Lancelot 'Lanty' Slee (1800/1802–1878) was a

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

farmer, quarryman and notorious

smuggler Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. There are various ...

. The name 'Lanty' is a diminutive for Lancelot used in the Lake District.

Life

Slee, a 'stiff, fresh faced man of great endurance', was of Irish descent but originally came from

Borrowdale Borrowdale is a valley and civil parish in the English Lake District in the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It lies within the historic county boundaries of Cumberland. It is sometimes referred to as ''Cumberland Borrowdale'' t ...

and lived in

Little Langdale Little Langdale is a valley in the Lake District, England, containing Little Langdale Tarn and a hamlet also called Little Langdale. A second tarn, Blea Tarn, is in a hanging valley between Little Langdale and the larger Great Langdale to the no ...

for most of his life. He is variously reported to have been a farmer and a

quarryman A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their environ ...

as a day job but also had a thriving business in smuggling. Slee operated multiple illicit

still A still is an apparatus used to distill liquid mixtures by heating to selectively boil and then cooling to condense the vapor. A still uses the same concepts as a basic distillation apparatus, but on a much larger scale. Stills have been used ...

s for production of

moonshine Moonshine is high-proof liquor that is usually produced illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of creating the alcohol during the nighttime, thereby avoiding detection. In the first decades of the 21st century, commercial dist ...

whisky Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains (which may be malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden c ...

which he sold for 10

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...

s per

gallon The gallon is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use: *the imperial gallon (imp gal), defined as , which is or was used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Austral ...

, or smuggled with pack horses via

Wrynose Pass The Wrynose Pass is a mountain pass in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England between the Duddon Valley and Little Langdale. Etymology The unusual name of the pass is taken from that of the adjacent Wrynose hill, also called Wryn ...

and

Hardknott Hard Knott is a fell in the English Lake District, at the head of Eskdale. Geology Rhyolitic lava-like tuff of the Bad Step Tuff forms the summit rocks with the dacitic lapilli-tuffs of the Lincomb Tarns Formation to the north west. Border en ...

Ravenglass Ravenglass is a coastal village in the Copeland District in Cumbria, England. It is between Barrow-in-Furness and Whitehaven. Historically in Cumberland, it is the only coastal village in the Lake District National Park. It is located at the es ...

. He transported smuggled tobacco on the return journey. The whisky was sold to "discerning local gentry and professional classes" including a local

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...

. One of his many stills and stores throughout Langdale and the surrounding area was in a cave in Moss Rigg quarry in Little Langdale; the cave is now walled up. Another was hidden in a quarry scar on the route up to Betsy Crag where remnants of his equipment still survived until the 1960s. A still beneath Low Arnside Farm was connected to an underground pipe so that the steam produced seemingly emanated from a hedge in a nearby field. 'Lanty's Cave', his largest still, was in a field at Arnside. In 1840 Slee built Greenbank Farm in Little Langdale where he then lived for some time before subsequently moving to Low Arnside. He was convicted at least twice although his stills and stashes of moonshine were hardly ever found by the

excise file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...

men and his wit led to hilarious episodes in the

Ambleside Ambleside is a town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Lakes, Cumbria, Lakes, in Cumbria, in North West England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Westmorland, it marks the head (and sits on the east side of the northern ...

courtrooms. Lanty fathered a son named Joseph in 1850 when he was living at Low Arnside. His occupation listed on the baptism register at that time was a farmer. Another son named Adam lived to be more than 100. William Pattinson, Lanty's business partner, informed on him to the local

s after a quarrel relating to the business. Slee was convicted of illegal distillation of liquor in May 1853 and fined £150. Pattinson fled the area. In 1855 he is listed as still living at Low Arnside but subsequently Slee moved back to Little Langdale and set up new stills. He died at Greenbank Farm in 1878.

References

External links

Cumbria Magazine - The legend of Lancelot Slee (p19-22)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slee, Lanty 1800s births 1878 deaths Smugglers English farmers