Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815 A record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings

When the roll of the 46th Regiment (or, as it was, the 46th demi-brigade), of the French Army is called, the name of La Tour d’Auvergne brings forward the sergeant-major of the...

In July 1805, the Transport Office, impressed by the serious crowding of war-prisoners on the hulks at Plymouth and in the Millbay Prison, requested their representative, Mr. Da...

He who, with the object of dealing fairly and squarely with that interesting and unaccountably neglected footnote to British history, the subject of prisoners of war in Britain,...

With the great Scottish prisons at Perth, Valleyfield, and Edinburgh I have dealt elsewhere, and it is with very particular pleasure that I shall now treat of the experiences of...

It is just as hard for the visitor to-day to the site of Norman Cross, to realize that here stood, until almost within living memory, a huge war-prison, as it is at Sissinghurst...

Of the thousands of holiday-makers and picnickers for whom Portchester Castle is a happy recreation ground, and of the hundreds of antiquaries who visit it as being one of the m...

The first prisoners came here in March 1812. They were chiefly some of those who had been hurried away from Wincanton and other towns in the west of England at the alarm that a...

From a dozen accounts by British, American, and French writers I have selected the following, as giving as varied a view as possible of this phase of the War Prison system.

In this and the succeeding chapter I gather together a number of notes connected with the life of the paroled prisoners in Britain, which could not conveniently be classed under...

The newspapers of our forefathers during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries contained very many advertisements like the two following. The first is from the _Western...

It could hardly be expected that a uniform standard of good and submissive behaviour would be attained by a large body of fighting men, the greater part of whom were in vigorous...

The following descriptions of life in parole towns by French writers may not be entirely satisfactory to the reader who naturally wishes to get as correct an impression of it as...

As has been already stated, before the establishment of regular prisons became a necessity by the increasing flow of prisoners of war into Britain, accommodation for these men h...

Saxon prisoners taken at Leuthen were at the ‘New Prison,’ Plymouth, in 1758. In this year they addressed a complaint to the authorities, praying to be sent elsewhere, as they w...

The foreign prisoner of war in Britain, if an ordinary sailor or soldier, was confined either on board a prison ship or in prison ashore. Officers of certain exactly defined ran...

When we come to the consideration of the parole system, we reach what is for many reasons the most interesting chapter in a dark history. Life on the hulks and in the prisons wa...

From first to last the question of the Exchange of Prisoners was a burning one between Great Britain and her enemies, and, despite all efforts to arrange it upon an equitable ba...

In old Calais there is or was a _Rue Tom Souville_. No foreigners and not many Calaisiens know who Tom Souville was, or what he had done to deserve to have a street named after...

The following particulars about the great Dépôt at Perth are largely taken from Mr. W. Sievwright’s book, now out of print and obtainable with difficulty.[5] Mr. P. Baxter of Pe...

To the general reader some of the most interesting episodes of the lives of the paroled prisoners of war in Britain are those which are associated with their escapes and attempt...

hospital, but the doctor would not pass him as an incurable. He swallowed tobacco juice, and at last, in a miserable state, turned up with the candidates. Then it was announced...

About a mile and a half on the Edinburgh side of Penicuik, on the great south road leading to Peebles and Dumfries, is the military station of Glencorse, the dépôt of the Royal...

In April 1759 five French prisoners from the _Royal Oak_ hulk at Plymouth were executed at Exeter for the murder of Jean Maneaux, who had informed the agent that his comrades ha...

During the progress of the Seven Years’ War, from 1756 to 1763, it became absolutely necessary, from the large annual increase in the number of prisoners of war brought to Engla...

‘We can hardly credit the fact that so little reliable information or even traditional legend, remains in the small inland market towns where so many officers were held prisoner...

Liverpool became a considerable dépôt for prisoners of war, from the force of circumstances rather than from any suitability of its own. From its proximity to Ireland, the shelt...

Bristol, as being for so many centuries the chief port of western England, always had her full quota of prisoners of war, who, in the absence of a single great place of confinem...

About the Sissinghurst one looks on to-day there is little indeed to remind us that here stood, one hundred and fifty years ago, a famous war prison, and it is hard to realize t...

About 120 French and Germans were quartered here during the years 1812 and 1813. Many of them lived together in a large house, formerly the Griffith residence, which stood where...

I next give the remarks of Colonel Lebertre, who, having broken his parole by escaping from Alresford, was captured, and put on the _Canada_ hulk at Chatham. This was in 1811. H...

I devoted Chapter VII to the record of Tom Souville, a famous ship-prison-breaker, and in this I hope to give quite as interesting and romantic an account of the career of Louis...

Although the Fortune Prison, as it seems to have been very generally called, had been used for war-prisoners during the Seven Years’ War, its regular adaptation to that purpose...