Commutation of death sentence to transportation…
Formal document transmuting the death sentence on John Plummer to transportation to New South Wales. Signed by the King and countersigned by Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, 21st September 1821.
London: 1821.
Folio, 2 pp., on a bifolium, with paper seal, unbound and folded as issued.
Formal commutation of death sentence to transportation to NSW
A fine historical transportation document.
A fine historical transportation document.
John Plummer had been convicted at Yarmouth in Norfolk of "stealing in a dwelling house, to the value of 40/- no person being therein, and had sentence of death passed upon him". However, taking into account "some favourable circumstances recently represented to us in his behalf the King was graciously pleased to extend Our Grace & Mercy unto him and to grant him Our Pardon for his said crime on condition of his being transported to the coast of New South Wales or some one or other of the Islands adjacent, for and during the term of fourteen years". Plummer was only 17 years old and his supporters also included the Mayor of Yarmouth and Sarah Plummer, presumably his mother.
Plummer left England on 1 April 1822 on the transport Prince of Orange, arriving in Tasmania on 23rd. July. In 1835 he married a convict, Rebecca Cull who had arrived on the America in 1831. It is recorded that he worked as a gardener in Hobart and fathered at least eight children, in 1873 dying there from hepatitis.
Much has been published on the British policy of penal transportation to Australia between 1788 and about 1867. The context is well described by A.G.L. Shaw in his "Convicts & the Colonies" (1966). Over 80 years about 160,000 convicts were sent from Great Britain to Australia.
Condition Report: General very minor soiling, a couple of edge tears professionally restored.
Price (AUD): $2,250.00
US$1,576.90 Other currencies