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
The Robinettes were probably some of the many French Huguenots who came
over after the repeal, on the 15th October 1685, of the Edict of Nantes,
and settled in the neighbourhood of Peterborough to further reclaim and
cultivate the lately drained fens. The fallacy of coming to conclusions,
founded on names only without other evidence, is illustrated by the
following sentence in a series of papers on Norman Cross published in the
_Peterborough Advertiser_ by the late Rev. G. N. Godwin: “At Stilton the
names of Habarte, of Drage, and of Tesloff, and near Thorney the name of
Egar, and at Peterborough, among others, the name of Vergette, still
speak of the old war time.” Of these names, Habarte alone is that of
descendants of a French prisoner, the majority of those bearing the
others are of the old Huguenot stock, while the Vergettes, who formerly
believed themselves to be descendants of an ancestor of this same stock,
now know that they were an old-established English family in 1555, when
their ancestor, Robert Vergette, was Sheriff of Lincoln.
{65} _Loc. cit._, 93–95.
{69} In a Parliamentary Report for the year 1800 it is stated that the
price of wheat was only kept down to £5 a quarter by the system of
bounties on imported wheat, the same applying to the prices of other
grain. The present proprietor of “The Oundle Brewery” kindly extracted
from the Books of the Firm particulars as to the beer supplied to the
Regiments quartered at Norman Cross in the year 1799. The total amount
was 4,449 barrels of 36 gallons each. This gentleman adds, the beer
could not be very good, the price being about 6_d._ a gallon. His father
said that _he_ had often been told by _his_ father, that the great
expansion of the business was due to the contract with the Barracks.
Buckles Brewery, a Peterborough business, also flourished on a large
contract to supply the prisoners with “Small Beer.” Mr. George Gaunt,
who was formerly in a large business as a butcher, informed me that,
taking the figures which I gave him as a basis, and the average weight of
a bullock at about 850 lb., he considered that from five to six would be
required every day, if beef alone and no other meat were supplied. These
figures give some idea of the advantages derived by the neighbouring
traders from this great Government Establishment.
The following extract from a letter addressed to me by Mr. Samuel Booth
shows how many people in one family group alone found employment in
connection with the Depot:
“I send you a few particulars about my relatives, which may, or may
not, be useful to you.
“My great-grandmother, Mrs. Allen, who lies in the old graveyard,
used to carry green-grocery to sell to the prisoners.
“My father’s father was Pay-Sergeant at the Barracks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account