TheBanyanTree: a tale of four convicts

[Peter Macinnis]

I am on the trail of a story.  It was conceived today while sitting on a 
lawn, named after an Aboriginal leader who was a boy when the white 
people first arrived in 1788. He later travelled around Australia, was 
seen wounding a man with a boomerang in 1804, within shouting distance 
of where I was sitting.

We were listening to an Italian group, "I Musici" who were mainly 
playing on instruments older than white settlement, and I was toying 
with a challenge/request laid on me by a teacher this week.  It was to 
produce an account of the First Fleeters that was a bit less banal than 
the average, that would get kids 9-10 jumping.

I soon realised that I had most of the fragments and it started to come 
together, but when I got home, I did some burrowing in old newspapers, 
the records of the Old Bailey and other stuff.  Here's what I have as 
the beginning, leading into the main structure:

The First Fleet was about 50% convicts, and it was sent out to establish 
a penal colony.  It was also staking a British claim to part of a 
continent that they regarded as unclaimed.  (Yes, there is a degree of 
reservation in that statement.)  The fleet left in mid-1787, and arrived 
here in early 1788.

On one day in 1787, two Elizabeths were had up at the Old Bailey. 
Elizabeth Hayward who, at 14 when she left England, would be the 
youngest female convict on the first fleet, got seven years for 
half-inching a gown, a bonnet and a cloak.  Elizabeth Beckford was 70 
when they left: she was nicked for purloining a cheese worth four 
shillings.  They gratefully accepted their fates.

Beckford died on the voyage, and was described by the surgeon as being 
"82 years of age", so who can tell how old she really was?  Elizabeth 
Hayward died in 1830, but I don't have much on her as yet.

There's more. On the same day, D'Arcy Wentworth, a surgeon of good 
family (read a cad!), was arraigned for trial as a highwayman.  I 
already know quite a bit about D'Arcy and his descendants, so this was good.

Acquitted at the end of 1787, somebody suggested that he got off lucky 
this time, but next time wouldn't be so easy, so he went to Australia 
with the second fleet, knowing that voluntary transportation was better 
than the involuntary sort.  This was a disappointment, as I thought 
D'Arcy had gone on the first fleet, but it contrasts beautifully with 
the next case, of somebody who seemed to greatly fear transportation -- 
but all was not as it seemed.

On that same day, Samuel Burt, forger, declared once again that he would 
rather swing than have that commuted to a life sentence on the east 
coast of New South Wales, and this after the King had graciously given 
him a reprieve.  No thanks, Kingy, said Sam, I'd just as soon get this 
life stuff over and done with.  He reneged in March, and also sailed in 
the second fleet--and apparently helped foil a mutiny on his ship on the 
way out.

It appears that Burt was rejected by a young lady because he was an 
apprentice, with time to serve, and so was not free to marry.  He 
committed a forgery before surrendering himself to the police at Bow 
Street, hoping to be hanged. As a sad case, he was offered the King’s 
pardon and several times refused, until the lady agreed to marry him and 
he then preferred to live.  Sadly, she visited him repeatedly in 
Newgate, where she caught gaol fever, and died.

I already have a strong start, though there's more digging to do.  Did 
he ever marry?  Where did he end up?  I know that he thwarted a convict 
mutiny on his ship coming out, and that on January 31, 1794, he was 
unconditionally emancipated, but then the trail goes cold.

You couldn't invent this stuff, you know.


-- 
  _--|\   Peter Macinnis, feral word herder & science gossip.
/     \  Klein bottle stopper design consultant,
\.--._*  wholesaler of patented bonsai windvane mechanisms
      v   http://oldblockwriter.blogspot.com/