by Barbara Anderson

Created on: October 06, 2008

With around 120 miles of rugged and lightly inhabited coastline, Yorkshire is ideally designed for smuggling. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, smuggling was at its peak in this area, mainly because it was considered to be socially acceptable, proved to be highly lucrative, and, most of all, because the King's Revenue men were woefully unable to prevent it. Because they were heavily taxed by the Crown, tea, gin, brandy, silk, and tobacco were the main goods being smuggled into the country at that time.

For example, in 1750, tea could be bought in Holland for as little as 7d per pound, smuggled into Yorkshire and sold for as much as 35 shillings. Brandy and gin could be sold for as much as four times its' original price; tobacco could bring up to twelve times its cost.

Few smuggling records survive from that era, probably because so few were created in the first place. While the Crown kept records of intercepted and suspected smugglers, many more escaped detection than were captured. So, no one knows the true extent of smuggling. The Revenue men of the time suspected that the entire towns of Redcar, Saltburn, Marske, Straithes, Runswick and Robin Hood's Bay were involved to some extent in smuggling.

For some village inhabitants, smuggling was their main occupation. In places such as Robin Hood's Bay, the houses were built so close together that goods could be brought ashore and then moved through the village by a series of tunnels and inter-connected cellars without ever seeing the light of day. This made it virtually impossible for the Revenue men to track the smugglers and their goods.

Further, inhabitants of these towns tended to turn a "blind eye" to the smuggling since almost everyone living there benefited in some way, from the lowliest villager to the parish vicar and the local squire. They also often covertly helped protect the known smugglers, often by hiding them in their homes. Strangers entering a coastal village who were suspected of being revenue men might find themselves doused with boiling water from an upstairs window to slow their progress, while known informers assisting the revenue men might find their homes and farms burned and their cattle and sheep slaughtered.

Smugglers who were caught were punished severely. They lost not only their smuggled goods, but also their boats. Many were hanged, deported, or forced to serve in the army or navy. Over time, the Coastal Service improved to the point where the risks for smugglers increased

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