Norman Cross Prisoner of War Camp, Huntingdonshire
In December 1796, work began on building a prisoner of war camp at Norman Cross on the border between Huntingdonshire and Leicestershire. Intended to house French prisoners of war, it was the first such purpose-built camp.
The site was chosen carefully. It could not be too close to the coast (which would make escape more likely), and near enough to London that it could be reached easily. The camp also needed to be in an area where food and water would be readily available. Norman Cross, on the route of the Great North Road, fitted the bill perfectly.
The number of men held in the camp varied, but on average, the population was around 5,000, mainly from the lower ranks of soldiers and sailors. Occasionally, wives were also taken up if they had been with their husbands on board ships. However, they were generally held outside the prison, as were some officers and civilians of a higher status who were trusted on their honour not to break their parole. Escape attempts by the rank and file prisoners were a regular occurrence, and sometimes successful.
George Borrow (1803-1881) remembered the camp from his youth. Around 1811, his father, Captain Thomas Borrow, was one of the men guarding the camp and his family travelled with him. Borrow’s book, From Lavengro: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest (1851), recalls the journey to Norman Cross.
At length my father was recalled to his regiment, which at that time was stationed at a place called Norman Cross, in Lincolnshire, or rather Huntingdonshire, at some distance from the old town of Peterborough. For this place he departed, leaving my mother and myself to follow in a few days. Our journey was a singular one. On the second day we reached a marshy and fenny country, which owing to immense quantities of rain which had lately fallen, was completely submerged. At a large town we got on board a kind of passage-boat, crowded with people; it had neither sails nor oars, and those were not the days of steam-vessels; it was a treck-schuyt [trekshuit, a form of barge or narrowboat], and was drawn by horses.
Young as I was, there was much connected with this journey which highly surprised me… The country was, as I have already said, submerged—entirely drowned—no land was visible; the trees were growing bolt upright in the flood, whilst farmhouses and cottages were standing insulated; the horses which drew us were up to the knees in water, and, on coming to blind pools and 'greedy depths', were not unfrequently swimming, in which case the boys or urchins who mounted them sometimes stood, sometimes knelt, upon the saddle and pillions… Nightfall brought us to Peterborough, and from thence we were not slow in reaching the place of our destination.
And a strange place it was, this Norman Cross… It consisted, if I remember right, of some five or six casernes [barracks], very long, and immensely high; each standing isolated from the rest, upon a spot of ground which might average ten acres, and which was fenced round with lofty palisades, the whole being compassed about by a towering wall, beneath which, at intervals, on both sides sentinels were stationed, whilst, outside, upon the field, stood commodious wooden barracks, capable of containing two regiments of infantry, intended to serve as guards upon the captives. Such was the station or prison at Norman Cross, where some six thousand French and other foreigners, followers of the grand Corsican, were now immured.
Gambling was rife within the walls of the camp, with some men gambling away both their clothes and their food rations, but generally discipline was good. The prisoners crafted various objects to sell to supplement their income. Fanny Chapman, whose diaries are online, recalled being given an ivory chess set in 1811, which had been carved by a French prisoner of war at Norman Cross. Items made of plaited straw were also sold and traded.
As the war ebbed and flowed, so did the number of prisoners. In the summer of 1802, following the Treaty of Amiens, the prison stood empty and the government advertised the buildings for sale. This was swiftly countermanded when it became obvious that, with hostilities resumed, the buildings comprising the camp would soon be full again. A year later, Dutch and French prisoners were being marched from prison ships to Norman Cross.
After peace had been declared between France and Britain in 1814, the remaining prisoners were free to return home. Most did so, but not all. Jean Habart was one who stayed. He married a local girl and settled in Stilton near Peterborough, where he worked as a maltster and innkeeper and ‘bore an excellent character for honesty and integrity’. He died, aged 63 years, in 1846 when he was discovered, his neck broken, on the ground next to his cart on his return from Peterborough market. The inquest into his death returned a verdict of ‘accidental death,’ but it was suspected that foul play might have been the cause.[i] He was possibly the 20-year-old Jean Hobart captured with other men on 26 June 1803 in a French fishing vessel off Calais, who was employed as a baker while in the camp and discharged in 1811.[ii]
Endnotes:
[i] Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, 31 January 1846 and Stamford Mercury, 6 February 1846.
[ii] Prisoners of War 1715-1945, FindMyPast. Jean Habart married Elizabeth Snow at Yaxley, Hunts, on 7 May 1811.
This is a revised version of a blog post published on a former website.
Comments