Ruxleys Crew

The Ruxey, or Ruxley's crew were a gang of smugglers that gained a large measure of notoriety in the early 1760s. They were led by 'Ruxley' (Stephen Bourner) and would, often during storms, board ships navigating the English Channel under the pretense of carrying out legitimate business. As soon as access to the victim vessel was achieved, they would lock up the crew of the ship, killing any that resisted and remove the cargo before sinking the vessel with all of the victim's hands on board.

Drawing from [http://www.smuggling.co.uk/gazetteer_se_17.html Smuggling.co.uk Website

This was during a period in history when privateering licenses could be purchased from the government. The event that led to the crew gaining their notoriety was when they attacked a Dutch vessel on the 15th of August 1786, the 'Three Sisters' under the command of Peter Bootes, unsuccessfully off Beachy Head. In an attempt to escape, one of the gang, Stephen Taught was left behind. The Dutch captain made the fateful decision to hang the unfortunate crewmember from the yard-arm. This infuriated the Ruxley crew, who launched a new attack which was successful. Taught was cut down from the yard-arm and retribution was gained by splitting the Dutch captain's back with an axe, killing him.

Later, the gang's drunken bragging about how the 'Dutchman wriggled when they cut him down the backbone', giving rise to the name of 'Chopbacks', led to outrage among the population of Hastings and demands were made as to what would be done about the gang. The mayor was attacked when he could not provide a reply to this and as a result the Government of the day anchored a Man-of-War offshore and sent 200 Inniskilling Dragoons ashore. The gang was arrested and tried in London (for fear that local citizens would be too afraid to find the gang guilty). Ultimately in 1769. At the Admiralty Sessions, held in London on Oct. 30th 1769, Thomas Phillips, elder and younger, William and George Phillips, Mark Chatfield, Robert Webb, Thomas and Samuel Ailsbury, James and Richard Hyde, William Geary, alias Justice, alias George Wood, Thomas Knight, and William Wenham, were indicted for the piracy of the Three Sisters, and capitally convicted; and of these Thomas Ailsbury, William Geary, William Wenham, and Richard Hyde were hung, at Execution Dock on the 27th of November.

The arrests of the gang caused a number of individuals, who, whilst not immediately involved, were implicated in the gang's activities such panic that one shop-keeper, reportedly worth £10,000 absconded at the news. The legacy of the chopbacks endured (at least in the case of the Moon family) until possibly the 1960s when a local resident declared upon barring a contractor named 'Moon' from his house that "I'm not having a chopback in my house"

The name of 'Chopbacks' has been adopted by Bexhill College Football team (2020).