There was a shortage of labourers and voluntary manpower for the drainage scheme which was financed by the Gentlemen Adventurers.
Local people were not willing to help with the drainage scheme as they saw it as a threat to their livelihoods.
Around the same time, there were wars going on between the English and Scotland and between the English and the Dutch.
The Scottish prisoners had been defeated at the battles of Worcester and Dunbar. Many thousands died in the battles and many more thousands were forced to march to the fens to work on the drainage projects by order of Cromwell’s parliament. Many were sent to prisons but the prisons were soon overflowing. Thousands of others were sent overseas to work as forced labour if they survived the hazardous passage.
Looking after the prisoners of war from these Anglo-Scottish and Anglo-Dutch wars cost a lot of money to look after.
So Cromwell’s parliament agreed that the Scottish and Dutch prisoners could be put to work in the fens.
In 1651, Scottish and Dutch prisoners were brought to the fens to work on the drainage of parts of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk.
They were joined by about 500 Dutch sailors who lost an engagement off Portland Bill in the First Anglo-Dutch War.
From 1651 to 1654, the Scottish and Dutch men were allocated tasks of cutting drains and dykes, and making natural rivers deeper, wider and/or straighter. They were given identical white suits, tools and slept in makeshift huts which were dismantled and reassembled as they made progress.
These prisoners cut the drains, raised the embankments and drained the fens so they became the ‘bread basket of Britain’.
Many of the conscripts died from the work and from the fen ague whilst draining the fens and any attempt to escape meant facing execution by shooting. Some of them were laid to rest in distant churchyards and some in the riverbanks.
The Fens App 