During the convict ancestors course, I offered some of my other convicts for people to research. Two students took up the offer and they have agreed to have their research published on my blog.
Peter Gray researched John Boyd and Wendy Westgate researched his wife Martha Virco. Here are their stories.
John Boyd – intro, main story, breakout 1, breakout 2
Martha Virco – intro, main story, breakouts, trial record
In London, prisoners were put in a detentional prison after they had been committed by a magistrate. Some of these were: Middlesex House of Detention at Clerkenwell, Newgate and Horsemonger Lane Jail
Once you had been convicted you were sent to a different prison depending upon the length of your sentence. If you had a short term of punishment, you went to City House of Correction, Middlesex Houses of Correction or Surrey House of Correction.
But if you were convicted to some form of penal servitude or transportation you could be sent to Pentonville or Millbank prisons, Female Convict Prison at Brixton or the Hulks at Woolwich.[1]
The Brixton or Surrey House of Correction is probably where Isabella was sent after conviction. According to Henry Mayhew, writing in 1862,
“… that, despite its standing in the healthiest situation, the old Surrey House of Correction was one of the unhealthiest of all the London prisons”.[2]
Like many prisons it was overcrowded, often 3 to a cell which was not well ventilated, thus causing lots of sickness and fever. It was at the Brixton where the treadmill was first setup as a form of punishment.[3]
The exercise yard though was not gravel; instead prisoners were surrounded by grass and flower beds.[4]
Let us now compare this to Isabella’s incarceration at the Launceston House of Correction.
The factory opened in 1834 and was built as an octagonal plan. Between 80 and 100 women were able to live and work there comfortably but by 1842 when Isabella was there, over 250 women and their children were living in crowded conditions.[5]
With such crowding, behaviour of the women could change as happened on 22nd October 1842, a few months after Isabella had left.[6]
In a report written by La Trobe at the end of 1846 he mentions the female factory has two mess rooms and three wards each able to accommodate 30 women. Separate apartments were being built but they could not be made into solitary ones. There was also a hospital which had room for 7 women. There were three sheds used for washing and spinning which I assume would be used as punishment for those women sent in by local magistrates.[7]
At the time of his visit to the Launceston Female Factory the personnel running it were a medical officer, a schoolmistress, a superintendent, two matrons, one clerk and one gatekeeper. They were looking after 75 needlewomen, 17 women nursing children, 10 servants, 4 sick, 8 washing and 9 using wool.[8]
Maybe after spending time in the various female houses of correction both in London and Launceston, Isabella decided that marriage and a chance to have her own family would be a better way of leading her life.
References
[1] Mayhew, Henry, and John Binny. The Criminal Prisons of London, and Scenes of Prison Life. London, England: Griffen, Bohn and Company, 1862, p 82 viewed 12 June 2016. https://archive.org/details/cu31924024894481.
[2] ibid, p 174 viewed 12 June 2016
[3] ibid, p 174 viewed 12 June 2016
[4] ibid, p 185 viewed 12 June 2016
[5] http://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/index.php/convict-institutions/female-factories/launceston-ff
[6] Launceston Examiner (Tas. : 1842 – 1899), 22 October 1842, p. 4. (EVENING), viewed 12 Jun 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4058541
[7] Brand, Ian, Charles Joseph Latrobe, Michael Sprod, and James Boyd. The Convict Probation System, Van Diemen’s Land 1839-1854: A Study of the Probation System of Convict Discipline, Together with C.J. La Trobe’s 1847 Report on Its Operation and the 1845 Report of James Boyd on the Probation Station at Darlington, Maria Island. Hobart: Blubber Head Press, 1990. p 200
[8] ibid, p 134
Readers: Did you have any female convicts stay in a house of correction either in London or Australia? Why were they there?
There were four men who I believe had an influence on the life of Isabella Watkins.
The first is her father of whom I know nothing other than his daughter Isabella decided she needed to steal clothing to survive in Victorian London. This thieving led to the next man of influence.
This is the judge at her trial, Baron Parke, who decided transportation for seven years was a suitable punishment for a persistent shoplifter or thief.
James Parke was a well respected judge especially working in the Court of Exchequer and was mentioned in a Harvard Law Review in 1897:
“one of the greatest of English judges; had he comprehended the principles of equity as fully as he did the principles of the common law, he might fairly be called the greatest. His mental power, his ability to grasp difficult points, to disentangle complicated facts, and to state the law clearly, have seldom been surpassed. No judgments delivered during this period are of greater service to the student of law than his”.[1]
He was so influential in the legal world, a rule of law was named after him.[2]
Would the sentence and punishment he gave Isabella be a positive influence in her life and cause a change in her behaviour?
Now the third man of influence, her master Mr Legge from Cullenswood near Fingal in Van Diemen’s Land, enters her life. Robert Vincent Legge arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1827 with his brother and five sisters.[3] He was granted 1200 acres near St Mary’s. He called the property Cullenswood after a property in Ireland. He returns to Ireland and marries in 1839. Bringing his wife back to Van Diemen’s Land, he now needs servants to help run the property and look after his house and his growing family.
Isabella is still behaving badly. But she only committed one offence while under sentence. The local magistrate decided to send her to the Launceston Female House of Correction or factory. She was sentenced to one month’s hard labour which probably meant time at the washtub. Maybe it was this final punishment that helped Isabella mend her ways.
The third man with influence would be her husband. Francis Colegrave arrived in Van Dieman’s Land on theCircassian 16 February 1833, having been tried at Huntingdon Lent Assizes 7 March 1832 on two indictments: one of stealing chests of tea valued 3 pound and the other of stealing wearing apparel. He was found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years transportation. He received a Ticket of Leave in March 1839 and a conditional pardon 28 October 1841.[4] This meant he was a free man at the time his wife-to-be applied for permission to marry him. Francis had only two offences while under sentence and was either reprimanded or admonished.
I feel Francis was the steadying influence in Isabella’s life but if it were not for her father, Baron Parke and Robert Legge and their reactions to her behaviour, she would not have arrived in Van Diemen’s Land to eventually become my great great great grandmother.
References
[1] Wikipedia contributors, “James Parke, 1st Baron Wensleydale,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Parke,_1st_Baron_Wensleydale&oldid=718145459 viewed 11 June 2016
[2] http://definitions.uslegal.com/b/baron-parkes-rule/
[3] http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~becher/legge_family_of_rodeen.htm
[4] TAHO, CON 31/1/7 p178, Conduct record Francis Colegrave
Readers: Who do you think was the most influential person in changing the behaviour of your convict?