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The Hawkhurst Gang -

One of the most notorious criminal organizations involved in smuggling in England during the early 18th century was the Hawkhurst Gang. Based out of the Kent village of Hawkhurst, the band operated along the south coast as far west as Dorset. On October 7, 1747, members of the gang carried one of their most daring exploits, a successful raid against a government Custom House in Poole, Dorset.

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Murderous intent -

The gang's activities, however, went beyond smuggling tea, brandy, rum, and coffee. Seven months after the raid, they murdered a shoemaker, Daniel Chater, and an elderly revenue officer, William Galley, in Chichester. 

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Ruthless killers -

The smugglers are pictured here covering the body of Daniel Chater with stones after they had killed him and flung his body into a well.

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Unparalleled murders -

The brutal "unparalleled" murders of Galley and Chater turned the public against the smugglers. They met their end on April 21, 1747 during a battle with local militia in which most of the members were killed. The gang's leaders, Arthur Gray and Thomas Kingsmill, were captured alive and later executed.

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The Hadleigh Gang -

Another highly organized body of 18th-century English smugglers was the Hadleigh Gang. Operating out of the market town of Hadleigh in Suffolk, the gang at its height numbered 100 men and 120 horses, the animals used to land contraband. In 1735, about 20 smugglers were apprehended by a platoon of dragoons, mounted infantry that engaged the criminals as they attempted to flee a warehouse. Two of the smugglers, John Bigg and John Wilson, were caught and later executed after both had been found guilty of the murder of one of the infantrymen.

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Cruel Coppinger -

Cruel Coppinger was the most notorious of Cornwall's many smugglers. A huge and fearsome man, he turned to smuggling after being shipwrecked off England's southwest coast. He captained the Black Prince, a vessel with which he and his crew terrorized the English Channel. Coppinger's booty included stolen livestock, which he corralled in caves along the Cornish coast. No one knows when Cruel Coppinger was born, or when he died.

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The Aldington Gang -

England's Kent coastline proved a lucrative hunting ground in the 1820s for the Aldington Gang. Also named for a town, the Aldington smugglers roamed the sparsely populated Romney Marshes wetlands and like many of their ilk used a local inn as their headquarters and drop for their contraband. Their downfall was also as a result of losing public support after some gang members resorted to breaking into local residences to supplement their income. Without the goodwill of the people, the gang was doomed, given up by townsfolk to the authorities. After being found guilty of various crimes, including murder, 19 Aldington Gang members narrowly escaped the scaffold and instead were transported to Australia.

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The North Kent Gang -

Also working the coastline of Kent was the North Kent Gang. This unruly mob was responsible for the killing of Sydenham Snow, the leader of a blockade patrol that disturbed the gang during a drop at Herne Bay. Snow was able to identify several members of the gang before succumbing to his wounds. Four of them were later hanged on Penenden Heath in Maidstone on April 4, 1822. The murder of Snow highlighted the increase in smuggling activities by criminal gangs during the protracted Napoleonic Wars.

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Smuggling across the English Channel -

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Channel between England and France remained a major conduit for smuggling. Banned English textiles, for example, flooded the continental markets in breach of the Continental System or Blockade, while British smugglers evaded duties on continental goods landed on local shores.

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Beating the Blockade -

The early 19th century also witnessed English smugglers shipping people and goods out of Britain to the Netherlands and France⁠—again, in defiance of the blockade of the British Isles ordered by Napoleon.

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William Owen (1717–1747) -

Welshman William Owen ranks among the very few smugglers to have recorded his exploits in a diary. This noted bootlegger traded legally for a while, but soon became enamored with what he perceived as the smugglers' glamorous and exciting lifestyle. He stepped up to the mark, but during a botched robbery attempt he shot and killed a post boy as well as an accomplice. Convicted of murder and awaiting execution in Carmarthen gaol, Owen either wrote or dictated his autobiography, which was only published many years after Owen's demise. Pictured is the Smuggler's Cave at Lydstep, South Wales.

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Louis Mandrin (1725–1755) -

In France, meanwhile, people like Louis Mandrin were earning a living as highwaymen or smugglers. Mandrin became famous for his rebellion against the Ferme générale, the tax collecting agency of the French ancien régime (royal government). Mandrin bought goods (cloth, hides, tobacco, canvas, and spices) in Switzerland, which he then smuggled into France and resold in towns without paying any of the tax due. In time, he became known as the French Robin Hood. The authorities eventually caught up with Mandrin, and he was executed on May 26, 1755.

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The Carters of Prussia Cove -

Back in England, the Carters of Prussia Cove, named for the cove where they based their smuggling ring, are among the most famous of all the late-18th-century Cornish smugglers. Harry Carter (1749-1829) is especially known for his autobiography, 'A Cornish Smuggler,' which describes the Carters' exploits and that of their leader, John Carter—the King of Prussia Cove.

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Jack Rattenbury (1778 –1844) -

Known as "The Rob Roy of the West"—a nod towards the Scottish outlaw and folk hero—English smuggler Jack Rattenbury was born in the village of Beer in Devon, and used the famous Beer Quarry Caves to hide his stash. Like Owen and Carter before him, Rattenbury also put pen to paper to write a book called 'Memoirs of a Smuggler.'

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Isaac Gulliver (1745–1822) -

Isaac Gulliver controlled the English coast from Lymington on The Solent in Hampshire, through Dorset to Torbay in Devon. Despite his reputation as a ruthlessly determined smuggler, Gulliver never resorted to violence. In fact, many also called the "king of smugglers" the "gentle smuggler" who brought from the European continent gin, silk, lace, and tea, among other desirable booty.

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Roger Rideout (1736–1811) -

Dorset smuggler Roger Rideout likely worked for Isaac Gulliver. Rideout specialized in "bringing-in" brandy, but would also smuggle gin and rum, as well as tobacco, tea, salt, and silks. The booty would be hauled up on the beach at Bournemouth and later hidden in a farmhouse.

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Captain Yawkins -

Smuggling flourished on the north coast of the Solway Firth in Scotland, where one Captain Yawkins plied his trade, mainly in stolen tobacco. Yawkins' exploits caught the imagination of Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott, who based his fictional character Dirk Hatteraick in his 1815 novel 'Guy Mannering' on the larger-than-life smuggler.

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Execution Dock -

Execution Dock is located on the Thames in the Wapping area of London, England. It was used for more than 400 years (as late as 1830) to hang pirates, smugglers, and mutineers that had been sentenced to death by Admiralty courts.

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The rise of smuggling in America -

Across the Atlantic Ocean, smuggling was omnipresent within the Thirteen Colonies. Indeed, it was a regular feature of the economy of colonial British America in the 17th and 18th centuries. In this illustration, revenue cutters are pictured capturing an American smuggling ship, around 1764. During the American War of Independence, the British government sent out revenue ships to prevent smuggling—a way to avoid payment of import taxes.

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Tea smuggling -

Pictured: an American colonist in Boston in 1776 reads with concern the royal proclamation of a tax on tea in the colonies as a British soldier stands nearby with rifle and bayonet. The tax on tea was one of the clauses of the Townshend Acts and was repealed by the Tea Act of 1773, much to the chagrin of tea smugglers who, deprived of their livelihood, then embarked upon the famous Boston Tea Party.

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Thomas Hancock (1703 –1764) -

Uncle of Founding Father and statesman John Hancock, Thomas Hancock supplemented his regular businesses by smuggling goods such as tea, paper, and sailcloth from the Dutch Republic and molasses from the West Indies into New England.

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John Hancock (1737–1793) -

One of the wealthiest men in the Thirteen Colonies, John Hancock has often been described as a smuggler in historical accounts due in part to an incident in June 1768 when British customs commissioners seized Hancock's sloop Liberty in Boston Harbor, having found its consignment of Madeira suspiciously light, and accused Hancock of offloading cargo prior to inspection.

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Jean Lafitte (1780–1826) -

Jean Lafitte was a French pirate and smuggler. By 1805, he was operating a warehouse in New Orleans to help distribute the goods smuggled by his brother Pierre Lafitte. Later, Lafitte and his fleet helped General Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans during the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, as British forces sought access to the Mississippi River. The brothers were subsequently pardoned for their previous smuggling charges, and later continued their pirating.

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Smuggling during the Civil War -

The Anaconda Plan, a military strategy proposed by Union General Winfield Scott early in the conflict, called for a naval blockade of the Confederate littoral and the strangulation of the South by Union land and naval forces. This in turn led to widespread bootlegging operations carried out by Confederate sympathizers to smuggle goods and supplies into the South, including vital medicines (pictured).

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Smuggling for the cause -

This engraving depicts a Southern woman apprehended during a smuggling expedition. Here, Union soldiers find a stash of boots hidden under her hoop skirt. Women were often used to smuggle medicine, weapons, and other scarce items in to the blockaded South.

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Charles Lewis Lawrence (1833–1890) -

Born in Nottingham, England, as Charles Lewis Lazarus, Lawrence, who early in life emigrated to America, became one of the country's most notorious smugglers of the 19th century. A former customs inspector, Lawrence ran his operation in the heart of New York City. In 1875, he was arrested for smuggling several million dollars' worth of untaxed silk into the Port of New York. Upon fleeing the city, the bootlegger led agents on a global manhunt ending in Ireland. There he fought extradition, which led to a diplomatic crisis and a major political scandal near the end of the Reconstruction Era.

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People trafficking -

By the early 1900s, smugglers in developed nations had turned to a new commodity: people. The movement of huge numbers of immigrants seeking new opportunities in foreign lands provided unscrupulous smugglers with rich pickings. Pictured is a poster warning German women and girls about the danger of human trafficking in the US and the risk of taking a job abroad without first registering with the authorities.

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Drug smuggling -

The illegal drug trade emerged out of China in the early 19th century after British merchants from the East India Company began to illegally sell opium to Chinese merchants. The smuggling of opium eventually led to the infamous Opium Wars of the mid-1800s.

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Prohibition -

The ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the US from 1920 to 1933, known as Prohibition, revived the smuggling of alcohol. Prohibition proved almost impossible to enforce and encouraged the rise of organized crime, including the modern American Mafia, which identified enormous business opportunities in the manufacturing, smuggling, and sale of illicit liquor.

Sources: (The Hadleigh Society) (National Library of Wales) (The Dorset Page) (BBC) (Council on Foreign Relations) (Oxford Research Encyclopedias) (The Washington Post) (Process)

See also: Prohibition and when America went dry

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