Battle of Bossenden Wood

Last updated

Scene at Bossenden Wood drawn by an eyewitness, expressly for the Penny Satirist Tragic scene at Bossenden Wood.jpg
Scene at Bossenden Wood drawn by an eyewitness, expressly for the Penny Satirist

The Battle of Bossenden Wood took place on 31 May 1838 near Hernhill in Kent; it has been called the last battle on English soil. The battle was fought between a small group of labourers from the Hernhill, Dunkirk, and Boughton area and a detachment of soldiers sent from Canterbury to arrest the marchers' leader, the self-styled Sir William Courtenay, who was actually John Nichols Tom, a Truro maltster who had spent four years in Kent County Lunatic Asylum. Eleven men died in the brief confrontation: Courtenay, eight of his followers and two of those sent to apprehend them. The background context of the battle was the impact of new Poor Law and it has been linked with the Swing riots. [1]

Contents

Background

Courtenay John Nichols Thom.jpg
Courtenay

Courtenay had appeared in Canterbury in 1832, standing unsuccessfully in the December 1832 general election and, although suspected of being an imposter, becoming a popular local figure. He had been convicted of perjury in 1833 after giving evidence in defence of some smugglers. Originally sentenced to transportation, he had been transferred to Barming Heath Asylum after a woman from Cornwall, Catherine Tom, identified him as her missing husband and said he had previously been treated for insanity. [2] On his release from the asylum in October 1837, instead of returning to his family in Cornwall, he stayed in Kent and built up a following in the area of Boughton under Blean, Hernhill and the Ville of Dunkirk. The area had already experienced agrarian discontent and protest against the New Poor Law of 1834 and the farm labourers, and a few of the smallholders and trades people, were receptive to Courtenay’s millenarian preaching and promises of a better life. [3]

On 29 May, Oak Apple Day, Courtenay and a band of followers began to march around the nearby countryside with a flag and a loaf of bread on a pole (a traditional symbol of protest). [4] Courtenay rode a grey horse; his followers were on foot. Although at this stage the protesters were acting peacefully some wealthier landowners were becoming alarmed, and on 31 May 1838, a local magistrate, Dr Poore, issued a warrant for Tom's arrest. [5] It is not clear exactly what the warrant was for – to arrest Courtenay or to arrest workers who were in breach of contract with their employers. [6] A parish constable, John Mears, together with his brother, Nicholas Mears, and an assistant, Daniel Edwards, went to find Courtenay at Bossenden Farm, where he was staying with his followers. Courtenay shot and killed Nicholas Mears, the constable's brother. [7]

Battle

When news of the killing reached the magistrates, they sent to Canterbury for soldiers and a detachment of the 45th Foot was despatched from the barracks. It was led by Major Armstrong, with three junior officers and about a hundred soldiers. The regiment had recently returned from India, and the following year they would kill twenty Chartists at Newport. While they were waiting for the soldiers, a group of armed gentry and farmers took shots at Courtenay and his band as they moved around the Hernhill area. [8] By this time some of Courtenay’s followers had escaped. There were about 35 or 40 left, armed only with sticks, except for Courtenay who had pistols and a sword and one follower who had a pistol. [9]

The soldiers split into two groups to execute a pincer movement. One of the groups, led by Captain Reid and magistrates Knatchbull and Baldock, divided again, with Lieutenant Henry Boswell Bennett at the head of one of the small groups. It was this group that approached Courtenay’s band in the clearing, while the other group, under Major Armstrong and magistrate Poore, circled round to the far side of the clearing. [10] There was a brief fight, lasting only a few minutes. Courtenay shot Bennett dead and then was himself shot and killed as Armstrong’s men opened fire and charged with bayonets. Eight of Courtenay’s followers were killed or mortally wounded. [11] A young man from Faversham, George Catt, who had been helping the magistrates was caught in the soldiers’ fire and killed. [12]

Aftermath

A list of rioters killed in the Battle of Bosenden and buried in Hernhill churchyard. Courtenay is listed as John Tom. Plaque in Hernhill Churchyard.jpg
A list of rioters killed in the Battle of Bosenden and buried in Hernhill churchyard. Courtenay is listed as John Tom.

On Saturday 2 June Lieutenant Bennett was buried in Canterbury Cathedral precincts with full military honours. [13] On the same day an inquest at the White Horse, Boughton, returned a verdict of "justifiable homicide" on the deaths of Courtenay and his followers. Those who were following Courtenay and were killed were: Stephen Baker (22), William Foster (33), William Rye (46), Edward Wraight (62), Phineas Harvey (27), William Burford (33), George Griggs (23), and George Branchett (49). Griggs and Branchett were buried in Boughton churchyard; all the rest, including Courtenay, were buried in Hernhill churchyard. [14]

Over the following days about thirty of Courtenay’s followers were arrested and appeared either at the inquest or at the petty sessions in Faversham. Sixteen were committed for trial on a charge of murder. Ten men would eventually stand trial at Maidstone Assizes in early August, the rest having been discharged by the assize grand jury. [15] Two (Thomas Mears and William Price) were charged with the murder of the brother of the constable and nine (Thomas Mears, Edward Curling, Alexander Foad, William Foad, Richard Foreman, Thomas Griggs, Charles Hills, Edward Wraight, and William Wills) with the murder of Lieutenant Bennett, with one, Thomas Mears, charged with both murders. [16]

Thomas Mears and William Price stood trial first. The jury returned a guilty verdict, with a recommendation for mercy. The judge, Lord Denman, duly pronounced sentence of death but immediately told the men that the sentence would not be carried out. Seeing this result, the nine charged with the murder of Lieutenant Bennett pleaded guilty; they too were sentenced to death but immediately reprieved. Thomas Mears and William Wills were sentenced to be transported to Australia for life, William Price for ten years, and the rest were sentenced to a prison term of one year. [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dunkirk evacuation</span> Evacuation of Allied forces in early 1940

The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the six-week Battle of France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Wyatt the Younger</span> English rebel leader during the reign of Queen Mary I

Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger was an English politician and rebel leader during the reign of Queen Mary I; his rising is traditionally called "Wyatt's rebellion". He was the son of the English poet and ambassador Sir Thomas Wyatt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earl of Devon</span> Title in the Peerage of England

Earl of Devon is a title that has been created several times in the Peerage of England. It was possessed first by the Redvers family, and later by the Courtenay family. It is not to be confused with the title of Earl of Devonshire, which is held by the Duke of Devonshire, although the letters patent for the creation of the latter peerages used the same Latin words, Comes Devon(iae). It was a re-invention, if not an actual continuation, of the pre-Conquest office of Ealdorman of Devon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Disciplinary Barracks</span> Military correction facility in Fort Leavenworth, KS

The United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB), colloquially known as Leavenworth, is a military correctional facility located on Fort Leavenworth, a United States Army post in Kansas. It is one of two major prisons built on Fort Leavenworth property, the other is the military Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, which opened on 5 October 2010. Together the facilities make up the Military Corrections Complex which is under the command of its commandant, who holds the rank of colonel, and serves as both the Army Corrections Brigade Commander and Deputy commander of The United States Army Corrections Command.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westley Allan Dodd</span> Executed American serial killer and sex offender

Westley Allan Dodd was an American convicted serial killer and sex offender who sexually assaulted and murdered three young boys in Vancouver, Washington, in 1989. He was arrested later that year after a failed attempt to abduct a six-year-old boy at a movie theatre in Camas Washington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Freshman</span> Codename of a British operation during WWII

Operation Freshman was the codename given to a British airborne operation conducted in November 1942 during World War II. It was the first British airborne operation using Airspeed Horsa gliders, and its target was the Vemork Norsk Hydro hydrogen electrolysis plant in Telemark, Norway which produced heavy water as a by-product.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dunkirk, Kent</span> Human settlement in England

Dunkirk is a village and civil parish between Faversham and Canterbury in southeast England. It lies on the Canterbury Road between Boughton under Blean and Harbledown. This was the main Roman road from the Kentish ports to London, also known as Watling Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canterbury (UK Parliament constituency)</span> Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1295 onwards

Canterbury is a constituency in Kent represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Rosie Duffield formerly of the Labour Party and since September 2024 an Independent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Nichols Thom</span> Cornish wine-merchant and maltster

John Nichols Tom was a Cornish merchant and maltster who re-invented himself as Sir William Courtenay, stood for parliament in Canterbury, was convicted of perjury in a smuggling case, spent three years in the Kent County Lunatic Asylum, and, following his release, gathered a small band of followers and paraded in the Kent countryside. He, along with several of his followers, was killed in a confrontation with government soldiers in Bossenden Wood, in what has sometimes been called the last battle to be fought on English soil.

Carol Ann Stuart was murdered by her husband, Charles Michael "Chuck" Stuart Jr.. Charles Stuart claimed that a Black man had carjacked their car in Boston and shot both his pregnant wife and himself.

Events from the year 1838 in the United Kingdom.

Lieutenant Henry Boswell Bennett (1809–1838) of the 45th Regiment of Foot became on 31 May 1838 the first officer to die in the service of Queen Victoria when he was shot by John Nichols Thom in Bossenden Wood in Kent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keith Hunter Jesperson</span> Canadian-American serial killer (born 1955)

Keith Hunter Jesperson is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the Happy Face Killer because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and authorities. Many of Jesperson's victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was his preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">45th (Nottinghamshire) (Sherwood Foresters) Regiment of Foot</span> Military unit

The 45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot was a British Army line infantry regiment, raised in 1741. The regiment saw action during Father Le Loutre's War, the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War as well as the Peninsular War, the First Anglo-Burmese War and the Xhosa Wars. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment of Foot to form the Sherwood Foresters in 1881.

Mirusuvil massacre refers to the massacre and subsequent mass burial of eight Sri Lankan Tamil civilians on 20 December 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hernhill</span> Village in Kent, England

Hernhill is a village and civil parish between Faversham and Canterbury in southeast England. The parish includes the hamlets of Crockham, Dargate, The Fostall, Lamberhurst, Oakwell, Staple Street, Thread, Waterham and Wey Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot</span> Assassination plot in Portland, Oregon

In 1985, a group of high-ranking Rajneeshees, followers of the Indian mystic Shree Rajneesh, conspired to assassinate Charles Turner, the then-United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. Rajneesh's personal secretary and second-in-command, Ma Anand Sheela, assembled the group after Turner was appointed to investigate illegal activity at the followers' community, Rajneeshpuram. Turner investigated charges of immigration fraud and sham marriages, and later headed the federal prosecution of the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack in The Dalles, Oregon.

Liam Holden was an Irish man who, in 1973 at the age of 19, was sentenced to death by hanging following his conviction for killing a British soldier in Northern Ireland. He was the last person sentenced to death in the UK, as Northern Ireland maintained the death penalty following its abolition in Great Britain in 1969. There were, however, cases in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man where death sentences were issued after this date, the last against Anthony Teare. As no one had been executed in Northern Ireland since Robert McGladdery in 1961, it was held unlikely that the sentence would be carried out.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Last battle on British soil</span>

There are several contenders for the title of last battle on British or English soil, depending largely on how one defines battle and how one classifies various events.

Myall Creek is a rural locality split between the local government areas of Inverell Shire and the Gwydir Shire in New South Wales, Australia. In the 2021 census, Myall Creek had a population of 27.

References

  1. Gore, David (2006). On Kentish Chalk: A Farming Family of the North Downs. David Gore. p. 27. ISBN   978-0-9530912-2-5.
  2. Rogers 1961: 69-71. Courtenay never acknowledged that he was John Nichols Tom and married to Catherine.
  3. Reay 1990: 85
  4. Reay 1990: 85
  5. Rogers: 93-110
  6. Reay 1990: 164
  7. Rogers 1961: 110-112
  8. Reay 1990: 91-92
  9. Rogers 1961: 128-130
  10. Reay 1990: 92-93
  11. Reay 1990: 93
  12. Rogers 1961: 136
  13. Rogers 1961: 147
  14. Reay 1990: 158
  15. Reay 1990: 159
  16. Reay 1990: 159; The Times, 11 Aug 1838, p. 6
  17. Reay 1990: 159-164

Bibliography

Further reading

51°18′0″N0°59′25″E / 51.30000°N 0.99028°E / 51.30000; 0.99028