Books
Phase
Smuggling on the Georgian Coast
1714–1830 CE
Smuggling flourished along parts of the British coast during the Georgian period, driven by high duties on goods such as tea, brandy, tobacco and lace. Coastal communities could depend on illicit trade for income and protection. The state responded through customs officers, informers, patrols and harsh punishment.
Smuggling mattered because it exposed the limits of government authority in local communities. It blurred the line between survival, enterprise and organised crime. It also connected remote coves to international trade and national taxation.
Winston Graham’s Poldark novels make smuggling part of the social and economic texture of late eighteenth-century Cornwall. Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn, though written later and set in a Gothic mode, also draws on the menace of West Country smuggling. Series set on the Georgian coast can use wrecking, customs raids, hidden cargoes, family loyalties and romance under pressure.
