A series of posts to commemorate 200 years since the Amity arrived at Redcliffe with convicts in September 1824.
Robert Butler, carpenter.
Felix Fairley’s Bristol Journal of 16 January 1819 noted approvingly that Liverpool’s streets had been cleared of mendicants and beggars. This was due, it said, to the exertions of the Chief Magistrate in the whipping and get-out-of-town departments.
Ah, if only Bristol had that kind of regime. The General Quarter Sessions had been held at the Guildhall earlier that week, and it was
“crouded to excess, and much noise and disorder ensued. The Mayor, with great firmness ordered the Constables to select a ringleader, which they did, and he was ordered to be imprisoned in Newgate for a fortnight, and pay a fine of a shilling.”
And that was just the public gallery. All manner of thieves and receivers of stolen property paraded before the Bench, including Robert Butler, a 22-year-old carpenter who had stolen one pair of shoes (value 9s.) from T Gill. That got him seven years’ transportation.
A young man of middle height, sandy hair, hazel eyes and a fair sallow complexion, Butler was sent out to Australia on the Shipley in 1820. He was a handy carpenter, and was immediately put to work for the Government in Sydney.
He seems not to have committed a colonial offence, but either volunteered or was sent to Moreton Bay as a carpenter. He served out his original sentence there, returning to Sydney in January 1826.
He received a Certificate of Freedom, and appeared in the Census of 1828, working and living respectably in Clarence Street, Sydney.
James Crow, shingle splitter.
According to Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal on 24 August 1816,
“Sportsmen, in most parts of the country, agree to desist from shooting, as usual, on the 1st of September, in consequence of the backwardness of the harvest.
“At Gloucester assizes, holden this week, the following woeful number of prisoners received sentence of death.”
This list included woman who stole a leg of pork, a group of children who nicked things, and one James Crow, for breaking open the house of Arthur Roberts, at Oldland, and “stealing a silver watch, a quantity of cash notes, &c”[i]. Oddly enough, the final entry in the account of the Assizes was Richard Lambert, for slaying John Ryan at Clifton, 14 days imprisonment. Life, presumably, was much less valuable than one’s watch or bank notes.
Crow was transported to New South Wales in the ship Lord Eldon, and was put to work on arrival as a shingle splitter. He was sent to various stations, and spent most of the period 1820-1822 absconding, being recaptured and resentenced. After being given an extra year on his term, he settled down somewhat.
In 1824, eight years into his original sentence, and being a useful sort of a chap, he was boarded on the Amity for Moreton Bay. He spent a full two years there, doing the back-breaking work needed to set up the Redcliffe and Brisbane settlements, and was returned to Sydney in October 1826. However he felt about Moreton Bay, he had enough sense not to make a run for it from such a remote station.
There was a brief eruption in 1828, when he ran away from an Escort, and endured 50 lashes and a quick trip back to his gang. After that, Crow was given a Certificate of Freedom in 1830. It appears that he and his certificate parted company in 1832 when it was found in the possession of a runaway named James Whiteman, who had altered the name (but not any of the other details). The certificate was promptly torn up.
William Carter, stone cutter.
From the little we can gather from the public record of his life, William Carter was a decent enough sort of a chap who did one bad thing – stealing a cow.
Carter was born the same year that the First Fleet arrived in New South Wales, and lived and worked in Essex. He was a stone cutter by trade, rather tall for the time, with light brown hair and hazel eyes.
In 1821, when he was convicted at the Essex Assizes of cow stealing, he was already 33 years old. Livestock was valuable, more valuable than human life, which meant that Carter faced the death penalty. That, fortunately, was quickly converted to transportation for life, and Carter was sent out on the Hindostan, arriving in November 1821.
He seems to have remained in whatever situation he was put, and didn’t break the law, or at least, didn’t receive a conviction in the colony.
In August 1824, his skill set – stone-cutting – would be useful to the new Moreton Bay settlement, and he was sent up in the Amity.
Carter was by then 35, and seems to have been trusted by his superiors almost immediately. He worked as a constable under three commandants – Miller at Redcliffe, Bishop at Redcliffe and Brisbane, and Logan at Brisbane. His superiors only mentioned him in terms of his work, and made representations to ensure that he received the correct salary and entitlements. After two years, William Carter was returned to Sydney in October 1826.
William Carter appeared in the Census of 1828 as a sawyer in the employ of Thomas Icely at Bathurst Plains.
He received a Ticket of Leave for Bathurst in 1832, and another in 1838. The reason other, less well-behaved convicts received pardons and tickets earlier was the life sentence that had been imposed in Essex back in 1821. Carter had to keep his record clean for longer to receive the same benefits.
The worst thing that the New South Wales authorities could say about William Carter appeared on his Ticket of Leave – “most of his front teeth deficient.”
William Francis, sawyer.
William Francis the Younger, a Dorset native, was already 28 years old when he was sentenced to death at the Dorchester Assizes of Lent 1818 for burglaries. He was reprieved, but transported for life on the General Stewart, arriving in Sydney just before Christmas 1818.
Francis was a ruddy-faced brunette who stood around 5 feet 7, and he was a sawyer by trade. He seems to have volunteered to Moreton Bay (or have been kindly volunteered by the colonial government), because there are no colonial convictions recorded against him.
Francis worked at Pennant Hills before Moreton Bay, and managed to avoid coming to the adverse notice of anyone in authority. His stint at Moreton Bay was exactly two years, and he received a Ticket of Leave to Patricks Plains on his return.
William Francis was careful to make changes to his Ticket of Leave when required to work at another location (he was still under a life sentence). In 1834, he varied his Ticket to allow him to remain in the district of Wallis Plains, in the Maitland area.
1834 was an important year for William Francis – he sought permission to marry a free woman named Mary Geddes, and they were married in September. The following February, however, William Francis drowned, less than six months into his marriage, and seventeen years after he arrived in Australia as a convict. He is buried at the Glebe Cemetery, Maitland.
[i] Crow was sentenced to death, but reprieved and given 14 years’ transportation.
Moreton Bay and More 