Transcript Convicts in Australia

4 Famous Convicts in
Australia
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Mary Ann Wade
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Mary Ann Wade (5 October 1777 –
17 December 1859) was only 11
years old when transported to
Australia as the youngest convict
aboard the Lady Juliana as part of
the Second Fleet.
Mary was born on 5 October 1777
at Southwark, London. She spent
her days sweeping the streets of
London as a means of begging,
being one of a large family of a
single mother living in poverty. On
5 October 1788, Mary with
another child, Jane Whiting, 14
years old, stole the clothes from
Mary Phillips, an 8 year old. She
was arrested and then placed in
Bridewell Prison. Her trial was
held on 14 January 1789 at the Old
Bailey, where she was found guilty
and was sentenced to death by
hanging.
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On 11 March 1789, King George III
was proclaimed cured of an
unnamed madness; five days later,
in the spirit of celebration, all the
women on death row, including
Mary Wade, had their sentences
commuted to penal transportation
to Australia. The 11-month voyage
across the ocean to Sydney,
arrived on 3 June 1790 and she
was then sent on to Norfolk
Island, arriving on 7 August 1790.
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She had two children on Norfolk
Island, Sarah to Teague Harrigan,
an emancipated Irish transportee
in 1793 and William in 1795, who
is believed to be Jonathan
Brooker's son. When they arrived
back in Sydney, Mary lived with
Teague Harrigan, with whom she
had another son, Edward. Teague
left to go on a whaling expedition
in 1806 and was never to return.
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Mary lived with Jonathan Brooker
near the Hawkesbury River from
1809. It was here that Mary raised
her family which numbered 21
children, seven of whom lived to
have their own children.
At the time of her death, Mary had
over 300 living descendants and is
considered as one of the founding
mothers of the early settlers to
Australia. Today her descendants
number in the tens of thousands.
Kevin Rudd, the former Prime
Minister of Australia, is one of her
descendants.
William Buckley
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William Buckley (1780 – 30
January 1856) was an English
convict who was transported to
Australia, escaped, was given up
for dead and lived in an Aboriginal
community for many years.
He was apprenticed to a
bricklayer, but left to enlist in the
King's Foot Regiment. In 1799, his
regiment went to the Netherlands
to fight against Napoleon, under
the command of the Duke of York.
Later, in London, Buckley was
convicted of knowingly receiving a
bolt of stolen cloth; he insisted he
was carrying it for a woman and
did not know it was stolen. He was
sentenced to transportation to
New South Wales for 14 years.
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Buckley left England in April 1803;
they arrived in October 1803.
On 27 December 1803 at 9 PM,
Buckley and several other convicts cut
loose a boat and made their escape.
In an account collected by George
Langhorne in 1835, Buckley told of his
first meeting with a small Aboriginal
family group, who treated him with
great kindness and with whom he
“laboured”, shared food and from
whom he began to learn language,
before parting company.
Significant first meeting with a group
of Wathaurung women, several
months after his escape: Buckley had
taken a spear used to mark a grave for
use as a walking stick. The women
befriended him after recognising the
spear as belonging to a relative who
had recently died and invited him back
to their camp. Believed to be the
returned spirit of the former
tribesman, he was joyfully welcomed
and adopted by the group. He was
given the name Murrangurk which
literally meant "returned from the
dead".
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For the next thirty-two years, he
continued to live among the
Wathaurung people on the Bellarine
Peninsula being treated with great
affection and respect. He had at least
two Aboriginal wives, and almost
certainly a daughter by one of them.
On 6 July 1835 William Buckley
appeared at the camp site of John
Batman's Port Phillip Association with
a party of Aboriginal people who had
told him about the sighting of a ship.
Wearing kangaroo skins and carrying
Aboriginal weapons, he walked into
the camp. They fed him and treated
him with kindness. Buckley showed
them the letters "W.B." tattooed on his
arm. Fearful of being shot, he told
them he was a shipwrecked soldier,
but a few days later he revealed his
identity, to the amazement of
everybody present. In September the
same year, he was granted a pardon by
Lieutenant-Governor Arthur, in Van
Diemen's Land.
In 1836, Buckley was given the
position of Interpreter to the natives.
Jørgen Jørgensen
• Jørgen Jørgensen
(surname changed to
Jorgenson from 1817)
was a Danish
adventurer during
the Age of Revolution.
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In 1807, while Jørgensen was visiting
his family, he witnessed the Battle of
Copenhagen and soon afterwards was
given command of a small Danish
vessel, the Admiral Juul. In 1808 he
engaged in a sea battle; the British
captured the Admiral Juul. In 1809 he
sailed to Iceland, declared the country
independent from Denmark and
pronounced himself its ruler.
Jørgensen was taken back to England
and tried by the Transport Board, who
found him guilty of breaking his parole
while a prisoner-of-war. He was
released in 1811.
Jørgensen spent the next few years in
London, where he began to drink and
gamble, building up substantial debts
which eventually led to his conviction
and incarceration. When released from
prison in 1812, he traveled to Spain,
Portugal and Gibraltar and upon his
return to England was again
imprisoned when his creditors caught
up with him. Following
correspondence with the British
Foreign Office, Jørgensen was
recruited into the intelligence service,
where he translated documents and
travelled throughout France and
Germany as a spy.
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Upon returning to England,
Jørgensen continued to write
various reports, papers and
articles but after being accused of
theft in 1820, was imprisoned in
Newgate Prison. A sentence of
death was commuted thanks to
the actions of a prominent friend
and he spent another 3 years in
Newgate before he was
transported to Australia in 1825.
After five months at sea,
Jørgensen arrived back in
Tasmania in 1826, was granted a
ticket of leave in 1827, led several
explorations of Tasmania, and was
employed by the Van Diemen's
Land Council as a Constable. He
married an Irish convict, Norah
Corbett, in 1831 and died on 20
January 1841.
Alexander Pearce
• Alexander Pearce (1790 – 19
July 1824) was an Irish convict
who was transported to Van
Diemen's Land for theft. He
escaped from prison several
times, but eventually was
captured and was hanged and
dissected in Hobart for
murder.
• Pearce was born in Ireland. A
farm labourer, he was
sentenced at Armagh in 1819
to penal transportation to Van
Diemen's Land for "the theft of
six pairs of shoes".
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Pearce escaped with seven other
convicts: Alexander Dalton,
Thomas Bodenham, William
Kennerly, Matthew Travers,
Edward Brown, Robert Greenhill
and John Mather. Kennerly and
Brown voluntarily gave
themselves up. Pearce and the
others continued without them.
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Pearce was eventually captured
near Hobart, and confessed that
he and the other escapees had
successively killed and
cannibalised members of their
group over a period of weeks, he
being the last survivor. Pearce and
Greenhill had been the final two,
each struggling to stay awake for
days out of fear the other would
kill him. Greenhill finally nodded
off and Pearce killed him with an
axe, then ate him. He was
captured several months later.
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Within a year he escaped a second
time, joined by a young convict
named Thomas Cox. Pearce was
captured within ten days. His
captors found parts of Cox's body
in Pearce's pockets, even though
he still had food left. Pearce
confessed that he had killed Cox
because he was a hindrance to
him. Pearce was taken to Hobart,
where he was tried and convicted
of murdering and cannibalising
Thomas Cox. He was hanged at
the Hobart Town Gaol at 9am on
19 July 1824, after receiving the
last rites from a priest. It is
reported that just before Pearce
was hanged, he said, "Man’s flesh
is delicious. It tastes far better
than fish or pork."