3088-8
Smuggling in Annandale
TDGNHAS Series III, 88 (2014), 85(WARNING large file size: 7.34 MB)
The history of smuggling in Annandale covers the complete story of that trade in Dumfries and Galloway during the period between the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. It includes all aspects of the trade from the merchant based in Annan who engaged in tobacco, brandy and wine smuggling, to the tenant farmer living on the Solway shore who smuggled smaller cargoes of contraband from the Isle of Man and beyond. In addition, there was a brief period when Scottish salt and whisky were smuggled across the Border into England. During the 1720s, the collectors of customs at Dumfries became obsessed with stopping the smuggling trade in Annandale — they were unsuccessful. Smuggling only ended over a century later, when it became uneconomical.