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

by Francis Abell

In Montgomeryshire

I am indebted to Canon Thomas of Llandrinio Rectory, Llanymynech, for information which led me to extract the following interesting details from the Montgomeryshire Archaeological Collections.

Batches of French officers were on parole during the later years of the Napoleonic wars at Llanfyllin, Montgomery, Bishop’s Castle, Newtown, and Welshpool.

Llanfyllin

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 is now Bachie Place. Others were at the ‘Council House’ in High Street. In a first-floor room of this latter may still be seen thirteen frescoes in crayon executed by the prisoners, representing imaginary mountain scenery. Formerly there were similar frescoes in a neighbouring house, once the Rampant Lion Inn, now a tailor’s shop, but these have been papered over, and according to the correspondent who supplies the information, ‘utterly destroyed’. These prisoners were liberally supplied with money, which they spent freely. An attachment sprang up between a prisoner, Captain Angerau, and the Rector’s daughter, which resulted in their marriage after the Peace of 1814. It is interesting to note that in 1908 a grandson of Captain Angerau visited Llanfyllin.

The following pleasing testimony I take from Bygones, October 30, 1878:

‘The German soldiers from Hessia, so well received by the inhabitants of Llanfyllin during their captivity, have requested the undersigned to state that the kindness and the favour shewn them by the esteemed inhabitants of Llanfyllin will ever remain in their thankful remembrance.

‘C. W. Wedikind.

‘Newtown, June 17, 1817.’

Montgomery

A correspondent of the Gentleman’s Magazine contributed a notice of the death at Montgomery of an old gentleman named Chatuing who had been nearly four years a prisoner in that town, and who had preferred to remain there after the Peace of 1814.

Occasionally we come across evidence that there were men among the prisoners on parole who were not above acting as Government spies among their fellows. One Beauvernet at Montgomery was evidently one of these, for a Transport Office letter to the Agent in that town in 1806 says:

‘Mr. Beauvernet may rest perfectly satisfied that any information communicated by him will not in any way be used to his detriment or disadvantage.’

Allen, the Montgomery Agent, is directed to advance Beauvernet £10, as part of what ultimately would be given him. One Muller was the object of suspicion, and he was probably an escape agent, as in later letters Beauvernet is to be allowed to choose where he will ‘work’, and eventually, on the news that Muller has gone to London, is given a passport thither, and another £10. Of course it does not follow from this that Beauvernet was actually a prisoner of war, and he may have been one of the foreign agents employed by Government at good pay to watch the prisoners more unostentatiously than could a regular prisoner agent, but the opening sentence of the official letter seems to point to the fact that he was a prisoner.

A French officer on parole at Montgomery, named Dumont, was imprisoned for refusing to support an illegitimate child, so that it came upon the rates. He wrote, however, to Lady Pechell, declaring that he was the victim ‘of a sworn lie of an abandoned creature’, complaining that he was shut up with the local riff-raff, half starved, and penniless, and imploring her to influence the Transport Board to give him the subsistence money which had been taken from him since his committal to prison to pay for the child. What the Transport Board replied does not appear, but from the frequency of these complaints on the part of prisoners, there seems no doubt that, although local records show that illicit amours were largely indulged in by French and other officers on parole, in our country towns, much advantage of the sinning of a few was taken by unprincipled people to blackmail others.

In the Cambrian of May 2, 1806, is the following:

‘At the last Quarter Sessions for Montgomeryshire, a farmer of the neighbourhood of Montgomery was prosecuted by order of the Transport Office for assaulting one of the French prisoners on parole, and, pleading guilty to the indictment, was fined £10, and ordered to find sureties for keeping the peace for twelve months. This is the second prosecution which the Board has ordered, it being determined that the prisoners shall be protected by Government from insult while they remain in their unfortunate position as Prisoners of War.’

Bishop’s Castle

At Bishop’s Castle there were many prisoners, and in Bygones Thomas Caswell records chats with an old man named Meredith, in the workhouse, who had been servant at the Six Bells, where nine officers were quartered. ‘They cooked their own food, and I waited upon them. They were very talkative ... they were not short of money, and behaved very well to me for waiting upon them.’

The attempted escape of two Bishop’s Castle prisoners is described on page [391].

Newtown

‘Mr. David Morgan of the Canal Basin, Newtown, who is now (February 1895) 81 years of age, remembers over 300 prisoners passing through Kerry village on their way from London via Ludlow, to Newtown. He was then a little boy attending Kerry school, and the children all ran out to see them. All were on foot, and were said to be all officers. A great number of them were billeted at various public-houses, and some in private houses in Newtown. They exerted themselves greatly in putting out a fire at the New Inn in Severn Street, and were to be seen, says my informant, an aged inhabitant, “like cats about the roof “. When Peace was made, they returned to France, and many of them were killed at Waterloo. The news of that great battle and victory reached Newtown on Pig Fair Day, in June 1815. I have a memorandum book of M. Auguste Tricoche, one of the prisoners, who appears to have served in the French fleet in the West Indies, and to have been taken prisoner at the capture of Martinique in 1810.’

Welshpool

‘On the occasion of a great fire at the corner shop in December 1813, there was a terrific explosion of gunpowder which hurled portions of timber into the Vicarage garden, some distance off. The French prisoners were very active, and some of them formed a line to the Lledan brook (which at that time was not culverted over), whence they conveyed water to the burning building to others of their comrades who courageously entered it.

‘Dr. P. L. Serph, one of the prisoners, settled down at Welshpool, where he obtained a large practice as a physician and surgeon, and continued to reside there until the time of his death. Dr. Serph married Ann, the daughter of John Moore, late of Crediton in the county of Devon, gentleman, by Elizabeth his wife. Mrs. Serph died in 1837, and there is a monument to their memory in Welshpool churchyard.

‘There is at Gungrog a miniature of Mrs. Morris Jones painted by a French prisoner; also a water colour of the waterfall at Pystyl Rhaiadr, which is attributed to one of them. I recollect seeing in the possession of the late Mr. Oliver E. Jones, druggist, a view of Powis Castle, ingeniously made of diverse-coloured straws, the work of one of the prisoners.

‘It is said that French blood runs in the veins of some of the inhabitants of each of these towns where the prisoners were located.

‘R. Williams.’