The Convicts

Discovery?

On his first voyage of ‘discovery,’ Captain James Cook, in 1770, landed at Botany Bay, just south of present day Sydney, Australia and proclaimed the continent as a British possession. He so named the bay after the many plant species found there by Joseph Banks, the expedition botanist. Cook was not the first European to land on Australian shores. A Portuguese explorer, Willem Janszoon was there in 1606, but even he was a latecomer. Long before Janszoon arrived, Aborigines had been there roasting kangaroo over the fire for 40,000 years. That’s a pretty good head start.

Now I’m no expert on matters pertinent to territorial claims, but would not a  consistent occupation for 40,000 years meet the internationally agreed upon criteria for ownership? Can you visualize a meeting between Captain Cook and the local Aborigine leader:

[Captain Cook with formal English accent]:

“Now look here, old chap. No need to get your spear in a knot. We came, saw no one about, liked what we saw, voiced our claim out loud (we heard nothing from you) and planted our flag. No, I’m afraid it’s a done deal.”

The Aborigine Elder had listened respectfully but understood not a word of the Chief Intruder’s speech. Then he spoke.

[Aborigine leader with Aussie accent]:

“Bugger off, mate or we’ll stick you in a pot. Perhaps you’re familiar with how thet goes. Uhh, say, maybe we could borrow thet big one over there. We’re a tad short of pots at the moment. Or if you’d rather, we can use your head as the pot. We do that with turtles. Your choice mate. We’ll ‘head off’ for a bit, snag a bite o’ dinna –lots of crocs just down the way —  and check back. See you later, alligator?

With a warm, effusive smile, the Aborigine Elder extended both his hands to the Chief Intruder. He was filled to overflowing with the self-satisfaction of a man whose reputation among his colleagues had just received a serious boost. With both his hands, Cook readily returned the supposed welcoming gesture and smiled back, tickled to bursting that he had just swung the biggest real estate deal the world had ever known. Well, let’s hope they work it out.

Too Many Prisoners, Too Few Prisons

Laws were harsh in those days and had been for hundreds of years. Even minor offences by children received harsh treatment. It mattered not a whit if you were 9 years old, the breadwinner for a family of eight or suckling a newborn. If you were found guilty, you went to gaol, 7 years to life. And there was the noose, of course. Rape, murder and 223 other offences qualified you for that.

The net result was that prisons were overcrowded to bursting. But prisons were expensive to build. Authorities had done what they could. They stuffed dozens of mixed men and women into single cells and anchored hulks in the Thames River to serve as little floating prisons.  These were temporary measures, of course, like income tax, the portables with which we litter our school grounds or the pre-dawn lineups at our ‘walk-in’ Medical Clinics.

That was helping but the hulks were eating up valuable mooring room for trading vessels and traders were already threatening to take their business elsewhere. And trade was what was paying their salaries and the king’s to boot. So they started shipping prisoners to the colonies to serve as free labour. That worked beautifully, but still, it was not enough. 

Three Birds And A Stone

Perhaps the Admiralty summoned a serving boy from the kitchen to get fresh ideas and it went like this:. “Have you any suggestions, young man?” He replied, “When you need more of something, do more of what works.” With that, the boy returned to the kitchen. “Hmm, said one of the directors, do more of what works…. I’ve got it, we ship more prisoners to the colonies. A hell of a lot more! It was a brilliant idea and the ever-so-sharp Abraham Dolittle became Lord Butterworth.

By coincidence, it was just then that Captain Cook landed on the shore of Botany Bay. Upon return to London, he duly reported discovering a lovely bay on an enormously big island, empty of any people of consequence and far from Britain. The lights immediately went on at Westminster. This new land could house all the prisoners Britain could send. The prisoners would build their own houses (the 9 year old would need help). The resulting settlements would substantiate a land claim and Britain would possess yet more of the world so that the French couldn’t have it, It was brilliant.

They’d call it ‘transportation,’ a more palatable and politically saleable term than ‘slow death in a godforsaken place far from home, where, if hard work doesn’t kill you, disease, abuse and accident will.’

‘Transportation’ was not new. It had been in practice for a hundred years, In fact, several of my ancestors, the Rose brothers, made a very profitable living in the late 1600s, transporting mostly political prisoners, intractable types from the West Counties in South England to the Caribbean and American colonies. It was a good gig for the Rose Brothers, my mother’s relatives. Not so good for the intractables, my mother’s relatives. John Rose contracted his ship to the government to transport the unfortunates; brothers Fulke and Thomas put the cost-free labourers to work on their Jamaican sugar plantations and John returned to London with a hold full of white gold –sugar, which they sold for a fortune. William took care of the mountain of money back in London. 

It was a sweet deal. Indeed, it was so sweet that Fulke, a medical doctor, who also treated the wealthy plantation owners for a hefty fee (Captain Henry Morgan paid in advance), decided that slaves would be even better — terrible food, abusive treatment, it mattered not, for they were…well, just slaves. Then, the wily Fulke Rose discovered that trading in slaves was even more lucrative. He became one of the four biggest slave traders in Jamaica.

It took almost thirty years after Cook’s ‘discovery’ of the new land to get things rolling, but finally, in 1787, a flotilla of eleven ships set off from London to start the first convict settlement in what had become known as Australia.

The Master Builder

And so they came. Beginning in 1787, the First Fleet of eleven convict ships set sail for Botany Bay. Those who got free tickets for this voyage became known as Firsters, as they were the first convicts to arrive and they formed the first European settlement in Australia. 

Among the 11 ships was the newly-built Charlotte, as pretty a transport ship as one could imagine. Aboard, was a Firster by the name of James Bloodworth (28). James was an ordinary guy, a master bricklayer and builder who lived in Esther, Surrey, just south of London. He had a wife and 4 children. Everything was going along swimmingly until James made an error in judgement. He stole a game cock and two hens and in short order, he found himself on the Charlotte, sentenced to 7 years to the colony of Sydney, Australia.  On the 13th of May, 1787, the Charlotte was, for three days, towed downstream to open water. James Bloodworth was on his way to a new life; his family was left to fend for themselves. It was an uneventful, but long voyage, arriving at Botany Bay on 20 January, 1788, 8 months and one week after departing London. The task of these convict settlers:  to found Sydney, New South Wales.

Included in all sentences of transportation was the term ‘in service’ which required the convicted to work for the good of the colony for the length of their sentence at some activity determined by the colonial government. Typically, the skills of the prisoners previous occupation were utilized. If those skills were not required, other work was arranged. In 1801, under the wise guidance of Governor Philip Gidley King, a Ticket of Leave system was introduced. The Ticket of Leave was the forerunner of Parole today. It allowed the prisoner who had served a certain portion of his sentence with good behaviour, to have more freedoms. He or she might have licence to move about the colony freely, marry, buy property and start a business or take work of his or her choice. The Ticket of Leave required the holder to be financially independent, a condition designed to relief pressure on the colony’s very limited resources. 

Sarah Bellamy

On board another of the convict ships, the Lady Penrhyn, was a young woman, Sarah Bellamy, aged 17. Bellamy is a surname which runs thick in my mother’s family, although admittedly her Bellamys are all Quakers who would likely have found Sarah’s, shall we say, unpolished presence, a titch awkward at a tea party. 

Sarah was a house servant for a man who came on hard times and was obliged to let Sarah go. Needy and resentful, Sarah stole some of the man’s bearer bonds as she left but she was quickly arrested, tried, convicted of theft and sentenced to the much used 7 years of ‘transportation’. 

The Voyage

Getting to Botany Bay could be the greatest hurdle of the sentence. Sarah’s ship, the Lady Penrhyn, normally carried slaves and/or cargo. For this voyage, sh’d been refitted to be used for transportation. The Lady Penrhyn achieved two firsts for the history books — of the First Fleet’s 11 ships, she was the slowest and carried the most female convicts (101). As well, she carried 20-35 crew, two lieutenants, two sergeants, 3 corporals, one drummer and 35 privates under the command of Master William Cropton Sever. 

The rigid social taboos of English society were short-lived on these long voyages and as well, in the colony itself.  Aboard, was 21 year old Mary Allen, a prostitute convicted of theft from a client, her accomplice Tamasin Allen, a ‘lustyish woman with blonde hair,’ Esther Abrahams, a Jewish Milliner (15), for theft, with her newborn daughter (she took up with Lieutenant George Johnston), Ann Inett who became the mistress of the able, future Lieutenant-Governor Philip Gidney King, Ann Yeates, who became the mistress of Judge Advocate David Colins with whom she had two children, and Mary Branham, convicted of burglary and sentenced to death, commuted to 7 years transportation, who became the mistress of Lieutenant Ralph Clark, Officer of the Marines and important diarist of early Sydney. And our Sarah had a liaison with seaman Joseph Downey. A child from that liaison, Joseph Bellamy, was born aboard, but died before Sarah disembarked.

On the day of departure, Lieutenant Philip Gidney King described the women passengers of the Lady Penrhyn:”

The situation in which the magistrates sent the women on board the Lady Penrhyn stamps them with infamy – tho’ almost naked, and so very filthy, that nothing but clothing them could have prevented them from perishing…there are many venereal complaints, that must be spread in spite of every precaution I may take hereafter…

The ship left her moorings on 13 May 1787, inadvertently leaving behind most of the women’s clothing. Fever befell the women as they crossed the equator on 14 July. Food supplies became dangerously low thereafter but land was soon sighted on 2 August. A month was spent in Rio de Janeiro, followed by a 39 day passage to the Cape of Good Hope. 

Behaviour among a number of the women was less than ideal. On-board Surgeon Arthur Bowes Smyth expresses his frustration at the indecency and ingratitude of it all. 

I believe few…were ever better, if so well provided for as these Convicts are…I believe I may venture to say there was never a more abandon’d set of wretches collected in one place…The greater part of them are so totally abandoned & callous’d to all sense of shame & even common decency that it frequently becomes indispensably necessary to inflict Corporal punishment upon them…

As the Lady Penrhyn approached Van Diemen’s Land, a roaring 40’s storm engulfed them. Smyth declared that he had “never seen the sea in such a rage.’ Nor had the women:

the Convict Women…were so terrified that most of them were down on their knees in prayers, & in less than one hour after it had abated, they were uttering the most horrid Oaths…that could proceed out of the mouths of such abandon’d Prostitutes…

A New Start

Thirteen months after leaving London, on 26 January 1788, and with the ‘utmost difficulty and danger with many hairbreadth escapes behind them, the Lady Penrhyn arrived at Port Jackson, (Sydney), their final destination. Smyth describes, in this highly disputed account, what happened next:

At…abt. 6 O’Clock p.m. we had the long wish’d for pleasure of seeing the last of them leave the Ship — They were dress’d in general very clean…The Men Convicts got to them very soon after they landed, & it is beyond my abilities to give a just discription of the Scene of Debauchery & Riot that ensued during the night. 

On the 22nd of January, 1788, the first colonists arrived at Botany Bay. The pokey Lady Penrhyn arrived 6 February. Not long after arriving in Sydney,  James (29) and Sarah (18) began a relationship and started living together in 1890. They went on to have 8 children, 4 of whom died. James was an industrious character and fortuitously for the colonists, he was a master bricklayer and builder. At once, he put his skills to work, building houses and public buildings. Within a few years, James had trained a team of men to lay bricks and earned the undying esteem of individuals and authorities alike. 

James Bloodworth had 16 years in the colony. He died of pneumonia on 21 Mar, 1804, at 45 years of age. James constructed Australia’s first house and most of the buildings of New South Wales built between 1788 and 1800. He received what amounted to a state funeral with military honours. 

Penniless

Sarah, only 34 when James died, was left penniless, for the colony’s fledgling government had no money for such luxuries as pensions. It was a dire situation, for Sarah had 5 young children to feed. But they were survivors. Sarah paid off 350 pounds of debt and Governor King secured the house from creditors by transferring ownership to her 14 year old son James. As well, Sarah rented out her kitchen and an adjoining room to Jeremiah Cavanaugh in exchange for teaching the youngest children, George, Ann and Elizabeth to read. And in 1828 she worked as a washerwoman and lived with her daughter Elizabeth. Sarah never remarried and died in Sydney on 24 February, 1843, at the age of 73. 

Australia Was Born

’Transportation,’ was an instant hit, from the perspective of the British authorities, at least. From 1788 to 1868, 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia from Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in all parts of the Australian continent. Convicts — men, women and children — received sentences of 7-12 years, ample time to ensure settlements remained stable, for once convicts had served their time, Australia had become their new life and they stayed on as ‘free settlers.’ By the early 1800s, non-convict free settlers began to immigrate to Australia and by 1850,  Australia had become a significant political entity in her own right. 

For small errors of judgment, Sarah and James and hundred of their ‘Firster’ shipmates had paid a hefty price. Yet they left behind the cornerstone of what would become a new and prosperous euro-nation. 

Sarah Bellamy and James Bloodworth are my 4th great aunt and uncle. And yes, Mayor Sir Thomas Bloodworth of Great Fire of London infamy is James’ 1st cousin 5X removed and my 1st cousin 11X removed.