Another sad "success" story for me

csa · Post by **csa** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 7:28 pm

Hi

I had started to research info about my great great grandfather Jacob Christianson who had come to Leith, Edinburgh with his wife and three sons, from Hamburg in 1848. I knew his year of birth and death.

As I could find no record of his death in Scotland and he was not buried with his wife and children in Edinburgh I got curious. I searched for his death in England, on line through Ancestry and found out a JC died in Devon 1858 one month after his son died in Edinburgh aged 3 of TB. Of course I couldn't be sure if it was "my "JC. Also Devon seemed a long way from Edinburgh. Why was he there?. Did he have a breakdown after his son's death etc etc. Another child had also died.

I sent off for his death certificate and it showed that he died in Dartmoor Prison, (from 1850 it was notorious for its grim regime of hard labour) I still wasn't sure if it was the right JC. I phoned the Dartmoor Prison museum as I had a prison number , but unfortunately most prison records were destroyed in prison riots in 1932. The death cert. indicated that an inquest had been held, so I contacted the local Devon records office. They said they only had one set of coroner's records from 1860, which was of course too late. However the archivist decided to do a search of newspapers at the time and found that a JC ( a ship's broker from Edinburgh) had been convicted of forgery worth £3775 and sentenced to transportation to Australia! Several papers across the UK covered the story. Apparently transportation was going out of favour in the mid 1850s so that's why he was sent to Dartmoor Prison instead, which at that time was for the most serious offenders in the UK. They must have wanted to make an example of him. There had been other serious forgeries by another Leith shipbroker at the time. Quite a shock for his wife and six children in Edinburgh who had been living very comfortably. He died in prison two years later of TB. He was probably buried in the prison cemetery.

This is definitely my JC as he was described as a ship's broker on various censuses, wife's death cert etc!

I have now downloaded an article from the online Scotsman archives from May 1856, which makes sad reading and am now trying to get the record of his trial in the High Court downloaded from the National Archives of Scotland site.

I seem to be finding quite a lot of family secrets from Leith in the nineteenth century.

Best wishes

Carolyn

Post by **Anne H** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:45 am

Hi Carolyn,

It was a "sad" success story, wasn't it? At least you won't have any loose ends on JC's life thanks to your detective work...congratulations on solving the mystery

Regards,
Anne H

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:00 am

Hi Carolyn

Apparently transportation was going out of favour in the mid 1850s so that's why he was sent to Dartmoor Prison instead,

Ahhh, that is very interesting. I have one of my lot who was sentenced to transportation to Australia for 14yrs in 1854 for a bit of creative accounting, but from further research including transportation registers and his surprise appearance (well, it surprised the heck out of me!!

)in UK in the 1861 census it appeared that he had not gone at all. Maybe what you have said explains it! Though quite how he managed to get the sentence reduced to about 6yrs, I really don't know!
The trail was in England, so I suspect the answer may lie in TNA.

Best wishes
Lesley

csa · Post by **csa** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 8:57 am

Hi Lesley

Yes it could certainly be a possibility.

According to the Scotsman report of Jacob's trial, the Lord Justice said that if he had been tried a few years earlier he would have been given a death sentence. In many ways transportation may have been preferrable to life in Dartmoor with some of the UK's most hardened criminals, silence and hard labour. Jacob only survived two years there dying of TB and scurvy.

Using www.measuringworth.com Jacob's crime of £3775 total forgeries would be worth over £2 million today. Apparently as a ship's broker, he said at the trial that his clerk had failed to insure a ship that was worth £2000, which presumaby he was liable for when it was lost. Although my family seem to have known nothing of this unfortunate history, I was told he and his family came to Scotland because he had "lost" some ships in Hamburg. Maybe he had been "at it" in Germany and was running away!

Carolyn

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:25 am

Hello Carolyn,

There are London Times articles dated 19 may, 1856, 2 Dec 1856 and 10 Jun 1857 the last two in connection with the accomplice? Joseph Manning Wilson but they’re possibly the same as the Scotsman.

Alan

trish1 · Post by **trish1** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:24 am

Hi Carolyn

Sad success for sure - but some very good research to find him.

Just to clarify when you may find convicts sent to Australia:

The first Fleet arrived in 1788 - containing many folks who had been convicted from the early 1780s onwards.

Most transportation to NSW stopped after 1842. There were a few more "ex-convicts" arrived but they were basically convicts who were freed - provided they went to Australia! These folks were know as convict-exiles.

Convicts were sent directly to Van Dieman's land from 1812 until 1853. (Prior to 1812, they arrived in VDL via NSW or Norfolks Is). The last two ships arrived in Van Diemens Land in 1851 amid public outcry and as a result, Britain finally ended all transportation to the colony in 1853. In 1855, the name of VDL was changed to Tasmania

The Swan River Settlement of WA had been in existence for twenty years when it took the unusual step of electing to become a British penal settlement in 1849. Eager Home authorities accepted the offer. It seems likely that after NSW ceased taking convicts & Tas wanted to do the same, WA decided the availablity of free labour was too good an offer to refuse (not quite the slave trade - but close!) In 1868 all transportation to Australia ceased.

About 80,000 convicts went to NSW; 67,000 to Tasmania & 10,000 to WA. A very small number went to Queensland c. 1849.

So if your folks disappeared outside of these times - they were not convicts - it is possible however, that they were free settlers, at any time from the early 1800s onwards.

Trish

csa · Post by **csa** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:14 am

Hi

Many thanks Trish.

To add to my story, I have now been able to get hold of two large family portraits of Jacob and Eliza (1.2m X1m) and two smaller portraits, one of Eliza as a young girl and one of Eliza's mother Dorothea. Although I had always known of their existence as they used to hang in my grandmother's house, I had never known about the stories they could tell!.

I have also been able to get copies of Jacob's Declaration and Indictment papers from the National Archives of Scotland (cost £35). Having successfully searched their site using only his name, I then contacted the NAS who sent me a two page e-mail detailing the volumes of paperwork available from them. What a great service-yet again, we seem to be so fortunate with Scottish records.

Best wishes

Carolyn

Post by **paddyscar** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:30 pm

Just reading this thread, I had a question come to mind.

When people were transported to Australia for crimes committed, did they serve the required sentence term in a prision and then released; or were they just dropped off to make their own life?

Frances

Post by **joette** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:47 pm

I think it depended as far as I can recall their type of crime&length of sentence.
Some may have been required to "work the land" for a particular length of time after time served.
I wish I could remember the work of fiction I read recently-it was about a London Waterman who falls on hard times & ends up in transported.
His family accompained him& they ended up as ferryman & farmers.
A harsh story which I am sure echoed a harsh reality.

Where are you Alan to clarify things for us??

Post by **paddyscar** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 3:46 pm

Hi Joette:

I thought of sending Alan a PM, but then thought there might be others whose memories had also become foggy on what they had learned in school days. I must admit also, that I've not read much in recent years about Australia - other than current news - except for a book about the rabbit fence, which is another topic altogether.

Frances