Section 2 - Smuggling and Maps

This Section complements The New Smugglers Learning Package, providing resources for teaching geography/citizenship within Key Stages 3 and 4.

Although there are many websites and books about smuggling, very few include maps of the locations and none, as far as we can see, include maps of the time in sufficient detail to link the smuggling activities to where the action took place. This Section links to the Tithe Apportionments and the Map Viewer and to later maps to remedy this omission.

Extract from the tithe map of Canford Magna – Kinson parish

The Sample Learning Activities use extracts from maps and documents to show how this can be done. The demonstrable links between places, their owners or tenants and their place in society raise questions about influential people's ethical and moral positions. This can be used to promote students' exploration of place and environmental change and the ways in which society affects them. For example, the Tithe Apportionments of Canford Magna – Kinson parish list the land that belonged to the 18th Century smuggler Isaac Gulliver, shown under the name of Reverend Charles Bowle . Bowle owned a large number of plots of land as ‘Devisee', a beneficiary of Isaac Gulliver's estate after he died. St Andrew's church in Kinson has well established links to smuggling.

Landowners		Occupiers	Name & description of lands & premises	State of Cultivation	Quantities in Statute Measure			Remarks
					A	R	P
49	The Reverend Charles Bowle Devisee of Isaac Gulliver	Roger Corbin	Six Acres	Arable	6	1	14	-

  Sample Learning Activity 2.1

 Learning Outcome

National Curriculum KS3 Geography Unit 18 Section 6 expects children to be able to locate places accurately on maps and draw maps to show where activities take place. This activity can be used to meet that objective.

Background

Gaol records list the names, parishes, occupation and sentences of smugglers. For example, the Dorchester Records in the early 1800s include for Poole four individuals, Thomas Dominy and Edward Burridge (both Mariners), William Hayter (Carrier) and Thomas Stokes (Preventive Boatman). Stokes worked for the Preventive Officers and so probably had information which could be used to avoid capture. He doesn't appear to have been very successful!

Activity

Use the Dorchester Records .

Students find each of the locations listed and produce a map of Dorset and the surrounding area showing where every smuggler lived.

They describe the occupations given by the smugglers in each area. Are there any patterns? Are any women included? For example , in Langton Matravers in the heart of the Purbeck quarrying district, the convicted smugglers were stonemasons (4), Labourers (2) and a wheelwright. In Swanage, they gave their employment as seaman, labourer and shoemaker (2). In addition, a William Talbot, who according to the Gaol records may have lived in Langton Matravers and was a shoemaker, is also found as the owner of three landholdings in the Tithe Apportionment.

Outcome

By the end of this activity, students (working collectively or singly) should have produced a map which shows all locations where smuggling took place. They should also be able to distinguish between the occupations of smugglers in different areas

Sample Learning Activity 2.2

Working with books and libraries

Background

There are many books (Box below), museums and websites ( Smugglers: Introduction - Smuggling Resources) which describe the history of smuggling. For example, “ Smuggling Days ” by K. Merle Chacksfield describes many of the smugglers' haunts along the Dorset and neighbouring coasts. It could be used in conjunction with the old as well as the modern maps. Local libraries and school libraries often have collections of books about the local area which can be used to help in this activity. The Museums Database gives details of many additional sources.

Activity

Students use Carol Showell and Roger Gutteridge's “ Smugglers' Trails: pub walks in Dorset ” published in 1997 which describes a series of walks which include smugglers' locations.

Students use the relevant Tithe Map extract in conjunction with the trail so that they walk the trail to imagine themselves back on that early 19 th century landscape.

In the towns, especially Bournemouth, many of the original tracks may have disappeared but some still exist as Rights Of Way or streets. Some buildings described in the books can only be located on the older maps because they have disappeared under the spread of the towns. Students could design smuggler's trails for the town. Bournemouth Library has a wealth of material which can support this activity.

Section 2:
Smuggling and maps

Section 3:
Change in place and society

Section 4:
Using the archival materials in the field

Section 5:
Landscape change - past to future