DESCENDANTS of the first inmates of Dartmoor Prison are being sought to take part in the 200th anniversary of the jail.

The first prisoners were 2,500 French sailors captured during the battles of the Napoleonic War between 1803 and 1815.

While some returned to France after the war, some married local girls or had children with them and local historian Trevor James is hoping to find some of their descendants in time for the anniversary next year.

He is is working with Alain Sibiril, the Honorary French Consul in Plymouth, to try and track them down. Mr James has studied the list of 300 naval officers who passed through Dartmoor and said perhaps a dozen stayed behind after the Napoleonic War ended: 'We have already been contacted by people with French-sounding names who think their family may be descended from these French officers,' he said.

The difficulty in tracing some of these men has come from the fact that names on prison registers have sometimes been misspelt or written phonetically by often barely literate people at the time.

Anyone with family links to the French prisoners of war can contact Mr James on 01837 840149 or Alain Sibiril on 07774 164145.