This website, www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

WERE THEY HEADING FOR FINDON?

Copyright Valerie Martin 2002

First published in Along the Furlong in July 2002.

Smuggling operated on a large scale and was rife along the Sussex coastline in the 1600s, 1700s and early 1800s and there is no doubt that the men of Findon reaped a considerable share of the business working the contraband inland.

With their isolated rural way of life, the majority of largely agriculturally employed villagers of those days had a very low legitimate earning capacity. This made the substantial and relatively easy profits incurred from the illicit smuggling in wine, spirits or tobacco from the continent, an exciting temptation difficult to refuse.

By the end of the 1700s many able-bodied Findonians and even the clergy were probably actively involved as smugglers, receivers of goods, or simply "minders".  It is said that even the simple shepherds were caught up in the practice of acting as look-out men for the smugglers.   They would appear to be thoughtfully tending their flocks but when a run was due to be made in daylight, they would grasp their crooks in a certain way so that the smugglers would know it was safe to proceed across the Downs.  Their reward would be brandy.

When the men of the night required horsepower to haul their booty inland, local farmers lent out their steeds for the duration without question. Many discovered their horses were mud spattered and weary when set to work the next morning but they would have found a token payment of a keg of brandy in the horse's manger as compensation. Most folk were on the side of the smugglers and they held the public's sympathy. Even the church did not frown on smuggling in its hey-day.

By the 1830s, armed coastguards, stationed in blockhouses at regular intervals along the coast, protected our Sussex shoreline. There were also horse-mounted officers who were able to gallop to the assistance of their colleagues whenever the alarm was called.

One of the last big smuggling "runs" ended in tragic circumstances on a cold winter's night in 1832 and I think the smugglers could have been heading for Findon to work their goods up-country. Findon was a quiet farming community with a population of only 544 inhabitants at the time.

The daring smugglers under cover of darkness usually awaited the arrival of boats carrying their illegal goods at the Half Brick Hotel in East Worthing. This was not the familiar Half Brick public house found on the seafront at the eastern side of the town today. It was an earlier inn, long since washed away by the ever-eroding tide.

After leading their farm horses over the pebbles in the gloom at low tide to meet the incoming boats, the smugglers normally embarked on a direct route across the marshland, which then lay between Worthing and Lancing. Using one of several lonely trackways that ran from south to north, they usually managed to keep a low profile as they traversed the Broadwater Brook which was a marshy area extending south east from the village and was the remains of a medieval tidal inlet or "broadwater".  They then headed for the Marquis of Granby Inn at Sompting.

On this disastrous Wednesday, early in the morning on 22nd February, the smugglers were led by a 32-year-old burly stonemason, William Cowerson. He was from Steyning and by day had been busy employed on repairs during the restoration of St. Andrew's Church at West Tarring. By night, he led the local smugglers, who came ashore with vast quantities of illegal brandy in half-ankler (four-and-a-quarter-gallon) kegs. Perhaps they had received a tip-off, but for a reason never to be revealed, the men elected on this particular occasion to switch the landing to a riskier beach (between today's steyne Gardens and South Street) and work the latest shipment of brandy by a more westerly route.  I believe they may have intended to pass through the Findon area.

Whatever their reason, at between two and three o'clock on that fateful moonlit winter morning, a motley gang of two hundred smugglers and their protectors were transporting an unusually large load of more than 300 tubs of contraband French brandy, Dutch gin and perfumes.  It was landed on the sand opposite Stafford's Library on Worthing seafront close to where the Dome cinema now stands. The shore was bathed in bright moonlight as a motley gang of smugglers together with their helpers and bodyguards set about unloading the illegal cargo. They proceeded inland and heading for Broadwater. The Preventative Officers were quickly informed by the local coastguards of what was occurring and in turn they galloped into town, firing their pistols into the air to intercept them in the High Street.  The smugglers split up, leaving thirty of their toughest minders to slow down the officers enforcing the law.

The inhabitants of Warwick Street sympathised with the smugglers. It sounds rather comical now but they apparently opened their front doors and some smugglers ran through the houses and straight out of the back doors. It was a good ploy to lose the law officers who were hard on their heels. They were eventually cornered at the northern end of the Worthing High Street.

The Preventative Force, led by Lieutenant Henderson, descended on the fleeing band of smugglers as they progressed up the road. The result was a mighty thrilling battle running the length of the street.  Mounted officers galloped to and fro firing their pistols.

The Teville stream at this time flowed through Worthing, following a course just to the south of the present railway (it now runs in an underground culvert). There was a bridge over the stream at the top of the High Street leading to Broadwater. There was also in existence an iron gate at its entrance. The Worthing Town Commissioners had this locked at night in an attempt to ban beggars and vagabonds. There was only room for one man to clamber over the gate at a time.

The "staffmen", (as those protecting the smugglers were called because they carried six-foot hazelwood staves), closed ranks and vigorously laid into the pursuing Preventative Force. They attempted to hold them off but the law drew their pistols again and began firing. One of the staffmen was John Holden a Worthing farm labourer and he struggled to open the gate at the bridge. 

Impatiently, William Cowerson shouldered him away and wrenched at the offending obstacle.  It gave way and bodily came off its hinges.  William Cowerson then turned to face his pursuers bravely, armed only with a stave and with great force he managed to break Lieutenant Henderson's arm. Somehow, the Preventative Officer immediately dexterously drew his pistol with his uninjured hand and without any hesitation shot the smuggler dead on the spot.

The ensuing fracas gave the smugglers time to disperse their loot to numerous hiding places in nearby Broadwater, Tarring, Sompting, and Lancing and little made its way further inland and little of it was recovered by the authorities.  Thirteen smugglers were taken prisoner that dreadful night, and a total of three hundred kegs of illegal brandy were recovered by the law.

Very few of the kegs of brandy were recovered, having been promptly dispersed to numerous secret hiding places in nearby villages.

The inquest into the untimely death of William Cowerson was held at the nearby Anchor Inn and a verdict was subsequently returned of "justifiable homicide". He was buried at Steyning and more than a thousand followers turned out to attend the funeral and mourn the loss of a smuggler. His more fortunate comrades spent the next year as inmates of Horsham gaol.

What happened that fated Wednesday morning in 1832 sent a cold shiver through the local contraband trade and it went into a rapid decline from which it never recovered because the escalating risks were just no longer worth taking. Such had been the severity of the fight with the smugglers that the Worthing authorities thought it necessary from then on to station a troop of dragoons  in the town for the next two years.  They had such an inhibiting effect on local lawbreakers that even the most active of participants accepted that smuggling had finally become too risky to continue — even in Findon.

The Beer Act did not come into force until 1834 and was designed to ensure that only "respectable" persons were granted licences to sell alcohol, such as the innkeeper of the Gun Inn at Findon. It required licensees to produce a certificate, signed by ten householders whose property had a nominal rental value of £10 per year, declaring that the applicant was of —

The final blow for smugglers came a few years later, with the reduction of duty on brandy and foreign spirits.

The very interesting question remains and will now never be resolved — if the smugglers all those years ago had continued working their goods quietly and uninterrupted inland from Broadwater, would any of the contraband have found it's way to Findon over the downland?

Continue if you would like to read about The Highwayman Came Riding.

THIS IS FINDON — was launched in January 1999 and will grow to be a historical record of life in Findon, West Sussex, U.K.