Unusual tale of island's convict 'king'

Lundy Island out in the Bristol Channel has long been a popular visitor destination, even a place where you can rent a place to stay for a week or two in relative isolation. It's also a place with a lot of history. Eugene Byrne looks at one of the stranger chapters in its story, which started to unfold 100 years ago.

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Lundy island in the Bristol Channel, a place of bloodstained history, shipwrecks ... and strangeness

A VISIT to Lundy is one of those highlights which every West Country resident or tourist ought to experience sooner or later. Go there and you can easily imagine how hundreds of years ago its visitors or residents imagined that they were at the edge of the known world.

Now, we're just there for the scenery, or to admire the cute puffins or maybe stay there for a week or two to get away from the noise and stress of modern life.

Nobody thinks much about the history of the place, which is long and often violent. It was a haunt of pirates on several occasions. In the early 17th century it was even controlled for a while by Barbary pirates from North Africa, led by a renegade Dutchman, Jan Janszoon, who raided mainland towns and villages carrying off men, women and children to be enslaved. They also preyed on merchant shipping bound to or from Bristol, seriously damaging the city’s economy.

And all through its history it was a place where ships were wrecked, particularly in the days before it had its two lighthouses, and particularly because of the fog and mist that frequently envelop it. One ship in the 1860s came to grief on Lundy because its compass was out by several points on account of its hold being full of metal - guns bound for the Confederacy in the American Civil War.

Thanks to accidents of law and history, the island was not considered an integral part of England. Its inhabitants did not pay English taxes, and when they brought goods or produce to the mainland they were subject to customs dues. Most of its long line of owners regarded Lundy as their own personal kingdom.