Hello All,
The rains pouring down, the yard’s flooded, the plumbing’s starting to play up, but nevertheless, I’ll have a bit of a rant about convict heritage. (With apologies to Joette and anyone with convict ancestors).
Before the relatively recent popularity of genealogy the vast majority of people with convict ancestry would not have had the slightest clue. There may have been awareness among the children of convicts of what their parents had been, but, because of a tendency to hide such things, I doubt if many of the grandchildren would have known. The concept of being proud of a convict ancestry is, I think, a modern day defensive act by those who want to give the story a nice rosy glow. It’s very convenient, from a genealogical point of view to have convicts in the family because of the records readily available but I can’t see why any particular pride or suchlike should be bestowed upon them. Because the convicts came to Australia at the point of a gun they aren’t pioneers in the sense of those bravely setting out to establish a new nation although they would have become so once they had lost the desire to leave. The immigrants who came of there own free will are probably closer to being the real pioneers and they had outnumbered the convict transportees even before the massive population boost of the 1850s following the discovery of gold.
The reality probably was that most convicts either started out as the dregs of society or ended up that way after their conviction. Some managed to lift themselves out of the mire and make a great success of their life. This was much easier for those with money, influence, education or skills. Some were able to put it all behind them and lead normal simple lives while some would never had recovered from their experiences. Many of our current prison populations are probably from similar socio-economic groups and convicted of crimes not too dissimilar in nature or seriousness to those who were transported. However, most people who find a convict ancestor seem to immediately see an unfortunate exploited individual who stole a loaf of bread and was transported for life and survived to be someone’s beloved great-great-great-grandmother.
When Australia was first settled by Europeans in 1788, it was to be a prison for the felons who were overcrowding the prisons and prison hulks of England. It was this reason for the establishment of what was to become a Nation that made Australians and others so conscious of the convict heritage. I don’t know what proportion of the current Australian population has convict ancestors or long dead relatives but I would be surprised if it is more than 10%. One reason for the overcrowding previously mentioned, was the loss of a major venue in 1776.
My only convict relative was a great-great-great-uncle who was picked up by the police in 1824 after an arson attack in the course of an industrial dispute. He was held illegally, without a warrant, by the police for a day until he broke down and confessed. Because of this and other irregularities the case was reviewed by a panel of judges which held the evidence was admissible. The confession was unsigned and at the trial he pleaded not guilty. After seven months in prison he was sentenced to death and later commuted to transportation for life. The trial Judge was of the view that had the prisoner not confessed there would have been no case against him.
He spent two years in a prison hulk before leaving for Australia in 1826. In 1836 he received a ticket of leave, in 1841 a pardon on condition that he didn’t leave the district. In 1842 he built an Inn and in 1845 he died at the grand old age of, according to the newspaper, 35 years. Twenty one years earlier he had been a 4 feet eight inch 14 year old with freckles crying for his mother in a police cell. I believe the police collected the 400 Guineas reward. Whether he was just some mad arsonist, or a victim, or someone ultimately to be proud of I’ve really no idea.
Because someone locked in a prison would have been a great liability for a new settlement at first hardly capable of feeding itself convicts were expected to work. The work they did was relative to their skills. After a time and if they behaved there were rewards by way of different levels of freedom and if they misbehaved there were all sorts of punishments including chain gangs and re-transportation to penal settlements, sometimes less than 100 miles away, where conditions were quite brutal. The system was quite complex and varied over time. There’s a description here
http://cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/convicts/
As to Mr. Jacob Christianson, I think he would probably have had a long, happy and successful life had he been transported to Australia. Scurvy was caused by a vitamin C deficiency, it was a common ailment among sailors in the 18th century and its cure was simply a few day intake of citrus juice. If prisoners in Dartmoor were suffering from Scurvy then they didn’t have much interest in the health of their clients.
Alan
We may have to wait on this one!