{"id":5123,"date":"2026-05-15T09:30:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T09:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/?p=5123"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:50:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:50:39","slug":"smuggling-in-lyme-regis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/2026\/05\/15\/smuggling-in-lyme-regis\/","title":{"rendered":"Smuggling in Lyme Regis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 18th<\/sup> century and the first half of the 19th<\/sup> century are often viewed as the \u2018golden age\u2019 of smuggling in Britain. During this period, Britain was involved in three major wars: the War of Jenkins\u2019 Ear with Spain (1739-1748), the American War of Independence (1775-1783), and the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815). To help fund these wars, Parliament introduced taxes, or \u2018duty\u2019, on certain goods leaving and entering the country. The list of taxable items was constantly growing, and often the duty due on these goods increased over time. This led to a boom in the smuggling trade, with \u2018free traders\u2019 (as the smugglers often called themselves) illegally importing a variety of goods to avoid these high taxes, including silk, lace, tobacco, brandy, chocolate, salt and tea.<\/p>\n

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D-DPA\/1\/LR\/14: The Cobb, Lyme Regis, 1890. Copyright F. Frith & Co. Ltd., Reigate (27356)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many smugglers obtained their goods, like brandy and gin, from France and the Netherlands; so, with Dorset\u2019s prime location on the south coast of England, it was a hotspot for smuggler activity. The coastal town of Lyme Regis was no exception to this illegal trade, and it was frequented by many famous smugglers, including Isaac Gulliver in 1776. Recently, we\u2019ve stumbled across some interesting municipal documents from the Lyme Regis Borough Archive (DC-LR<\/a>) regarding the seizure of various smuggled goods during the 18th<\/sup> century. These records are part of a volume of miscellaneous documents, compiled by C. Wanklyn in the 1940s (DC-LR\/N\/23\/4<\/a>).<\/p>\n