Convicted And Banished From Ireland

 For many years some Australians were not necessarily all that keen on seeking out their genealogical roots. Too often the search would reveal ancestors who were prisoners transported to Australia from England for various crimes, both serious and minor.  Considering that transportation to Australia existed as a form of punishment from 1787 to 1851, grandparents and great grandparents in Australia could, until recent decades, have had a convict past that they preferred to remain hidden.  Although once considered a shameful family secret, claims to convict ancestry for some now seem to add a certain cachet to one’s family line.

Our family, although in Canada, is also able to remotely claim convict ancestry in Australia.  I have previously written about Sam Gray (1782-1848) of Ballybay, Ireland, a notorious religiously intolerant bully and local enforcer who ended up in constant scrapes with the law.  Relationship to him is through James Hutchison (1901-1988), maternal grandfather to my sons.  James’ maternal grandmother Florinda Gray (1840-1920) was, according to family lore she passed on, a niece of the loathsome Sam.

The previously written Sam Gray article makes makes a made brief reference to Sam’s son James Gray who was transported to Australia.  Online archival sources have since been of significant assistance in fleshing out more of his story.   

James Gray was one of the Duke of Richmond’s 111 all male convict passengers when it sailed from Dublin September 21, 1843, all of whom landed safely in Hobart 103 days later on January 2, 1844.  At first blush, James Gray, born in 1820 in Ballybay, County Monaghan would seem to have been an unlikely candidate to bear the stigma of being a transported convict.  He had been a twenty-two year old law student at the time of his July 15, 1843 trial for subornation of perjury.  Loyalty to his father had, however, in the end outweighed any regard for ethical conduct or respect for the law that one would expect of an aspiring lawyer. 

James’ father Sam Gray was an intolerant Orangeman, loan collector, cheat, and ruffian who in many ways “ran” the town of Ballybay.  In 1843, once again in conflict with the law, Sam was arrested and in custody for allegedly having discharged a firearm at another.   In an effort to secure bail for his father, James, with misguided loyalty, arranged for an acquaintance to personate  doctor and falsely swear an affidavit that his father’s supposed poor health could not withstand the rigours of incarceration pending trial.  The hope had been that this would tip the balance in favour of his father being admitted to bail pending trial "to enjoy the care of family and servants".  After James’ role in the affair was discovered by authorities, he was tried in Dublin, found guilty, and sentenced to one month in prison followed by transportation abroad for seven years for his role in procuring the perjured affidavit.

Meticulously kept convict registers of the time describe James as a five feet, seven and one half inches tall brown whiskered twenty-two year old first offender.  Apparently somewhat of a model prisoner, James rather surprisingly at some stage during in his early years as a prisoner even supported the Governor in opposing the then growing movement favouring abolition of the policy of transportation — the very practice responsible for his presence in Tasmania.  A local newspaper had unflatteringly described such abolition protests events as involving "mobs of convicts organised in support of the Governor." The newspaper went on to say that supporters included "a miscreant called Gray, son of the Monaghan murderer of that name and himself transported for forgery … the mob leader".  

With James's conduct as a prisoner noted as exemplary, he nanaged to receive his ticket-of-leave in 1847, just some three years after his arrival.  The next year, as was then required when wanting to marry, he sought and received permission to marry Mary Newton, a “free woman”.  After their April 29, 1848 marriage, he subsequently then received his own certificate of freedom in 1853. 

James Gray In Later Life 

James, just as he had been a model prisoner, went on to be a model citizen, becoming first a successful civil servant as Director of Roads and eventually a member of the Tasmanian parliament.  He served West Hobart from 1872 to 1877 and Sorell from 1882 to 1889.  An ardent Irishman who named his Davey street home Ulster Lodge, it was written at the time of his death that James was noted for his eloquence, habitual anti-government stance, and devotion to causes of the underprivileged.  James died in office on January 21, 1889 and is buried in Hobart’s Cornelian Bay Cemetery.  Despite his shameful behaviour as a young man which led to his banishment to Tasmania, James’ story in the end is one of redemption.

One of James Gray’s first cousins, the previously mentioned Florinda Gray, great grandmother to my sons, immigrated to Canada about 1880.   Despite the tenuous family relationship my children have with James (first cousin four times removed), a snippet of Australian convict heritage is still theirs to claim should they wish to do so.   

David Arntfield

A Teenager Transported To Australia

 There is no accounting sometimes why children turn out they do.  Isabella Dixon came from a modest but respectable family.  Her father, a career soldier with the prestigious Royal Life Guards, had served in the Peninsular Wars as well as the Battle of Waterloo. While all her siblings lived predictable ordinary 19^th century English lives, Isabella herself had been on the street since the age of sixteen.  After she racked up three progressively longer jail sentences (14, 20, and 21 days) for drunkenness, an Old Bailey larceny conviction at the age of nineteen, England’s draconian laws of the time, ultimately sealed her fate.  That conviction would earn her transportation and banishment to Australia for a period of seven years.

As my first cousin four times removed, Isabella Dixon was born in Knightsbridge Barracks on March 7, 1817, the second eldest child of James Dixon and Diana Calvert. Her father was in turn the son of another James Dixon who had elected to immigrate to Canada in 1818.  Eventually all of James Senior’s nine surviving children born in England would join him there save eldest son James who was contracted to serve as a career soldier.  The fate of daughter Isabella Dixon had always been something of a blank slate until an archival discovery about her one way trip to Van Diemen’s Land as Tasmania was then known in 1836. 

Isabella’s conviction for larceny at London’s Old Bailey Court was recorded on June 13, 1836.  An account of her trial shows that she and a friend had been charged following the theft of a cheque for 20 shillings from an inebriated stranger in a pub.  In the words of the victim, “the prisoner Dixon came and forced herself upon our company --- she asked me for some beer ---I gave her some --- I was a little tipsy --- she sat quite close to me, near enough to take anything from my pocket --- I got home about nine o’clock --- I missed the order when I got home to my lodgings …”.  Although a friend of the victim had been present to witness the theft, he was unable to make the victim understand at the time because he was “in liquor”.  The next day, however, now sober, he and his friend were able to locate Isabella who promptly chose to stow herself in a privy in a futile attempt to avoid arrest.  When eventually apprehended, Isabella admitted that, after stealing the cheque, passing it on to her twenty-nine year old male accomplice who later tried to cash it.  Following conviction for theft in the case of Isabella and possession of stolen goods in the case of her by the accomplice, each of them received a seven year sentence to be served in Australia where they were to be banished. 

During the period between 1788 and 1868, England transported about 164,000 men and women to Australian colonies for various crimes.  Isabella would be one of about 12,500 female convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land during the period from 1803 to 1853 for what were mostly crimes of theft.  From reasonably detailed convict records, one is able to assemble a mental picture what our errant Isabella Dixon looked like.  Described as a nineteen year old 5’ 3” pockpitted house servant originally from Knightsbridge,  she also had the following descriptors:  Complexion – Fresh, Head – Round, Hair – Dark Brown, Visage – Oval, Large, Forehead – High, Eyebrows – Light Brown, Eyes – Dark Grey, Nose – Medium, Mouth – Wide, Lips – Thick, Chin – Medium.   

Following her conviction, Isabella likely languished in Newgate Prison until she set sail from Woolwich, England on August 9, 1836 on the transport ship Westmoreland.  She was one of 185 female convicts on board, one of whom died en route, before the ship arrived in Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land almost four months later on December 3, 1836.  In a report compiled by the surgeon on the ship, Isabella is described as “very bad, very troublesome”.  During her first three years of banishment, her conduct would more than prove the surgeon right. 

Seemingly having some freedom and employment outside of prison, possibly as a house servant, we find Isabella on December 28, 1836 being returned to the House of Correction for further assignment on account of neglect of duty and insolence.  After an apparent period of good behaviour over the next two years, she then once again lapsed on account of having been absent without leave.  For that infraction she was ordered on February 8, 1839 to be employed in the prison laundry for 14 days and to sleep in a cell at night.  Barely over a month later on March 13, 1839, she was then ordered, on account of being disorderly and insolent, to spend seven days in a cell on bread and water and “returned to the services of the Crown”. 

Shortly after this last lapse, Isabella seems, however, to have settled down.  Given permission on May 24, 1839 to marry a free settler she had met by the name of Joseph Williamson, the two wed in Hobart on July 29, 1839. Technically still serving her seven year sentence, she then, after receiving her Certificate of Freedom in 1843, moved with husband Joseph to Geelong, Victoria in 1847 where she bore eight children over eleven years.  If marriage and children brought Isabella happiness, it was to be short lived. After an eventful earlier life due a lack of judgment and a harsh judicial system, a reformed Isabella died at Birregura, Victoria on November 25, 1858. 

Isabella Dixon, the ancestor about whom once so little was known, has now been tracked down. Although she clearly deserves no credit for her earlier life of public drunkenness and thievery which resulted in her banishment to Australia, in the end, however, she managed to rehabilitate herself and found some measure of stability. She has also managed to add some cachet to our family which can now claim Australian convict ancestry.   

                                                                                                                                 David Arntfield