Not the least interesting relic of the prison days is the prisoners’ burial-ground at the lower end of a field sloping down from the west side of the Great North Road.
On July 28 of the present year (1914) a memorial to the prisoners of war who died at Norman Cross was unveiled by Lord Weardale. The idea originated with Dr. T. J. Walker and Mr. W. H. Sands, and was developed by the Entente Cordiale Society. The memorial is in the form of a stone pillar, surmounted by an eagle with outstretched wings, standing upon a square pedestal approached by steps, the lowermost of which is shaped like the palisading of the old prison, and faces the Great North Road, the burial ground being at the bottom of the field behind it. Upon the monument is inscribed:
‘In Memoriam. This column was erected A.D. 1914 to the memory of 1,770 soldiers and sailors, natives or allies of France, taken prisoners of war during the Republican and Napoleonic wars with Great Britain, A.D. 1793–1814, who died in the military dépôt at Norman Cross, which formerly stood near this spot, 1797–1814.
Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori.
Erected by
The Entente Cordiale Society and friends on the initiative of the late W. H. Sands, Esq., Honorary Secretary of the Society.’
One might expect to find at Yaxley Church, as in so many other places in England associated with the sojourn of war prisoners, epitaphs or registry entries of officers who died on parole, but there are none. All that Yaxley preserves of its old connexion with the war prison are the stone caps of the prison east gate piers, which now surmount the piers of the west churchyard entrance, and the tablet in the church to the memory of Captain Draper, R.N., an agent of the prison, which is thus lettered:
‘Inscribed at the desire and the sole Expence of the French Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, to the memory of Captain John Draper, R.N., who for the last 18 months of his life was Agent to the Depôt; in testimony of their esteem and gratitude for his humane attention to their comforts during that too short period. He died February 23rd, 1813, aged 53 years.’
Memorial to French Prisoners of War who died at Norman Cross
Unveiled July 28, 1914
The Rev. Arthur Brown, in his little book The French Prisoners of Norman Cross, says that the prisoners asked to be represented at his funeral, and that their petition concluded with the assurance that, mauvais sujets as some of them were, not one would take advantage of the liberty accorded them to attempt to escape. It is gratifying to know that their request was granted. Other relics of the prisoners, in the shape of articles made by them for sale with the rudest of tools and the commonest of materials, are tolerably abundant, although the choicest are to be seen in museums and private collections, notably those in the Peterborough Museum and in the possession of Mr. Dack, the curator. Probably no more varied and beautiful specimens of French prisoner work in wood, bone, straw, and grass, than these just mentioned, are to be found in Britain.
The market at which these articles were sold was held daily from 10 a.m. till noon, according to some accounts, twice a week according to others. It was important enough, it is said, to have dwarfed that at Peterborough: as much as £200 was known to have been taken during a week, and at one time the concourse of strangers at it was so great that an order was issued that in future nobody was to be admitted unless accompanied by a commissioned officer. Visitors were searched, and severe penalties were imposed upon any one dealing in Government stores, a Yaxley tradesman in whose possession were found palliasses and other articles marked with the broad arrow being fined heavily, condemned to stand in the pillory at Norman Cross, and imprisoned for two years.
In the year 1796 it became absolutely necessary that special accommodation should be provided for the ever-increasing number of prisoners of war brought to Britain. The hulks were full to congestion, the other regular prisons,—such as they were,—the improvised prisons, and the hired houses, were crowded; disease was rife among the captives on account of the impossibility of maintaining proper sanitation, and the spirit of revolt was showing itself among men just then in the full flush of the influences of the French Revolution. Norman Cross was selected as the site of a prison which should hold 7,000 men, and it was well chosen, being a tract of land forty acres in extent, healthily situated on high ground, connected with the sea by water-ways via Lynn and Peterborough; and with London, seventy-eight miles distant, by the Great North Road. Time pressed; buildings of stone or brick were not to be thought of, so it was planned that all should be of wood, surrounded by a brick wall, but this last was not completed for some time after the opening of the prison. The skeletons of the prison blocks were framed and shaped in London, sent down, and in four months, that is to say in March 1797, the labour of 500 carpenters, working Sundays and week-days, rendered some of the blocks ready for habitation.