Did Convicts communicate with their families?

[Megan Roberts]

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

[Elwyn Soutter]

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?

[Megan Roberts]

Thanks Elwyn, that's very helpful.

[Kerrywood]

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.

[spison]

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

[Megan Roberts]

Jane

Thanks for your response. It was by through Trove that I found the record of his departure to San Francisco.

Megan

[Heather Barford]

If you check the online newspapers in the UK and overseas you will find reports quite often on prisoners where they were sent what area of the country and to whom.(Although I have not as yet unfortunately found a criminal in my personal ancestry,being Border Reivers I suppose they all were.) I have noticed in other family members plenty of all ages and sex. No doubt your ancestors,if they wanted to maintain contact with a family member they just wrote c/o of the Post Office of the capital city in that area. Up until 1960 a letter would reach our family with just my grandmothers name and New Zealand (she was an avid letter writer) . I recall one letter that the person had just put her name and Levin and no country one that I suspected must have traveled the globe as two years later it came back to us,with try Ireland written on it, then another note send to New Zealand.
It appears in those days rather than just sending mail back to where it came from if you are lucky, the post office tried to get it to its destination. Unlike these days when if you put an address on the back and it doesn't get delivered, only because the stamp forgotten,has fallen off or is insufficient postage, size,shape, weight wrong, you have to make a trip to the post office to discover why and pay again of course. Undelivered Christmas cards are not returned, so unless you follow up with a letter to a card someone could be dead and you wouldn't even know.

[Heather Barford]

Hi there Megan
Just thought of an even more likely way your ancestors would have kept in touch or known about what was happening to their errant son or brother. Word of mouth, probably a lot more efficient than emails or cellphones. When I traveled as a child with my grandmother, she would tell friends and relations that she was planning a trip overseas, home (everyone reffered to the UK as home) and people would send messages for us to call and see them, stop us on the street, phone us and give us addresses to call in and see their relatives, or visit a grave take some photo's and pop some flowers on. Business people bought and sold stock overseas (direct importers) for their shops. A station owner would possibly take a trip overseas, some children of well off families were educated out of the country. I was amazed when looking back at old local newspapers that one of my great aunts an only child seemed to spend more time, traveling around the world than she did at home. Of course poorer families, would never get a chance, goodbye was forever. But because people emigrated to areas where family had come to in the past they also brought news from home and letters of introduction. People interacted a lot more in the past than they do now.