In 1698 the Treasury and Board of Customs established the Riding Officers in Kent and Sussex to help combat the rise in smuggling. By the early 18th century this force was around 300 men. It was further expanded to cover most of the British coastline.
At sea the small fleet of Revenue sloops could not effectively tackle the bigger and better armed smuggling vessels. Warren Lisle, Surveyor of Sloops of the South Coast from 1740 to 1779, succeeded in obtaining new larger and better armed vessels. These were clinker built cutters with a large spread of sail and a very long bowsprit. By 1782 there were 40 vessels in service totalling 4000 tons and carrying 700 crewmen and 200 guns. From this period the Revenue Service began to gain the upper hand.
In 1809 the Preventive Waterguard was formed. They were based in Watch Houses around the coast and boat crews patrolled their allotted stretch of coast each night. At this time there were 42 Revenue cruisers and 59 boats covering the three divisions comprising the British coastline. So at this time there was a triple defence line: at sea the Preventive cruisers, inshore the boats of the Waterguard and ashore the Riding Officers.
William first appears in the service records of the Preventative Waterguard when in January 1821, at the age of 16, he is promoted from the position of Commissioned Boatmen at Staithes station, just along the coast from Whitby to a station named Usan, on the East coast of Scotland as Chief Boatman. In September 1824, records show him joining the recently formed Prussia Cove Station as a Commissioned Boatman from Bethelvie station, near Aberdeen, so he moved around.
At that time officers were regularly moved around the coast, particularly away from their local communities, to prevent collusion. At the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 the services were unified and the Coastguard was formed. Coastguards served on ships and on shore.
Coastguard Stations were equipped with living quarters for married men as well as single quarters. Each station was commanded by a Chief Officer (normally a Royal Navy lieutenant). Beneath him were Chief Boatman, Commissioned Boatman and Boatman ranks. The coastguards were more involved in preventing smuggling at that time than watching the coast for ships in trouble.
So, William Jackson has arrived in Cornwall. He is now aged 19. It doesn’t take him long to ‘collude’, as just over a year later in October 1825 he marries local girl Mary Sampson. The marriage was probably encouraged as in February the following year their first child William is born.
Records of his Coastguard postings after this time are hazy, but as William and Mary’s second and third children, Thomas (1829) and Mary (1830) are born in Penberth, it seems that he was posted to the Penberth station to remove him from the Perranuthnoe community that he had married into. Coastguard accommodation was on the St. Levan side of the river so Thomas and Mary are recorded as having been born in St. Levan parish.
Their next three children, Robert (1835), John (1837) and Matthew (1839) are born, according to the census records in Dungeness, Dover and Romney, in that order, so the family had been posted to the Kent coast where smuggling was rife. It seems that William left the service around this time as the 1841 census shows William as a Superannuated Coastguard, which means he was probably receiving a pension. It seems a lot of older coastguards were pensioned off around this time as the navy was getting smaller and sailors were being moved into the Coastguard service as an alternative employment.
The family returned to Penberth and lived in a cottage on the St. Buryan side of the river, as I assume he was no longer eligible for one of the Coastguard cottages, which were on the St. Levan side of the Penberth river.
The Jacksons Of Porthgwarra 