in montgomeryshire
i am indebted to canon thomas of llandrinio rectory, llanymynech, for information which led me to extract the following interesting details from the montgomeryshire archaeological collections.
batches of french officers were on parole during the later years of the napoleonic wars at llanfyllin, montgomery, bishop’s castle, newtown, and welshpool.
llanfyllin
about 120 french and germans were quartered here during the years 1812 and 1813. many of them lived together in a large house, formerly the griffith residence, which stood where is now bachie place. others were at the ‘council house’ in high street. in a first-floor room of this latter may still be seen thirteen frescoes in crayon executed by the prisoners, representing imaginary mountain scenery. formerly there were similar frescoes in a neighbouring house, once the rampant lion inn, now a tailor’s shop, but these have been papered over, and according to the correspondent who supplies the information, ‘utterly destroyed’. these prisoners were liberally supplied with money, which they spent freely. an attachment sprang up between a prisoner, captain angerau, and the rector’s daughter, which resulted in their marriage after the peace of 1814. it is interesting to note that in 1908 a grandson of captain angerau visited llanfyllin.
the following pleasing testimony i take from bygones, october 30, 1878:
‘the german soldiers from hessia, so well received by the inhabitants of llanfyllin during their captivity, have requested the undersigned to state that the kindness and the favour 358shewn them by the esteemed inhabitants of llanfyllin will ever remain in their thankful remembrance.
‘c. w. wedikind.
‘newtown, june 17, 1817.’
montgomery
a correspondent of the gentleman’s magazine contributed a notice of the death at montgomery of an old gentleman named chatuing who had been nearly four years a prisoner in that town, and who had preferred to remain there after the peace of 1814.
occasionally we come across evidence that there were men among the prisoners on parole who were not above acting as government spies among their fellows. one beauvernet at montgomery was evidently one of these, for a transport office letter to the agent in that town in 1806 says:
‘mr. beauvernet may rest perfectly satisfied that any information communicated by him will not in any way be used to his detriment or disadvantage.’
allen, the montgomery agent, is directed to advance beauvernet ￡10, as part of what ultimately would be given him. one muller was the object of suspicion, and he was probably an escape agent, as in later letters beauvernet is to be allowed to choose where he will ‘work’, and eventually, on the news that muller has gone to london, is given a passport thither, and another ￡10. of course it does not follow from this that beauvernet was actually a prisoner of war, and he may have been one of the foreign agents employed by government at good pay to watch the prisoners more unostentatiously than could a regular prisoner agent, but the opening sentence of the official letter seems to point to the fact that he was a prisoner.
a french officer on parole at montgomery, named dumont, was imprisoned for refusing to support an illegitimate child, so that it came upon the rates. he wrote, however, to lady pechell, declaring that he was the victim ‘of a sworn lie of an abandoned creature’, complaining that he was shut up with the local riff-raff, half starved, and penniless, and imploring her to influence the transport board to give him the subsistence money which had been taken from him since his committal to 359prison to pay for the child. what the transport board replied does not appear, but from the frequency of these complaints on the part of prisoners, there seems no doubt that, although local records show that illicit amours were largely indulged in by french and other officers on parole, in our country towns, much advantage of the sinning of a few was taken by unprincipled people to blackmail others.
in the cambrian of may 2, 1806, is the following:
‘at the last quarter sessions for montgomeryshire, a farmer of the neighbourhood of montgomery was prosecuted by order of the transport office for assaulting one of the french prisoners on parole, and, pleading guilty to the indictment, was fined ￡10, and ordered to find sureties for keeping the peace for twelve months. this is the second prosecution which the board has ordered, it being determined that the prisoners shall be protected by government from insult while they remain in their unfortunate position as prisoners of war.’
bishop’s castle
at bishop’s castle there were many prisoners, and in bygones thomas caswell records chats with an old man named meredith, in the workhouse, who had been servant at the six bells, where nine officers were quartered. ‘they cooked their own food, and i waited upon them. they were very talkative ... they were not short of money, and behaved very well to me for waiting upon them.’
the attempted escape of two bishop’s castle prisoners is described on page 391.
newtown
‘mr. david morgan of the canal basin, newtown, who is now (february 1895) 81 years of age, remembers over 300 prisoners passing through kerry village on their way from london via ludlow, to newtown. he was then a little boy attending kerry school, and the children all ran out to see them. all were on foot, and were said to be all officers. a great number of them were billeted at various public-houses, and some in private houses in newtown. they exerted themselves greatly in putting out a fire at the new inn in severn street, and were to be seen, says my informant, an aged inhabitant, “like cats about the roof “. when peace was made, they returned to france, and many of them were killed at waterloo. the news of that great battle and victory reached newtown 360on pig fair day, in june 1815. i have a memorandum book of m. auguste tricoche, one of the prisoners, who appears to have served in the french fleet in the west indies, and to have been taken prisoner at the capture of martinique in 1810.’
welshpool
‘on the occasion of a great fire at the corner shop in december 1813, there was a terrific explosion of gunpowder which hurled portions of timber into the vicarage garden, some distance off. the french prisoners were very active, and some of them formed a line to the lledan brook (which at that time was not culverted over), whence they conveyed water to the burning building to others of their comrades who courageously entered it.
‘dr. p. l. serph, one of the prisoners, settled down at welshpool, where he obtained a large practice as a physician and surgeon, and continued to reside there until the time of his death. dr. serph married ann, the daughter of john moore, late of crediton in the county of devon, gentleman, by elizabeth his wife. mrs. serph died in 1837, and there is a monument to their memory in welshpool churchyard.
‘there is at gungrog a miniature of mrs. morris jones painted by a french prisoner; also a water colour of the waterfall at pystyl rhaiadr, which is attributed to one of them. i recollect seeing in the possession of the late mr. oliver e. jones, druggist, a view of powis castle, ingeniously made of diverse-coloured straws, the work of one of the prisoners.
‘it is said that french blood runs in the veins of some of the inhabitants of each of these towns where the prisoners were located.
‘r. williams.’
in pembrokeshire
pembroke
in 1779 howard the philanthropist visited pembroke, and reported to this effect:
he found thirty-seven american prisoners of war herded together in an old house, some of them without shoes or stockings, all of them scantily clad and in a filthy condition. there were no tables of victualling and regulations hung up, nor did the prisoners know anything more about allowances than that they were the same as for the french prisoners. the floors were covered with straw which had not been changed for seven 361weeks. there were three patients in the hospital house, in which the accommodation was very poor.
fifty-six french prisoners were in an old house adjoining the american prison. most of them had no shoes or stockings, and some had no shirts. there was no victualling table and the prisoners knew nothing about their allowance. two or three of them had a money allowance, which should have been 3/6 per week each, for aliment, but from this 6d. was always deducted. they lay on boards without straw, and there were only four hammocks in two rooms occupied by thirty-six prisoners. there was a court for airing, but no water and no sewer. in two rooms of the town jail were twenty french prisoners. they had some straw, but it had not been changed for many weeks. there was no supply of water in the jail, and as the prisoners were not allowed to go out and fetch it, they had to do without it. on one sunday morning they had had no water since friday evening. the bread was tolerable, the beer very small, the allowance of beef so scanty that the prisoners preferred the allowance of cheese and butter. in the hospital were nine french prisoners, besides five of the culloden’s crew, and three americans. all lay on straw with coverlets, but without sheets, mattresses, or bedsteads.
this was perhaps the worst prison visited by howard, and he emphatically recommended the appointment of a regular inspector. in 1779 complaints came from pembroke of the unnecessary use of fire-arms by the militiamen on guard, and that 150 prisoners were crowded into one small house with an airing yard twenty-five paces square—this was the year of howard’s visit. his recommendations seem to have had little effect, for in 1781 twenty-six prisoners signed a complaint that the quantity and the quality of the provisions were deficient; that they had shown the agent that the bread was ill-baked, black, and of bad taste, but he had taken no notice; that he gave them cow’s flesh, which was often bad, thinking that they would refuse it and buy other at their own expense; that he vexed them as much as he could, telling them that the bread and meat were too good for frenchmen; that on their complaining about short measure and weight he refused to have the food measured and weighed in their presence in accordance 362with the regulations; that he tried to get a profit out of the straw supplied by making it last double the regulation time without changing it, so that they were obliged to buy it for themselves; and that he had promised them blankets, but, although it was the raw season of the year, none had yet been issued.
in 1797 the admiralty inspector reported that the condition of the dép?t at pembroke was very unsatisfactory; the discipline slack, as the agent preferred to live away at hubberstone, and only put in an occasional appearance; and that the state of the prisoners was mutinous to a dangerous degree.
the fishguard affair of 1797
if the great western railway had not brought fishguard into prominence as a port of departure for america, it would still be famous as the scene of the last foreign invasion of england. on february 22, 1797, fifteen hundred frenchmen, half of whom were picked men and half galley slaves, landed from four vessels, three of which were large frigates, under an irish general tate, at cerrig gwasted near fishguard. they had previously been at ilfracombe, where they had burned some shipping. there was a hasty gathering of ill-armed pitmen and peasants to withstand them, and these were presently joined by lord cawdor with 3,000 men, of whom 700 were well-trained militia. cawdor rode forward to reconnoitre, and general tate, deceived, as a popular legend goes, into the belief that he was opposed by a british military force of great strength, by the appearance behind his lordship of a body of welshwomen clad in their national red ‘whittles’ and high-crowned hats, surrendered.
be the cause what it might, by february 24, without a shot being fired, 700 frenchmen were lodged in haverfordwest jail, 500 in st. mary’s church, and the rest about the town. later on, for security, 500 frenchmen were shut up in the golden tower, pembroke, and with this last body a romance is associated. two girls were daily employed in cleaning the prison, and on their passage to and fro became aware of two handsome young frenchmen among the prisoners selling their 363manufactures at the daily market, who were equally attracted by them. the natural results were flirtation and the concoction of a plan of escape for the prisoners. the girls contrived to smuggle into the prison some shin bones of horses and cows, which the prisoners shaped into digging tools, and started to excavate a passage sixty feet long under the prison walls to the outer ditch which was close to the harbour, the earth thus dug out being daily carried away by the girls in the pails they used in their cleaning operations. six weeks of continuous secret labour saw the completion of the task, and all that now remained was to secure a vessel to carry the performers away. lord cawdor’s yacht at anchor offered the opportunity. some reports say that a hundred prisoners got out by the tunnel and boarded the yacht and a sloop lying at hand; but at any rate, the two girls and five and twenty prisoners secured the yacht, and, favoured by a thick fog, weighed anchor and got away. for three days they drifted about; then, meeting a brig, they hailed her, represented themselves as shipwrecked mariners, and were taken aboard. they learned that a reward of ￡500 was being offered for the apprehension of the two girls who had liberated a hundred prisoners, and replied by clapping the brig’s crew under hatches, and setting their course for st. malo, which they safely reached.
the girls married their lovers, and one of them, madame roux, ci-devant eleanor martin, returned to wales when peace was declared, and is said to have kept an inn at merthyr, her husband getting a berth at the iron-works.
another of general tate’s men, a son of the marquis de saint-amans, married anne beach, sister-in-law of the rev. james thomas, vicar of st. mary’s, haverfordwest, and head master of the grammar school. general tate himself was confined in portchester castle.
in monmouthshire
abergavenny
there were some two hundred officers on parole here, but the only memory of them extant is associated with the masonic lodge, ‘enfants de mars et de neptune’, which was worked by 364them about 1813–14. tradition says that the officers’ mess room, an apartment in monk street, remarkable for a handsome arched ceiling, also served for lodge meetings. de grasse tilly, son of admiral de grasse, who was defeated by rodney in the west indies, was a prominent member of this lodge. at the present ‘philanthropic’ lodge, no. 818, abergavenny, are preserved some collars, swords, and other articles which belonged to members of the old french prisoners’ lodge.
in brecknockshire
prisoners were at brecon; tombs of those who died may be seen in the old priory churchyard, and ‘the captain’s walk’ near the county hall still preserves the memory of their favourite promenade.
in 1814 the bailiff of brecon requested to have the parole prisoners in that town removed. the reason is not given, but the transport office refused the request.
