The overseas trade of the Isle of Man,
1576-1755
J. R. Dickinson
M ost studies o f Irish Sea trade in the early modern period before the
later seventeenth century make little or no mention o f the Isle of
M an.1 Since these works tend to focus on a single port, usually
Chester, this is perhaps not so surprising as the relevant port books
reveal at best only a handful o f entries recording traffic with M anx
ports in any one year. Indeed, the Chester port books seem to
indicate that trade with the island in the medieval period was
intermittent, to say the least.2 By contrast, the significance o f the
Isle o f M an in the econom y o f the Irish Sea region in the late
1 The most important studies of Irish Sea trade in the early modern period
include: A. Longfield, Anglo-Irish trade in the sixteenth century (London, 1929); W. B.
Stephens, ‘The overseas trade of Chester in the early seventeenth century’,
Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire ( THSLC), 120
(1968), pp. 23-34; D- M. Woodward, The trade of Elizabethan Chester, University
of Hull Occasional Papers in Economic and Social History, 4 (Hull, 1970); D. M.
Woodward, ‘The overseas trade of Chester, 1600-1650’, THSLC, 122 (1970),
pp. 25-42; D. M. Woodward, ‘The Anglo-Irish livestock trade of the seventeenth
century’, Irish Historical Studies, 18 (1972), pp. 489-523; D. M. Woodward, ‘Irish
Sea trades and shipping from the later Middle Ages to c.1660’, in M. McCaughan &
J. C. Appleby, eds, The Irish Sea: Aspects of maritime history (Belfast, 1989), pp. 35 -
44; J. Kermode, ‘The trade of late medieval Chester, 150 0 -1550 ’, in R. H. Britnell 8c
J. Hatcher, eds, Progress and problems in medieval England: Essays in honour of
Edward Miller (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 286-307; J. R. Dickinson, The Lordship of
Man under the Stanleys: Government and economy in the Isle of Man, 1580—1704,
Chetham Society, 3rd series, 41 (1996), chap. 5; J. E. Hollinshead, ‘Chester,
Liverpool and the Basque region in the sixteenth century’, Mariner’s Mirror, 85
( 1 999). PP- 387- 93-
2 K. B. Wilson, ed., Chester customs accounts, 130 1-156 6 , Record Society of
Lancashire and Cheshire, 1 1 1 (1969); J. W. Laughton, ‘Economy and society, 1350 -
1500’, in Victoria history of the county of Chester, 5 part 1 (Oxford, 2003), p. 69.
M ap i The overseas trade of the Isle of M an: The Irish Sea and
North Channel.
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 - 17 5 5 3
seventeenth and especially the first half o f the eighteenth century is
well known.3 Because o f its location, almost in the centre o f the
northern Irish Sea, and the fact that the island was ‘no part o f the
kingdom e o f England’ it was able to serve as an entrepot for the
running o f goods, such as tobacco, brandy and gin, into any o f the
countries o f the Irish Sea littoral.4 This running trade, which was
regarded as smuggling by the government in London, developed
steadily from the late seventeenth century onwards. Stimulated by
increased tariffs on imports into England and prohibitions and
restrictions on specific goods, the trade reached a peak in c.1750 ,
before the rights to the island were eventually sold by the Duke o f
Atholl and the Isle o f M an was revested in the Crown in 1765.
The scale o f this illicit trade and the activities o f the smugglers
have tended to obscure the facts that, so far as the Lord o f M an, his
officers and the inhabitants o f the island were concerned, no M anx
laws were being broken by merchants engaged in this trade and that
in any case drawing a distinction between lawful and illicit trade was
quite often far from straightforward. Historians have tended to focus
on the running trade without considering it in the context o f the
maritime commerce o f the island as a whole. Furthermore, few have
made use o f the customs records o f the Isle o f M an itself. Despite the
problems inherent in using such sources, these records nevertheless
provide a great deal o f inform ation about the nature o f the island’s
trade with the ports o f the Irish Sea and beyond throughout the early
m odern period.
The earliest extant customs accounts in the Isle o f M an date from
the late sixteenth century. There can be little doubt that customs
duty was levied on goods long before this time and very likely long
3 There is a substantial literature on smuggling in this period. See especially: R. C.
Jarvis, ‘Illicit trade with the Isle of Man, 16 7 1-17 6 5 ’, Transactions of the Lancashire
and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, 58 (1947), pp. 245-67; L. B. Cullen, Anglo-Irish
trade, 1660-1800 (New York, 1968); L. B. Cullen, ‘The smuggling trade in Ireland in
the eighteenth century’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 67, section C, no.5
(1969), pp. 149-75; L- B. Cullen, ‘Smuggling in the North Channel in the eighteenth
century’, Scottish Economic and Social History, 7 (1987), pp. 9—26; L. B. Cullen,
‘Smugglers in the Irish Sea in the eighteenth century’, in McCaughan 8c Appleby, Irish
Sea, pp. 85-97; E. J. Graham, A maritime history of Scotland, 1650-1790 (East Linton,
2002), pp. 10 2-18 , 197-99. See also F. Wilkins, The Isle of Man in smuggling history
(Kidderminster, 1992) and The smuggling trade revisited (Kidderminster, 2004).
4 E. Coke, The fourth part of the institutes of the laws of England: Concerning the
jurisdiction of courts (2nd edn, 1648), p. 284.
4 /. R. Dickinson
before H enry IV granted the island to Sir John Stanley in perpetuity in
1406. Nevertheless, this grant explicitly conveyed to the Stanley Lords
o f M an the right to collect ‘free customs’ in the ports o f the island.5
Unfortunately, the records o f the earlier part o f the Stanley lordship
have perished and the customs accounts now only survive from the
early years o f Henry, fourth Earl o f Derby, onwards. Beginning in
1576 , these records chiefly comprise the accounts o f the waterbailiff,
the officer o f the Lord o f M an responsible for the collection o f
customs duty, and later variously entitled in addition the ‘port
customs’ or ‘books o f ingates and outgates’.6 W ith one or two
exceptions, such as in 16 24 when there was a change o f waterbailiff
part way through the year, each paper book covers a twelve month
period. Before 1700 this period begins at 24 June; thereafter the
accounting period commences at M ichaelmas (29 September). The
series is largely complete down to 17 5 5 , a decade before the
revestment o f the island in the Crown, with accounts missing for
only sixteen years, m ostly at the end o f the sixteenth century.
The w aterbailiff’s accounts contain much the same range o f
inform ation about shipments o f cargo as is found in the English
and Welsh port books.7 W ritten almost entirely in English, the
earlier books are divided into ingates and outgates for each o f the
four principal ports— Douglas, Castletown, Ram sey and Peel— but
from the late seventeenth century onwards the books are simply
divided into two parts, one section being devoted to ingates and the
other recording the outgates. Each entry in the accounts begins with
a date, probably the day on which the duty was actually paid to the
w aterbailiff’s deputy in one o f the island’s ports, whether that was
the day on which the vessel arrived there or not; then follows the
name o f the merchant or factor responsible for the particular
shipment listed thereafter in detail. On m any occasions, particularly
with smaller vessels or those only landing a single cargo, the
merchant or factor was identical with the master o f the vessel in
which the cargo was transported.
5 Calendar of Close Rolls, 1405-9, p. 2.
6 The earliest extant book covers the year to 24 June 1576; Manx National
Heritage Library, Douglas (MNHL), MS 10058, Accounts of the waterbailiff, 1576-
1755; for a fuller discussion of the waterbailiff’s accounts, see Dickinson, Lordship,
pp. 232-46.
7 The format, content and interpretation of the English and Welsh port books are
concisely discussed by D. M. Woodward, ‘The port books of England and Wales’,
Maritime History, 3 (1973), pp. 147-65.
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 - 17 5 5 5
Unfortunately, the name and port o f provenance o f the vessel
itself are often missing from the waterbailiff’s accounts before the
late seventeenth century, making it very difficult to identify from
M anx sources alone those ships which most often plied the waters o f
the Irish Sea to and from the island before the 1680s. Details o f the
burthen o f the vessel, included in m any sixteenth century English
and Welsh port books at least, was rarely recorded in the waterbailiff’s accounts at all, although at least until the early seventeenth
century this inform ation can, in some cases, be gleaned for a few
readily identifiable vessels by examination o f entries in the records o f
the port o f destination or origin across the Irish Sea. Finally, in the
righthand margin o f the accounts the total amount o f duty, as
stipulated by the current M anx Book o f Rates, was entered.8 Both
native and foreign merchants seem to have paid duty at the same
rate before the mid-seventeenth century at least, but either in 1648
or in 16 7 7 differential rates were introduced, with the native paying
in general half the amount o f duty which the foreign merchant was
bound to remit. Despite this important change, the rate o f M anx
duty was low in com parison to that levied in English and Welsh
ports, a discrepancy which became greater in the late seventeenth
century as the need to finance wars in the 1690s and afterwards
increased the fiscal burden in England.9
If some care is needed in the interpretation o f the basic elements
o f the entries in the w aterbailiff’s accounts, a similar approach is
required when examining the details o f the cargoes shipped to and
from the Isle o f M an. It has long been recognized that port books
scarcely represent the raw material from which to construct wholly
accurate commercial statistics for a number o f reasons.10 Firstly and
most obviously, there is the possibility o f errors made by the clerk
com piling the accounts. In the Isle o f M an the customers in each
8 The earliest extant Manx Book of Rates dates from 1577; J. Gell, ed., Statutes of
the Isle of Man, vol. i, 14 17 -18 24 (1883, repr. Douglas, 1992), pp. 37-39; this book
was revised and expanded in 1648, 1677 and 1692; no copy of the 1648 book
survives, but it is mentioned in the extant copies of the 1677 book; MNHL, MD
4 0 1/1715/18, MD 401/1715/19 ; Gell, Statutes, pp. 225-32.
9 MNHL, MD 401/1715/18, MD 401/1715/19 ; The difference between the
duties paid on goods in the Isle of Man and England respectively during Elizabeth’s
reign can be readily seen by comparing the Manx Book of Rates of 1577 with the
English Book of Rates of 1582; Gell, Statutes, pp. 37-39; T. S. Willan, ed., A Tudor
book of rates (Manchester, 1962).
10 Woodward, ‘Port books’, pp. 15 7 -6 1.
6 /. R. Dickinson
port, known as deputy searchers after 169 3, appear to have only
submitted their working papers and revenue to the waterbailiff ‘ (at
soonest) but once [a] year’ .11 W hether the clerk wrote up the books
from the loose papers presented to him or the details were dictated
to him by an assistant, this system not only accounts for the
sometimes haphazard chronology and occasional duplication o f
the entries and the predictably erratic spelling, but also indicates
the possibilities for embezzlement o f customs duty which could be
easily pocketed by unscrupulous officers. Only the customer o f
Douglas, the busiest o f the island’s ports, received a separate
salary before 16 17 ; thereafter all customers, who norm ally also
served as soldiers, received an additional annual wage for their
pains. This did not necessarily preclude the temptation to supplement their income from the Lord still further by diverting customs
duty into their own pockets, but cases o f the discovery o f such
peculation were very rare indeed.12
Besides, merchants might well be tempted to evade duties even
without the connivance o f the customers or other officials, although
the smuggling o f goods into and out o f the island was rendered to
some extent academic by the low level o f duty levied in the Isle o f
Man. While N. J. W illiams was not necessarily exaggerating in an
English context when he claimed that ‘if a merchant’s first concern
was the safe arrival o f his cargo at its port o f discharge, his second
was the evasion o f duty’, there was less incentive for a merchant to
avoid payment o f M anx duty.13 There may be little doubt, therefore,
that the w aterbailiff’s accounts under-record the actual level o f the
island’s trade to some degree, but there is every likelihood that, in
general, this under-recording was not particularly significant. At the
very least, the accounts do provide a clear indication o f a definite
m inim um and this m ay not be so very far from the actual level o f
commercial activity and trading in specific goods.
In the late sixteenth century, the export trade o f the Isle o f Man
was dominated by a handful o f commodities. As might be expected,
given the central importance o f agriculture and fishing in the M anx
11 MNHL, MD 401/1719/65, ‘A new Method proposed for the levying and
manageing of our honorable Lord’s Customes of Outgates and Ingates, etc. within
the Isle of Man for the future’ (n.d., c.1692?).
12 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 229-30, 244-45.
13 N. J. Williams, ‘Francis Shaxton and the Elizabethan port books’, English
Historical Review, 66 (19 51), p. 387.
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 - 1/ 5 5 7
economy, these were all prim ary products. Cattle, hides, fish, grain
and wool were exported to the countries bordering on the Irish Sea
and England in particular. This m ay have been encouraged to an
extent by the links between the island and the north-west o f England
through the Stanleys, but far more important, especially from the
late seventeenth century onwards, was the growth o f manufacturing
in south Lancashire which offered a ready market for M anx produce
and served as a source for the manufactured goods for which there
was a demand in the island.
The shipment o f live cattle or ‘quick beasts’ as well as carcases
from the island had probably been long established by the early days
o f Earl Henry’s lordship (15 7 2 -9 3 ). The earliest record o f the trade
so far discovered, however, dates only from M arch 1566, when
Thomas Lea o f Castletown entered at Chester three hogsheads and
five barrels o f beef as part o f a cargo which also included hides and
wheat. A month later this was followed by a second and final
consignment o f five hogsheads and a quarter o f beef as part o f a
m ixed cargo landed in the same port from Douglas by three M anx
merchants.14 As these entries suggest, the trade in cattle seems
generally to have been conducted on a fairly modest scale, even by
the standards o f the island. Limited quantities o f salted beef were
shipped to Chester and occasionally to Beaumaris in the later
sixteenth century, but the total number o f cattle shipped from the
island remained low by com parison with the figures for the period
between 159 0 and 1660 as a whole (table 1 ) .15
Shipments such as that made by one W illiam Christian o f thirty
‘quick oxen’ in 15 7 5 and licensed specially by Earl Henry, possibly
for his personal use, were perhaps then somewhat exceptional in
size.16 Part o f the reason for the restricted scale o f the export trade in
cattle was the fact that the Lord o f M an’s tenants were required to
pay part o f their rent in kind until 16 0 1.17 A short-lived experiment
in com muting this to a money payment in 159 3 may have helped to
14 Wilson, Chester customs accounts, pp. 78, 79; National Archives (NA), PRO,
E190/1323/1, E190/1323/10.
15 Woodward, ‘Elizabethan Chester’, p. 35; E. A. Lewis, ed., The Welsh port books,
1550-1603, Cymmrodorion Record Series, 12 (1927), pp. 244, 256, 258.
16 MNHL, MS 10058, Book oflicences and entries, 1578 [erroneously dated 1570
on cover].
17 MNHL, MD 401/1716/4, Articles of agreement between (i) the Crown and its
officers and (ii) the inhabitants of the Isle of Man to commute customary payments
in kind to a money rent, 3 August, 43 Eliz. (1601).
8 J. R. Dickinson
Table 1. Export o f livestock from the Isle o f M an: years ending 24 Ju n e
(before 1 7 0 1 ) and 29 Sept. (after 1700).
Cattle Sheep Pigs Horses
1594 749 515 263 1 6
1600 405 383 42 67
1605 454 152 66 65
1610 714 8 124 101
1618 895 5 0 48 1 4
1630 589 2 4 30 43
1647 890 — 9 4 0
1667 1 8 2 0 — —
1685 4 1 2 5 3 2
1696 582 8 — 6
1721 — — — —
1738 — — — —
1752 — — — —
Sources: MNHL, MD10058, Customs book, 1594; Waterbailiff’s accounts, 1594;
Ingates and outgates (Port Customs), 1600; Ingates and outgates, 1605; Ingates and
outgates, 1610; Waterbailiff’s accounts, 1618; Waterbailiff’s accounts, 1630;
Waterbailiff’s accounts, 1647; Customs book, 1667; Customs book, 1685 ; Customs
book, 1696; Book of customs of ingates and outgates, 1721; Charge of the customs
of ingates and outgates, 1738; Charge of the customs of ingates and outgates, 1752.
stimulate the trade, accounting for the shipment o f 749 beasts in
i593-94> but the final removal o f this burden on the tenants eight
years later no doubt had a long-term, positive effect for those
wishing to ship cattle and beef to markets across the Irish Sea.
The trade, especially in live cattle, appears to have flourished,
relatively speaking, and to have remained at approxim ately the
same level for about the next seventy years.
The markets for which the cattle and beef were destined are not
certain because o f the omission o f the relevant inform ation from the
w aterbailiff’s accounts. Chester and Liverpool would seem to have
been the most obvious destinations, not least because both were
important ports in the rapidly expanding trade in live cattle from
Ireland and in any case had existing close links with the island.18
Owing to the patchy survival and quality o f the customs records for
18 Woodward, ‘Overseas trade’, pp. 35-40; D. M. Woodward, ‘The Anglo-Irish
cattle trade of the seventeenth century’, Irish Historical Studies, 18 (1972), pp. 489-
523.
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 -17 5 5 9
those ports in the early part o f the seventeenth century, however,
this can not be convincingly demonstrated. Such evidence as does
survive seems to indicate the level o f exports to the Dee and Mersey
was often low. In 15 9 2 -9 3 , for example, only twelve cattle were
im ported at Chester and in 16 19 -2 0 the total was a mere twenty-two
live animals. The figures for Liverpool seem to reveal a similar story,
at least in some years, such as 16 0 3-0 4 , when twenty-one M anx
beasts were shipped into the port.19 However ambiguous this
evidence seems to be, the fact remains that the M anx trade was
clearly regarded by some as connected with the Irish trade and this
suggests that the ports o f north-west England were the destination o f
at least some o f the shipments from the island. Cattle m ay also have
been shipped to ports on the Cum berland coast, such as W hitehaven, but it is not possible to verify this in the absence o f any extant
customs records for those ports in the period in question.
The association o f the M anx cattle trade with the very much larger
Irish cattle trade had serious implications for the island later in the
seventeenth century. It was believed in some quarters that Irish cattle
were imported into the island and re-exported thence to English
ports. A ban on the im portation o f Irish cattle was proposed in the
Com m ons in 16 2 1 and an addition to the bill was suggested which
would have extended that prohibition to cattle shipped from the Isle
o f M an.20 The bill was not passed into law, although when concerns
about the effect o f Irish cattle imports grew once more in the early
1660s the possibility o f prohibiting imports o f M anx cattle was again
seriously considered. The failure o f the first Irish Cattle Act to
reduce Irish cattle imports significantly led inevitably to a second,
more restrictive Act in 1667 and this did extend its strictures to
animals shipped to England from the island. There was to be an
annual lim it o f six hundred cattle imported into England and these
animals had to be ‘o f the Breed o f the Isle o f M an’. Furthermore, the
cattle could only be landed at Chester ‘or some o f the Members
thereof’ .21 This appears to have had an almost immediate effect on
the island’s cattle exports, although there are suggestions that
19 Woodward, ‘Elizabethan Chester’, p. 35; NA, PRO, £190/1326/6; PRO, E190/
1332/1; PRO, E190/1328/11.
20 Journal of the House of Commons, 1, p. 615.
21 18 Chas. II, c.2; Dickinson, Lordship, p. 253; for the background to the Irish
Cattle Acts, see C. A. Edie, ‘The Irish Cattle Bills: A study in Restoration politics’,
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 60, part 2 (1970), pp. 5-58.
10 /. R. Dickinson
restrictions imposed by the earl o f D erby or his representatives in the
island to preserve cattle stocks and ensure a ready supply o f beef for
both the Lord him self and the island’s garrisons m ay have helped in
this respect. The restrictions on cattle imports into England from the
island did not apply to the earl o f Derby: in 1686, W illiam, ninth
earl, obtained permission to im port specified provisions for the
island for his household use on an annual basis; these included 200
‘bullocks,’ although it seems from early eighteenth-century accounts
o f cattle shipments for the earl’s use that this number was exceeded
on occasion.22 Despite some years when exports were nearly at the
m axim um allowed under the second Cattle Act, the M anx cattle
trade never recovered and by the early eighteenth century had all but
ceased (table 1).
Other livestock, notably sheep, was exported from the island,
although this trade was already in decline before 1650, but a more
important, associated branch o f the export trade was that in hides.
As Alan Crosby has recently pointed out, in the early sixteenth
century the island was a source o f a relatively small number o f the
hides required by Chester’s thriving leather industry.23 The trade was
in all likelihood well established by this date and seems to have
prospered throughout the sixteenth century. The w aterbailiff’s
accounts reveal that in the late sixteenth century large quantities
o f sheepskins and fells, lambskins, goat and kidskins, rabbit skins
and raw and tanned ox and cow hides were shipped from the
island’s ports (table 2). Exam ination o f the English port books
shows that a large proportion o f this trade was destined for Chester.
In the year ending at M ichaelmas 15 9 3, for instance, 8,080 sheepskins cleared M anx ports for the Dee. Other markets also attracted
shipments from the island, but these tended to be on a rather more
modest scale, such as the 15 0 sheep fells imported into Liverpool in
16 0 3-0 4 .24 The trade in hides appears to have continued at som ewhat below late sixteenth-century levels until the 1660s when,
perhaps affected by the strictures imposed on M anx cattle exports,
it seems to have begun to decline.
In the late sixteenth century, which seems to have been a boom ing
22 Dickinson, Lordship, p. 254; MNHL, MD 401/1718/47; MD 401/1736/12-22.
23 A. G. Crosby, ‘A Chester merchant buys leather from the Isle of Man in 1524’,
Cheshire History, 44 (2004-5), PP- 37~42; D. M. Woodward, ‘The Chester leather
industry, 15 5 8 -16 2 5’, THSLC, 119 (1967), pp. 6 5 - 111.
24 NA, PRO, E190/1326/6; PRO E190/1326/11.
T ab le 2 Export o f skins a n d hides fr o m the Isle o f M an: yea rs e n d in g 24 June (before 17 0 1) and 251 Sept. (after lyoo).
Sheep skins*
(no.)
Lam b skins
(no.)
C a lf skins
(no.)
Rabbit skins
(no.)
Goat skins
(no.)
K id skins
(no.)
M ixed skins H ides (raw)
(no.) (dickers)t
Hides
(tanned)
(dickers)t
1594 5,292 3.356 — 360 126 384 2,580 157.8 —
1600 2,308 4)434 — 240 — — 2,040 77-7 24.0
1605 2,400 5,076 2 4 660 — — 1,353 48.2 —
1610 1,348 3,120 343 540 — — 2,086 64.8 —
1618 1,886 5,112 126 360 — — 2,100 66.5 —
1630 528 1,536 60 240 — — 2,100 54.6 76.0
1647 2,106 3,1.24 — 600 1 — 1 ,1 18 2.0 26.0
1667 900 720 — 480 2 4 — 900 16.0 2.0
1685 — 1,080 139 708 170 — 750 29.8 25.7
1696 144 3,012 234 1,698 570 — 998 76.8 8.4
1721 — — — 100 — — — 32-3 —
1738 — — — — — — — — —
1752 — — — --- ---
--
---
Sources: See table 1.
Notes: * Sheepskins and sheepfells.
t The num ber o f hides to the dicker varied. There were eight o x hides to the dicker, but ten cow hides. Since a
distinction is not always drawn, hides o f an unspecified nature have been taken to be cow hides.
The overseas trade of the Isle of Man, 15 7 6 -17 5 5
12 J. R. Dickinson
T able 3 Export o f wool and herring from the Isle o f M an: years ending
24 Ju n e (before 1 7 0 1 ) and 29 Sept. (after 1700).
Wool Herring
stones tons hogsheads barrels maze
1594 1,665 1 — -- _
1600 439 — 1 1 —
1605 435 — 8 --- —
1610 U 3 — — ---- —
1618 614 54-5 — 71 3
1630 684 2 — 139 1
1647 175 — — 60 —
1667 39 54-5 — 485 339
1685 335 — — 388 1
1696 395 — — ---- —
1721 54 — — ---- —
1738 — — — ---- —
1752 — — — ---- —
Sources: see table 1.
period for the island’s maritime trade, the Isle o f M an also exported
large quantities o f wool in addition to the fleeces shipped along with
skins in the form o f sheepfells (table 3). In 15 7 9 -8 0 , 1,7 7 0 stones
were shipped from M anx ports and 1,655 stones in 15 9 3 -9 4 .25
Some, if not the larger part, o f this wool was destined for the
looms o f south Lancashire where the weavers’ demand for wool was
already drawing in raw materials from all over England and from
Ireland. Although Liverpool was more im portant than Chester in the
Irish wool trade it does not seem to have attracted m any wool
shipments from the Isle o f M an.26 From about 1600, however,
exports o f M anx wool fell dramatically and continued throughout
the rest o f the seventeenth century at a relatively low level. The
reasons for this slump are not clear, but the M anx wool trade never
returned to the peak o f the 1590s and, in fact, seems to have ended
altogether by the 1730 s.
25 MNHL, MS 10058, ‘Port Customes of the Isle [of] Man,’ 1580; ‘Custome
book,’ 1594.
6 N. G. Lowe, The Lancashire textile industry in the sixteenth century, Chetham
Society, 3rd series, 20 (1972), pp. 10 -19 .
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 - 17 5 5 13
Together with agriculture, fishing, and the herring fishery in
particular, was the cornerstone o f the M anx economy. Throughout
this period and beyond, the annual herring fishery between approximately July and Novem ber was as crucial to the welfare o f the island
as the harvest. In spite o f its importance, however, herring is scarcely
mentioned in the waterbailiff’s accounts before the late seventeenth
century. This was due in part to the fact that a large part o f the catch
was caught by M anx fishermen for consumption within the island
and a reluctance on the part o f foreigners before 16 1 3 to engage
officially in the fishery because o f the demands in kind and later in
money for the Lord for the privilege. The regulations were then
relaxed somewhat, but in any case it was only likely that herring
would be exported after a good catch. Even so, exports o f herring
only appear in a surprisingly small number o f w aterbailiff’s accounts
before 170 0 .27
In addition to the com modities already mentioned, the Isle o f
M an exported quantities o f grain and cloth. The export, or possibly
re-export, o f wheat reached a peak between c .16 10 and c.1640 and
only continued at a very low level thereafter. Barley and oats, which
were much more suited to the island’s climate, were also exported,
but in much larger quantities before 1640. The trade in oats then
appears to have all but ceased, with only occasional shipments
leaving the island’s ports thereafter. Barley exports continued, but
at a level only slightly higher than that o f the wheat trade.28 Exports
o f raw cloth were declining at the end o f the sixteenth century and
effectively ended by 1640. By contrast, exports o f woollen cloth
increased greatly in the last two decades o f the seventeenth century,
with 2 ,12 7 yards alone being shipped in 1696. Linen cloth,
apparently produced by the island’s own nascent manufactory,
also became a significant export in the 1690s, with 2,602 yards
exported in 1696.29 Another product o f the projects initiated in the
late seventeenth century was the renewed efforts to exploit the
island’s limited mineral deposits. Iron, copper and lead were all
exported in small quantities o f less than about 250 tons in the years
around 170 0 but, as had happened on several previous occasions,
the mining endeavours proved to be uneconom ic and were short27 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 110 -19 , 265-66.
28 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 266-68.
29 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 176-82, 268-69; MNHL, MS 10058, ‘Book of the
Customes of Outgates, Ingates etc.,’ 1696.
14 /. R. Dickinson
lived.30 As a result, the island had to depend on imports to fulfil its
needs for such raw materials.
The im port trade o f the Isle o f M an in the sixteenth century was
largely determined by the needs o f the inhabitants for the raw
materials in which the island was lacking and by the demand for
manufactured goods. Iron, lead, timber, salt and coal were among
the most important raw materials imported in quantity. The small
scale nature o f metal working in the island meant that there was
only ever a quite limited demand for iron, which was nevertheless
imported on a regular basis, and lead, only tiny amounts o f which
ever arrived in M anx ports (table 4). The situation with timber was
quite different. W ood was in considerable demand, principally for
use in construction, largely, though not exclusively, in the towns. It
was also required on a regular basis for coopering and repairing
boats. Imports o f timber therefore took a variety o f forms, from
planks and boards to poles and barrel staves, and duty was quite
regularly paid in kind. Hundreds, often thousands o f pieces o f
wood arrived in M anx ports every year, the greater part very likely
from Ireland; Ireland was also the source o f large quantities o f
timber imported into England in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.31
Whereas the m ajority o f the population, particularly outside the
towns, relied on peat for domestic fuel, m any town dwellers, more
affluent farmers and the lord’s officers and garrisons used coal
instead. It was also required by those involved in the small-scale
manufacturing activity in the island. Since there are no deposits in
the Isle o f M an, all this coal had to be imported. Allowing for
problems in interpreting the measures employed and fluctuations in
imports, the am ount o f coal being unloaded on M anx quays as
measured in tons increased in the seventeenth century, especially
after c.1660. Before that date imports had been below 100 tons, but
afterwards seem to have remained above this mark, reaching 5 14
tons in 17 3 7 -3 8 and 1,0 35 tons in 1 7 5 1 - 5 2 .32 The origins o f most
shipments o f coal before 1700 are not known for certain, although at
least three cargoes o f coal arrived in Douglas in 15 9 3 -9 4 from
30 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 184-88.
31 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 275-76; Longfield, Anglo-Irish trade, pp. 118 -24 ;
E. McCracken, The Irish woods since Tudor times (Newton Abbot, 19 71), chap. 4.
32 MNHL, MD 10058, ‘Charge of the customs of ingates and outgates,’ 1738;
‘Charge of the customs of ingates and outgates,’ 1752.
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 - 17 5 5 15
T able 4 Im port o f coal and iron into the Isle o f M an: years ending 24
Ju n e (before 1 7 0 1 ) and 29 Sept. (after 1700).
Coal Iron
tons lo a d s’* part
loads
barrels tons
1594 — 1 1 — — 9-35
1600 26 2 — 2 0 4-35
1605 38 5 — — 1.2
1610 7 4 7 — — 6.25
1618 46 5 — 2 6.8
1630 49 8 — — 4-5
1647 86 19 6 — 5.6
1667 110 10 5 — 7.65
1685 — 1 2 — — 6.1
1696 119 — — 5 9.25
1721 161 — — — 9-75
1738 514 — — — 7-5
1752 1.035 — — — 77.8
Sources: see table 1.
Notes: * Vessels are sometimes entered in the Waterbailiff’s accounts as ‘laden with
coals’. Such a ‘load’ may have been a variable amount, depending on the size of the
ship or, perhaps more likely, it may have referred to a ‘keel load’, a measure of twenty
chaldrons or forty tons before 1676, when it was changed to sixteen chaldrons or
thirty-two tons. R. Zupko, British weights and measures: A history from antiquity to the
seventeenth century (Madison, 1977), appendix B, p. 15 1.
Parton in Cumberland. In the eighteenth century, there is rather
more certainty about the sources for the island’s coal imports. In
17 3 7 -3 8 , for instance, out o f thirty-three cargoes, ten shipments
came from W hitehaven, three from W orkington and a single
consignment from Liverpool. The evidence from 1 7 5 1 - 5 2 offers a
much more detailed picture o f M anx coal imports, showing that
more than half (53.8% ) o f all the shipments arriving in the island’s
ports cleared from Whitehaven. The next most im portant sources
were South Lancashire, the coal being shipped from Liverpool, and
North Wales. In the latter case, shipments were made from M ostyn
or Bagillt and through Chester (table 5).
The herring fishery, as well as other fishing carried out throughout the year, created a demand for salt. A ‘Certayne Portion’ o f the
16 /. R. Dickinson
T able 5 Origins o f coal imports into the Isle o f M an,
1 7 5 1 - 5 2 , year ending 29 Sept.
Port No. o f shipments
A yr 1
Bagillt 1
C ard iff 1
Chester 6
D ublin 1
Ellenfoot (M aryport) 1
England 1
Ireland 1
Liverpool 13
M ilford 1
M ostyn 6
Scotland 1
W ales 2
W hitehaven 49
W orkington 1
N ot specified 5
Total 91
Source: MNHL, MD 10058, Charge of the customs of ingates and
outgates, 1752.
island’s requirements was produced by brine evaporation locally,
but the rest was imported, chiefly from England, although much o f
the salt itself originated in France, especially Brittany, and to a lesser
extent Portugal and Spain.33 In M ay 1594, for example, W illiam
Abbey landed a cargo o f nine barrels o f ‘portingall’ salt and twelve
barrels o f ‘bretish’ salt at Derbyhaven. In April 16 30, a Breton
merchant named ‘Peter John’ in the accounts entered 18 tuns of
‘French salt,’ probably from his hom e port o f Le Croisic.34 U nfortunately, the origins o f the m ajority o f the salt imported can not be
traced because the w aterbailiff’s accounts remain silent on the
question. Salt imports did vary considerably throughout the
period under consideration, no doubt as a result o f the success or
otherwise o f the fisheries, but in general remained below 100 tons
33 NA, PRO, SP16/539/120, ‘A brief description of the Isle of Man’ (n.d., 1642?).
34 MNHL, MS 10058, ‘Port customs,’ 1594; ‘Waterbailiff’s accounts’, 1630.
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 - 17 5 5 17
Ta b l e 6 Imports o f salt, soap, hops, tobacco and wine into the Isle o f
M an: years ending 24 Jun e (before 1 7 0 1 ) and 29 Sept. (after 1700).
Salt Soap Tobacco Hops Wine
tons barrels firkins lbs lbs lbs tuns
1594 27 155 1 0 — 448 1,240 19
1600 5 171 3 1 — — 874 2 9
1605 25 22 11 — — 304 2 5
1610 1 368 4 i — 1 12 838 2 1
1618 1 5 629 32 — 448 1,086 18
1630 6 7 204 4 6 — 104 1,646 21
1647 1 2 145 59 — 2,354 2,102 18
1667 1 0 94 13 — 1,046 2,296 2
1685 59 6 3 — 6,613 2,980 2 5
1696 108 14 — — 23,870 2,584 —
1721 104 43-5 — 2,744 200,079 3,5 6 i 155-9
1738 153 — — 7,196 22,147 6,961 57-9
1752 305.25 1.5 — 5,625 235,818 14,545 62.6
Sources: see table 1.
per annum until the end o f the seventeenth century. Thereafter, the
amount o f imported salt began to rise, although again the reasons
for this are not entirely clear. In 17 5 2 alone, for example, 305.25
tons were landed in the island.35 Increasing demand from a rising
population in the early eighteenth century m ay be part o f the
explanation but, in the absence o f details o f the vicissitudes o f the
herring fishery in the period, it is difficult to say whether this may
not have also in part reflected larger catches by the vessels involved
(table 6).
Besides these essential raw materials, a perhaps surprisingly wide
range o f com modities was imported into the island. Foodstuffs
represented a less significant proportion o f that trade than might be
expected, given the size o f the island, its dependence in large
measure on the harvest and the herring fishery and the fact that
the island’s population was clearly growing. W ith a population o f
perhaps about 11,0 0 0 in c.1670, rising to possibly nearly 14,500 by
172 6 , the market in the island for manufactured goods was certainly
35 MNHL, MS 10058, ‘Charge of the customs of ingates and outgates’, 1752.
i8 /. R. Dickinson
expanding and this is reflected in the growing diversity o f the goods
brought into M anx ports, predom inantly Douglas, by native and
foreign merchants.36 Agricultural tools, from sickles and scythes to
ploughs and plough beams, clothing, shoes, tools for construction
work and a bewildering array o f haberdashery formed only part of
the merchandise recorded each year in the w aterbailiff’s accounts.
An extensive range o f what might be termed luxury goods and
commodities in the earlier part o f the period under consideration
was also imported, although by the eighteenth century m any o f these
items had become less the exclusive province o f the most affluent.
This included such diverse items as Castile soap, clocks, parrot cages
and a secondhand billiard table. Far more im portant and o f vastly
greater value were the shipments o f commodities originating in the
East Indies and America. The growth o f the im port trade in such
items had less to do with demand in the island, however, than with
developments in England.
The steady increase in imports o f tobacco in the seventeenth
century, particularly after c.1680, and the dramatic expansion in
inward shipments o f brandy, rum, sugar and tea in the early
eighteenth century were a product o f commercial restrictions
imposed by the English government on the plantation trade and
as a result o f wars and increases in tariffs after 1689 to meet the
financial demands o f wartime. It was these circumstances, together
with the unique constitutional status o f the Isle o f M an, which
provided such a stimulus to the island’s im port and re-export or
running trade. The initial impetus in this process was provided by
the Navigation Acts o f 16 5 1 and 1660 which extended pre-existing
restrictions on the conduct o f trade between England and the
Mediterranean and the Baltic.37 English plantation goods had
henceforth to be carried only in English, Welsh, Irish or colonial
vessels and after 1660 had to be landed at a port in England, Wales
or Ireland. The third Navigation Act (16 7 1) excluded Ireland from
direct trade with the colonies and so concentrated this traffic on
36 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 1 0 - 1 1 ; the 1726 figure is derived from an ecclesiastical census, with the missing total for one parish, Marown, estimated by A. W.
Moore; R. Sherwood, ed., The Constitution o f the Isle of Man, Manx Society, 31
(1882), p. 284; A. W. Moore, A history of the Isle of Man (2 vols, 1900, repr.
Douglas, 1977), 2, p. 646.
37 J. Thirsk & J. P. Cooper, eds, Seventeenth-century economic documents (Oxford
1972), pp. 502-5; 18 Chas. II, c.18.
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 - 1/ 5 5 19
England and W ales.38 In 1706, farther restrictions were placed on
trade with the Far East when it was ordered that shipments from the
East Indies could only be landed in Great Britain.39
As a response to the rise in English customs duty and these
commercial restrictions, merchants developed a procedure which
enabled them to land their goods in England or any other country
bordering the Irish Sea, if they so desired, without having had to pay
the full duty. Firstly, a merchant would land a cargo at an English or
Welsh port and pay the relevant duty. The cargo would then be
entered for export to a destination which was often outside the
British Isles, such as Bergen in Norway, which was a popular choice,
and a debenture obtained for claiming a ‘draw back’ or refund o f
duty. After the goods had been loaded, the vessel would set sail and
make for the Isle o f M an, claiming, should it be intercepted by a
customs cutter, that it had been forced to put in at the island because
o f ‘distress o f weather’ or some such excuse. Once in a M anx
harbour, the merchant’s goods would be unloaded, his agent
would pay the low M anx duty on the goods and plans would be
made to re-export the goods. Again, the declared destination o f
m any o f these shipments in the waterbailiff’s accounts was fictitious.
The goods would be loaded onto a vessel in the M anx harbour, a
licence to export obtained from the waterbailiff or his deputy and
then the vessel would make the crossing to the Lancashire or
Cum berland coast, the Ribble estuary apparently being particularly
favoured target.40 The net result o f this operation was that the
merchant would have his goods where he wanted them, having paid
far less in the end than if the goods had sim ply been imported at an
English port and then sold. The profits were such, however, that the
inconvenience and delay were but a small price to pay.
W ithout a crucial development in ship design in the late
seventeenth century, however, this procedure might not have
developed so rapidly and it was necessary in this particular case
because o f the direction o f the movement o f goods eastwards across
the Irish Sea. M ost smuggling activity before this date seems to have
been devoted to exporting goods, such as leather and tin, without
paying the duty on them or shipping wool from a non-staple port.
As Rupert Jarvis noted nearly sixty years ago, this was com paratively
38 22 8c 23 Chas. II, c.26. 39 6 Anne, c.3.
40 Jarvis, ‘Illicit trade’, p. 252.
20 J. R. Dickinson
easy because a cargo could be loaded and despatched in short order
in the right weather. Im port smuggling, however, was m ore difficult
before the late seventeenth century because, having landed the
goods, the vessel needed a wind to depart and while waiting it was
obviously vulnerable to discovery, if not seizure. The development o f
the fore and aft rig at this time, however, went a long w ay towards
removing this limitation. It enabled vessels to enter and depart from
practically any mooring, almost irrespective o f the wind direction.41
This was vital for those engaged in running goods onto a lee shore,
such as the Lancashire coast.
Although still in its early stages, the government in London began
to take notice o f the growth o f running trade in the Irish Sea after
the end o f the great farm o f the English customs in 16 7 1 .42 N ow that
the customs revenue was once again paid to the Crown, there was an
obvious determination that any evasion o f duty or fraudulent claims
for debentures should be stopped without delay. In 16 73, Thomas,
Lord Clifford, the Lord Treasurer, warned that it was Very necessary’
to send an itinerant officer to the Isle o f M an as well as to Ireland ‘to
prevent abuses in the Plantation trade,’ although he must have
realized the enorm ity o f the task he was proposing.43 For some
reason this advice was not acted upon immediately, even allowing
for a degree o f bureaucratic delay, and it was not until April 1682
that Christopher Eyans alias J ’Ans was appointed as surveyor, waiter
and searcher in the Isle o f M an.44 As far as Eyans was concerned, his
com mission conferred no official status within the island and it is
extremely doubtful whether, in strictly legal terms, the Crown had
the power to appoint officers to act within the island. Nevertheless,
the presence o f Eyans and the other officers subsequently appointed
for the island was tolerated, but the efforts o f these men to carry out
what they saw as their duty was an almost constant source of
irritation for the Lord’s customers or deputy searchers. In 1683,
Francis M ichelbourne was appointed to act as surveyor for Peel and
41 Jarvis, ‘Illicit trade’, pp. 47-48.
42 With the exception of the period of civil wars and Interregnum, the collection
of customs duty had been the responsibility of farmers since 1604. A. P. Newton,
‘The establishment of the great farm of the English customs’, Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society, 4th series, 1 (1918), pp. 129-55; F. C. Dietz, English public
finance, 1558 -16 4 1 (London, 1932), chaps 14 -16 .
43 Calendar of Treasury Books (CTB), 1673-75, P- 144-
44 CTB, 16 8 1-8 5, PP- 449, 452-
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 -17 5 5 2 1
Ramsey while Eyans was to concentrate on Douglas and Castletown.45
Clashes between the Crown officers and the waterbailiff and his
deputies were inevitable. In M ay 1683, for example, Eyans accused
Ferdinando Calcott, the waterbailiff, o f ‘inderect Practises very
Injurious to his Majestie in his Custom es’ . The charge arose,
according to Eyans, because Calcott had allowed a ship from the
West Indies to discharge its cargo o f tobacco at Ramsey without an
entry being made in the customs book. The fact that the landing of
this vessel’s cargo was in breach o f the Navigation Acts was serious
enough. W orse still, the contraband was then stored in the Lord’s
warehouse under the supervision o f Edward Curghey, the customer,
who, Eyans believed, was ‘siding with the smucklers’.46 Governor
Robert Heywood sum m oned all the parties to Castle Rushen in
Castletown for the case to be heard, but Eyans vehemently refused to
appear, ‘disowning the jurisdiction o f this C ourt’ and stated that he
would only proceed when he had received orders from the lords o f
the Treasury in London. As Heywood observed to W illiam, Earl o f
Derby, the presence o f such officers was a ‘great hindrance o f
commerce and trade here . . . to the utter destruction and ruin o f
the natives and inhabitants as also the great prejudice to your H onor
in your customs’ .47
Once England was at war with France at the end o f the decade,
there was the added problem o f m onitoring the embargo on trade
with the enemy. Great profits were to be made bringing com m odities, such as brandy, across the Channel and in spite o f the efforts o f
the revenue cutters a traffic rapidly developed between France and
Scotland.48 The king’s officers in the Isle o f M an were accordingly
determined to prevent the island from serving as a base for such
trade. Further confrontation between the waterbailiff’s deputies and
the Crown officers was therefore inevitable and soon flared up after
the arrival o f a Spanish ship, the St Stephen o f San Sebastian, with a
cargo o f brandy and wines in April 16 9 1. According to the
45 CTB, 1681-85, p- 876.
46 CTB, 1681-85, P- 568; MNHL, MD 401/1718/24. Christopher Eyans to Robert
Heywood, Governor, 16 and 19 May 1683.
47 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Ormonde, vol. 7, pp. 44- 45-
48 John Gale to Sir John Lowther, 30 Dec. 1694, D. R. Hainsworth, ed., The
correspondence of Sir John Lowther of Whitehaven, 1693—1698, Records of Social and
Economic History, new series, 7 (1983), P- 1 7 9 -
22 /. R. Dickinson
depositions o f its crew members, the ship had been en route from its
home port to Dublin when it was forced by ‘distresse o f weather’ to
take refuge at Derbyhaven, but there were suspicions that this story
was a fabrication and that, besides, the brandy and wine were
French. Furthermore, the fact that the pilot, who was the true
master o f the ship, was French, as was the owner o f the vessel,
though naturalized and living in London, only added to the doubt
about the intended destination o f the St Stephen. In an effort, it
seems, to forestall the Crown officers, the Lord’s customers seized
the vessel. The Crown surveyor, Benjamin Dewey, succeeded in
putting his own locks on the ship’s hatches and brought the matter
to an impasse. The case dragged on until late summer. Depositions
were taken from m any o f the crew and factors involved in the case
and aspersions were cast on the earl o f Derby for taking a sample of
the wine to be tested. The brandy was deemed to be French, but this
did not prevent the government ordering the release o f a vessel from
a country which was allied to the king.49 This would seem to have at
least avoided prolonging the wrangling about jurisdiction over the
vessel.
Crown officers continued to be resident in the island and revenue
cutters patrolled the Irish Sea, but neither could in the end do much
to stem the expansion o f the running trade. N or could the king’s
officers expect much cooperation from the inhabitants o f the Isle of
M an, a large proportion o f whom depended on the trade for at least
part o f their income. Brook Richm ond, com mander o f the yacht
Royal George, hired by the government to cruise off the coast o f the
Isle o f M an in 172 6 , reported to the collector o f customs at
Liverpool that the farmers o f the M anx customs from the earl of
Derby, Richard M cGuire, a Dublin merchant, and one Josiah Poole,
‘do exasperate and spirit up the people to make the officers and all
persons employed in the service o f the [British] government as
uneasy as they possibly can to deter them from doing their duty’.
Richm ond observed that the inhabitants ‘gave the like reception to
the com mander and crew o f the vessel till they found their threats
and menaces was to no manner o f purpose’ . This was no doubt
because Richm ond and his crew felt ‘obliged whenever they went
49 Lancashire Record Office, DDKe 80, ‘An account of the proceedings of the Earl
of Derby, Roger Kenyon, Esquire, Governor, and other his Lordshipps officers of the
Isle of Man against the Kings officers and other their Majesties subjects’; cf.
Historical Manuscripts Commission, Kenyon, pp. 252-55, 258-64.
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 - 1/ 5 5 23
ashoare to goe armed as if in an enemies country’. Understandably
Richm ond wanted not only additional men for his ship but also
requested half a dozen paterarols or swivel guns for protection.50
In the early eighteenth century, especially from the 1720s onwards,
the scale and scope o f the trade increased as never before. Imports o f
tobacco, brandy, sugar and tea in particular rose substantially and
com modities which had seldom if ever appeared in the waterbailiff’s
accounts began to assume considerable importance. A good example
is gin, often termed geneva, a corruption o f the Dutch jenever, which
does not seem to have been im ported before the eighteenth century
but which became a regular item in cargoes arriving from Rotterdam
after about 1730 . In 1 7 5 1 - 5 2 alone, 222.2 tuns were landed in M anx
ports. Rum , which had scarcely featured in the w aterbailiff’s
accounts before 172 0 , became another important com modity, with
6 5 1.1 tuns imported in 17 5 1- 5 2 . Brandy, which had been imported
into the island since at least the mid-seventeenth century, only
assumed real significance in the import trade after 1700, with
imports reaching 858.1 tuns in 17 3 7 -3 8 and 1,588.6 tuns in
1 7 5 1- 5 2 . Sugar had been recorded in the island’s customs records
at the end o f sixteenth century, but it had never been a regular part o f
the im port trade and it was not until about 1700 that imports o f loaf,
brown and powder sugar began to increase substantially. From below
1,000 lbs a year before the turn o f the century, sugar imports rose to
4,336 lbs in 17 2 0 - 2 1 and a quite staggering 17 5 ,8 4 1 lbs in 17 5 1- 5 2 .
M ost dramatic o f all perhaps was the growth in tea imports, mainly
shipped from Rotterdam, with the remainder o f the consignments
arriving from Gothenburg. Apparently from nothing in the early
eighteenth century, tea imports climbed rapidly to match consum ption and falling prices.51 In 17 5 1 - 5 2 , 83,635 lbs o f tea was landed in
the island (table 7).
Shipments o f at least some o f these high value commodities
arrived in ships directly from North America, France, Spain or the
50 R. C. Jarvis, Customs letter-books of the port of Liverpool, 1 / 1 1 - 1 8 1 3 , Chetham
Society, 3rd series, 6 (1954), pp. 28-30.
51 For an index of wholesale tea prices for domestic consumption, see W. A. Cole,
‘Trends in eighteenth-century smuggling’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 10
(1958), repr. in W. E. Minchinton, ed., The growth of English overseas trade in the
17th and 18th Centuries (London, 1969), p. 143; these imports comprised
exclusively tea from China; A. Macfarlane & I. Macfarlane, Green gold: The empire
of tea (London, 2003), p. 100.
24 /. R. Dickinson
T able 7 Imports o f brandy, gin, rum, sugar and tea into the Isle o f M an:
years ending 24 Jun e (before 17 0 1 ) and 29 Sept. (after 1700).
Brandy
tuns
Gin
tuns
Rum
tuns
Sugar
lbs
Tea
lbs
1594 — — __ 200 __
1600 — — — — ---
1605 — — — — ---
1610 — — — — ---
1618 — — — — ---
1630 — — — — ---
1647 0.64 — — 78 --
1667 0.25 — — — ---
1685 2.87 — — 956 ---
1696 — — — 255 ---
1721 774-5 — — 4,336 ---
1738 858.1 — 72.2 2,557 12,957
1752 1,588.6 222.2 651.1 175,841 83,635
Sources: see table 1.
West Indies, while others came via the Low Countries and Sweden,
but by far the largest proportion o f the island’s im port trade
throughout the period was shipped through English ports.52
Although it is not always possible to reconstruct a complete picture
o f the island’s trading network from the w aterbailiff’s accounts, it is
clear from those years in which the data are available in the later
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that England was the main
source o f imported raw materials and manufactured goods (table
8 .1). The most important English ports in this trade in the sixteenth
century were Chester and Liverpool, but by the late seventeenth
century Chester was losing its position, particularly as a source o f
manufactured goods, and by the early eighteenth century it had been
overtaken in importance by W hitehaven, the principal source o f the
island’s coal, which was rapidly developing as an im portant port.53
Liverpool remained the port with the most frequent contact with
the Isle o f M an. Its associations with the Stanley fam ily no doubt
52 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 291-307.
53 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 292-301. On the development of Whitehaven, see J. V.
Beckett, Coal and tobacco: The Lowthers and economic development of west Cumberland, 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 1981).
T able 8.1 Direction o f the trade o f the Isle o f M an by numbers o f
shipments, 1 7 2 1 , 17 38 , 17 5 2 (years ending 29 Sept.): imports.
Origin 17 2 1 1738 17 5 2
No. % No. % No. %
England 1 0.5 18 7 29.3 635 49-3
Ireland — 61 9.6 229 17.8
Scotland — 13 2.0 36 2.8
W ales — 1 0 .1 40 3-1
France — 27 4.2 22 1-7
Netherlands — 3 0.5 155 12 .0
N orw ay — 8 1.2 7 0.5
Portugal — 1 0.1
Spain — 3 0.5 41 3.2
Sweden — — 6 0.5
W est Indies — 10 1.6 31 2.4
N ot certain 1 0.5 1 1 1-7 29 2.2
N ot known 19 7 99 313 49.1 48 3-7
Total 19 9 637 1,288
Sources: see table 1.
T able 8.2 Direction o f the trade o f the Isle o f M an by numbers o f
shipments, 1 7 2 1 , 17 38 , 17 5 2 (years; ending 29 Sept.): exports.
Destination 17 2 1 1738 1752
No. % No. No.
Isle o f M an (coastal) 10 5 44-7 _ _
England 2 1 8.9 4 --
Channel Isles 15 6-3 — --
Ireland 15 6-3 — --
Scotland 7 2.9 — --
W ales 1 0.4 — --
France 2 0.8 — --
Netherlands 1 0.4 — --
N orw ay 46 19-5 — --
Portugal 1 0.4 — --
Spain 1 0.4 — --
N ot certain 1 0.4 — --
Not known 20 8.5 1 7
Total 236 5 7
Sources: see table 1.
26 J. R. Dickinson
helped to foster this maritime link, but Liverpool was in any case
well placed in relation to the manufacturing and mining centres o f
south Lancashire. The potential profits o f this trade were apparently
recognized soon after the Restoration when, in 1668, there was an
attempt by Isaac Legay and Thom as Puckley, two London m erchants, and James Jerome, a Liverpool merchant, to set up some sort
o f trading com pany with the ‘free licence and liberty, full power and
authority to Trafficke and trade’ in the Isle o f M an.54 While this
seems to have come to nothing, trade between Liverpool and the
island burgeoned. In 1 7 5 1- 5 2 , for example, 468 shipments were
made to the island from Liverpool, while 144 cleared from W hitehaven. The island maintained regular trading links with Irish ports,
especially those o f the east coast, although occasionally ships landed
cargoes from more distant ports, such as Cork. N ot surprisingly,
Dublin was the most important port in trade between Ireland and
the Isle o f Man. In 17 5 1 - 5 2 , ninety-three shipments from the city
were landed in M anx ports. Rush, in Co. Dublin, which had known
connections with smuggling, also played a significant role in the
trade, with thirty-eight cargoes originating from that port in
1 7 5 1 - 5 2 .55
O f far less importance to the island was its trade with south west
Scotland, while its links with Wales increased markedly during the
first half o f the eighteenth century, with cargoes o f coal arriving
from M ostyn and Bagillt and slate from Caernarfon and Beaumaris.
O f the continental ports with M anx trading connections, Rotterdam
was by far the most important, with 14 1 shipments cleared for the
island in 1 7 5 1 - 5 2 .56 As far as the island’s export and re-export trade
is concerned, the former appears to have almost totally ceased in the
eighteenth century and the latter, since not bearing duty, was
eventually no longer recorded.
By the m id -1750 s, it was all too apparent to the British government that something had to be done about the Isle o f Man. The scale
o f the running trade and the am ount o f m oney in lost customs
revenue had increased significantly since the late 1730 s, after the
lordship o f the island had been inherited by James, second Duke o f
Atholl in 17 3 6 (figure 1). Although there was no connection with
54 MNHL, MD 401, 1717 /16 ; The Earle of Derby his warant to trade in Man, 16
April 1668.
55 Cullen, ‘Smuggling in the North Channel’, pp. 1 1 , 18-19 .
56 MNHL, MS 10058, Charge of the customs of ingates and outgates, 1752.
6000
5500
5000
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
--------- Ingates (imports)
1 1 Outgates (exports)
A
n i \ — ti i i \
K I l\ I
- + V - l - I \ /
i V i v
A
\l\l
No accounts for
------ 1712 ____
I Customs at farm,
'--------- 1722-7 ___
-V
\ r
—A/\!
v
! 1 1 1 ' ' i J__ I__ L .1—L
Years ending at Sept. 29
F ig . x Custom s revenue o f the Isle o f M an, 17 0 5 -5 5
28 /. R. Dickinson
T able 9 Isle o f M an : 'C lear revenue o f the Customs
fo r imports’, 17 5 4 -6 3 , years ending 29 Sept.
Total
1754 £5,944 7s 2Vid
1755 £4,968 is 5%d
1756 £4,749 is lod
1757 £5,233 17s oVid
1758 £5,180 2S 3?4d
1759 £8,082 18s od
1760 £7,093 12s iVld
1761 £9,544 2S n % d
1762 £6,391 6s lod
1763 £7,029 os yVid
Source: 5 Geo. Ill, c.26 (schedule).
this event, by the date o f the last extant M anx customs accounts in
17 5 5 , it was clear from London’s perspective that real action was
long overdue, with receipts from the island’s customs revenue
reaching nearly £6,000 in 17 5 3 -5 4 and according to the British
government’s own figures, peaking at almost £9,550 in 17 6 0 -6 1.
(table 9). Efforts had been made by the English government as early
as the 1680s to obtain a lease o f the customs from the earl o f Derby
and negotiations were held with Earl W illiam to this end. There was
a good deal o f resistance from the earl and the project finally
collapsed in 1688.57
The earl o f Derby did eventually make a lease o f the island’s
customs, though not to the Crown. In February 17 2 2 , James, tenth
Earl o f Derby, leased the island’s customs revenue to Richard
M cGuire o f Dublin, merchant, and Josiah Poole o f Liverpool for a
term o f twenty-one years, but this rapidly came to an end in 17 2 7
when, it seems, that the farmers failed to make the necessary
payments to the earl.58 It was not until 1764, however, that the
British government went one step further than a mere lease and
began the process to purchase the rights o f the duke o f Atholl ‘for
preventing that pernicious and illicit trade which is at present
carried on between the said Island and other ports o f His M ajesty’s
dom inions, in violation o f the laws, and to the great dim inution and
57 Dickinson, Lordship, pp. 336-37. 58 MNHL, MD 401/1726/12.
The overseas trade o f the Isle o f M an, 15 7 6 - 17 5 5 29
detriment o f the revenues o f the kingdom ’.59 This was finally
completed by Act o f Parliament in the following year when the
Isle o f M an was ‘revested’ in the Crown.60 This development
dramatically reduced the level o f the running trade through the
island though it by no means eliminated the traffic, which continued
along other sea lanes, using other bases. The increase in shipments o f
rum across the North Channel from Scotland to Ireland in the 1760s
and the rise in importance o f the Channel Islands as a base for
smuggling activity at the same time have been attributed in large
measure to the closure o f the Isle o f M an to this trade.61
In the sixteenth century at least, the maritim e trade o f the Isle o f
M an was extremely limited by com parison with the scale o f the
commercial enterprises undertaken by the merchants o f Dublin or
Chester or Liverpool. The island’s maritime trade, focused mainly
on England, was based on the export o f prim ary products, notably
cattle and hides, and the im port o f necessary raw materials and
manufactured goods. W ith the changes brought by the restrictions
on cattle imports into England from the island in the 1660s and the
encouragement to merchants from all Irish Sea ports to take
advantage o f the island’s position to circumvent the increased
duties in England from the later seventeenth century onwards, the
size and the value o f M anx overseas trade rose dramatically,
especially after 1700 and most markedly o f all once the lordship
o f the island had passed from the Stanley earls o f Derby to the
M urray dukes o f Atholl in 1736 . This was true at least o f the import
and re-export trade, while exports o f M anx cattle, hides and the
other commodities which had form ed the mainstay o f the island’s
trade before 1600 vanished completely in a very short space o f time.
As far as the earl o f Derby or the duke o f Atholl as Lord o f Man
was concerned, no laws were being broken by those engaged in the
re-export or running trade, but from the other sides o f the Irish Sea
the commissioners o f the customs in England and in Ireland and the
59 British Parliamentary Papers, Proceedings of the Privy Council on petition of
Duke of Atholl for further compensation for sale of feudal rights of Isle of Man,
1805 vol. X 79, p. 13.
60 5 Geo. Ill, c.26.
61 L. E. Cochran, Scottish trade with Ireland in the eighteenth century (Edinburgh,
1985), P- 85; Cullen, Anglo-Irish trade, pp. 147-48; A. G. Jamieson, ‘The Channel
Isles and smuggling, 1680-1850’, in A. G. Jamieson, ed., A people of the sea: The
maritime history of the Channel Islands (London, 1986), pp. 195-219.
30 J. R. Dickinson
government in London took a distinctly contrary view. M uch to the
exasperation o f the English and subsequently British government,
the Lords o f M an benefited very considerably from this trade and
rejected efforts to obtain a lease o f the island’s customs revenue for
the Crown as well as offers to purchase the rights once and for all.
Even the transition to the M urray lordship o f the island initially
made little difference; in fact, trade boom ed and the yields o f the
island’s customs revenue soared to new and dizzying heights in
c.1750 . W hen, however, John, third Duke o f Atholl, finally agreed to
the surrender o f his rights at a price o f £70,000 and the Isle o f M an
was revested in the Crown in 17 6 5 , the heyday o f the running trade
in the Irish Sea was over.