Billy Warren, Research Volunteer at the Museum, delves into the history of man traps and their use by Cornish farmers and landowners against commoners who trespassed to find food or steal, and their eventual ban in the 1820s.

I’ll admit that I had never heard of a man-trap before I came to the Museum of Cornish Life – it’s hardly the sort of thing that comes up in everyday conversation! The man-traps at the Museum, however, are hard to miss. On show in the Drill Hall as part of our Law and Order display, they are attention-grabbing for their sheer size – the largest in the collection is almost 2 metres long – and, of course, their gruesome history. Although its name is fairly self-explanatory, it is worth underlining: yes, man-traps are meant to trap people.

What is a man trap?

Man-traps are large steel spring-loaded traps which are triggered when someone steps on them, closing around their leg. The large teeth on the jaws of a man-trap, and the force with which they snapped shut, meant that they caused serious injury to anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in one. Man-traps were primarily used by landowners of estates, woodlands and farms to deter poachers, who were people who tried to hunt wild animals on private land. They were mostly in use from 1770 to the 1820s and they were almost entirely banned in 1827 along with spring-guns, another type of anti-poaching device which was a trip-wire triggered gun.

Why man traps end up in museums

Man-traps often end up coming to museums from country houses, especially during clearances or sales. One our man-traps (HESFM:1977.1856) was donated by Henry Graham-Vivian of Bosahan, a manor house near Manaccan, and is particularly decorative. It can be seen in a window alcove by the stairs in the Drill Hall and is noticeably different from the simple designs of the other traps in the Museum. The date that this item was donated is not known, with it first being catalogued in 1977. However the Graham-Vivians sold the “greater portion of the contents of the mansion” of Bosahan in 1954, so it may be that the man-trap was donated at a similar time.

Man traps in the collection

One of our man traps (CM:1977.339.F) comes from Camborne Museum and was donated in 1936 by R. H. Rowse of Cusgarne (an auctioneer) through W. J. Whitburn (later the Gwennap Parish Council clerk). It was said to be the last man-trap used in Gwennap parish and “in a splendid state of preservation”; it is now on display in the Drill Hall and is one of our largest traps.

The Museum also has a spring-gun (HESFM:1977.1869), donated by the Helston Old Cornwall Society. Spring-guns would swing round and fire into the victims legs when someone disturbed their tripwire. However, they could also be modified, as the one we have is, to allow them to shoot higher, making them deadly. Both spring-guns and man-traps were banned at the same time.

Tensions over land use, access, hunting and poaching

Landowners had tried to prevent and harshly punish poaching in England for centuries by the time that man-traps and spring-guns became popular. Hunting on private land became widely criminalised by the Forest Laws under William the Conqueror, when he made large parts of England his personal royal forests and banned people from hunting there. Although the monarch’s power and the poaching laws were much diminished by Magna Carta in 1215 and a law from 1271 called the Charter of the Forest, it was not long before nobles sought to restrict the right to hunt again. Pieces of legislation called the Game Laws were passed starting in the 14th century and restricted the hunting rights significantly until it was a privilege for large landowners only.

The rise of game shooting in Cornwall

By the late 18th century, shooting game for entertainment had become more popular among nobility and gentry. Before long, having a good pheasant shoot was a status symbol and an entertainment event for high society, and man-traps and anti-poaching devices were starting to be used to prevent poachers who threatened that. Poaching was seen as an existential threat to shooting for sport and was a source of conflict between the nobility and the rest of society. In a letter in 1826, Edward Boscawen, the Earl of Falmouth, complained that “certain Gentry of Truro” had killed almost all the pheasants in the grounds of some manors in Cornwall and that he hoped “to put a stop to the murderous poaching” of game. Even though both poachers and nobles were killing game, landowners characterised poaching as ‘“destruction” and bringing “ruin” upon bird populations while describing their own activities as “gentlemanlike sport”.

Enclosure: the end of the commons

It is also likely that the threat of poaching would have increased as common lands were enclosed, which had resulted in fewer legal food sources. Common lands were where people could farm the land or hold livestock; although the land was technically owned by the local lord of the manor, many residents would have had the right to use them. Enclosure was the process where common lands were privatised and people’s right to use them were removed. This was happening in England from the 12th century, with the justification that it made farming more cost-effective. Under the Inclosure Act 1773, common land was enclosed even more rapidly than it had under previous laws, leaving workers vulnerable to high food prices and low wages. Between 1760 and 1870, 7 million hectares of land (amounting to one sixth of all of England) were enclosed, agricultural prices rose sharply, and wages stagnated.

Hungry Cornish countryside

As landowners took common land and amalgamated it into their property, agriculture became more efficient and productivity increased. However, the increased productivity and the larger harvests did not benefit most people. Malnutrition became more common as workers lost the ability to use common land to feed themselves and enclosure privatised (and thus criminalised) food sources that had been vital for generations beforehand. By the end of the 18th century, England was left with an “angry, impoverished and hungry countryside”.

Foot riots

Indeed, hunger in Cornwall was common; historian Francis Edwards recorded 21 instances of ‘food riots’ in Cornwall between the 1720s and 1847. In many cases, poaching may have been less of a criminal enterprise and more of a necessity: in the records of an 1821 poaching trial against two men from Stoke Climsland, Thomas Harris and Robert Thompson, it is recorded that they said they were going after “a pheasant or two”. This seems much more like subsistence hunting than the ‘ruin’ that the Earl of Falmouth predicted.

Landowners put in place many preventative measures to try and stop poaching. Gamekeepers and night watchmen were employed and large rewards were offered for informers who would help them catch poachers. Punishments were harsh, and at the turn of the 19th century, those convicted could face transportation to Australian penal colonies. Transportation was often for fairly minor crimes and overwhelmingly enacted upon the poorest people in society, targeted at “the mildly criminal and the criminally poor.”

Transportation for poachers

According to Kowethas Ertach Kernow, only around 600 people from Cornwall were transported, so it is uncertain whether this would have been used as a regular punishment for poaching in Cornwall or acted as an effective deterrent. Harris and Thompson themselves were transported, though this may have been because they had also been indicted for stealing money. Although man-traps were undeniably violent, many landowners at the time saw them as just another tool that they could use against poachers, especially as it allowed them to employ fewer gamekeepers.

Man traps banned

Man traps were eventually banned in 1827 after repeated instances of innocent people, including children, being caught in them instead of poachers. The legislation which banned them, the Spring Guns Act 1827, took several years to actually become law and debates in Parliament were often divided.

Cornish politicians split

There were Cornish politicians on both sides of the debate. Sir Richard Hussey Vivian was one of those who opposed the legislation. He was MP for Windsor at the time, but had strong connections to Cornwall and was MP for Truro for many years. Vivian spoke only briefly in the debate and opposed the bill, saying that banning anti-poaching devices would mean landowners would have to employ “a great additional force of gamekeepers”. On the other side, Edmund Carrington, then the MP for St Mawes, supported the ban. He felt that man-traps were wrong because they harmed people indiscriminately, even when they had not been found guilty of any crime, saying that “no suspicion … will justify the killing of an adversary”. These were some typical arguments of the time, where the increased cost of gamekeepers was held to be just as important as the danger of injury to innocent people. It is important to note that many Cornish MPs at the time were elected by corrupt ‘rotten boroughs’ which were essentially controlled by powerful local aristocrats. This meant that the views of people who lived in Cornwall were not represented in Parliament in the way that they are through elections today.

The act passed and was recognised in April 1827 with a curt mention in the Royal Cornwall Gazette, Cornwall’s first newspaper: “By the new Spring Guns Bill all persons setting or causing to be set Spring Guns and Traps are guilty of a misdemeanour.” Man-traps were still legal to set inside buildings overnight to try and stop intruders, and so remained in use for several decades until a total ban was enacted by the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.

Man traps: preserving objects of power and control

The man traps in our collection have played their part in a particularly gruesome chapter in the story of land ownership in Cornwall. They illustrate not only the industrial advancements of the time which allowed production at scale but also the demand from landowners for better deterrents against poaching. In discovering more about the history of these artefacts that I had otherwise never heard of, I have found them to be a window into a fascinating period of Cornish history and a stark reminder of the means powerful people have used to exert their control.

Billy Warren, research volunteer.

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