Later, Nevison was arrested for the robbery in Gads Hill and in his defence, produced the Lord Mayor of York as his alibi witness. The Lord Mayor could prove Nevison was in York at 8pm on the day of the robbery and the court refused to believe that a man would have committed that time in Kent and ridden to York by 8pm the same day.
He was found not guilty of that crime and emerged as a folk hero, even impressing the king of England.
There are few other accurate records of Nevison's career. His gang of six outlaws met at the Talbot Inn at Newark and robbed travellers along the Great North Road as far north as York and as far south as Huntingdon. He was arrested several times - in 1674, when he escaped from Wakefield goal before charges could be brought, and again in 1676 on charges of robbery and horse-stealing.
Nevison was sentenced to transportation to Tangiers, but returned to England, (or escaped before the ship disembarked from Tilbury) and once more took to highway robbery.
He was arrested yet again in 1681 and escaped with the ingenious rouse of 'playing dead' getting an accomplice to masquerade as a doctor and pronounce him dead of the plague.
The net was closing in around him however, especially after he killed a man called Fletcher, a constable who died while trying to arrest him.
He was targeted by bounty hunters, and after a tip-off from the landlady was captured while drinking at the Magpie (or Plough) Inn at Sandal, near Wakefield.
His execution was never in doubt and he was hanged at York Castle on May 4, 1684. The body was buried at St. Mary Church, York, in an unmarked grave.
The Black Robin - Kingston
The Black Robin Public House stands at the gateway to the village of Kingston in Kent. Legend has it and many are thought to believe that it is named after a highwayman. But the term 'Black Robin' actually comes from the old Kentish slang for 'highwayman'. Basically similar to the Cockney slang 'Tea Leaf' (Thief).
The Black Robin pub was used by smugglers and a network of other smuggling gangs as well as highwaymen. The most notorious of all being The Aldington Gang who operated from 1820-1826. They used local pubs to drop off their goods where they would then be sold to people within the community at a price but without the heavy tax.
Goods would be unloaded from the Deal, St. Margaret's Bay area and down onto the Romney Marshes. The leader at the time was Cephas Quested who was doing quite well until he and two other gangs were involved in a battle with Customs men (Preventivemen) at the Battle of Brookland in February 1821. The battle took place when the gangs were caught unloading; they still managed to load up their goods while fighting and scatter across the county.
Cephas Quested in the confusion of battle turned to a man near him, give him a musket and told him to 'Blow the officer's brains out’. ‘Unfortunately for him, he mistook the man as a colleague and instead turned to Richard Morgan, a midshipman of the blockade force who promptly turned the gun on Quested. Cephas was tried at the Old Bailey on April 17th and later hung at Newgate Prison on 4th July, 1821.
George Ransley took over as leader of the gang, he had excellent organisational abilities. According to legend, George was a Ploughman/carter. It is also said that one night there was a fight between gang members, leading to one of their members being murdered in the Black Robin.
He was dragged outside and left on the road. Locals of the area and passers-by have been witness to the sound of groans, possibly from the murdered gang member but no-one knows for certain. Many incidents have happened at this junction over the years and the eerie sounds that can sometimes be heard, could be from any number of sources.
George Ransley and his gang were eventually caught on 4th July, 1826 on the beach at Dover. Ironically five years to the day Quested was hung. Richard Morgan the midshipman was killed and Ransley was arrested on suspicion of the murder.
If found guilty, the charges carried the death penalty but their lawyer, a local gentleman from Maidstone, got the sentences reduced to transportation to Tasmania or Van Dieman's Land as it was known then by Europeans, because the crime had occurred in the dark and the actual circumstances were difficult to prove.
George proved an excellent farmer, a good administrator, was granted a conditional pardon on 22 June 1838. His brother-in-law (Samuel Bailey) was also on board the same ship (Governor Ready) as was fellow gang members Thomas Gillham and James Hogben. Ransley was given 500 acres of land and his wife and ten children were allowed to sail out to join him. He farmed at River Plenty, Hobart. He died there in 1856.
The Hawkhurst Gang
The Hawkhurst Gang named after their home village of Hawkhurst was first mentioned in 1735 as the Holkhourst Genge, and were one of the most famous gang of smugglers to inhabit our area.
It is believed that their influence spread from Dorset to the Kent coast. The gang were able to control the area until their leaders were executed in 1748 and 1749.
Their main base was at the Oak and Ivy Inn on the Sandhurst road in Hawkhurst, they also enjoyed frequenting the town of Rye, where at the Mermaid Inn they "would sit and drink with loaded pistols on the table".
There are many legends about the tunnels the Hawkhurst Gang built from the Oak and Ivy. It is believed that tunnels went to Tubs Lake on the Cranbrook road (named after the tubs of brandy found floating on the water), to the Royal Oak in the village centre, Four Throws on the Sandhurst road, and to the building where the Tudor Court Hotel now stands.
In 1822 a cave used as a smugglers store with empty liquor bottles in one corner was discovered in Sopers Lane, Hawkhurst. It is recorded that on the island in the pond across the road, "having caught one of their comrades giving information to Revenue Officers, the gang pegged the smuggler to the ground by means of straps, with his head barely out of the water".
When he was discovered by the locals the following morning, he was only just alive, but on recovering decided to flee.
In 1740, at Silver Hill between Hurst Green and Robertsbridge a Revenue Officer Thomas Carswell was shot and killed while trying to apprehend some of the smugglers. One of the guilty smugglers George Chapman was gibbeted in his home village Hurst Green on the village green.
In 1744, it is recorded that three large cutters unloaded contraband at Pevensey and 500 pack horses carried the goods inland. This shows the freedom that the smugglers enjoyed, as 500 pack horses would have been difficult to conceal.
In 1748 one of the gang brought a large cargo of brandy, tea and rum over from France in his cutter. A Customs cutter captured and seized two tons of tea, thirty nine casks of brandy and rum and some coffee.
The goods were stored in the customs house in Poole Dorset. Some of the smugglers escaped and contacted the gang, who attacked the Customs House, and rescued their contraband. The Customs Service were very displeased with this attack and offered a large reward.
Several months later one member of the gang Diamond was arrested and gaoled at Chichester. Another member of the gang Chater offered an alibi for Diamond. Unfortunately, while Chater was with a customs office named Galley, he was seen in a pub by a local informer, who told the gang.
The gang thought that Chater was informing on them, and so provided drink to the couple, who became drunk, and sleepy. They were woken by being whipped, tied to a horse, and whipped until both were nearly dead.
The gang thought they had killed the customs officer Galley, and buried him (alive as it turned out). They kept Chater chained up in a shed for a few more days then decided that they would all kill him, by tying a string to the trigger of a gun, with all of them pulling.
However to intimidate other informers a more brutal method was decided upon, Chater was attacked with a knife, then thrown head first down a thirty foot well, and large stones thrown down on him until he was dead.
Until these two murders the Hawkhurst Gang was looked on as benefactors by the local population but they turned the tide against the smugglers, and the leader Arthur Gray from Hawkhurst was executed for the murder of Thomas Carswell in 1748
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The Highwayman 0f Oxney Bottom
At some point during the 1700′s the youngest son of a Deal Innkeeper took advantage of the winding and gloomy nature of the highway through Oxney to launch a career as a highwayman.
He would hide behind the trees and step out in front of the Dover coach, robbing its passengers of all their jewellery and money at gun point. He had the traditional sense of honour and never robbed the ladies.
Eventually he was ambushed by two constables from Dover and after his trial he was hanged in chains on a tree at the site of his exploits.
He is the first ghost reputed to walk these gloomy woods, and yet was almost unknown when the author of “Ramblings in Kent with Pen and Paper” mentioned him to locals in the pub at Ringwould in 1928. Writings from riders on the Dover stagecoach refer to Oxney Bottom and its dark pervading gloom.
Apparently it was a stopping point for watering the horses and allowing the passengers to stretch their legs on the journey between Dover and Deal. No recent evidence has come to light to show that this ghost still walks the woods.
The Highwayman is identified as Thomas Saperg, who was hanged aged 36, in 1757, and supposedly was of unsavoury character, whom was forced to his actions by poverty and never committed robbery against any ladies.
Miles Andrews & the Dartford Mystery
It was approaching midnight on 27th November 1799 and Miles Andrews had already retired to bed at his house in Dartford, for he was feeling under the weather and had left his partner's wife, Mrs Pigou, to look after his houseful of guests. Andrews, was MP for Bewdley and owner of the Dartford gunpowder mills.
This evening's gathering at his house near the present Walnut Tree Avenue was as noisy and boisterous as ever. It would be more so on the Monday when his great friend Thomas, Lord Lyttleton, had promised to come to join the party. Andrews and Lyttleton had for years been great companions. They had participated in 'many an orgy and in great profligacy'.
Andrews was suddenly roused sometime between eleven and twelve o'clock. The bed curtains were thrown back and as he sat up he was aware of a figure at the bed end. There was someone standing there wearing a nightcap and gown. Was it Lyttleton? It surely was.
What the devil was the fellow doing here at this time of night? What was he up to, decked out in this manner? But there came no answer to those questions.
There was simply a grim voice telling him that all was over. All over? What on earth ... was this another of Lyttleton's tricks? One of his customary foolish pranks? Andrews was poorly, in no mood for frivolity. He leaned over the side of the bed, picked up a slipper and threw it at the figure. But there was no one there. Lyttleton had vanished. Believing it to be a dream Andrews returned to sleep.
At four o'clock the following afternoon Andrews heard that his friend was dead. He had died at about midnight the previous day. The shock of this information caused Andrews to faint, unable to accept what he was hearing.
Had his friend not appeared at his bedside at that time, at the very hour when he was alleged to have died? And had they not once in jest, he remembered, promised each other that the first of them to die would appear to the other?
But this ghostly visit was not the only mystery of this strange story. In London something had disturbed the peace of Thomas, Lord Lyttleton three days earlier.
It was at his Hill Street home in Berkeley Square the Lyttleton had his experience on Thursday 24th November 1799. He described how he had heard a footstep at the bottom of his bed and when he looked up there was a figure all in white. She had pointed at him and uttered her awful warning. 'Prepare to die in 3 days'
3 days later, while staying in Epsom, Lyttleton was taken ill. He had some kind of fit; nevertheless, he recovered sufficiently to take a hearty dinner. He did himself express some confidence, saying to one of the Miss Amphletts that he did not expect to see any ghost that night.
He went off to be at eleven thirty, still a shade concerned perhaps that the third day was not yet over and that there was another thirty minutes left before he could breathe easily.
As Lyttleton prepared for bed he looked constantly at his watch. At eleven fifty eight he called his manservant, William Stuckey, to close his bed curtains. But soon after midnight he was cheerfully asking about bread rolls he would like for breakfast. Triumphant, he told the manservant: 'The mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find.'
Now Lord Lyttleton ordered the manservant to mix his medicine, a mixture of rhubarb and mint water, but was furious to see the man stirring it with a toothpick. 'Slovenly dog,' she shouted at Stuckey, telling him to bring a spoon. But when Stuckey returned to his master's bedroom, only a minute or so later, he saw that Lyttleton was seriously ill.
Leaving the room once more he ran down to the drawing room where many of the guests were still enjoying themselves. 'My Lord is dying,' Stuckey called, but by the time his friends arrived at his bedside Lyttleton was already dead. The watch he still held in his hand read twelve fifteen.
But the dead men had been deceived. He was unaware that his friends had advanced all their watches by half an hour and that they had arranged for all of the clocks in the house to be similarly advanced.
Even Lyttleton's own pocket watch and the clock by his bedside had been surreptitiously tampered with by his friends, who had thought that they could in this way lessen his anxieties. And indeed it had done.
But in keeping with the prophecy, his lordship died on the third day shortly before midnight.
But what of Miles Andrews? What was it that he saw in his bedroom at Dartford at the very hour of his friend’s death in Epsom? Whatever it was, it took Andrews three years to recover from the shock. He had no doubt that he had been visited by a man who had just died thirty miles away.
Maybe David Beckham almost didn't exist
One of the National icons of this century is the footballer David Beckham, so much is known about him and his family but a barely known story shows that he may be very lucky to be here at all.
William Beckham was killed in the Leysdown tragedy in 1912. William's brother George is thought to be David's close relation possibly a grandfather, though this has never been confirmed or denied by the Beckham family.
There were three Beckham brothers involved in the tragedy George and Arthur survived but William was lost. Meaning if things had gone differently David may never had been born at all.
The terrible tragedy occurred on the 4th August 1912, off Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. In the early afternoon, a cutter capsized when a gust of strong wind caught it as it was heading for shore.
On board were 23 Boy Scouts, belonging to the Dulwich Scouts Mission and five adults, who had left Erith with the tide about 8 o'clock in the morning.
Most of the occupants were thrown into the sea and some of them were washed seaward. Some of the boys were able to cling to the upturned boat, but a number of them were washed clear.
Most of the lads were able to swim, and the men in the party did their best to keep them afloat, but before help could reach them from the shore, a number of them had perished.
The accident had been seen from the Leysdown Coastguard station, and the men under Chief Petty Officer Streeter, who was in charge, immediately launched their boat and went to the rescue, followed by a number of swimmers belonging to the Sheppey Boy Scouts. Under Scoutmaster Picot, they left their camp with life lines over a mile long to render assistance.
When the Coastguard cutter reached the scene of the disaster, it picked up 15 Scouts and the five adults, all of whom were in the water, and virtually exhausted Scoutmaster Marsh was last to be pulled from the water as he continued to battle to save the boys in his care.
He eventually had to be forcefully pulled into the cutter in his desperation to find all the boys. When the Coastguard crew had realised that they could save no more, they set out for the shore, and the rescue party of Scouts, who had swum over a mile, were ordered back.
Two of the rescued la
ds were unconscious, and several others of the party were almost in a state of collapse. Scoutmaster Picot succeeded after 30 mins. in resuscitating one of the boys named Schofield, but another lad succumbed despite attempts at resuscitation, after a head count it became clear that nine boys had lost their lives.
These were: Harry Gwynn, James Skipsey, Thompson Filmer, Noel Filmer, Frank Masters, William Beckham, Edward Smith, Percy Huxford, and Albert Dack.
The Coastguard Watch Station kept watch for the missing bodies, and eventually the bodies of seven boys were recovered leaving one unaccounted for. Percy Huxford was missing, ten scouts, scoured for days the flats between Warden Point and Shellness for the body of Percy, but there was no sign.
Abridged Legends of Kent Page 4