The State Library and Archive Service is issuing a challenge to Tasmanians to read five different examples of nineteenth-century handwriting from our Heritage Collections, each featuring a different set of records held in the State Archives.
Just to recap:
Your Transcription Challenge
Your second challenge is to transcribe the conduct record of Isaac Solomon. The information in this section of the conduct record was mostly self-reported by convicts on their arrival to Van Diemen’s Land during the assignment period (pre-1840).
Tasmanian Archives: Isaac Solomon, Conduct Registers of Male Convicts arriving in the Period of the Assignment System (1831), CON31/1/39 page 161
This section of the convict record is in the top right-hand corner and usually included what the convict was transported for, their gaol report, the hulk report, marital status, what offences the convict stated they were convicted for and former convictions and the Surgeon’s report.
Transported for receiving stolen goods Gaol report Before transported Hulk report Married 5 children Stated this offence Received stolen goods transported about 20 years ago for a pocketbook Pardoned in 3 or 4 years afterwards as Moses Joseph was sent to Sydney for the same Offence Wife and family in this Colony. Married six children.
Historical Background: Who was Isaac Solomon?
This is the conduct record of Isaac Solomon who was transported on the William Glen Anderson in 1831. Isaac Solomon, more frequently known as Ikey Solomon, is widely believed to be the inspiration for Dickens character of Fagin in Oliver Twist. Fagin was of Jewish descent as was Ikey Solomon. Fagin is an anagram of the Yiddish word for thief, ganif.
Dicken’s portrayal of him has been described as, “one of the most notorious antisemitic portraits in English literature.” In Oliver Twist he describes Fagin as a very shrivelled old Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair. (Dickens, Oliver Twist, p42)
Author Bryce Courtenay continues in a similar vein – extending his insults to include Ikey’s wife Ann in The Potato Factory. Courtenay describes Ikey and Hannah Solomon as creatures of the dark hours, dirty furtive and predatory – who are so consumed by greed and hate that they are unable to form meaningful relationships or make a go of it in the new colony.
Tasmanian Archives: Isaac Soloman, Description Lists of Male Convicts, CON18/1/21 Image 122 . During his lifetime Ikey was described as a ladies man, a dandy and handsome.
In her court appearance at the Old Bailey in 1827 where she was convicted of receiving stolen goods, his wife Ann was described as dressed elegantly. She was sentenced to be transported to Van Diemens Land and arrived on the Mermaid in June 1828, aged thirty-five.
There can be no doubt that Ikey was a very successful career criminal. He was charismatic and this along with his wealth, made him many friends, both male and female, with many in positions of authority and influence. Some writers say he was probably a member of the Masonic Society, and as such would have been protected by that society. He was at the height of his career one of the richest men in London, and credited by the popular press as the Prince of Fences, and a notorious receiver
The story of Isaac Solomon and his family is a fascinating one, and it has been written many times. T. Garth Hyland writes a fictionalised and well researched account of Ikey Solomon’s life and adventures that’s intertwined with his own family history in Thanks a lot, Guv! and John S. Levi & G.F. J. Bergman devote a chapter to him in Australian Genesis: Jewish convicts and settlers . The chapter is tellingly titled, “Fagin in Australia”.
The First Fagin: the true story of Ikey Solomon, by Judith Sackville-O’Donnell is the most recent account held in the State Library of Tasmania’s collection. Published in 2002 it aims to be a corrective to the harsh portrayal of Fagin and Ikey in fiction. Sackville -O’Donnell claim that it’s also a love story. Sackville-O’Donnell’s version has been made into a DVD also titled, The First Fagin that it seamlessly blends reconstructed dramatic sequences with historical documentary.
J.J. Tobias’s book follows on from his BBC radio series on Ikey. He has made a career of writing on crime and police in England. Tobais’s publication “Prince of Fences: the life and crimes of Ikey Solomon” draws on the official records of the Tasmanian State Archives and the Public Records office of London.
There are lending copies of all books and the DVD for you to enjoy so I’m not going to give you the full story here.
If you decided you wanted to write your own version of the Ikey Solomon story – what angle would you take? Would it be a tale of anti-semitism, a love story, a true crime documentary, an account of life and crime in London in the early 19th century, an expose of Governor Arthur’s convict system where wealthy and skilled convicts were treated differently? Or might it be an expose of the wealthy and influential contacts Ikey had in VDL in arrival, or perhaps a tale of how Jewish people survived in early Australia?
As well as the books and DVD mentioned previously you can also access the multitude of archival records held on the Solomons.
Search our catalogue for Archival records and Names Index records for Ikey. Most of the records for Ann are included with Ikeys. But here are the links to her own convict records: Ann Solomons (sic)
We also have a very extensive research file that will give you access to many other records and newspaper accounts. If you are interested in the research file, submit a research enquiry ask for Isaac Solomon’s research file and we will send you a summary of the contents with instructions on how to obtain copies.
Miscellaneous Photographs, PH30/1/700, Photograph – Side View of Solomon’s Shop in Elizabeth Street, Hobart Convict Department, Conduct Registers of Male Convicts Arriving in the Period of the Assignment System CON31/1/39 page 161 Convict Department, Description List of Male Convicts, CON18/1/21 Image122
State Library Sources
We hold many different formats and versions of these two publications
The State Library and Archive Service is issuing a challenge to Tasmanians to read five different examples of nineteenth-century handwriting from our Heritage Collections, each featuring a different set of records held in the State Archives.
The scripts are selected to give you insights into some of the key strengths of our collection and we hope they will pique your interest to explore further.
Today’s challenge is reading the script of a convict record. The Tasmanian State Archive’s convict records were recognised by UNESCO in 2006 as having world significance and are used as the basis for a wide range of historical studies as well as for genealogical research.
Your Transcription Challenge
Your second challenge is to transcribe the conduct record of Isaac Solomon. The information in this section of the conduct record was mostly self-reported by convicts on their arrival to Van Diemen’s Land during the assignment period (pre-1840).
Tasmanian Archives: Isaac Solomon, Conduct Registers of Male Convicts arriving in the Period of the Assignment System (1831), CON31/1/39 page 161
This section of the convict record is in the top right-hand corner and usually included what the convict was transported for, their gaol report, the hulk report, marital status, what offences the convict stated they were convicted for and former convictions and the Surgeon’s report.
The State Library and Archive Service is issuing a challenge to Tasmanians to read five different examples of nineteenth-century handwriting from our Heritage Collections, each featuring a different set of records held in the State Archives.
Just to recap:
Your Transcription Challenge
Your first challenge is to transcribe a passage from the account of the voyage of the Female Transport, Garland Grove (2) in 1842/1843:
Tasmanian Archives: Abraham Harvey, Reminiscences of a Voyage on the Female Convict Ship Garland Grove, p.4 (1842-43), NS816/1/1. Abraham Harvey was the 2nd Officer on board the Garland Grove, which left England in August 1842 and arrived in Van Diemens Land in January 1843.
The Answer
…in that situation I witnessed many a heart-rending scene, poor old men and women some coming many miles to take a last farewell of their erring daughters, some so old and feeble they had to be lifted in and out of the Ship, they were so overpowered with grief, no doubt their unfortunate children – gave promise – of better things in early life, and now look back with shame and sorrow …
Historical Background: The ‘Erring daughters’
The “erring daughters” referred to by Abraham Harvey were among the 1350 female convicts transported to Van Diemens Land between 1803 and 1853. The number of men transported for the same period was five to six times that amount. These women were in high demand, as marriage partners for the younger transportees, and as domestic servants for the older or less genetically blessed. Marriage, the authorities believed, encouraged stability, and had the added benefit of any children resulting from the union being future labourers and servants for the Colony.
Without women, the men of the Colony were in danger of partaking of “the dreadful crime … the importation of these young women meant the vengeance of Heaven [could be] averted.” (The Cornwall Chronicle, 28 Nov 1846, p.917)
Because of the gender imbalance in the Colony a young female convict had options. She could marry a convict still under sentence, a convict whose sentence had expired, a free born son of an ex-convict, or a free settler.
Marrying a free settler was the best option. For example, this was achieved by Ann Murphy a convict nursemaid who arrived in 1840 aged 16.
A few years later in July 1844 she married Roger Pitt a free 21-year-old Coachmaker.
Marrying a free man who had not been a convict and had a valuable trade was a step up for a convict woman.
But it was more likely that a woman would marry a man still under sentence or one who was emancipated, or a free born child with convict parents. The man’s necessary qualifications were an ability to earn sufficient income to provide a home for a wife and any future children and to be able to demonstrate this to the Governor’s satisfaction.
The approval of the Governor was required before convicts could marry, with marriage regarded as an indulgence to be granted at the Governor’s discretion. The indulgence came via the Principal Superintendent and required character references attesting to the convict applicant being deserving and eligible.
Convicts soon realised if they wanted to be granted the privilege of marriage, they needed to have a good conduct record. It was not unusual for first applications to be denied and the applicants told to reapply after a period of consistent good behaviour.
Some of the early applications to marry include wonderfully informative letters from family back in England. These were kept with the Colonial Secretary’s records as news in the letters included statements about the death of a spouse, providing the proof that the recipient of the letter was free to marry.
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania: Thomas Bock, [Interior view with woman sewing and child at right], [Tasmania]: [T Bock], [Between 1841 and 1850]. Prior to marriage many women (both free and convict) worked as servants in Van Diemens Land. Not all behaved well, but some became highly prized, and were treated better than their English counterparts. The possible identity of the woman in this drawing is Mary Ann Cameron (nee Spencer), who was living with Thomas Bock in 1843, the year that their first baby was born. She married the artist, Thomas Bock, an ex-convict in 1850. Mary Spencer a 17-year-old nurse and housemaid from Middlesex had arrived in VDL aged 17 in 1831. She was convicted of stealing two gowns and had no misdemeanours recorded against her in her conduct record.
The number of convict arrivals of both sexes peaked in the early 1840s, a period known as the Hungry Forties, when the Garland Grove (2) arrived. Many young people had been forced to leave their families in rural England and Ireland for the overcrowded cities in search of work. Low wages and lack of employment tempted many into crime. Opportunistic theft of items from their employers accounted for many transportees with 91% of convicts transported for petty theft. While many women were described as “on the town” (a euphemism for prostitution), it was for most a necessary part-time occupation to supplement a meagre income.
Years of deprivation on the streets and in workhouses resulted in poor health for many of the convict women who were leaving on the Garland Grove (2).
The “poor old men and women” who came to wave their loved ones goodbye had cause for concern. Those being transported were checked and deemed healthy enough to survive the voyage, but the reality was some came on board in such a debilitated state of health that they were not fit to sail and did not survive the voyage.
The long sea voyage was especially hard on frail mothers nursing children. Abraham Harvey counted 25 children on board with their mothers. The official records don’t mention them, except when they died, and then not by name.
It was the 2nd of October 1842 when the Garland Grove (2) left Woolwich carrying its cargo of female convicts and their children. The voyage was to take 109 days, with a total of 179 women and some children arriving at Hobart Town. The voyage from Woolwich to Hobart must have been hellish for these women.
State Library of Tasmania: Australian joint copying project microfilm Reel 3196 Ref: Adm 101/29 .You can read the Surgeon Superintendent’s report on the voyage either in our Reading Room at 91 Murray Street, Hobart or by accessing a copy of AJCP Reel 3196 Ref: Adm 101/29 from your State or National library.
Unfortunately, within days of the ship leaving port women started to fall sick. For many it was sea sickness and they recovered, but others did not. Eight women died on this voyage making this the second equal highest number of fatalities on a female convict transport, barring shipwrecks. The highest number of fatalities was yet to come with seventeen on the East London in 1843, but the average number for the women over the entire period was two or less. In this regard the female transports fared slightly better than the men, but generally only a couple of deaths occurred on the voyage for either sex.
Of the eight women who died five were still feeding their infants when they came on board. One mother died shortly after giving birth and her baby followed her after a few days. As the mothers got sick and lost their milk other women, nursing mothers themselves, attempted to feed the babies of the sick. However, all the babies whose mothers died, also died making the real number of fatalities thirteen.
Surgeon Superintendent Bland wrote in his report, “it is almost impossible to keep one of this age [an infant] alive without milk and a good nurse when at sea in a ship.” No nursing mother would give her milk to another baby at the expense of her own infant.
Bland is not sympathetic in his accounts of the some of the sick women, describing them as filthy and indolent, and having led desolate lives. Of Louisa Cogan he remarked she had a “peevish and troublesome temper” and suffered from “violent hysteria.” She was 26 when she died. The cause of death was “hepatitis”. He treated her “hysteria” by cutting her hair off and applying cold compresses regularly to her head. Misbehaviour was not to be tolerated even in the dying.
Ann Stanley had attempted suicide in prison, and “would not feed her [newborn] child.” Her head was shaved, and cold lotions applied constantly. She was 28 when she died of “apoplexia” [a stroke] following childbirth and her baby died a few days later. She had been complaining constantly of headaches. Surgeon Superintendent Bland writes contemptuously, “this woman for want of a stimulant drank vinegar pure.”
Second Officer Abraham Harvey’s account of Ann Stanley’s funeral shows he stills experienced some sympathy for the fate of the women although he doesn’t seem to know Ann’s name and corrects himself from calling her one of the ..convict women presumably.. to “a poor woman.” He writes:
“Hereabouts occurred our first funeral, it was that of [“one of the” crossed out] a poor woman, who died the night before 6 o’clock in the evening the Ship was hove too, the body brought to the gangway placed on a grating in presence of most of the women, and the Ship’s Crew – covered with the Union Jack, for a pall it was a solemn and affecting sight the burial service was read by the Commander and I officiated as Clerk, when we came to ‘We therefore commit her body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the Son shall give up her dead, and the life of the world to come through our Lord Jesus Christ’, the body was launched into the deep, a universal shudder came over all present.”
Surgeon Superintendent Bland’s physical description of Ann as “a short fat figure with a very thick neck and small skull, and she is mentally weak,” suggests that she may have had Downs Syndrome. But no allowances were made for this in her treatment.
More deaths were to follow: on the 26th of November, on the 9th of December, two on the 20th of December, one on Boxing Day, and the last on the 28th of December 1842.
Harvey does not mention the convict cargo again in his journal, except on the 9th of December: “shipping much water on M [Main] deck. The women had to go on to the poop and that would have given you a good idea of a slave ship of the old time. The difference being ours were huddled together on deck and theirs in the hold.”
This was the day that Ann Broadbent aged 22 died of dysenteria (sic). Her death is not recorded by Harvey.
The Garland Grove anchored at Hobart Town at 9pm on the 20th January, ending what must have been a nightmarish journey, with four women dying within an eight day period over Christmas.
However, the suffering wasn’t over for them yet. Many of the 179 women who landed at Hobart still had their children. Those with babies were able to keep them at the Female Factory until they were two years old and then, unless they could get a placement where they could take their child, the toddlers were placed in the orphanage.
Children off the ship over two years old were admitted to the Queens Orphan School within a few days of landing. It is notable that most of the women who had children with them were very well behaved on the voyage out. One exception to this was Margaret Bouchier, who had another child within two years of arriving.
These are the names of some of those children and their mothers report cards from the Surgeon Superintendent:
Ester Howell aged 8, the daughter of Esther Howell. Surgeon’s report: very good and industrious William Bouchier aged 4, the son of Margaret Bouchier. Surgeon’s report: bad temper
James Moore aged 8, the son of Ann Williams. Louisa Moore aged 8, (twins?) the daughter of Ann Williams. Surgeon’s report: assisted in the hospital William Hunt aged 10, the son of Sarah Ann Hunt. Surgeon’s report: very kind to the sick James Parker aged 5, the son of Jane Parker. Surgeon’s report: very good
Mary Ann Tapp aged 14, the daughter of Ann Tapp. Surgeon’s report: good. Elizabeth Tapp aged 7, the daughter of Ann Tapp
Ann Tapp had either two or three children, and was either married or single (both are written on her conduct record- but this could mean she was in a de facto relationship and perhaps only two of her three children came with her). She was convicted of stealing mutton. Her gaol report was “Bad”, and presumably she had her children with her in the gaol. Her conduct on board the Garland Grove was good. When she arrived, she stated she was 45 years old.
A year after she arrived, she applied to marry Samuel Haynes who was free. Then her stated age was 34 and she said she was a widow. The marriage took place in May 1844, and in October 1844 the Haynes welcomed a baby boy, Samuel. Ann has no transgressions recorded on her conduct record, nor do we know where she was living when she met Samuel. As the marriage took place in New Town, it is most likely that they were both living there. The Orphan School was also located in New Town.
In February 1844, fifteen-year-old Mary Ann Tapp was apprenticed from the orphanage to G.F. Read Esquire of New Town and on the 6th October 1844 Elizabeth Tapp, now 8 years old was discharged to the care of her mother.
At least for the Tapp family this sad voyage had a happy conclusion.
Bibliography
We have too many resources to list them all here so please follow these links for further reading:
The State Library and Archive Service is issuing a challenge to Tasmanians to read five different examples of nineteenth-century handwriting from our Heritage Collections, each featuring a different set of records held in the State Archives.
The scripts are selected to give you insights into some of the key strengths of our collection and we hope they will pique your interest to explore further.
As the week progresses, the challenge will get a bit more difficult, as you become more familiar with reading script.
Each challenge will consist of two blogs. The morning blog will contain your transcription challenge, while the afternoon blog will provide the answer, as well as historical background to the events discussed in the challenge task. There will also be recommendations of other resources held in the Libraries Tasmania collections on the topic for you to explore.
Your Transcription Challenge
Your first challenge is to transcribe a passage from the account of the voyage of the Female Transport, Garland Grove (2) in 1842/1843:
Tasmanian Archives: Abraham Harvey, Reminiscences of a Voyage on the Female Convict Ship Garland Grove, p.4 (1842-43), NS816/1/1. Abraham Harvey was the 2nd Officer on board the Garland Grove, which left England in August 1842 and arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in January 1843.
The Answer …
will be published in our blog this afternoon. Stay tuned!
Thomas Bock’s notes on photography, including Talbot’s calotype process and daguerreotypes – Ref: ALL34/1/1
Star of Tasmanian shipboard journal (1859-60) – Ref: NS7221/1/1
Journals of Separate Prison wardens, Tasman Peninsula (1860, 1863) – Ref CON91/1/2-3
Descriptive Lists of Male and Female Convicts to Be Embarked for Van Diemen’s Land from Various Prisons in the United Kingdom, (1839-50). Ref: CON114/1/1-8
Convict credit and gratuity books, Tasman Peninsula (1865-68). Ref: CON130/1/1-3
Register of Convicts for Whom Enquiries were Made (1850-68). Ref: GO121/1/1
Tasmanian Birth Registers (1921) – RGD33/2/5 to 8
Female Admissions, Royal Derwent Hospital (1898-1903) – Ref: AB365/1/13
Copies of Wills Recording Granting of Probate (1868-1874) – Ref: AD960/1/8, AD960/1/9
Daguerreotype and ambrotype portraits – Ref: NS5465/1/1-3
Launceston Collection of Photographs of Ships – Ref: LMSS761/1/1-490
Hobart Town by Ensign Kemp from behind my quarters / W.H. Kemp
Artworks by Knud Geelmuyden Bull
Mount Wellington from Bellerive, artist unknown
Mount Lyell mines map,1896
Glass plate negatives from AA Rollings Collection – Ref: NS1553/2/1 to 34
For more than 200 years, bushrangers have captured the imagination of storytellers and audiences alike. Their exploits have inspired songs, books, and, of course, plays. Read on to find out more about two forgotten bushranger plays that span the centuries and the globe, from the floorboards of the Royal Coburg Theatre in London to the airwaves of Tasmanian radio.
At the foot of Mount Wellington stands the remains of a forbidding institution. Nearly two centuries ago, the walls of the Cascades Female Factory housed hundreds of women, children and babies. Some of these convict women were waiting to go to new masters, others were being punished. Now you can help to tell their stories through our newest digital volunteering project, transcribing the Register of Female Convicts at the Cascades Female Factory, 1833-1834.
Our previous post described the notebook of William Allison, a cunning man or traditional healer active in Van Diemen’s Land during the 1830s and 1840s. Survivals of such documents are extremely rare, and unheard of in colonial Australia. Besides recording Allison’s activities, his notebook sheds light on his network, naming two other practitioners from whom he obtained recipes: Moses Jewell or Jewitt, and Benj Knokes also noted as ‘BN’. Continue reading “Colonial Cunning Folk, part two: Moses Jewitt and Benjamin Nokes”
A nondescript little notebook, hidden in plain sight in the state archives, has opened a window onto two extraordinary lives and yielded some startling insights into the popular beliefs and practice of traditional medicine in colonial Tasmania. William Allison (ca.1789-1856) and Benjamin Nokes (ca.1780?-1843) were ‘cunning men’, skilled in the use of herbal remedies, lacking formal qualifications but widely respected, operating somewhere on the spectrum between magic and science.
The bushranger Michael Howe and his gang terrorised Van Diemen’s Land from 1815 until Howe’s death.
Next year will see the two hundredth anniversary of Michael Howe’s final showdown, so we created a timeline of the events that led to Private William Pugh of the 48th Regiment shooting and killing Howe on 21 October 1818 near the Shannon River.
Click on the following image to view the live timeline, then, double-click on any event in the timeline to view the newspaper article about that event.
