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Convict who arrived on the Friendship, 1818

Shown as Jane Baines of the Friends in the 1822 muster, wife of T Cooper, Sydney.

Shown as Jane Barnes of the Friends in CS 4 June 1822, seeking permission to marry Thomas Cooper

Convict who arrived on the Minstrel, 1812

Shown as of the Friends in Rev. Campbell’s return of marriages for Parramatta for the quarter ending 31 December 1813. CS

Convict not transported

Elizabeth Clark, aged 38, was convicted at the Old Bailey on 21 February 1810 of stealing much of the contents of the room where she lodged with her husband James Clarke. Both of them were tried but only Elizabeth was found guilty. She was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. 

Elizabeth boarded the Friends in the Thames with her child in February 1811 but one day later she was named in the surgeon’s report as one of three women on board in “a diseased and unhealthy state”. She was subsequently removed from the ship and returned to Newgate. Her name was spelt Clarke in the Old Bailey records.

AJCP: Letter 14 February 1811

Convict not transported

Harriet(t) Collins, aged 23, was convicted at the Old Bailey on 7 December 1809 of stealing a £2 banknote from a dwelling and sentenced to seven years’ transportation.  She boarded the Friends in the Thames in February 1811 but one day later she was named in the surgeon’s report as one of three women on board in a “diseased and unhealthy state”. She was subsequently removed from the ship and returned to Newgate and, later, was pardoned. She appeared at the Old Bailey again in June 1813 and was convicted of larceny from a person and imprisoned (described then as “a transport before and pardoned”). In October 1815 she was acquitted of another charge of theft (described that time as “in Newgate before”). CR

It is not known if she is the same person as Harriet Collins, alias Hill, who was convicted of larceny from a person in May 1816 at the Old Bailey and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. This latter Harriet Collins married George Spray in 1818 at Parramatta.  Her certificate of freedom, issued in 1824, stated she was born in Liverpool.

AJCP: Letter 14 February 1811

Convict who arrived on the Minstrel, 1812

Shown both as Sarah Kuffe and as Bridget Crack in the 1825 muster as on the Friends. (Farrell Cuff married Bridget Crack)

Convict who arrived on the Friendship, 1818

Shown in NSW Gaol Description and Entrance Books in 1826 on the Friends.

Free passenger who arrived on the Mary, 1812

Colonial-born Catherine Driver was given permission to return to New South Wales on the Friends. However, she travelled instead on the Mary, arriving in Sydney in May 1812 and marrying one of its ship’s officers a week later.

AJCP: Letter 4 March 1811

Convict who may have arrived on the Friendship, 1818

Shown in the 1828 TNA copy of the NSW 1828 Census arriving on the Friends and in the Australian copy of the Census as arriving on the Friendship. Mary is shown as aged 44, FS, Catholic, wife of Patrick Goulding, aged 50, ToL, Dorothy 1820, farmer, Evan. Mary cannot be identified among the Friends women.

Convict not transported

Ann Tooting or Tuton, alias Cooper, boarded the Friends in the Thames from Newgate. She had been convicted at the Old Bailey on 1 November 1809 of stealing a watch and a quantity of clothing and other items from a house at Mile End. She was 23 and was employed to work at the house as a silk spinner for the mistress but was only there a week before she absconded with the goods. She was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. A petition for mercy was made on the grounds that it was a first offence, her previous good character and her aged parents who were inconsolable. She also claimed she had only borrowed the clothing, with her employers’ knowledge, to meet her husband whose ship had just docked at Portsmouth. She had the support of 15 individuals, including the prosecutors, silk manufacturers of Bethnal Green and officials of her church. Her petition was declined in January 1810.  However, it seems a further appeal was successful as she did not remain on the Friends; she left it before it sailed from England. She was convicted again at the Old Bailey of stealing in October 1823 and was committed to the Refuge for the Destitute.

Sources:

NA: HO 47/44/3, 20 January 1810
AJCP: Letter: 23 February 1811
www.digitalpanopticon.org

Convict, not transported

A prisoner in Newgate in 1810 and early 1811 convicted of returning to England from NSW while still under sentence of transportation. She features in Deidre Palk (Ed.), Prisoners’ Letters to the Bank of England, 1781-1827, London Record Society, 2007. In that book , Elizabeth Ware’s letters and association with Amelia Bellars in Newgate suggest she was retransported to NSW on the Friends. Originally convicted in 1803 for passing on forged banknotes, she had journeyed to NSW on the Experiment with an infant child, leaving two children behind in England. At the end of 1809 she returned to England on the Aeolus to find her children but was arrested on board the vessel in the Thames before she had a chance to disembark. She was tried four days later and sentenced to death, which was commuted on 7 February 1810 to transportation for the remainder of her original 14-year term. Elizabeth did not travel on the Friends. Instead, she was pardoned on 29 May 1811 on condition that security was given for her good behaviour equal to the remaining part of her sentence. Her fate remains unknown.

Source: 

NA: HO 13/20 pp. 340-341, 7 February 1810; HO13/22 pp. 38-39, 29 May 1811

Convict who arrived on the Wanstead, 1814

Shown in Rev. Robert Cartwright marriage returns for the Hawkesbury in January 1815 as on the Friends. CS

Settler who arrived on the Friendship, 1818

Both James and William Clark/e are shown in the NSW 1828 Census as arriving on the Friends but in 1817. Nineteen-year old James is shown as married and living in Windsor, and 21-year old William is shown as single and living at William Jackson’s in Windsor. Instead they came with their mother Martha Clark who arrived as a free passenger on the Friendship in early 1818 with three unnamed children. In the 1819 and 1820 musters/population counts, Martha was living with William Jackson and she is shown as Martha Jackson, of Windsor in 1820. It is more than likely that James, as well as William, is the son of Martha. Further confusion is provided in approval of Rev. Cross’ application for James to marry in 1827 that shows – incorrectly – James arriving free on the Castle Forbes, which arrived in 1820.

Sources:
CS: 14 January 1818, NRS 897 4/1740 pp. 58-67
Convicts’ application to marry, 17 April 1827, www.ancestry.com.au

Settler who arrived on the Friendship, 1818

Both William and James Clark/e are shown in the NSW 1828 Census as arriving on the Friends but in 1817. Nineteen-year old James is shown as married and living in Windsor, and 21-year old William is shown as single and living at William Jackson’s in Windsor. Instead they came with their mother Martha Clark who arrived as a free passenger on the Friendship in early 1818 with three unnamed children. In the 1819 and 1820 musters/population counts, Martha was living with William Jackson and she is shown as Martha Jackson, of Windsor in 1820. It is more than likely that James, as well as William, is the son of Martha. Further confusion is provided in approval of Rev. Cross’ application for James to marry in 1827 that shows – incorrectly – James arriving free on the Castle Forbes, which arrived in 1820.

Sources:
CS: 14 January 1818, NRS 897 4/1740 pp. 58-67
Convicts’ application to marry, 17 April 1827, www.ancestry.com.au

(nee Wilshire)

Settler who arrived on the storeship Mary, 1812

Susannah is shown in the 1825 muster as “came free” on the Friends. The Sydney Gazette of 9 May 1812 reports her arrival in Sydney on the Mary in May 1812 as Miss Wilshire. In August she married missionary John Eyre in Sydney. She is shown as arriving on the Mary in the 1814 muster and the 1828 Census.

Settler who arrived on the Margaret, 1812

Colonial correspondence published in Historical Records of Australia, Vol. 7, suggests that intending merchant and settler Walter Lang travelled on the Friends to NSW (letter from Undersecretary Peel to Governor Macquarie, 21 February 1811, p. 353). The Sydney Gazette of 9 May 1812 reports that he arrived on board the Margaret from Calcutta, via Port Dalrymple. The announcement of his marriage a month later also described him as “lately of India”. As a point of interest, his son John Lang was Australia’s first native-born novelist.

Child who travelled with convict mother Martha Thatcher on the Friendship, 1818

Sarah is shown in the 1828 NSW census as arriving on the Friends in 1818. She travelled instead with her mother and two siblings on the Friendship, arriving in January 1818. Her mother Martha died during the voyage according to the surgeon’s notes. Sarah married James Smith in 1827.

Sources:
CS: 14 January 1818, NRS 897, Reels 6041-6064, 6071-6072, pp. 55-67

Family history site

Indexing error

An entry in www.ancestry.com’s index to the NSW Colonial Secretary’s correspondence up until to 1825 shows James Wilkinson as arriving “free” on the Friends. The document to which the entry refers is a list of people who have been assigned convict servants, dated 16 March 1822. The entry on the actual list is “Mr Wilkinson, Newcastle”. His name appears immediately below that of James Greenwood, who did arrive free on the Friends, and it would appear that the two entries have been confused when the index was created.

Son of Grizel Johnston, convict on Friends

Several family history websites suggest that John Eddington, son of Grizel Johnston, was born on board the Friends during its voyage from England. Records for the Male Orphan School show his birthdate as 17 November 1811, which confirms he was born in Sydney after the ship’s arrival. He was the first child born to any Friends woman in the colony. See Grizel Johnston

Sources:
CS: NRS 897, 4/7208 pp. 1-2