The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816Walker, Thomas (Thomas James)
History
The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816
Walker, Thomas (Thomas James)
France -- History -- 1789-1815; Norman Cross depot; Prisoners of war
{16} As illustrating the hardship which, already in its fourth year,
this war had imposed upon the nation, the following extract from the
report furnished to the Transport Office, by Captain Woodriff, R.N.,
agent to the Commissioners, of the average price of provisions and the
rate of wages in the district in which the Depot had been established,
during the time that the prison and barracks were erecting, may be of
interest. Mutton was 10½_d._ per lb., beef 1_s._ per lb., bread 1s. per
quartern loaf. Carpenters’ wages were 12s. per week, shoemakers’ 10_s._,
bakers’ 9_s._, blacksmiths’ 8_s._, and husbandmen 7_s._ Starvation wages
were then a literal truth. Four years later from a Parliamentary Report
we find the Government granting a bounty on all imported wheat, in order
to keep the price down to £5 a quarter, other grain being treated in the
same way. We can well understand that, as the price of provisions went
up, and the taxation increased with the prolongation of the war (a war
which, however it originated, was prolonged for years by the ambitious
projects of Buonaparte for the aggrandisement of himself and of France),
the animosity not only of the actual combatants, but also of the
suffering men, women, and children, steadily grew against the man and the
nation whom they regarded as the authors of all their misery.
{18} Appendix A.
{23a} _Auctioneer’s Catalogue_, (Jacobs’ Peterborough, 1816).
{23b} M. Foulley’s description of his model on Key Plan, Pl. xx., p.
251.
{24} The following entry in the Register of Marriages in St. John’s
Church, Peterborough, probably explains the reason for the housing of the
surgeon in a comfortable brick house within those prison walls, instead
of in the very indifferent quarters in the hospital casern:—
“October 18th, 1808, George H. Walker of Yaxley to Elizabeth
Colinette Pressland of St. John’s.—Witnesses: Thomas Pressland,
Thomas Alderson Cook, James Gibbs.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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