Prisoner No. 36. Bristol and Shadwell. James Turner was destined for a life on the water – he was born in the harbour town of Bristol around 1799. At the age of nineteen, he stood nearly five feet six inches, had light brown hair and blue eyes. He had tattoos on his right arm –Continue reading “The Amity Convicts: James Turner.”
Category Archives: Convict Snapshots
Prisoner No. 1 at Moreton Bay. Thomas Billington.
The Amity Convicts. A parade, a crowd and a picked pocket. On 4 July 1818, a distinguished lawyer and reformer named Sir Samuel Romilly was being conveyed about the City of Westminster in triumph, having been returned first in the poll. It was an uncommonly fine day, and Sir Samuel rose frequently to bow andContinue reading “Prisoner No. 1 at Moreton Bay. Thomas Billington.”
Convict Snapshots – William Mattingly.
Berkshire and London. William Mattingly (sometimes spelled Mattingley) was born on 11 September 1875 in Uffington, to James and Ann Mattingly. He lived most of his time in the parish of Uffington, and nearby parishes of Baulking and Kingstone Lisle. (Since 1974, this part of Berkshire was absorbed into Oxfordshire, an idea that would probablyContinue reading “Convict Snapshots – William Mattingly.”
Convict Snapshots – Samuel Challenger.
Few men are as well-named as Samuel Challenger. He challenged laws, customs, and authority over his long life, which began and ended in respectability. For several decades, he was a pain in the neck of police and prison authorities in two hemispheres. Yorkshire Samuel was born in Darton, Yorkshire on 15 September 1794, the youngestContinue reading “Convict Snapshots – Samuel Challenger.”
Convict Snapshot – Morgan Edwards.
Contemporary views of Monmouth, Wikimedia Commons. Morgan Edwards was a native of Monmouth, who had been born around 1800. On 10 August 1822, at the age of 22, he was convicted at the Monmouth Assizes of Sheep Stealing and was ordered to be transported for life. After a spell in the prison hulks, he wasContinue reading “Convict Snapshot – Morgan Edwards.”
A Man Apart.
CONVICT SNAPSHOTS: EDWARD STEELE Imagine being a person of colour in 1808. Now imagine being a person of colour in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1808. Your skin colour would be the first, and often the only, thing anyone noticed about you – a situation that did not change through your whole life, no matter whereContinue reading “A Man Apart.”
New Countries, New World
Convict Snapshot: John McDowall New York, 1771 John McDowall was born in New York in North America in 1771, a subject of the English Crown, like all New Yorkers at the time. As a little boy, he could explore the countryside and farmland of Manhattan, at least until the Revolutionary War and pre-war skirmishes madeContinue reading “New Countries, New World”
Moreton Bay and More 