and the Alde Estuary
Smuggling in the Blyth
Smuggling in and around Lowestoft
Smuggling between Thorpeness & Saxmundham