A remarkable original document giving a vivid snapshot of early Australian history, listing the sentences recorded at Newgate, from the Old Bailey, in June 1788.

A remarkable original document giving a vivid snapshot of early Australian history, listing the sentences recorded at Newgate, from the Old Bailey, in June 1788.

Here are the names of a fascinating cross-section of prison life, many of whom would be dispatched on some of the notorious ships to follow the First Fleet, including several who were on the appalling Second Fleet which arrived in mid-1790: each name captures a convicted man or woman at the very moment their fate was decided. More, recent research allows us to unravel many of their later lives, none more dramatic than that of John Cobcroft, who eventually sailed for New South Wales with his common law wife, Sarah Smith, he becoming a prominent farmer and she a midwife, wealthy enough to have her portrait painted by Joseph Backler in the 1850s. Few manuscripts more neatly capture the dramatic fortunes of those caught up in the great machinery of transportation.

Written at Newgate Gaol in the City of London, signed by John Adair, Recorder, the senior judge in the City during the 1780s, with his ominously black wax seal, the document sets out fourteen death sentences. Most would later be pardoned and would accept the option of being transported to New South Wales instead. The document reflects the pressing problems in 18th-century England of the severity of capital sentencing, the search for alternatives and the overcrowding of gaols – major issues that helped to ensure the successful adoption of transportation to Australia.

Of the nine subsequently transported the document identifies two women, Mary Hook and Catherine Heyland, who as women would have been selected from the group to sail on the first ship to reach New South Wales after the First Fleet, the notorious Lady Juliana, sometimes harshly characterised as a floating brothel. Five more came out on the infamous Second Fleet, rife with starvation and disease. Three of these five, John Cobcroft, John Wood and William Stubbs (or Fubbs, "otherwise Fielder otherwise Jack the Gardner"), were together charged with highway robbery and initially sentenced to death. George Dunstan of London and James Wilkinson of Middlesex were also transported for life in the same Fleet.

Lastly, a further two prisoners, Michael Hoy of London and Sarah Mills of Middlesex, came out on the Third Fleet arriving in 1791. That fleet of 11 ships carried over 2000 convicts and although conditions had supposedly improved, the death rate was again extremely high.

Further details of the persons named on the document and their outcomes can be seen on our website.

Mary Hook and Catherine Heyland were thus the first of the fortunate reprieved to arrive. A domestic servant, Mary Hook had stolen a silk cloak from her mistress. Twenty years later she would marry Sergeant Humm at St Phillip's in Sydney; she would live into her eighties, memorialised at her death as "a resident in the colony for sixty years [who] has left a numerous circle of relatives to follow her, whose last end was peace". Catherine Heyland ended up in Hobart where she married John Folley, and died there in 1824.

The second-fleeter John Cobcroft was accompanied by his common law wife, Sarah Smith on the Scarborough; within a few years he was on his way to becoming a prosperous member of the Colony. In 1794 he received a conditional pardon and a year later was granted 30 acres on the Hawkesbury River at Wilberforce. By 1806 his holdings had expanded to 120 acres, with over a third under cultivation, as well as running livestock. By 1828 he was described as "a farmer of Wilberforce" with 485 acres (130 under cultivation), 300 cattle and 7 horses. His older sons and their families were established on farms nearby. For a number of years he also owned the George and Dragon Hotel.

His wife, 17-year-old Sarah Smith, accepted the government's offer of free passage for wives and de facto partners of convicts and arrived on the Neptune. The first of their ten children, Richard, was born in 1793, with Matilda the last born in 1815. Unsurprisingly, given her experience, Sarah became known for her midwifery skills. Joseph Backler painted a portrait of Sarah in 1856 (now in the State Library of New South Wales) which shows a strong, determined woman. They remained unmarried until a few years before their deaths (John died in 1853, Sarah in 1857).

James Wilkinson arrived on the Neptune in 1790. David Collins writes of him in 1793 that "His abilities as a millwright had hitherto lain dormant and perhaps would longer have continued so, had they not been called forth by a desire of placing himself in competition with Thorpe the millwright [the official millwright sent out by the government]". Working mills were an urgent necessity to assist with rationing the hard-gained crop. In three months Wilkinson constructed a walking mill to be worked by two men, but it was not capable of producing enough grain and was abandoned. Undaunted, he went on to build a larger mill, worked by six men, on the former marine parade ground now the intersection of George and Grosvenor Streets. It failed too, and Collins notes that he returned to Parramatta, but the following month "Wilkinson, the millwright, was drowned in a pond in the neighbourhood of the Hawkesbury River. He had been there on a Sunday with some of the settlers to shoot ducks, and getting entangled with the weeds in the pond was drowned, though a good swimmer; thus untimely perishing before he could reap any reward from his industry and abilities…".

So, nine of the convicts marked out here for temporary respite were indeed reprieved, and we know from other records that William Maskall was pardoned on James Adair's recommendation made on 24 June 1789 at the end of Adair's term as Recorder (on account of Maskall's age and previous good character). But four of the remaining prisoners listed in this manuscript had their sentences confirmed and were executed. This included Margaret Sullivan, burned at the stake on 25 June 1788, and one of the very last to be executed in this terrible way. Despite the prospects of death at the hands of the executioner, many condemned prisoners chose execution rather than transportation. The equivalent today might be the choice between quick death and the uncertain experiment of life on Mars. The Old Bailey records are poignant in this context, and everywhere in the records (transcribed at www.oldbaileyonline.org) one finds the court offering transportation in lieu of execution, usually actually urging the condemned man to accept the King's pardon but surprisingly often the offer being rejected. In an example from the same sessions:—

Court: Prisoner at the bar, I think it my duty to state to you the very perilous situation in which you now stand; you have been convicted of an offence, for which, by the laws of your country, you have forfeited your life; but by the indulgence of a very kind sovereign, that life has been spared, to give you an opportunity of becoming a better man, in a different situation. I will, for one moment, throw aside the character of the Judge, for the Judge should, in his private capacity, be a friend to the unfortunate; at present, I address you, therefore, not as a Judge, but as a friend to an unfortunate man; and recommend it to you most sincerely, not to throw away that life which you have now an opportunity of saving. Having given you that advice as a friend to a man in a most lamenable situation, I shall now resume the character of the Judge; and tell you, that the administration of the justice of this country will not be sported with by men of your description; and if you do not accept the terms of the king's pardon, I shall order you for immediate execution; having given you this fair notice, I leave you to decide for yourself; but that decision must be made now, because you will not exist perhaps two days; perhaps not one, after your refusal.

(The question asked.)

Prisoner: Death is more welcome to me than this pardon.

Will you accept it? – I will not.

Court: Take him back to the condemned cells, and I shall sign a warrant of execution, as soon as I settle with the sheriffs, to prepare for that purpose.

TRANSPORTATION

From 1776 prison hulks, basically disused naval vessels, were moored in the Thames, at Portsmouth, Plymouth and Chatham and used as floating jails. By 1779 a committee of the House of Commons examined the reintroduction of transportation and at this time Joseph Banks advised this committee that Botany Bay was, in his opinion the best place for convicts to be sent.

It was not until 1786 that the overflowing and riotous conditions on the convict hulks persuaded Lord Sydney, the Home Office Secretary to write to King George 111 stating that since the coast of Africa was not a suitable site for a settlement that a colony be established at Botany Bay. The First Fleet under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip contained six convict transports that had been charted from private owners carried 778 convicts –586 men and 192 women.

In June of 1788, the date of this manuscript, the conditions in the new settlement were decidedly bleak with a serious lack of food and wretched living conditions. Oblivious to these dire circumstances on the far side of the world, the English Government continued with its transportation plans and dispatched another fleet of ships carrying over a 1000 convicts.

The Second Fleet left for Australia in 1789 carrying 1026 men and women of whom 267 died en route and several hundred more were close to death on arrival in Sydney. So bad were the conditions on the Second Fleet that the Government were forced to attempt improvements in their transportation of convicts to Australia.

NAMES IN THIS DOCUMENT

Sentenced to Death on 2 April 1788

William James, otherwise Levi

Catherine Heyland

John Gilbertson

Sentenced to Death on 7 May 1788

George Dunstan

Michael Hoy

Sarah Mills

William Maskall

John Wood

John Cobcroft

William Fubbs aka Fielder, aka Jack the Gardener

Jeremiah Grace

Margaret Sullivan

James Wilkinson

Mary Hook

To be executed 25 June 1788

William James, otherwise Levi

John Gilbertson

Jeremiah Grace

Margaret Sullivan

Given respite until His Majesty's Pleasure be known, and later accepted the offer of King's Pardon

Mary Hook

Catherine Heyland

John Wood

John Cobcroft

William Fubbs aka Fielder, aka Jack the Gardener

George Dunstan

James Wilkinson

Sarah Mills

Michael Hoy

William Maskall

Outcomes

William Maskall was pardoned 24 June 1789 on Adair's recommendation (age, good character)

The others were transported:-

Lady Juliana

Mary Hook, Catherine Heyland

Second fleet

John Wood, John Cobcroft' William Fubbs aka Fielder, aka Jack the Gardener, George Dunstan, James Wilkinson

Third Fleet

Sarah Mills, Michael Hoy