Isaac Gulliver

Isaac Gulliver (c. 1745–1822) was an English smuggler based on the South Coast. Gulliver and his gang ran fifteen luggers to transport gin, silk, lace and tea from the Continent to Poole Bay On 5 October 1768 he married innkeeper's daughter Betty Beale at Sixpenny Handley parish church.

An extremely wealthy man, Gulliver was able to build many grand houses, among them 'Howe Lodge', in Kinson, Bournemouth, a purpose-built smuggling stronghold. When the house was demolished in 1958, a number of hiding places were found within, including a secret room only accessible through a door 10 feet up a chimney. His descendants include: Sir Frederick Fryer; Lt Gen Sir John Fryer; the banker Edward Castleman, owner of Chettle House; and Captain Thomas Hanham, instrumental in the campaign to legalise cremation in England.

In literature Willibald Alexis's historical romance Walladmor (1823) includes a smuggler character whom the novel's English translator Thomas De Quincey recognized as based on Isaac Gulliver. De Quincey used the identification to add further material.

Gulliver appears as a character in Leon Garfield's novel The Drummer Boy (1970).

Legacy In 1993, the Dolphin Inn public house in Kinson was renamed Gulliver’s Tavern.