Prisoners of War (Peterborough Museum)

130

Plate XV.—Desk made from the Bones obtained from the Cook-house by the French Prisoners of War at Norman Cross (Peterborough Museum)

131

Plate XVI, Fig. 1.—Mechanical Bone Work Group of Moving Figures on Platform and Pedestal.  Figs. 2 and 3.—Groups of Flowers in Paper Work (Peterborough Museum)

132

Plate XVII.—Plait Merchants trading with the French Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Hunts.

Photogravure of painting by A. C. Cooke, Esq., and reproduced here by the kind permission of the artist.

136

Plate XVIII.—The Bell Inn, Stilton

From a photograph by Mr. A. C. Taylor.

141

Plate XIX.—Facsimile of Order from Board of Transport, 9th April 1802, to Captain Holditch, Owner and Master of Cartel “Argo”

241

Plate XX.—Model of the Prison of Norman Cross, England, in the County of, and 4½ Leagues from, Huntingdon (In the Musée de l’Armée, Hôtel des Invalides, Paris)

251

Plate XXI.—Key Plan of M. Foulley’s Model of the Prison of Norman Cross, England

251

One of the Wells on the Site of the Prison

From a photograph by the Rev. E. H. Brown, July 1910.

254

FOREWORDS

In April 1894 an exhibition was held at the Grand Assembly Rooms, Peterborough, under the auspices of the Local Natural History and Antiquarian Society, the major portion of the exhibits being articles of various descriptions made by the French prisoners of war at the barracks built in 1796–97 for their confinement at Norman Cross.  On that occasion, Dr. Walker drew up a short account of the buildings and their inmates, derived principally from recollections of old people and from old newspaper files.  Now that most of the relics then exhibited, and many others collected from various quarters, have found a permanent home in the Society’s Museum, it has been thought that the lecture embodying that history, which exists to-day only as a newspaper report, should be expanded and reproduced in the more accessible and permanent form of a small volume.

The lecture was incomplete, and to produce an exhaustive history it has been necessary to carry out systematic researches in the British Museum Library, in the Public Record Office, and in other repositories of information.

The general reader of a book is not concerned with the method of its construction, the complete structure is the only thing regarded, yet a very amusing digression could be given describing the difficulties attending the search, especially in the Government stores, for the material which is incorporated in this volume.  Many of the documents utilised had never been looked at since they were placed in sacks at the close of the war, when Red Tape was more rampant than to-day, and when the jurisdictions of several departments overlapped, causing obstructive friction and consequent confusion.  The official calendars and indices afford little or no indication as to the nature of the contents of bundles and rolls; in several cases valuable information has been obtained from bundles giving no hint of the contents, and simply marked “Various” or “Miscellaneous.”

Under the cumbersome and complicated system in vogue in the various offices at the close of the eighteenth century, the very limited staff employed could not keep pace with the pressure of the war.  At Woolwich, Sir William Congreve reported that in some branches of his department the accounts were three and four years in arrears, in one branch as many as seven years, and pleaded for an extra clerk, which request, after some correspondence, was granted.  This pressure led to laxity of supervision, culminating in corruption even in high places, and at last in 1804 General De Lancey, the Barrack Master-General, the head of the department responsible for the buildings at Norman Cross and other depots, was dismissed for defalcations, and the report of a Commission appointed to investigate his accounts from 1792 to that date, affirms that he had “made the most extravagant bargains both for land and buildings, and actually entrusted the contract for the fittings of barracks to a single individual, upon the easiest and most insecure of agreements. . . .  The Commissioners of Audit were ignored, and the authority of the Treasury set aside on the most ridiculous pretexts; and when inquiry was at last made in 1804, it was found that over nine million pounds of public money had been issued to the Barrack Master-General’s department, and that no accurate account could be produced either of the public or private expenditure of the same.”