Brought to Justice

The record of their trial is very interesting. The original group of smugglers arrested on the charge of murder were moved to London for trial as authorities were worried about the local people trying to free them. A well kept secret at the time was that one of the smugglers, Edward Horne, had turned witness for the crown and had dubbed them in. He gave damning evidence at their trial and it seemed certain that they must hang. There is a full text online book available that gives first hand accounts of the trial called The Smugglers: pictureseque chapters in the history of contraband provided by the Internet Archive site.
The smugglers had a very astute lawyer who managed to reduce their charges to just smuggling and thus saved them from the death sentence. They received a life sentence and Transportation to Van Diemen's Land.

New Leader

After Cephas Quested was hung, George Ransley took up the reins as leader of the gang. He seems to have been a methodical and organised leader. The gang began to expand and become more troublesome to the authorities. The Government issued a 500 pound reward for information leading to the smugglers arrest. Over a period of time the clashes with the excise men became more violent and with the deaths of several people, paricularly Richard Morgan, the support of the community began to wain. As a consequence in October 1826 several members of the Gang were arrested in a raid by the Bow Street Runners and the Blockade men and charged with Morgans murder. These were Robert Bailey, Samuel Bailey (second in charge), Thomas Denard, Thomas Gilham, James Hogben, George Ransley, James Smeed, Thomas Wheeler, Richard Wire and William Wire. The prisoners pleaded not guilty. Later, more men were arrested and charged with aiding and assisting in the illegal running and landing of certain prohibited and uncustomed goods. Among these men was 34 year old John Bailey, my ancestor. There is an excellent site were you can read the transcribed court records at Lynne's Site

The Battle of Brookland

One of the first major confrontations between the gang of Smugglers and the Coastal Blockade took place at the small village of Brookland and consequently became known as the Battle of Brookland. In 1821 250 smugglers where seen off loading their ill gotten supplies, such as brandy, silk and wool, by the Watch House at Camber. They managed to fight off the Blockade men and they withdrew to Brookland where there was a major fight. Five men were killed and twenty more were wounded. The leader of The Blues at that time was Cephas Quested. He was captured and sentenced to hang at Newgate Prison. On Flickr there is a photo of the church at Brookland.

Researching the Aldington Blues

If you are interested in finding out more there is a very good resource The Kent Coast Blockade (now out of print) by R. Finn, based on his grandfather's (James Finn) diary. A copy can be found in the National Library of Australia. Finn, Ralph. 1971, The Kent Coast Blockade, [by R. Finn] (c/o Thanet Printing Works, Church Hill, Ramsgate, Kent), W. E. White, Ramsgate.

Interestingly, Rudyard Kipling lived in the south east of England at one time and wrote a poem called the Smuggler's Song, in which he makes it plain that all the community knew what was going on but turned a blind eye to the smugglers activities.
You can hear the poem made into a song on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVDnSLq2BOg&feature=related

Hi everyone,
The Aldington Blues were a large gang and just about all the community from high to low were involved in some way. The Gang even kept a Doctor on a retainer to look after any wounded smugglers.
Many of the men were ex-soldiers and sailors home from the Napoleonic war, who knew how to fight professionally. The government responded by increasing its Royal Coastal Blockage to 3000 men stretched along 200 miles of the Kent coast. The 14 year stretch from 1815 has been acnowledged as the bloodiest period in 200 years of smuggling. The Wikipedia has a great site about the gang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aldington_Gang

Hi,
Since my last post I have been in contact with a lot of other people who have descended from the Aldington Gang. The Aus-tasmania mailing list is a great way of making contact with other family history researchers. At the moment there are five of us who are interested in the Bailey family and in particular descendants of John Bailey. I am providing information on Elizabeth Bailey, Rae is researching Emily Bailey, Bob is researching Rhoda Bailey and Lynne is interested in the Higgins connections. A lot of the smugglers families intermarried in Tasmania. They seem to have stayed around the New Norfolk/Broadmarsh area.

John Bailey, Smugglers

I created this blog to document my research into the smuggling ring called the Aldington Blues, which operated in Kent in the south of England. My x4 great grandfather, John Baily, and his family where part of the group. John and many of his family members were eventually caught and transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1827.