Research and ye shall find.

While I have been researching into more background for Grace's story, I have made some amazing discoveries.  What a wonderful thing the internet is, it's fantastic that there are so many historical records and documents now available on line, many for free.  This often means that volunteer transcribers have spent the time recording, scanning, typing or copying, old records from churches, newspapers, archives, and other official documents.


I knew that it said in Grace's convict records that she had one prior conviction for theft of fabric.  In the West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser, Friday the 10th of January 1840, it was reported that at the Penzance Quarter sessions of the previous Monday (6^th January) Grace STEVENS, 15, pleaded guilty to stealing a piece of cotton print, from the shop of Mr. Tucker, Draper, and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. 

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wbritonad/index.html


Her second conviction, that earned her the sentence of transportation to Van Diemen's Land, was reported in the Cornwall Gazette on Friday 17^th July 1840.  This report says her trial had taken place on Tuesday of that week, the 14^th of July.  This one is not on-line.


On Google Books I found the Sixth Report of Inspectors of Prisons of Great Britain, to the House of Commons, 1841.  Prison Inspector for the Southern and Western area, of Great Britain, Dr Francis Bisset Hawkins (an eminent physician and social reformer), visited the Penzance Town Gaol and House of Correction on 16th July 1840. 

On the day of his visit to the Penzance Gaol and House of Correction, he reported that the gaol held 10 prisoners, 7 women, one man, one boy and ‘a girl 15, sentenced to Transportation’.   Grace, having been sentenced to Transportation at Penzance two days earlier, on the 14^th, was the only person who could fit this description on the 16^th of July.

 In reporting on the prisoner's literacy levels, he noted  “of the prisoners now here, 1 girl (who is for transportation) has not been to any school;”.  Grace again.

The report gives a glimpse into prison life: “The Keeper does not allow talking. […] The prisoners do not go outside the walls to work, on any pretext.  Tobacco is forbidden.  On the night preceding my visit, all the women slept in single or double cells -- one by herself, and six, two in a bed.”

 “Construction.—There are six cells here, three in the male yard and three in the female; one dark room; and two yards (besides the tread-wheel yard).  There are no day-rooms; but the cells are large and each has a fire-place.”

“Diet. – The keeper receives 2s. 6d. per week for each prisoner, for which he is obliged to find them 1 ½ lb. of seconds bread daily, and 1 ½ pint of tea morning and evening; also for dinner, on Sundays, 4 ozs. Meat and 1 ½ lbs potatoes; Mondays, soup, with ½ lb. of bread extra; Tuesdays, stew with 4 ozs. of meat and 1 ½ lbs. of potatoes; Wednesdays 4 ozs. of fish and 1 ½ lbs. of potatoes; Thursdays 4 ozs. of liver and 1 ½ lbs. of potatoes; Fridays, the same as Mondays; Saturday’s, the same as Wednesdays.  Salt is given without limit.” 

Dr Bisset Hawkins made some recommendations at the conclusion of his inspection, including that “A bath of some kind is wanted”, and that “Tread-wheel labour is, in my opinion, unsuitable for women.”

Born in 1796, Dr Hawkins, wrote the first book on medical statistics in English in 1829. The book was influential in the use of hospital records and in the insertion of cause of death in registration documents.  He was a prolific author in the fields of industrial medicine and public health.  

He held the important offices of factory commissioner, to which he was appointed in 1833; of inspector of prisons, in 1836; and of metropolitan commissioner in lunacy, in 1842. In 1847-48 he was commissioner for the government of the Model prison at Pentonville, and in 1858 was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Dorsetshire. In his Report on the Health and Condition of the Manufacturing Districts, he strongly recommended the diminution of the hours of labour for children and women; and suggested the creation of public gardens or parks at Manchester.

His picture above is from the British Medical Journal of January 1895, published after his death in December 1894. To think that Grace saw this man in 1840, is really incredible. 

Grace in print?

Hello,

The Convict Women's Press is a group that publishes stories about women convicts, their lives, their crimes, and how they fared in later life.  The 'Convict Lives' series currently has books about the Cascades Female Factory and the Ross Female Factory.  The books contain a set of short stories for selected convict women, who were in some way connected to one of the female factories.

The current project is the Launceston Female Factory.  Grace spent some time in the Launceston Female Factory in early 1843.  I am writing up her story to contribute to the book.  She may or may not make the final cut :)

Last weekend I went to a workshop for contributors, held at the beautiful 'Egremont' in Launceston.  It is a stunning turn of the century house with magnificent Art Nouveau decor, including decorative fireplaces, ceilings, and stained glass windows.

http://www.egremonttas.com/EGREMONT/Home.html

What a stunning place to visit!

Four other writers attended the workshop and it was fascinating to hear the stories they were researching,  I was the only person writing about a direct ancestor, in the group.  

While researching my article I have found out a couple of interesting but sad things about Grace that I hadn't realised before. Grace's mother Martha died in 1826 when Grace was only 18 months old.  I can't find any information about how her father Robert managed with 3 young children - but her mother came from a large family, so hopefully they were able to help care for them.  Her older brother Robert (jr) died about 12 months after their mother in 1827, when he was only 10 years old. 

UK online census information doesn't start until 1841 - the year Grace was transported. 



John Dewhurst and Sons, Cotton Manufacturers

Happy New Year to all! :)

For a few years now I have been collecting Dewhurst Sylko reels, merchandise, boxes and associated paraphernalia. 

Sadly I have not been able to establish a direct link to my family with the Dewhursts of Dewhurst Sylko fame, although they are from locations near to each other.  The Dewhurst Cotton company started with Thomas Dewhurst, who in the latter part of 1789 acquired a corn mill at Elslack, near Skipton, which he converted into a mill for the spinning of cotton by water power.  The first cotton for use at the Elslack Mill was bought in November 1789, and in the beginning of 1790 the mill was in full working order, as from that time forward there are recorded large and regular sales of "twist", principally to Manchester and Blackburn.

In 1813 two mills were rented by Thomas at Millholme, near Skipton, for cotton spinning. In 1819 the brothers John and Isaac Dewhurst, sons of Thomas, bought the lease of Scalegill Mill, near Malham, and in 1822 bought that of the Old Soke Mill at Airton, which had for some time been worked as a cotton mill.  With the money they made from this they built the Belle Vue Mill.  They continued to run the Airton mill, which they acquired freehold in 1834, until just after 1900, trading as Airton Mill Company from 1889, and becoming part of the English Sewing Cotton Company in 1898.  Scalegill Mill was let to another firm for a short while, which went bankrupt, and Dewhurst's bough it back again from 1829, and let to other operators until 1904.

The original Belle Vue Mill at Skipton was built in 1828. This mill was run for the first time on February 17th, 1829, being then used for worsted spinning and weaving.  On Sunday, January 2nd, 1831, it was burnt to the ground. The mill was re-built with astonishing quickness, for before the end of the year it was working again, now as a cotton mill.

The Dewhurst mill at Skipton as it stands today, has been remodelled into apartments.

A plaque on the river walkway beside the mill.

In 1852 the mill was greatly extended, and a shed to hold 385 looms was added. A further enlargement took place in 1859 and 1860. In 1863-4 a warehouse was erected on the site of the Old Work-
house. During the years 1867 to 1870 the newest and largest mill, a noble building adjacent to Broughton-road, was erected. This mill was run for the first time on February 4th, 1870. The building is 225 feet in length, and 70 feet 8 inches in width. It is five stories high, and the rooms are lighted by twenty windows in each side, and six in each end.  The entire factory premises of Messrs. Dewhurst have a floor area of 20,000 square yards. More than 800 operatives are in continual employment.

John Bonny Dewhurst, grandson of Thomas

Belle Vue Mills were engaged in the spinning and weaving of cotton, and in the manufacture of sewing cotton, all the varied processes, including dyeing, being performed on the premises. The thread manufactured by Messrs. Dewhurst bears a very high reputation. Wherever exhibited it has received prize medals : at the Vienna Universal Exhibition of 1873, at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876, and at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, medals were awarded to this firm. The firm now goes under the
style of Messrs. John Dewhurst and Sons. It consists of Mr. J. B. Dewhurst and Mr. T. H. Dewhurst, sons of the founder, and Mr. Algernon Dewhurst, son of Mr. J. B. Dewhurst.

Box showing medals from Amsterdam and Frankfurt Exhibitions

Closeup of box showing medals won at World Exhibitions

Drawing of the mill used on boxes of threads

Algernon Dewhurst was also a member of the board of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. In 1882 he was a guest at the opening of Singer's Kilbowie maunfacturing plant in Glasgow, Scotland. Dewhurst's produced a range of threads with 'Specially prepared for Singer' labels.

Reels of thread with Singer labels

The business was converted into a private limited liability company in 1888, the directors being the sons of John Dewhurst: Messers John Bonny Dewhurst, Thomas Henry Dewhurst, Algernon Dewhurst, Lionel Dewhurst, and Arthur Dewhurst. It is interesting to note that for upwards of a century the management of the firm has been in the hands of lineal descendants of the original founder Thomas Dewhurst.

In 1897 all the principal old-established and well-known English thread makers who were not included in the "Coats'" Combine (J & P Clark and J. Coats) consolidated to become a powerful and wealthy Corporation to be known as 'The English Sewing Cotton Co., Limited'.  From the Coats Company Chairman's address to shareholders he said "They decided to enter into closer connection with a view to secure unity of interest, large economies, and harmonious relationship and working between each other and the great Coats' Company".

The chairman of the directors of the new company was Mr Algernon Dewhurst (who held this position until 1902); while the trustees for the debenture holdings were Mr John Bonny Dewhurst, JP Chairman of the Craven Bank; Mr Frederick Charles Arkwright, JP, D.L.; and Mr G. Herbert Strutt, JP. 

Another daughter of the Rajah

Hi all,

I have discovered another Rajah convict in my family tree!!
I would like to introduce you to Mary Ford.
She is not directly related to me, but she is connected to my Dewhurst family, through her grandson Henry, who married Charles Dewhurst and Elizabeth Banks' granddaughter Lillian Edith.

The information below is all available by searching Archives records, however I would like to acknowledge that this work was done by Dr. Trudy Cowley and Dr. Dianne Snowden, of the Female Convicts Research Group.

Mary Ford was from Salford, near Manchester.  She was sentenced to 10 years transportation for receiving a stolen watch at the Lancaster Sessions of the Peace on 31 August 1840. 

Mary was married with 4 children at the time of her transportation.   She was 36 years old.  She stated on arrival that she had been separated from her husband Matthew 3 years prior.  I do not know what happened to her children but they were not transported with her.

Mary arrived on the Rajah which landed in Hobart on 21 July 1841, by which time she was 37.  She was immediately assigned to a Mr D Cameron, in the Evandale area.  She was 'returned to the Crown' in November, and reassigned to a Mr Ralston in December. 

On 5th May 1843 an application for Permission to Marry was lodged for Mary to James COLLINS, who was a convict transported on the Southworth.  James was on his second transportation - he was previously transported to NSW in 1820, on the Neptune, and he returned to Britain, in 1828.  By 1830 he was in Tasmania, having been transported again, this time for stealing 'wearing apparel' - and sentenced to 14 years transportation.  His convict arrival record shows his true name as John Collins, which is the name he was listed under on the Neptune.

James and Mary married at Evandale Parish Church - James aged 40 and Mary 39.  They had 2 sons, Thomas in 1844, and James in 1846.  Mary was still an assigned convict during this time, and spent 3 months in the Launceston Female Factory in 1848 for being absent without leave from her master's residence.

Thomas Collins (now using the name Collings) married Mary Wilson in 1863 and they had 9 children.  Thomas died in February 1913. 

James married Jane nee ILLMAN on 15/12/1866 - Jane's father George was also a convict on the Southworth, so it's interesting to imagine that the two fathers ended up in service together or became friends.

This is a photo of Jane Collings nee Illman. 

James and Jane had 12 children, sadly their firstborn James John born 1867 died in 1868.  It was Jane and James' 3rd son Henry, that married Lillian Edith Dewhurst.

This is a photo of Lillian Collings nee Dewhurst with two of her children .

And Lillian as an older lady. 

I hope you have enjoyed meeting Mary and her family,

Bernadette.

Hints and Tips for Family History Research

Hi all,

There are some great resources for finding your ancestors, and building your family tree.

There are websites that have transcripts for various historical records.  These are generally reliable, and I recommend the Archives Office of Tasmania's Convict records, and the Tasmanian Colonial Family Database, as good starting points for Tasmanian History.  Of course with these it is necessary to have a little bit of knowledge about what you're looking for.

I stress caution with websites where the information recorded is user-input.  These can contain mistakes, and those mistakes can be copied many times over, into 'merged' accounts and perpetuate the incorrect information.  It's really important to research some official records to back up your connections before you 'set them in stone'. 

A great resource for Australian research is the National Library of Australia's newspaper transcripts - called TROVE - these have been digitised using optical character recognition - that's a type of scanning where the scanned data is turned into editable text.  The OCR makes some interesting errors.  Registering to be able to edit, and making changes to the digital format, gives others a more searchable resource.  And it's fun.

Other do's and don'ts:

Be flexible about spelling - before the 20th century it wasn't as important as it is now. If you're searching for Stephens, be prepared to include Stevens, Stevenson, Stevins, etc.  Usually names were written down according to pronunciation and the best guess of the person writing them.  It would also be dependent on who reported the event to the registration body at the time.

Be careful listing living people on public websites - there are privacy issues, and some people may not want their personal information listed where others can access it.

Be equally cautious contacting people - we now have access to online telephone directories and it's possible to find people's phone numbers or addresses - this does not give you the right to contact a person you do not know.  They may not appreciate your enquiry.  They may not be interested in the family history, there may be a background of family conflict that you are not aware of, or some other reason why they don't wish to be involved. 

Check your sources - especially with sites like Ancestry.com - which is a wonderful resource for documents and records, but also has a user generated aspect which may, or may not be accurate.  Find collaborating evidence, if possible, before you put something in place in your tree.

Be willing to be shown to be wrong - maybe the person who found the information, and passed it on to you, was 'barking up the wrong tree' :)  This happened with my husband's family tree, that was published in a lovely magazine style book, but the person who did the research linked the wrong family to the arrivals in Australia, and got it all wrong from there back.

Bernadette.



  

The Rajah Quilt at the NMA

Hi everyone,

It seems so long ago now, and somewhat overshadowed by the surprise extra 3 nights in Melbourne, courtesy of a volcano in Chile!  I do apologise for taking this long to get this post organised.  The 170^th anniversary of the arrival of the Rajah has also just passed me by, I don’t know where the time goes!

On June 11^th Gary and I went to Canberra for the long weekend, specifically to see the Quilt, which is on display until today at the National Museum of Australia. The National Museum has done a wonderful job of displaying the Rajah quilt.  It is spread flat, but on an angle of about 45 degrees, so it's easier to see the whole quilt standing close to it, than it would be if it was hanging vertically.  Photographs weren't allowed inside the exhibit, and there was no photo of the quilt in the book they had published about the display :( 

The quilt is so beautiful, the colours are much more vibrant than the photos that are used on most websites, and in books and magazines, which are usually reproductions of the one NGA picture (the one that is usually printed the wrong way, with the inscription on the side).  Below is a good photo of the colours in the quilt (at the V&A with my lucky cousin Hazel who got to have a special photo taken with it.)

The inscription panel is so finely embroidered, it looks like pen work.  I wish I'd realised, before seeing the quilt in Canberra, that this embroidered panel is described in books as 'cross stitched' - I would have liked to take more notice, but it didn't strike me as cross stitched.  Does anyone else have first hand knowledge of this? 

They had some small souvenir items, I brought a selection back with me, but these also are based on the NGA photograph of the quilt.

This is what is written up on the National Museum of Australia's website, about the quilt:

"One small group of female convicts, who arrived in Hobart on the Rajah in 1841, has left an extraordinary testimony to their skill and perseverance — the  Rajah quilt, the only known surviving convict shipboard quilt. The names of the 37 women, their occupation and native county can be seen on the wall."

http://historywall.nma.gov.au/irish/object/1/

It was more than a little annoying that they only have 37 of the Rajah women's names listed, leaving 143 others not recognised, and there was no other information displayed with the quilt, so people don't know how it was made, or that there were many other women involved.  As well as the convict women, they could have told the stories of Elizabeth Fry or Kezia Hayter.  While we were standing at the display two other women were there discussing it and one was saying "they would have ripped up their petticoats..." I so wanted to talk to everyone about the quilt - it would have been nice to see the story explained a little better.  

I suppose it's connection to the Irish in Australia is really very tenuous and they can't say much about it that's Irish.  Honestly I don't think the NMA see the quilt as something that has living connections to real people - they see it as a piece of textile that 'belongs' to the NGA.

Naturally we did some other sightseeing in Canberra - and we were lucky to experience a recital at the Carillion, which only happens once a month. 

We also visited the new Parliament House which is very impressive.

We drove around the circuit of embassies and past Yarralumla, the Governor General's residence. 

The Market at the old Bus Depot:

Telstra Tower on Mt Black:

Hope to see you a little sooner next time,

Bernadette.

Rajah's Granddaughter: Campbell Town Convict Brick Trail

Rajah's Granddaughter: Campbell Town Convict Brick Trail: "Campbell Town is an historic town in central Tasmania. It was named by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1821, for his wife Elizabeth nee Campb..."