I have an ancestor from Pembrokeshire who was transported to Australia in 1832 for life. He was tried and convicted at Monmouth Assizes. He received a conditional pardon in 1846, but could not return to the UK. In 1849 he and his wife sailed from Sydney to San Francisco and the last mention I have of him is his applying for US Citizenship in Northern California in 1868.
Recently I have discovered that his brothers, who remained in Pembrokeshire, were all literate, and therefore it seems to be a reasonable assumption that he would have also have been literate.
One of the aspects of his story that has always fascinated me is whether or not his family would ever have known what happened to him. Would he have been able to send a message to them from Monmouth, or from Australia?
I wonder whether anyone out there has any knowledge of convicts in the 1800s and whether or not in general they were able to keep in touch with their families?
Thanks
Megan
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21-11-2011, 5:26 PM #1
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Did Convicts communicate with their families?
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21-11-2011, 7:28 PM #2
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I have an ancestor who was transported from Scotland to Australia in 1831. She later died in Australia in 1838. Her son was left behind in Scotland and when he married in the late 1850s, he stated that his mother was deceased. So he knew that and from that limited information it says to me that there was regular, if slow, communication with home.
Only the worst criminals were locked up in Australia (Norfolk Island etc). Most were released on a parole arrangement, to work for someone, and at a practical level presumably were free to write all the letters they wanted (or get someone else to write them for them). How would you stop them from writing?
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21-11-2011, 7:39 PM #3
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Thanks Elwyn, that's very helpful.
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21-11-2011, 7:50 PM #4
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As Elwyn has said, it's more than likely that his family would have been able to find out what happened to him, even if he had not written to them himself.
They might well have written to the Home Office to enquire. A wealth of correspondence survives between convicts' families and the government, including wives' petitions, letters of enquiry about convicts' locations, their health, progress of sentence, etc. This is held in the Home Office and Privy Council series of records at the National Archives, in particular PC 1/67-92.
See section 5 of this research guide for some information.
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21-11-2011, 8:18 PM #5spisonGuest
Hi Megan,
The Australian Newspapers site (TROVE) shows publications in the newspapers of names of letters for people from pretty early times. I have just corrected an inquest on a man who died in the 1860s (he wasn't a convict) and in his pocket was information for anyone who found him in the event of his death to contact. His wife and her address in England was listed. The coroner wrote to tell them the sad news.
On the other hand in my own history I know one of my husband's ancestors returned to Liverpool possibly in the hope of being reunited with her family - specifically her brother who had been transported to VDL (now Tasmania) who should have returned before her. She didn't know that his 7 year sentence had been made 'Life' in VDL so he was never freed. His English hulk records show that he had money sent with him for postage. His sister was illiterate. (She came back to NSW with a new husband.) I think therefore it depended on the individual and if they could communicate they did.
You can google and visit TROVE (National Library of Australia) and read the papers and see if your people turn up.
Jane
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21-11-2011, 10:13 PM #6
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Jane
Thanks for your response. It was by through Trove that I found the record of his departure to San Francisco.
Megan
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22-11-2011, 2:28 AM #7
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22-11-2011, 3:06 PM #8CoromandelGuest
John Western was transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1842. It seems that for a decade his parents in Exeter heard nothing from him. By October 1852 his mother must have heard from him, as she wrote back, overjoyed to discover that he was still alive. You can read her letter here:
https://
listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/read/DEVON/2006-02/1140139387
John had been sentenced to 7 years' transportation so his first letter home was probably written after his release. This doesn't really count as a convict's letter, then, but I thought it was a nice little bit of social history all the same.
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22-11-2011, 11:54 PM #9JillianRGuest
You'll also find in the newspapers via Trove, list of letters held at the GPO in Sydney which were unable to be delivered. The names of 3 convicts on my tree are listed, so someone was writing to them. The recipients had lately moved to a different district which was why the letters were "unclaimed".
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23-11-2011, 12:08 AM #10MutleyGuest
Though this thread is regarding convicts sent to Australia, I thought it might help to add that in my tree, I had children sent to Canada under the British Home Children Scheme. They eventually made contact with their mother in the UK and sent for her to join them in Canada, which she did.
The world is not as large as we oft think it is and it may well be that some convicts to Australia made contact with their families to also join them there. Good Luck.
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