Unlike other studies that have written about the lives of convicts, I employ the lens of micro-prosopography to examine the lives of a group convicts cum emancipists collectively, not merely to seek statistical aggregations but to seek both the range and commonalities of their life experiences. Although 15 is a very small sample, there is sufficient information to gain an impression of the lives lived in the two hemispheres. The identikit portrait based on these impressions is offered as a provisional sketch that may, at the very least, raise questions.
The bibliographical portraits of these 15 men who were convicts, at one time at the AACo in Port Stephens or Newcastle, have been built up from a variety of sources as stated in the Introduction. Those included virtually selected themselves in accordance with the amount and relevance of the information found. Using information from these biographies this chapter will examine the numerous common experiences of these men both before and after they gained their freedom. In some cases it will also follow them beyond the grave, so to speak, to consider their legacy in the lives of their dependants. The chapter will conclude with an identikit portrait or composite picture of our ‘typical’ convict cum emancipist.
Table 1 Age & Year of transportation; Place of Birth
Name Age when
Transported
Year
Transported
Place of Birth
Bray, Thomas 21 1831 London
Broadhead, Samuel 26 1824 Yorkshire
Collins, Edward 18 1830 Stafford
Collins, John 25 1830 Stafford
Earp, William 24 1824 Derbyshire
Goodman, James 61 1831 Worcester
Goodman, Thomas 16 1831 Stafford
Hampton, William 46 1837 Kent
Herring, Diogenes 17 1829 London
Hoyle, Patrick 22 1822 Louth, Ireland
Hyde, James 19 1827 Shropshire
McNally, Francis 35 1826 Meath, Ireland
Mulholland, James 18 1829 Dublin, Ireland
Randall, Charles 19 1828 London
Stephenson, James 22 1827 Derbyshire
*Source: SRNSW, Annotated Printed Indents.
Twelve of the 15 emancipists, or 80 per cent were born in England. Of these, one was born in Yorkshire in the north and seven in the Midlands – Staffordshire in the central midlands, Derbyshire in the east and Shropshire in the west; four were born in the south – three in London and one in Kent. The remaining three, or 20 per cent, were born in three adjoining counties on the east coast of Ireland – Dublin, Meath and Louth. The first historian to publish comprehensive statistical details of Australian convicts, Lloyd Robson, based his calculations on a sampling method of one in 20.1 His
results showed that 56 per cent were born in England, 23 per cent in Ireland and 5 per cent in Scotland and overseas.2 This being the case, the present sample can possibly be
considered as a reasonable representation of the distribution of the countries of birth.
1 For a detailed explanation of the sampling method used see L.L. Robson, The Convict Settlers of Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1965, Appendix 1, pp. 139-144.
2 He was unable to find the place of birth for 16% of his sample, presumably predominately for transportees 1821, when the records were often incomplete.
The fact that the convicts in our sample hailed from a variety of regions in the United Kingdom also provides us with an insight into an important feature of colonial society: the extraordinary variety of regional backgrounds, that is, from the natural rhythm of rural life that survived into the 19th century, to the regimen of the factory bell in a
metropolitan centre that quickly overtook it; from the experience of labour in
England’s green and pleasant lands to that in its dark satanic mills; from life lived under the gaze of the squire to that observed by the factory boss; and even to the odd
discord between accents cultivated in different parts of the country, which are discussed below.3
The 15 men were born between the years of 1770 and 1818 and lived for a mean of 65½ years. This is six and a half years longer than men were expected to live in
Australia at the end of the 1800s4 – they did well. The youngest to die was Earp at the
age of 31 and the oldest James Goodman, at the age of 91. The average age of death is also significantly higher than Britain, which, by 1900, was only 47 for men. Ironically, then, for these men transportation was good for them. Their ages when transported ranged from 16 to 61 with the 16-year-old boy, Thomas Goodman, the son of 61-year- old James.5 Six of the 15, or 40 per cent, were in their teens, another six were aged
between 21 and 26, again 40 per cent, while the remaining three, 20 per cent, were aged from 35 to 61. It becomes obvious from looking at the number of those aged
3 Dialects can be defined as ‘differences in grammar and vocabulary’ and accents ‘varieties of pronunciation’. Arthur Hughes, English accents and dialects: an introduction to social and regional varieties of British English, London, 1979, p.2. See also E.P. Thompson, ‘Time, Work, Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism’, Past and Present, No. 38, December 1967, pp. 56-97; Arthur Redford, Labour Migration in England, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1964.
4 See Ruth Weston, Lixia Qu and Grace Sorino, ‘The Changing Shape of Australia’s Population’, Australian Institute of Family Studies, No. 10, September 2001,
http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/briefing10.pdf.
5 Although the Goodman father and son were parted after the convict transport arrived at the dock, by coincidence they both worked at different times at the AACo.
below 26 that the mean of 25.9 years for the sample gives a false picture as it is skewed by the ages of the three older men – McNally, 35, Hampton, 46 and the 61- year-old James Goodman. It is therefore the median age of 22 years that gives a better representation although the mean age does correspond with that given by Robson of 25.9. The age of 40 per cent of teenagers in our sample is higher than that given by
Robson for all male convicts, 19 per cent, while the percentage of those aged between 21 and 26, 40 per cent, is approximately the same as Robson if his figures in
the categories of ages 20 to 24 and 25 to 29 are extrapolated. The 20 per cent for the three men in our sample aged between 35 and 61 is higher than that of Robson, 13 per cent, although Robson did not have the data that accounted for 9 per cent of his sample. Even though our sample is small and thus the percentages are easily distorted, the ages of our emancipists are weighted more heavily in both the younger and older age ranges than those of Robson.
As mentioned in the Introduction, the men in our sample were transported between 1822 and 1837. According to Robson, they were in company with 19,280 males transported to New South Wales in the 1820s and 27,560 in the 1830s.6 The other
historian to publish statistical information just a year after Robson, A.G.L. Shaw, showed figures that differed slightly – 18,489 transportees in the 1820s and 27,309 in the 1830s.7 Both Robson (14,600) and Shaw (13,923) show that transportation of
males to New South Wales peaked between 1830 and 1834, when, from among our cohort, the Collins brothers and the Goodman father and son were transported. The
6 L.L. Robson, The Convict Settlers of Australia, p 146. These figures, however, disagree with those given by him on p. 153 which are higher.
7 A.G.L. Shaw, Convicts and the Colonies. A Study of Penal Transportation from Great Britain and Ireland to Australia & Other Parts of the British Empire, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1998, pp. 365- 367.
transportees for the period between 1835 and 1839, Robson (12,860) and Shaw (13,386), included Bray, Hampton and Hyde.
Table 2 Place of Birth & Conviction; Crime & Sentence
Name Place of Birth Place of Conviction
Crime Sentence
Bray, Thomas London Lincoln Burglary of silver watch
Life Broadhead,
Samuel
Yorkshire Nottingham Highway robbery Life Collins, Edward Stafford Worcester Stealing donkey Seven Collins, John Stafford Worcester Stealing donkey Seven Earp, William Derbyshire Derbyshire Stealing clothes, etc. Life Goodman, James Worcester Stafford Buying stolen poultry 14 Goodman,
Thomas
Stafford Stafford Buying stolen poultry 14 Hampton,
William
Kent Kent Stealing firewood Seven
Herring, Diogenes
London Surrey Stealing watch Seven
Hoyle, Patrick Louth, Ireland Louth Stealing calico Seven Hyde, James Shropshire Shropshire Highway robbery Life McNally, Francis Meath, Ireland Galway Firing with intent to
kill
Life Mulholland,
James
Dublin, Ireland Dublin House robbery Life Randall, Charles London London Stealing musical
instruments, etc.
Life Stephenson,
James
Derbyshire Northampton Stealing handkerchiefs
14 *Source: SRNSW, Bound Manuscript Indents.
Almost half the men in our sample were sentenced to life for their crimes. This not only included the men who committed the more serious crimes listed in Table 2 – Broadhead, Hyde, McNally and Mulholland – but three whose crimes were of a more minor nature (Bray, Earp and Randall). The Goodmans were each given 14 years as was Stevenson. Those receiving seven years were the Collins brothers, Hampton, Herring and Hoyle. With 47 per cent transported for life, 20 per cent for 14 years and
only 33 per cent for seven years, our sample does not correlate with that of Robson that shows half of all male convicts to have been transported for seven years.8
A little over half of the men were not convicted in the county of their birth. This proportion that migrated within the United Kingdom was far higher than that of the general population where, notwithstanding the fact that this was a period of
substantial growth in labour migration, ‘the great majority … [clung] to their own home’.9 Despite having been caught for committing a crime, they seemingly showed
more enterprise in their quest for employment than most. 10 Whether they travelled
even further afield is unknown.11
Seven of the eight to have migrated were English and the eighth was Irish. Englishmen Broadhead and James Goodman, who had both been soldiers, almost certainly found themselves without work when demobbed after the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815. Life now for the poor in Britain was even harder than previously: Parliament chose this time to pass the Corn Laws, laws that protected the landed gentry at the expense of the poor by placing taxes on imported grain. As a consequence the price of bread
8 Robson, The Convict Settlers of Australia, p 154. My reading has revealed that historians generally accept Robson’s calculation that half of all male convicts were transported for seven years. 9 Redford, Labour Migration, p. 157.
10 At this time population was on the increase, possibly due to the drop in infant mortality. See John Burnett, Plenty and Want. A social history of diet in England from 1815 to the present day, Thomas Nelson and Sons, London, 1966, p. 1. Infant mortality in England and Wales, as well as in the colony, is discussed below. According to Redford, ‘Between 1800 and 1850 the population of Great Britain practically doubled itself, increasing from under eleven million to more than twenty-one millions’. He queries, however, the reasons given for the natural increase in population due ‘to the inadequate statistics of the time.’ Labour Migration, pp. 12 and 15. Be this as it may, Burnett maintains that by the middle of the century ‘more than one third of the whole adult population had no regular employment.’ Burnett, Plenty and Want, p. 136.
11 The book Convict Workers, in the chapter entitled ‘Convicts as Migrants’, makes the misleading claim that by comparing ‘the birthplace of convicts with their country of trial, the extent of pre-transportation migration can be easily calculated.’ Stephen Nicholas (Ed), Convict Workers, Reinterpreting Australia’s Past, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988, p. 54.
became exorbitant. Broadhead was only 17 at this time and presumably needed to travel to find work as a labourer (another occupation given for him). At the very least he went from Leeds in West Yorkshire to Nottinghamshire, a county adjoining to the south, where he was convicted. On the other hand, James Goodman, from
Worcestershire, was 45 when the war ended and possibly spent the seventeen years before he was transported either working or looking for work to provide for himself, his wife and four children. He also became severely disabled – blind in one eye, nearly blind in the other and an unusable right arm. Although described as a carter in addition to a soldier, no doubt he took whatever work he could find in his travels north through Worcestershire to the adjoining county of Staffordshire where he and his son were convicted. 12
Bray, a 21-year-old English labourer born in London, travelled north through at least two other English counties to Lincoln13 where he committed his crime. The Collins
brothers, who were 18 and 25 years of age and both with the occupation ‘ploughs, reaps, shears and milks’,14 presumably travelled through Staffordshire to the county of
Worcestershire to the south where they were convicted. Herring was also a farm worker and only 13 when convicted in Surrey for stealing a watch. He may have been forced to live by his wits on the streets as he travelled from his birthplace in Thames
12 Staffordshire was particularly known for its coalmines by the first part of the 19th century. Goodman possibly thought there were more work to be had there than in Worcestershire although, according to Arthur Redford, Strafford, together with Warwick, ‘had much the densest population’. Arthur Redford, LabourMigration, p. 13.
13 Bray was convicted in 1837 and presumably was hoping for work in Lincoln as, around this time in some of the parishes, a ‘labourer had a cottage and garden rent-free, a rood of land for potatoes, and the keep of a pig: some were even able to pasture a cow in return for some deduction in their wage’. John Burnett, Plenty and Want, p. 27.
Ditton, London, south-west to the county of Surrey trying to find work.15 At his age, the
pay for his work would have barely kept him alive.16
Stephenson, a 22-year-old stockinger17 and bargeman, went from Derbyshire, south to
Northamptonshire where he was convicted, presumably travelling through the county of Leicestershire looking for employment. On the other hand, there is a clear reason why the Irishman policeman, McNally, aged 35, was convicted on the other side of the country to that of his birth. After returning to Ireland from the Napoleonic wars in 1815, he married in his home county of Louth on the east coast and moved with his wife across the country to Galway on the west coast to take up a position with the police force.
15 Although unknown, Herring may have spent time in a London refuge for the destitute. See Megan Webber,’ Reformation and Recidivism: The London Refuge for the Destitute, c. 1806-1849’, Feature Article in Chainletter, No. 11, August 2012, pp. 2-7, http://foundersandsurvivors.org/node/92142. 16 It is possible that Herring earned approximately 2s. per week, the wage for an agricultural labourer aged 12 years as cited by Burnett, who also gives the cost of feeding an adult male labourer at 6s. per week. John Burnett, Plenty and Want, p. 26 P. 27.
Table 3 Time in English Gaols and Hulks
Name Gaol Time in
Gaol
Hulk Time
on Hulk
Total Time in Gaol & Hulk
Bray, Thomas Lincoln 2m Ganymede 5m 7 months Broadhead,
Samuel
Nottingham 2m Ganymede 2m 4 months Collins, Edward Worcester 4m Retribution 4m 8 months Collins, John Worcester 4m Retribution 4m 8 months Earp, William Derby 3d Ganymede 1.5m 1.6 months Goodman,
James
N/A** 1m Justitia 3d 1 month 3 days
Goodman, Thomas
N/A 1m Justitia 3d 1 month 3 days
Hampton, William Horsemonger Lane 0.75m Fortitude 7m 7.75 months Herring, Diogenes
N/A N/A Justitia/
Bellerophon/ Euralus
5 yrs 5 years +
Hoyle, Patrick***
Hyde, James Shrewsbury 2.5m Justitia 2m 4.5 months McNally,
Francis*** Mulholland, James***
Randall, Charles Newgate 3m Ganymede 0.75m 3.75 months Stephenson,
James
Ipswich 1m York 2m 3 months
*Source: SRNSW (PRO), Hulks – Miscellaneous Convict Prison Registers. Gaol details included in hulk records.
**Not available
***No Gaol or Hulk information available for the three Irishmen.
Reference to Table 3 shows that the 12 men from England spent between three days and four months in gaol. It should be noted that all of these men were incarcerated in their local gaol and were not sent straight to the hulks or to a holding gaol in London such as Newgate as claimed by previous historians such as Mayhew and Binney.18 They
spent between three days and five years on the hulks which were moored in several of the English ports in the vicinity of the Thames and further south around the coast.
Although we know where the English convicts in our sample were incarcerated before they left Britain, these details are not available for the three Irishmen as indicated. Table 4 Occupation & Crime
Name Occupation in Britain Crime Committed
Bray, Thomas Labourer Burglary silver watch
Broadhead, Samuel
Soldier, labourer Highway robbery
Collins, Edward Ploughs, reaps, shears and milks Stealing donkey Collins, John Ploughs, reaps, shears, milks and
shepherds
Stealing donkey
Earp, William Tailor Stealing clothes, etc
Goodman, James Soldier, Carter Buying stolen poultry Goodman,
Thomas
Carter Buying stolen poultry
Hampton, William
Labourer Stealing firewood
Herring, Diogenes
Farm worker, Tailor’s boy Stealing watch
Hoyle, Patrick Reaper Stealing calico
Hyde, James Collier Highway robbery
McNally, Francis Policeman Firing with intent to kill Mulholland,
James
Barber House robbery
Randall, Charles Hairdresser/barber Stealing musical instruments, etc
Stephenson, James
Stockinger, Bargeman Stealing handkerchiefs *Source: SRNSW, Bound Manuscript Indents.
Referring to Table 4, it can be seen that the occupations of those convicted outside of their home county were either semi-skilled or unskilled. The occupations of the other seven in the sample – that is, those who committed their crime in the county of their birth – are harder to assess in terms of their skills. Earp, for example, at 24 years of age, was likely to have had some years of experience as a tailor. On the other hand, Mulholland and Randall were much younger at 18 and 19 years of age respectively, and even if they started working at a very young age, it is impossible to know their level of skill in their occupations as a barber and hairdresser. Four of those remaining had relatively unskilled occupations: 16 year-old Thomas Goodmanwas a carter,
Hampton, 46, a labourer, Hyde, 19, a collier and the 22-year-old Irishman, Hoyle, a reaper. When read alongside the findings of Robin Haines and John Macdonald in relation to the convict population between 1817 and 1840, the Port Stephens sample was less skilled than the norm when they were transported. Haines and Macdonald found that 42 per cent of male convicts could be described as ‘skilled’ (compared to only three or four in our sample). They found that 30 per cent were unskilled whereas