Another leader of this gang was a George Ransley. Ransley was certainly known for his organisational abilities, and some say he was a giant of a man, standing well over 6ft in his socks. Others argue that he was hardly more than 5ft. Some say he was a likeable rogue; others lived in absolute fear of him. No one will ever really know the truth, but there was no doubt that he could be as ruthless as he needed to be to achieve his ends.
Ransley was born in 1792 at Ruckinge, a small village founded in Saxon times, which lies on the northern edge of Romney Marsh. He started work as a ploughman, then a carter, all admirable work when he wasn’t servicing his wife, Elizabeth, which was pretty frequently by all accounts. They had ten children. However, the Ransleys were not quite the law-abiding citizens they claimed to be. The local churchyard contains a simple grave to mark the last resting place of two of George’s brothers, convicted of highway robbery in 1800. They were hanged from a gibbet on nearby Penenden Heath.
For his part in the scheme of things, the story goes that George found a stash of spirits hidden by smugglers and, with the proceeds of the sale, bought his house The Bourne Tap from where he frequently sold the spirits he later landed. Another place frequented by the gang at this time was an Augustine priory in Bilsington – still standing today – which was actually used as a store house.
Ransley took over the gang of smugglers after the Battle of Brookland. He employed a doctor, with an allowance paid to a man’s family if he was ill. It was a policy that avoided the capture of injured men by the Revenue’s forces and helped to ensure loyalty.
The success of smuggling, or any gang-related business, is dependent upon the good will of the local people, and the gang started to lose this special relationship as they extended their ruthless activities beyond that of the publicly acceptable crime of smuggling and turned on rural communities. In fact, several of the gang became burglars, and this, in turn, drew the attention of the Bow Street Runners – the nearest thing to a police force at the time.
In July 1826, the gang was caught on the beach at Dover and a midshipman, Richard Morgan, who was a quartermaster with the blockade, was killed. He was much liked in Dover, and he had spotted the gang trying to run the cargo ashore. After firing a warning shot, the gang turned on him, resulting in his death and the wounding of a seaman who was with him.
The shooting shocked the local community. It was a foolish act which brought about the downfall of George Ransley. A reward was offered for information and several people eventually claimed a part of it.
In October 1826, Ransley and seven others were arrested at Aldington by the Bow Street Runners on suspicion of murder but, as the killing took place in the dark, there were no positive eyewitnesses as to who had squeezed the trigger. Eventually, a total of 19 men were captured and stood trial at Maidstone Assizes in January 1827. They were all found guilty of charges that carried the death penalty, but their lawyer, described as a ‘local gentleman from Maidstone’, managed to get their sentences commuted to transportation. George Ransley was shipped out to Tasmania, where his knowledge of farming stood him in good stead. As a reward for good behaviour, his wife and ten children were allowed to sail out and join him. After being granted a pardon, he started farming 500 acres at River Plenty, Hobart. At the then ripe old age of 77, he passed away at New Norfolk on 25 October 1856. His wife, Elizabeth, survived him by just a few years, dying aged 76. A fascinating insight into this former smuggler’s family tree can be found at: http://sharjarv.tripod.com/gedfiles/gen01344.html.
There is always an edge of romanticism attached to tales of smuggling gangs from days of yore and, although an extremely brutal gang with a brutal reputation to match, the Aldington Gang were not, it is claimed, without a sense of humour. One Revenue officer who was blindfolded and had his legs bound was told he was to be thrown over a cliff. He managed to cling on to tufts of grass as he fell and hung with his legs dangling in the air for some time. It was not until his blindfold slipped that he realised that his feet were a matter of inches above the ground. The ‘cliff’ was only 7ft high! And there is a story that, as a result of a fight between gang members one night, one of the gang was murdered and the body disposed of down a well at the side of an inn. It is said on some nights the sounds of scuffling and a body being dragged outside can still be heard – but maybe that’s just the drink talking.
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The Nottingham suburb of Bestwood conjures up a potpourri of images – the medieval history of Bestwood Park, the industrial history of the quaintly named Papplewick Pumping Station, the ancient colliery, as well as the sometimes troubled housing estate at Bestwood.
And Bestwood has a real story to tell. Its principal characters include Charles II and his somewhat empty-headed actress lover, Nell Gwynne; the founder of the Raleigh cycle company, Sir Frank Bowden; and richly embroidered CV of borough engineer, the splendidly named Marriott Ogle Tarbotton, whose remarkable achievements include building Nottingham’s aforesaid Papplewick Pumping Station.
Ogle stands out as a man who laboured day and night with fevered enthusiasm on the tricky subject of the disposal of human waste, to the extent that he designed and built the city’s first sewerage system. It was a matter that so consumed him that he passed away, exhausted, aged 52, within weeks of its completion.
And who could forget, of course, our legendary Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Supposed residents of nearby Sherwood Forest, they allegedly stole from the rich to give to the poor, yet Mr Hood and his band of followers turned out not quite to be what the myth would have us believe – they were true rascals indeed!
Despite the world renown of Nottinghamshire’s most idolised gang leader, one cannot find a single reference to Robin Hood – a.k.a. Robin of Loxley – in any criminal records, past or present. We don’t know where he was born or where he is buried, suggesting that he may never have been born at all. We don’t know what he looked like – tall, short, fat or thin – the colour of his eyes, his hair, or whether he was straight or gay. Hollywood would have us believe that he wore a daringly short, rather close-fitting waisted Lincoln green jacket and skin-tight tights, as well as a rakish cap, sporting a 2-metre ostrich plume tucked into the headband, and footwear that any self-respecting Shakespearian actor would die for – dun-coloured suede booties, or thigh-high, black leather boots.
In consequence, there remains an enormous amount that we can’t verify about Mr Hood. We don’t know how many people he robbed, nor how many people he and his band of followers killed. We don’t even know his real name. His life, according to many notable authorities, bore a striking similarity to accounts of the life of one Fulk FitzWarin, a Norman nobleman who was disinherited and became an outlaw and an enemy of the tight-fisted King John of England, who argued with the Pope, disputed with his own barons, and died from dysentery, most likely brought upon from a surfeit of poisoned ale, peaches and plums.
In the oldest of legends, Robin’s enemy, due to his role as a bandit, was the Sheriff of Nottingham. But in later versions (if any one of them are based on a shred of fact) the sheriff is despotic and gravely abuses his position, appropriating land, levying excessive taxation, and persecuting the poor – not unlike some senior local government officials today.
In some versions, Robin is a yeoman. In later versions, he is described as the nobleman, Earl of Loxley, who, like the venerable Fulk above, was unjustly deprived of his lands.
In other stories, Robin had served in the Crusades – although no one has defined precisely, somewhat conveniently, which specific Crusade this was – and, upon returning to England, he discovered that everything he owned had been pillaged by the dastardly sheriff.
If this was the case, it’s not hard to see that Robin might be excused his dastardly conduct – he’d given up his day job, borrowed a substantial amount of money to buy a first-rate steed, floated across the English Channel in nothing short of a large coffin, and ridden 1,000 miles deep into the Byzantine Empire to fight a war that for centuries seemed to have no beginning and, at that time, no foreseeable end. Exhausted, Robin would have ridden all the way back to France, re-negotiated the dangerous English Channel to Dover, then dragged his emaciated horse 251