England’s south and west coasts were rife with smuggling during the 18th century – and one Dorset man made a remarkably successful career of it. In the 1770s, Isaac Gulliver was dubbed Dorset’s ‘King of the Smugglers.’
Running his business from Sixpenny Handley, some 30 miles from the coast, Gulliver regularly had 15 tugboats bringing in goods from across Europe. Everything from gin to tea, lace to silk was brought into Poole and Lyme Regis.
Smuggling was always dangerous work and Gulliver’s gangs had to use ingenious methods to avoid the clutches of the Preventative Men – the customs and excise officers charged with tackling the rampant smuggling. Gulliver’s men would use churchyards to hide their hauls, with empty tombs proving ideal storage spaces for their illegal goods.
Legend has it that Gulliver himself had to utilise an open grave when the Preventatives were breathing down his neck, smearing white chalk over his face before jumping into the hole and playing dead as the King’s men were searching.
So how did the King of the Smugglers manage to step away from the illegal importing of goods and, in later life, be given a royal pardon, eventually dying as a respected businessman?
It would seem that conducting his smuggling with a degree of gentleman-approved standards – and not killing anyone in the process – along with an enormous stroke of luck, helped Gulliver to enjoy a fruitful and profitable life.
Brazen smugglers
By the time Gulliver was in his late teens, in 1765, he was already following in his father’s footsteps. His strong physique was a great fit with for the smuggling operations. While he somehow managed to stay out of the courts, it wasn’t for lack of effort on the part of the custom officers who on more than occasion thought they had him.
A 1779 raid on a granary near the Dolphin Inn at Kinson revealed a stash of 541 gallons of rum and brandy and 1,871 lbs of raw coffee, but as happened every time they found smuggled goods, the authorities could not get charges against Gulliver to stick.
While the ‘gentleman smuggler’ tag may have stuck with Gulliver, it didn’t mean that his men were a soft touch. Known as ‘white-wigs’ due to their hair, whitened by powder, and distinctive smock-frocks, they would mete out punishment to Preventatives if they got too close to halting operations. One time, they caught a number of Preventatives spying on them and hung them over a cliff by their feet before brazenly continuing with their unloading of illicit goods in front of their eyes. Once done, the Preventatives were brought down and left tied up together in a field to be found.
Turning respectable
Gulliver’s path away from smuggling was opened up in 1782, when the Royal Navy was fighting the French and Spanish as part of the global American Revolutionary War. King George III issued a proclamation promising to pardon any smuggler who volunteered for the Navy. Significantly for Gulliver, if three substitutes could be provided on their behalf, then a pardon would be received with no service demanded. At that point, Gulliver was one of the wealthiest men in Dorset, with land and properties around the county, and he was in a position to pay off three of his men to take up the Navy’s offer. Gulliver promptly retired – with a royal pardon excusing his lifetime of smuggling.
Ever the businessman, Gulliver continued with entrepreneurship ventures but these were legitimised by the banker who had married Gulliver’s daughter. The former smuggler had become an esteemed businessman, having a positive effect on communities across the county. In 1817 he moved to Gulliver House in West Borough, Wimborne, where he died a wealthy and respectable man in 1822. He was buried in Wimborne Minster, where he had served as a churchwarden.
Despite this, rumours have persisted that Gulliver didn’t totally change his spots. While he reportedly retired from having direct involvement in his smuggling operations in 1800, decades later The Poole Pilot newspaper ran a story that suggested differently. The paper reported that a record amount of contraband had been landed from three luggers anchored near Bournemouth Pier at the turn of the century, and that Gulliver was the mastermind of the haul. But, as throughout his life, there was no hard evidence linking him to the smuggling, and the authorities once again came away empty-handed.
