Saturday, 29 July 2006
Lundy Island & The Benson Scandals
In this next, and the last, tale of Lundy’s infamy, I have switched the focus from piracy to smuggling. Smuggling was also rife along the coast of Cornwall and Devon around the same time as piracy was, and the two were often linked. This story tells of North Devon’s most notorious smuggler: Thomas Benson.
Benson, born in the first decade of the 18th Century into a wealthy Bideford family of merchants, became Sheriff of Devon in 1746 and MP for Barnstaple in 1747. Here was a prominent member of society doing well for himself, not driven to his later actions by desperate need or lack of anything. His motivation was purely greed.
He secured a contract to ship convicts overseas (supposedly Virginia or Maryland) in the same year as becoming an MP. However, this effort must have seemed rather costly to him, so he quickly devised a plan that was more beneficial, at least to himself.
In 1748 he leased Lundy Island from Lord Gower, who was at that time in possession of the land. Once this was settled, Benson’s ships no longer transported convicts very far; they were taken to Lundy Island and used as slave labour. With this workforce Benson was able to greatly improve the island – new walls were built, including the Quarter Wall, drainage was added and the land was cultivated.
Even this was not enough for Benson, and he used the island for smuggling purposes. It is even said he used the convicts to excavate a cave (known as Benson’s Cave) for him to store his smuggling gains!
He also set up a tobacco processing plant and storage facility (which his slaves may have built and worked in), as this was one of his main sources of legal – and illegal – income. He would import his tobacco goods to the mainland, pay the import tax, and then re-export it, claiming back the tax. He took the goods thence to Lundy Island, and shortly after he would illegally import the tobacco back to the mainland, thus avoiding the import tax while seeming a respectable business.
However, some of the convicts became fed up of being used as slave labour during the day and being locked up and closely guarded in the fort each night. The sight of their homeland so tantalisingly close was too much. Around fourteen of them decided to attempt to reach Hartland Point in a boat, and their plight became known.
Benson survived this scandal by claiming that it had been the agreed plan all along! He claimed it had never been his aim to take them to America, and he had never stated such was his intent. However, it was because of this that his smuggling exploits were shortly afterwards found out. Having no clever excuse this time, Benson was fined £7000 and his estate was seized.
Rather than being chastised and using legal means to rebuild his fortune, Benson became desperate for a quick fix. He formed a risky plan…
He filled his ship, the Nightingale, with a costly cargo of pewter and linen and had it heavily insured. The ship sailed to Lundy and offloaded all the cargo onto the island, unknown to his insurers. Then the ship once more set sail and was scuttled. The crew were rescued by a passing boat, and some of them were obviously not very happy.
The truth came out; Benson gained nothing and instead had to escape to Portugal for his life. The captain of the Nightingale was hanged for his part in the fraud.
It would be a morally fitting end if I could tell you, as others claim, that Benson was never heard of again, or that he was believed to have entered the priesthood where he repented of his crimes. But we know that Thomas Benson died in the 1770s, and it is said that he built up a very successful trading company in Lisbon. Whether this was an entirely legitimate business I cannot say, but Thomas Benson certainly lived a long and eventful life.
That’s the last of my pirates and smugglers posts, people! However, I do plan to write another post today to give you links to some of my references, should you be interested in reading more about the colourful history of Lundy!
