During the 18th and 19th centuries one of the Customs & Excise’s main south coast administrative offices was located at Shoreham in Church Street up to 1830 then in the High Street building that later became the Town Hall before it moved to Southwick. In addition the town once had its own Coast Guard Station.

The Coastguard Service evolved from the old Blockade (or “Preventative”) Service, the latter of which was created in 1817 following the country’s huge loss of revenue due to what was then considered by some to be a lack of success by the Customs and Revenue Services in coping with the smuggling problem. It is perhaps unfair to lay the blame for this entirely upon them as, amongst other things, we know that manpower was short compared with the smuggling gangs they came up against; pay was poor and even the ships they used were invariably slower and less well armed than the smugglers’ own vessels. Run along Naval lines the new service provided employment for the considerable number of service men that were otherwise no longer required following the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Buildings such as the Napoleonic Martello Towers along our southern coasts, barracks and forts were utilised. These were known as Coast Blockade Stations or “Watch” houses and many existing houses were also converted for this purpose or were newly built. However, none of the houses were fortified as such being intended only as lookout posts (or “watch” houses) and for housing the officer’s and rating’s own families – something of a first in providing facilities for employees! During the period of the Blockade (1817 – 1831) the areas were reorganised from time to time and some watch houses abandoned in favour of better sites.

 The Victoria History of the County of Sussex (vol.VI. part 1, 1980) states that a coastguard station was built at South Lancing c.1820, and perhaps this was the station known by the Blockade Service as ‘West Shoreham’ (Copperas Gap as far east as Portslade was known as East Shoreham station) but, confusingly, Shoreham Beach was generally regarded then as belonging to Lancing. Another was recorded at Shoreham Beach on the 1851 census returns and another was built at Kingston (where a pilot’s watch house existed) “to replace the one at Shoreham Beach in 1900.”(1)

Two surveys of Shoreham Harbour dated 1829 and 1844 (Mss.20,107 and 20,109) both show a “Preventative Service Watch House” at the same location as shown on the 1860 Ordnance Survey map, although the one at Copperas Gap is depicted further west, at Fishersgate, in 1844. C & J Greenwood’s 1 inch to 1 mile survey published in 1825 however shows two “watch houses” (not “Block” houses – the Navy never referred to them as such) on the shingle spit west of the harbour outlet, the most westerly one roughly where the 1860 one is shown, although it is difficult to be absolutely certain on such a small scale map.(2) All the foregoing is prior to 1857 and cannot be confused with the Shoreham Fort as this is sited at the harbour mouth and upon which work did not begin until that year and finished in June.(3)

 There is little doubt therefore that if not the earliest original site, the Watch House or Coastguard Station as it later became is clearly shown on the 1860 map at a point at the sea end of where Ferry Road now is, on it’s south-western corner and where it almost certainly stood from at least 1829 in one form or another and possibly earlier.

 The plan of the 1860’s building gives us an idea of its’ shape, a long ‘L’ with numerous smaller extensions (sheds or water closets for the families?) protruding from it at regular intervals and around its grounds other outbuildings and a flagstaff. If the station was moved to Southwick in 1900 it is probable that the building was demolished during the development of ‘Bungalow Town’ on the Beach during the first half of the 20th century.

As regards the individual Shoreham blockade men and coastguards we do have records of some of them. The New Shoreham Parish Records provide the following names entered by a diligent parish clerk who also included their occupations:-

George Shirley, Preventative Service 1823
William Hyatt of Lancing Blockade Service 1828
Charles Entisell, Blockade Service 1829
Thomas Dipper, Blockade man 1830
Matthew Hodge, Blockade Service of Shoreham Watch House 1831
Richard Rowland Turner, Coastguard of Shoreham Watch House 1831 & 1833
William Barrett, Coastguard of Coastguard Station House 1834 &1836
James Clark, Coastguard of the Stationhouse on the beach 1836
George Canning of the Station House 1837

The censuses also provide us with:-
Thomas White born at Cowes on the Isle of Wight living in Ship Street, 45years old, Superannuated Coast Guard 1841 and again in 1851
William Newell born at Selsey living in St.John Street, 67 years old, Superannuated Coastguard 1851
Richard Gill born at Mevagissy, Cornwall living in East Street, 61 years old, Superannuated Coastguard 1851
Thomas Butler, a Shoreham man by birth living in the High Street, 53 years old, Superannuated Coastguard Boatman 1851

Whilst the Coastguards named in1841 and 1851 are mostly past active service age they nevertheless indicate a likelihood that they were once serving in Shoreham and perhaps even as Blockade men before they were transferred to the Coastguard Service.

(Official references to the Blockade Service ceased in favour of the Coastguard during 1831 and the Watch House became the Station House.)

Some later coastguard personnel are also recorded in the parish records:-
Jonathan Dale, Coastguard 1857
Thomas Billett, Coastguard 1862
William Rocketts, Coastguard 1863
Edward Cord, Coastguard 1866
William Slaven, Coastguard 1869 (lived at Lancing and perhaps stationed there)
James Brunnen, Coastguard 1870
Henry Popham, Coastguard 1871
William Hines, Coastguard 1871, Rodney P.Jones, Coastguard 1871, Joseph Henry Hicks, Coastguard 1873 are all recorded as living in Lancing and again could have been stationed there.
R.P.Jones, Coastguard 1873
Thomas Fuller, Coastguard 1873
John Stephens, Coastguard 1880 (another Lancing resident)

 We know what Blockade Able Seamen (probably including the likes of some of those named above) would have dressed like as an1825 muster shows us that the uniforms provided to them included:- three blue jackets and trousers, 6 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, 1 duck frock, 3 pairs of stockings, 3 flannel waistcoats, 2 black hats (these were round with a flat top and brim made of leather or japanned canvas) and around their necks they wore a black kerchief.

What of the individuals themselves and how were they received in the town? Run along Naval lines the discipline of its’ own men was tough enough (flogging was still a common feature of punishment) and these were, in any case, men already hardened by life at sea during the Napoleonic Wars. As a result the Service was a hard and at times ruthless force, purposely intended as such to provide a more effective method of countering the smuggling problem.

On the other hand, many townsfolk were themselves involved in the smuggling trade, if not directly then certainly by way of passive or implied support as there were few Shoreham inhabitants that did not benefit through the cheap purchase of silks, liquor, tea tobacco, etc.,.  Hitherto, although the Customs and Revenue men had some limited success and were generally to be avoided, enough goods nevertheless got through to satisfy most people’s needs but the new Service seemed to provide a far greater threat!

Consequentially, relationships generally with local Customs men had not been altogether healthy then became far worse with the arrival of the Blockade men particularly in the earlier years of the Service - a situation that was to cause as many problems for the Service as it was for the smugglers themselves. There are many instances throughout the country then where smugglers that had actually been caught red handed with contraband goods or captured having maimed and wounded blockade men were nevertheless set free by a completely unsympathetic legal system!

Shoreham was no exception. On the 7th December 1825 Lieutenant Henry Leworthy of the West Worthing Blockade Station had seen a cutter with a boat in tow hovering off the beach. As soon as it became dark he launched his galley and quietly laid alongside the cutter unseen by the crew until the last moment and six men and 92 tubs of spirits were taken as well as the cutter – the Mayflower of Brighton. The men were subsequently prosecuted in the Shoreham Court before magistrate John Wakefield. Five of the six were convicted and given light fines but John Wilkinson, who admitted to owning the illicit cargo and being on board the Mayflower at the time was freed because he claimed to suffer from fits!

Wilkinson, a Shoreham man well known to everyone as smuggler, was examined physically prior to the court hearing by Mr.Peins, Blockade Surgeon, and pronounced fit for naval service. In his defence Wilkinson produced nothing by way of medical evidence to show he was epileptic but did have letters from nine citizens of Shoreham. Eight of these were dismissed by the Blockade report as being “… all brothers in the trade.”- the one exception being Mrs. Anro landlady of the Royal George but, according to the report, that hostelry was “nothing more than a pot house in a nest of smugglers.” Word of Wilkinson’s release soon spread around the town and magistrate John Wakefield was cheered round the streets.

Despite these demoralising setbacks the success of the Coast Blockade by 1830, whilst limited, did have some effect on smuggling added to which local magistrates had by now adopted a more sympathetic response resulting in far more successful convictions of captured smugglers. In the same year the number of land stations in the Sussex Blockade Service were West Division 15, Centre 21 and East 31. Shoreham West’s complement was 2 officers, 3 petty officers and 20 men so that even though not all of them may have had wives and families the Watch House must have been quite crowded. Shoreham West was the first station in the Western Division that stretched to Chichester – the so called Shoreham East at Copperas Gap was in the Centre Division. Neither Shoreham stations appear to have had semaphore signal capabilities although Hurd’s 1812 Admiralty Chart shows that there was one up on Slonk Hill behind the town (see 6b in Historic Maps of Shoreham on shoregambysea.com web site).

The Blockade’s days were numbered however as it had been an expensive campaign and was now under scrutiny following the Duke of Wellington’s replacement as Prime Minister by Lord Grey and a new First Lord in the Admiralty – by 1831 it was disbanded. As a campaign, like the Customs before it, the Blockade only achieved a limited measure of success although no armed force in the country at that time could have actually stopped huge flow of illicit contraband. Essentially, it was a war of attrition where armed service discipline and determination gradually turned the pattern of smuggling away from armed gangs fighting on the shores to concealment on vessels.

 Many of the watch houses had long been provisioned with mortars for firing lines on to ships in distress as well as other life saving equipment and had been responsible for saving lives themselves as well as promptly reporting floundering vessels in order to muster aid promptly.

The Coastguard Service that had already been in existence for a few years by then was also involved in anti smuggling duties but besides continuing this after 1831 (under the control of the Board of Customs) also started to take on more of a life saving role. Men from the disbanded Blockade Service were either stood down (with pensions if they were lucky) or transferred to the Coastguards and many of the watch houses such as Shoreham were taken over.

Concealed smuggling continued in a big way for a few years but a most effective deterrent virtually eradicated large scale smuggling in 1841 when Prime Minister Robert Peel amended the country’s duty tariffs. Many duties of customs and excise were reduced and compensated by the reintroduction of income tax so that for the smuggler there was no longer any profit or not sufficient to support a commercial venture.



Roger Bateman
Shoreham
April 2003
(revised March 2010)

Sources:- generally, from ‘The Coast Blockade 1817 - 1831’ by Roy Philp. Compton Press;(1) & (2)West Sussex Record Office; (3)John Goodwin’s “The Military Defence of West Sussex” (Middleton Press 1985) NB This has been written without any reference to the records at Kew which may provide further information.