The Parentage of Susan Wood

 My 4xgreat-grandparents, John Dav(e)y & Susan Wood, were married in Laughton on 19 Oct 1807.¹ John had been born in Laughton, but Susan was a "foreigner" from another village.²

Hunting through the indexes, there is only one Susan Wood baptism in the correct era – Susana Wood daughter of Daniel & Elizabeth, was born18th February 1782, her birth being registered by the Wesleyan Great Meeting House in Battle in their non-conformist register in 1789.^3,4,5 However as I've shown in another post, this is not the Susan Wood who married John Davy in Laughton.

The following documentary evidence exists for Susan Dav(e)y nee Wood:

1. Marriage 19 Oct 1807, Laughton (Approximate age 21+) > born before 1786¹
2. Census 6 Jun 1841 Brighton (age 50(-54), born Sussex) > born 1786-91⁶
3. Census 30 Mar 1851 Brighton (age 67 born "Bucksted") > born Mar 1783-Mar 1784⁷
4. Death 7 Aug 1851 Brighton (age 68) > born Aug 1782-Aug 1783⁸
5. Burial 11 Aug 1851 (age 68) > born Aug 1782- Aug 1783⁹

Susan's age is reasonably consistent implying she was born between 1782 and 1786. The change of age between the 1851 Census on 30 Mar 1851 and her death/burial in Aug 1851 (informant was her son William) could mean that she had a birthday between the census and her death.

There is only one source (the 1851 census) which gives a birthplace for her: "Bucksted". This can be identified with Buxted which is quite close to Laughton (the shortest distance between the parish boundaries pre-1844 is about 5 km from Little Streele to Terrible Down).¹⁰ Checking the SFHG index, there is a Wood family producing children in Buxted at this time (Thomas & Sarah) but no baptism for a Susan. The identified children are listed in the table below.^3,11

Child No.	Christening	Died Young?	Next Child	Gap between Baptisms
1	Philadelphia, 20 Jan 1782	No	2 Thomas	21 months
2	Thomas, 16 Oct 1783	No	3 John	33 months
3	John, 30 Jul 1786	No	4 Samuel	16.5 months
4	Samuel, 9 Dec 1787	No	5 Charlotte	22 months
5	Charlotte, 4 Oct 1789	No	6 James	19.5 months
6	James, 25 May 1791	No	7 Charles	17 months
7	Charles, 28 Oct 1792	No	8 Sarah	14.5 months
8	Sarah, 5 Jan 1794	No	9 Lucy	13 months
9	Lucy, 2 Feb 1795, bu 7 Mar 1795	Yes	10 George	27 months
10	George, 5 Jul 1797, bu 15 Jul 1797	Yes	11 George	15 months
11	George, inf bu 20 Oct 1798	Yes	12 Henry	15.5 months
12	Henry, inf bu 9 Feb 1800	Yes	13 Sarah	26 months
13	Sarah, inf bu 20 Jul 1802	Yes	14 Harriet	49 months
14	Harriet, private baptism 30 Aug 1806	No	N/A	N/A

At that time most working class women would breast-feed their children, a practice which resulted in fairly regular gaps between children of about 2 years.¹² One of the causes of short gaps between children is death of a child in infancy. There is no evidence of infant burials for any of the first eight children of Thomas & Sarah. However the next five children, starting with the ninth, all die in infancy, some so soon after birth as to not be baptized. Therefore it makes sense to look at the gaps until the birth of the ninth child (i.e. the first eight gaps) excluding gaps after the infant deaths start. Looking at the offspring of Thomas & Sarah, they are baptising a child approximately every 18 months, but there is a nearly 3-year gap from October 1783 to July 1786. To see if this is enough for an extra child I analysed the gaps between baptisms as follows:

• The average value of the first eight gaps is 19.6 months. 
• If we exclude the 33 month gap, the average of the seven remaining gaps drops to 17.6 months. 
• If we assume that there is an unrecorded baptism during the 33 month gap, then we have nine gaps for an average of 17.4 months between children.

Thus at the average rate for gaps between children borne by Sarah, there is almost certainly enough time for an extra child in the 33 month gap. The fact that this gap overlaps with the inferred range of years for the birth of Susan Wood means there is no familial obstacle to her being the child of Thomas and Sarah.

To conclude, given that Susan Wood was born in Buxted between 1782 and 1786, then there is an opportunity for her to be a child of Thomas and Sarah Wood born about March 1785 (plus or minus a few months). There is weak support for this identification from DNA because my father has a 12cM, single segment match with a descendant of Thomas's sister, Mary.¹³

Sources

1. Marriage of John David Davey and Susan Wood, married 19 October 1807, All Saints Laughton Parish Register, Laughton, Sussex, England, FHL Film 1067216.
2. Baptism of John  Davy, baptised 16 April 1786, All Saints Laughton Parish Register, Laughton, Sussex, England, FHL Film 1067215.
3. Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Baptism Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 22 Apr 2021.
4. England & Wales, Non-Conformist and Non-Parochial Registers, 1567-1936, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 31 Oct 2021.
5. Birth Registration entry of Susana Wood, born 18 February 1782, The Great Meeting House, Battle, Sussex, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 23 Oct 2021.
6. Census record for Susan Wood, aged 50, 27 Crescent Cottages, Brighton, Sussex, 1851 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO107/1644/244, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 11 Feb 2007.
7. Census record for Susanah Wood, aged 67, Crescent Cottages, Brighton, Sussex, 1841 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO107/1123/5, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 11 Feb 2007.
8. Death certificate of Susannah Davey, died 7 August 1851, registered September quarter 1851, Brighthelmston registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 203, no. 94.
9. Burial of Susannah Davey, buried 11 Aug 1851, St Nicholas Brighton Parish Register, East Sussex Record Office, PAR 255/1/5/10, East Sussex, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1995,  Ancestry.com.au, accessed 8 Jan 2023.
10. Cockin, T. C. H., The Parish Atlas of England, Malthouse Press, Barlaston, 2017.
11. Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Burial Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 22 Apr 2021.
12. World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, 'Breastfeeding & Birth Spacing', https://waba.org.my/archive/healthcare-research/breastfeeding-birth-spacing/, accessed 8 Jan 2023.
13. Ancestry ThruLines for Alfred Commons (https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-geneticfamily/thrulines/5C9DF31B-1477-4562-84BC-ED25F3066CCC?filterBy=all).

Eliminating Susana Wood

 My 4xgreat-grandparents were married in All Saints Church Laughton on 19th October 1807.¹ Their names were given in the marriage register as John David Davey and Susan Wood. John died in 1831, but Susan survived until late 1851 and completed two censuses.^2,3,5,6 The important census is the 1851 census, the first England census which required an actual age and a place of birth. Susan(nah) gives her age as 67 (implying she was born 1783-4) and her place of birth as “Sussex, Bucksted”. “Bucksted” should probably be equated with Buxted in north-east Sussex, about 12 km from Laughton.

Hunting through the indexes, there is only one Susan(…) Wood baptism in the correct era – Susana Wood daughter of Daniel & Elizabeth, was born18th February 1782, her birth being registered by the Wesleyan Great Meeting House in Battle in their non-conformist register in 1789.^6,7,8 It looked good to me (and it looked and looks good to a lot of other people too). Battle is about 27 km from Laughton.

However doing my due diligence on Susana Wood turned up another marriage, that of George Jupp and Susan Wood in Battle 1809.⁹ The couple moved to Bloomsbury where they registered the birth (in 1811) of a daughter, Mary Susanna Jupp, in the registers of Dr William’s Library in 1812.¹⁰ In this non-conformist birth registration Susanna, the mother of Mary Susanna Jupp, is stated to be Susanna daughter of Daniel & Elizabeth Wood.

Oh well, back to the drawing board (and probably another blog post when I sort it out). There are, at least, some Woods in the Buxted parish registers.

All Saints Laughton, photographed by the Author, 13 Jul 2016

 Sources 

1. Marriage of John David Davey and Susan Wood, married 19 October 1807, All Saints Laughton Parish Register, Laughton, Sussex, England, FHL Film 1067216.
2. Burial of John Davey, buried 23 December 1831, Hanover Chapel, Brighton, Sussex, England, bmdregisters.co.uk, accessed 22 Feb 2008.
3. Census record for Susan Wood, aged 50, 27 Crescent Cottages, Brighton, Sussex, 1851 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO107/1644/244, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 11 Feb 2007.
4. Census record for Susanah Wood, aged 67, Crescent Cottages, Brighton, Sussex, 1841 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO107/1123/5, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 11 Feb 2007.
5. Death certificate of Susannah Davey, died 7 August 1851, registered September quarter 1851, Brighthelmston registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 203, no. 94.
6. Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Baptism Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 23 Oct 2021.
7. FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org/en/, accessed 23 Oct 2021.
8. Birth Registration entry of Susana Wood, born 18 February 1782, The Great Meeting House, Battle, Sussex, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 23 Oct 2021
9. Marriage of George Jupp & Susannah Wood, married 13 Sep 1809, Sussex Family History Group, The Sussex Marriage Index (Up to 1837) (CD ROM). Lewes, UK, Sussex Family History Group, 2005.
10. Birth Registration entry of Mary Susanna Jupp, born 5 June 1811, Dr Williams’ Library Registry, Birth Certificates, 1805-1812 , Ancestry.com.au, accessed 23 Oct 2021.
    

Which John Roser?

Via my father and paternal grandmother I am descended from Ann Roser of Waldron, the daughter of John Roser, son of John and Martha, baptised Jan 1786 in East Hoathly (see Figure 1). I will refer to this John Roser as John Jnr.

Figure 1: My descent from John Roser Jnr.

Martha, sister of John Jnr, was the first Roser entry in the registers of All Saints, Waldron¹ and similarly John Jnr was the first and only Roser baptism in the registers of East Hoathly Parish Church². This indicates that John Jnr’s father, John Snr, had moved to the East Hoathly/Waldron area from another parish.

Unfortunately neither John Snr nor his wife Martha survived long enough to fill in the 1851 census where they would have indicated their place(s) of origin. However John Snr did survive into the era of civil registration and the 1841 census. This at least provides us with several assessments of his age at death. The evidence relating to the identity of John Roser Snr will be analysed to reach a conclusion as to his origins compatible with the Genealogical Proof Standard³:

1. Reasonably exhaustive searches in relevant sources
2. Complete and accurate citations to the sources
3. Analysis and comparison of the relevant sources
4. Resolution of any conflicts between sources
5. A statement of the conclusion with reasons 

1. The Search

The sources searched were as follows:

• The England and Wales Censuses as they became available online resulting in a digital facsimile of the 1841 Census entry for John Roser Snr⁴.
• The England and Wales Civil Registration indexes resulting in a certified copy of the Death registration of John Roser Snr⁵.

Searching parish registers in the Waldron area is difficult as a number of parishes have refused to allow their registers to be filmed (including Waldron and East Hoathly). However the Sussex Family History Group (SFHG) has been building near complete indexes for baptisms (online)⁶, burials (online)⁷ and marriages (CD)⁸. These indexes were used as follows:

• The SFHG Marriage Index, resulting in purchase of a reprograph from East Sussex Record Office (ESRO) of the entry for the marriage of John Roser and Martha Hook (1782, East Hoathly)⁹.
• SFHG Online Baptism Index, resulting in the purchase of reprographs from ESRO of the baptisms of John Roser Jnr² (East Hoathly), Martha Hook¹⁰ (Little Horsted) and Martha Roser¹ (Waldron) plus a list of John Roser baptisms in Sussex in the relevant date range for John Snr.
• SFHG Online Burial Index resulting in the purchase of reprographs from ESRO of the burial entries for John Roser Snr¹¹ and Martha Roser nee Hook¹² (Waldron).

Other indexes were searched for documentation beyond the parish registers.

• A2A (now part of NA Discovery) resulting in an index entry for a settlement certificate from Waldron supplied by John Snr to the parish of East Hoathly¹³. This document did not mention his age.

Sources for details about descendants of John Snr and Martha had already been located and will be noted where relevant.

2. Citations

See the Reference section.

3. Analysis and Comparison

The 1841 census was taken on 6 June 1841. Census takers travelled around a district collecting completed schedules or completing schedules for those unable to do so themselves. These schedules were compiled into enumeration lists for each district and it is these enumeration lists which survive. Thus the lists are derivative records containing primary evidence about the 1841 status of the persons listed. Information collected included the names, occupations and ages of residents and whether they were born in the County of residence. The ages for persons over 15 years of age were meant to be rounded down to the nearest multiple of five. The 1841 census entry for John Snr was a digital facsimile accessed via Ancestry⁴. He is listed as a male, agricultural labourer aged 80 (i.e. 80-84), born in Sussex. He is resident in the household of his son John Jnr, with John Jnr’s wife and their four youngest children (Elizabeth, Martha, Thomas and George). The implication from the 1841 census is that John Snr was born between 1756 and 1761 somewhere in Sussex.

The death certificate was obtained from the General Register Office (GRO)⁵. It contains a facsimile of the certified, manually-written register entry copy held by the GRO (not the original register entry) and thus is a derivative record. The evidence pertaining to the death is primary, direct evidence for the date and cause of death. The age at death is secondary, indirect evidence. The certificate states that John Roser was a 91 year old agricultural labourer when he died of “decay of nature” on 17th November 1844 at Waldron. The informant was “William Burgess, present at the death” The implication from the death certificate is that John Snr was born 1752-3.

The burial entry for John Roser Snr is an ESRO reprograph of the original register page and is thus a surrogate original¹¹. It is indeterminate evidence as there is no indication of who provided the information. The reprograph is direct evidence for the burial of John Roser Snr and indirect evidence for his death and age. The entry states that John Roser, age 92 of Waldron was buried on 21st November 1844. The implication from the burial entry is that John Roser Snr was born 1751-2.

The year of birth implied from these three sources is not consistent, but covers a ten year range from 1751 to 1761. A search of the SFHG Baptism Index produces four possible John Rosers (see table)⁶.

Name	Parents	Date of Baptism	Parish
John Roser	John and Hannah	17 May 1752	Lindfield All Saints
John Roser	John and Hannah	26 Aug 1753	Lindfield All Saints
John Roser	Richard and Ann	11 Oct 1755	Steyning St Andrew
John Roser	Richard and Susanna	19 Aug 1759	Framfield St Thomas

The two Lindfield baptisms match the burial entry and the death certificate ages respectively. The Steyning baptism lies in the middle of the overall range, but in a central gap, the Framfield baptism lies in the middle of the 1841 census range.

4. Resolution

The key to the identification lies in assessing the reliability of the age of John Snr given in the three documents. To do this we need to consider who the person providing the information was and how well informed they were likely to be.

The 1841 census information came from the Roser household where John Snr was living with his son’s family⁴. John is listed as being an agricultural labourer, indicating he was still healthy enough to be working. The ages of persons in the household over 15 have all been rounded down to the nearest 5, so we should read John Snrs age as being in the range 80-84. He was likely present when the information was taken. The accuracy of the census age thus depends upon how well John Snr could keep track of his age. The only evidence we have for this lies in the burial of his wife, Martha. Neither John or Martha were locally born, so accurate knowledge of their ages would not be widely known in the Parish. Despite this, the burial entry for Martha gives an age compatible within a year to her known baptism entry^12,10. It seems likely that John Roser could keep track of his wife’s age, and thus probably of his own.

The accuracy of the death certificate age depends upon the informant’s state of knowledge, in this case one William Burgess⁵. Who was William Burgess and how much did he know about the family? The Roser family in Waldron had thinned down in the 10 years before John Snr’s death. His wife, daughter, daughter-in-law and two of his older grandchildren were dead^{12,14,15,16,17}. Two more of his older grandchildren had moved out of the district, one to Laughton and one to Australia^18,19. Another had just given birth to an illegitimate child²⁰. His son-in-law had remarried and his son was probably already seriously ill with the tuberculosis from which he died in April 1845^21,22. That left the three youngest grandchildren aged from nine to nineteen. Martha (the oldest at 19) married William Samuel Burgess in January 1845²³, so it seems likely that the informant for John Snr’s death certificate was Martha’s boyfriend (see Figure 2). Given Martha’s age, William’s close association with the family could not have been for long and his detailed knowledge of the family members would be questionable.

Figure 2: The Family of John Roser Snr at the time of his death.

 

The informant for the burial entry is not known but is likely to have been either Martha or William Burgess¹¹. It is significant that the age in the burial entry is different to that in the death certificate. The burial entry must therefore be considered as the least reliable of the three pieces of evidence.

As well as the documentary evidence pertaining to John’s age, we have evidence relating to the background of Martha Hook. While Martha was baptised in Little Horsted¹⁰, other baptisms and removal orders indicated the family moved several times between Little Horsted and the adjacent parish of Framfield, home of one of our possibles.

5. Conclusion

The analysis above indicates that the most reliable indicator of the year of birth of John Snr is the 1841 census entry. John was alive and healthy at the time and the accuracy of the information on his wife’s burial entry indicates that he could probably keep track of his own age. The baptism compatible with this evidence is the 1759 Framfield baptism. This conclusion would place John in close proximity to Martha Hook while growing up and would make him the probable brother of the Elizabeth Roser who married William Betts in East Hoathly in 1775²⁸ (see Figure 3).

 

Figure 3: Parishes mentioned in this blog post.

References

1. Baptism of Martha Roser, baptised 6 January 1794, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
2. Baptism of John Roser, baptised 6 January 1786, East Hoathly Parish Register, East Hoathly, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
3. Jones, Thomas W., Mastering Genealogical Proof, National Genealogical Society, Arlington, 2013.
4. Census record for John Roser, aged 80, Parish of Waldron, Sussex, 1841 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO107/113/18, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed 3 Nov 2006
5. Death certificate of John Roser, died 17 November 1844, registered December quarter 1844, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 349, no. 342.
6. Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Baptism Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 10 April 2009.
7. Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Burial Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 10 April 2009.
8. Sussex Family History Group, The Sussex Marriage Index (Up to 1837) (CD ROM). Lewes, UK, Sussex Family History Group, 2005.
9. Marriage of John Roser and Martha Hook, married 28 October 1782, East Hoathly Parish Register, East Hoathly, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
10. Baptism of Martha Hook, baptised 26 May 1765, Little Horsted Parish Register, Little Horsted, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
11. Burial of John Roser, buried 21 November 1844, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
12. Burial of Martha Roser, buried 24 July 1836, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
13. Access to Archives, ‘Search result: Index entry for Settlement Certificate for John Rosar and wife Martha’, http://www.a2a.org.uk/search/documentxsl.asp?com=1&i=2&nbKey=1 of, accessed 6 Jun 2008 (site now incorporated in the National Archives Discovery Database).
14. Burial of Martha Evenden, buried 30 May 1824, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
15. Death certificate of Ann Roser, died 15 January 1843, registered March quarter 1843, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 369, no. 258.
16. Death certificate of William Roser, died 28 August 1839, registered September quarter 1839, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 269, no. 118.
17. Burial of Mary Roser, buried 26 October 1834, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
18. Marriage of David Davey and Ann Roser, married 1 February 1834, All Saints Laughton Parish Register, Laughton, Sussex, England, p. 33, no. 97, FHL microfilm 1067216, item 10.
19. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-5314 Entitlement certificates of persons on bounty ships, unpaginated, Entitlement Certificate for John & Mary Roser, 1838, Ancestry.com, ‘New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896’, accessed 22 Jun 2020.
20. Baptism index entry for William Roser, baptised 28 July 1844, Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Baptism Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 10 April 2009.
21. Marriage Index entry for William Evenden, married June Qtr 1839, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 150.
22. Death certificate of John Roser, died 28 April 1845, registered June quarter 1845, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 337, no. 372.
23. Marriage certificate of William Burgess & Martha Roser, married 18 January 1845, registered March quarter 1845, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 619, no. 38.
24. Baptism of Ann Hook, baptised 10 July 1757, St Thomas a Becket Framfield Parish Register, Framfield, Sussex, England, FHL Film 1886241, item 3.
25. Baptism of William Hook, baptised 16 February 1759, St Michael Little Horsted Parish Register, Little Horsted, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
26. Access to Archives, ‘Search result: Index entry for Removal Order for William Hook, wife Elizabeth and daughter to Little Horsted’, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=179-par3433 of, accessed 25 Apr 2009 (site now incorporated in the National Archives Discovery Database).
27. Baptism of Elizabeth Hook, baptised 2 May 1761, St Thomas a Becket Framfield Parish Register, Framfield, Sussex, England, FHL Film 1886241, item 3.
28. Marriage of William Betts and Elizabeth Roser married 19 December 1775,Sussex Family History Group, The Sussex Marriage Index (Up to 1837) (CD ROM). Lewes, UK, Sussex Family History Group, 2005.

 

Sentenced to Transportation - Twice!

[This is a corrected and slightly expanded version of an essay submitted for a Diploma of Family History Unit]

Richard Davey was baptized in Laughton, Sussex, on 25th July 1802, the second last child of James Davey and Sarah née French and brother of John Davey my 4xgreat-grandfather.^1,2 He grew up in a changing society. The “Inclosure Act 1773” facilitated the removal of “Common Right” making smallholders vulnerable and the country population dependent upon waged employment for subsistence.^3,4 The effects had been masked by high demand for men and supplies during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars but after 1815 a severe agricultural depression hit England with the southern counties suffering mass unemployment leading to the “Swing Riots” of 1830.^5,4,6 Tasmanian settler Samuel Guy wrote in 1823 that “I was losing my property” and “every thing I possessed would undoubtedly have been lost”.⁶

All Saints, Laughton⁷

Richard’s childhood was probably secure as his father was employed by Lord Chichester for thirty-two years.⁸ But by 1816 James required parish relief.⁹ Richard had no difficulty finding employment, however. By 1826 he had worked for at least thirteen different farmers.⁸ He needed the work having married Naomi Fowler on 26th April 1821, their first child being baptised on 2nd December.^10,11 He was possibly supporting his parents after they were “removed” from Lewes to Laughton on 25th June 1822.¹²

On 12th January 1826 Richard was tried for stealing beehives, one of them from Thomas Legg at Patcham. He was found guilty and sentenced to seven years’ transportation.^13,14 On 7th February he was received on the hulk Leviathan in Portsmouth harbour.¹⁵ Richard was fortunate that his father was well respected. On 26th July fourteen local farmers, including Thomas Legg, wrote a petition to have his sentence “mitigated”.⁸ It seems clemency was granted and Richard spent the next three years and seven months on the Leviathan, being declared free by servitude on 5th August 1830.¹⁵ During this time he would have performed hard labour in Portsmouth dockyards, but could also receive intimate visits from his wife and conceiving children.^16-18

Prison Hulk, Portsmouth²⁰

Richard was released during the height of the Swing Riots when agricultural work was in short supply. Naomi was living in Brighton and Richard presumably joined her there.^19,21 It appears Richard left Naomi in Brighton and became an itinerant labourer.¹³ On 23rd June 1834 the Assistant Overseer of Laughton Parish advertised a £2 reward for the apprehension of Richard, Naomi having become chargeable to Laughton Parish.¹³ She continued living in Brighton.²¹

On 26th September 1840 Richard “French”, George Arnold and Rachel Harris were arrested and charged with stealing a lamb at Mayfield in north Sussex.¹³ Richard later claimed that he was away from his wife harvesting.²² Why Richard was using his mother’s maiden name is unknown, perhaps to evade the Laughton Overseers, but the authorities soon recognised it as an alias. Probably realising there would be no clemency this time, he arranged to settle his property on Naomi and their children on 17th October.¹² On 19th October he was tried at Lewes, pleaded guilty and sentenced to transportation for life.^13,14

On 4th November 1840 Richard was transferred to the hulk York at Gosport and on 6th April 1841 to the Asia for transportation to Van Diemen’s Land.¹⁵ On 12th April Asia left Portsmouth, arriving at Hobart on 21st August.^23,24 During the voyage he was well behaved and served as a hospital attendant.²⁵ On arrival he was described as 5’4 ¼”, sandy haired and freckled. He had a ring on the middle finger of his left hand.²⁶ By this time the newly introduced Probation System was in operation with compulsory probation periods.^27-29 He was assigned to the Convict Station at Brown’s River for his three years of first stage probation.³⁰

The western side of the Derwent Estuary and D’Entrecasteaux Channel was first occupied by settlers evicted from Norfolk Island in 1808.^31,32 It was not until 1830-5 however that a track was driven through the bush to Hobart.³² Whaling, fishing and timber-getting were the early industries, with farms developing as the trees were cleared.³¹ Timber was extensively cut around North West Bay and Peppermint Bay, the latter being named for the predominant tree felled in the area.³³ By the late 1830s the settlers were pressing for access to convict labour with settler Daniel O’Connor drawing up plans for a station and offering to lease land to the government for it.^34,35 The plans were accepted but not the site, and in July 1841 a party of convicts was assigned to another site purchased on Bonnet Hill to build themselves a Probation Station.³⁴

Richard arrived at Brown’s River on 7th December 1841 and within three weeks he was in trouble, being absent from his hut on the night of the 27th. The punishment was an extra six months first stage probation. This must have shocked Richard because after this he was generally well behaved.²⁵ During probation he worked as a timber sawyer, possibly cutting the timber to rebuild the prisoner barracks which had burnt down in November 1841.^25,34

Brown’s River Station by Thomas Chapman³⁴

Richard finished his first stage probation on 26th February 1845 and on 19th March was employed by Robert Fox of Brown’s River. This was followed by work with George Miles at Peppermint Bay.²⁵ By 1846 there were only eighty-five convicts based at Brown’s River and a decision was made to close the station.^29,34 When Richard finished working for George Miles in February 1848, he returned to the Prisoner Barracks in Hobart.²⁵ With only one exception his employers remained settlers in Brown’s River and southwards, and his ticket of leave was issued for North West Bay starting 16th April 1850. He remained in Kingborough and Coningham parishes until granted a Conditional Pardon on 14th August 1855.²⁵ At this point he disappears from the public record until his death at the age of 80 in the New Town Pauper Establishment on 2nd March 1883.³⁶ With his timber cutting experience, he probably continued to work around North West Bay until age caught up with him.^25,35 We won’t know when that occurred as no records were kept for non-convict invalids until 1901.³⁷

Work locations for Richard French^25,35,38

Richard was thirty-nine when he arrived in Hobart and fifty-three when he was pardoned. Neither successful nor a criminal failure and leaving no descendants in Australia, he is probably typical of a large subset of unstudied convicts, working quietly through their sentences and then forming the backbone of Tasmania’s workforce until too old and frail to continue. By the 1870s, attitudes to elderly pauper invalids were starting to change and he may have been well looked after in his final years.³⁹

Sources

1. All Saints Church Parish Register, Laughton, Sussex, England, FHL microfilm 1067216 Item 3.
2. St Michael & All Angels Church Parish Register, South Malling, Sussex, England, East Sussex Record Office Ref: PAR 419/1/1/2.
3. The Parliament of Great Britain, 'Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain', 1773 c. 81 (Regnal. 13_Geo_3), Inclosure Act 1773.
4. Neeson, J. M., Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
5. Hammond, J. I. and Hammond, Barbara, The Village Labourer 1760-1832, London, UK: Longmans, Green and Co., 1913.
6. Morgan, Sharon, Land Settlement in Early Tasmania : Creating an Antipodean England, Cambridge, England ; Melbourne : Cambridge University Press, 1992.
7. Law, Susan Hilary, photographed 13th July 2016.
8. MS Crime and the Criminal Justice System: Records from The U.K. National Archives: HO 17 Records created or inherited by the Home Office, Ministry of Home Security, and related bodies, Home Office: Criminal Petitions, Series I HO 17/92/138. The National Archives (Kew, United Kingdom).
9. The National Archives, 'Discovery', https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/, Accessed 29 March 2020.
10. All Saints Church Parish Register, Laughton, Sussex, England, FHL microfilm 1067216 Item 7.
11. All Saints Church Parish Register, Laughton, Sussex, England, FHL microfilm 1067216 Item 10.
12. The Keep, 'The Keep Collections', https://www.thekeep.info/collections/, Accessed 10 Apr 2020.
13. Sussex Advertiser.
14. 'England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892', ancestry.com.au, Accessed 8 Mar 2020.
15. 'UK Prison Hulk Registers and Letter Books, 1802-1849' ancestry.com.au, Accessed 8th March 2020.
16. Digital Panopticon, 'Convict Hulks', https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/Convict_Hulks, Accessed 30th March 2020.
17. Blog Post 'Carceral Archipelago', https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/carchipelago/2017/10/10/a-day-in-the-life-convicts-on-board-prison-hulks/, Accessed 31st March 2020.
18. Great Britain Parliament House of Commons, Reports from Committees, Reports from Committees, v. 7, 1831, https://books.google.com.au/books?id=6TJbAAAAQAAJ. Accessed 10th April 2020.
19. St Nicholas Church Parish Register, Brighton, Sussex, England, digitised FHL microfilm 1067108, FamilySearch.org, Accessed 10 Apr 2020.
20. Cooke Edward William, “Prison-ship in Portsmouth Harbour, convicts going aboard [picture],” 1829, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135934086.
21. St Nicholas Church Parish Register, Brighton, Sussex, England, digitised FHL microfilm 1067109, FamilySearch.org, Accessed 10 Apr 2020.
22. Indents of Male Convicts, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.
23. Australian Convict Transportation Registers - Other Fleets & Ships, 1791-1868' ancestry.com.au, Accessed 26th December 2011.
24. Colonial Times.
25. Conduct Registers of Male Convicts arriving in the Period of the Probation System, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.
26. Description Lists of Male Convicts, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office CON18/1/28 p49.
27. Libraries Tasmania, 'Convict Life', https://libraries.tas.gov.au/convict-portal/pages/convict-life.aspx, Accessed 1 February 2020.
28. Newman, Terry, Convict Systems: Assignment, Probation & Exile (extracts from an early draft of Becoming Tasmania), downloaded from 'Becoming Tasmania, Companion Web Site' http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/php/BecomingTasmania/BTMainPage.htm, Accessed 2 February 2020.
29. Brand, Ian, The Convict Probation System: Van Diemen's Land 1839-1854, Hobart, Blubber Head Press, 1990.
30. Appropriation Lists of Convicts, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office CON27/1/9 p10.
31. Hurst, William Nevin, A Short History of Land Settlement in Tasmania, H.H. Pimblett, Government Printer, 1938, https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/264710625.
32. Internet Archive Wayback Machine, 'Kingborough > Early Settlement', https://web.archive.org/web/20130325082629/http://www.kingborough.tas.gov.au/page.aspx?u=502#, Accessed 28th March 2020.
33. MacFie, Peter, 'Government Sawing Establishments of Van Diemen’s Land, 1817-1832', Australia's Ever-changing Forests V: Proceedings of the Fifth National Conference on Australian Forest History, Hobart, Tas, Feb 2002, Edited by John Dargavel, Denise Gaughwin and Brenda Libbis, 2002, p. 105-131.
34. Taroona Historical Group, Taroona 1808-1986: Farm Lands to a Garden Suburb, Taroona, Australia: Taroona Historical Group, 1988, https://taroona.tas.au/the-taroona-book/taroona-book-digitised/, Accessed 3rd April 2020.
35. Lands and Surveys Department, Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office.
36. Registers of Deaths in Hobart, Launceston and Country Districts, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.
37. Records of the New Town Charitable institution, TA888, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.
38. Householders' Census Returns for Various Districts, Arranged by Parishes, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.
39. Piper, Andrew Kenneth Shaw, ‘Beyond the Convict System: the Aged Poor and Institutionalisation in Colonial Tasmania’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2003.