Two years after James Lowndes arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, Ann Higgins was tried at Warwick Assizes, charged with stealing money and watches. Warwick is in the West Midlands of England, close to Birmingham. More than two hundred years after the trial of this young woman, the court records for Ann’s trial still exist. On 6 August 1825, Ann was convicted for “robbing my master and mistress of money and watches”. The trial was even reported upon in the local press. The “Birmingham Gazette” dated Monday, 15 August 1825, reports that Ann stole two watches, some gold seals, and small items from the home of Thomas Tabberner, a businessman in Birmingham. Tabberner was the licensee of the New Spring Gardens Hotel in Floodgate Street between 1822 and 1826.
Ann Higgins received a life sentence, which was rare for women transported to Van Diemen’s Land. Most women transported to Tasmania received sentences of seven or fourteen years servitude. A life sentence most often indicated prior convictions, but there is no definitive record of any previous convictions for Ann Higgins. The judge who presided over the case was Justice Sir George Sowley Holroyd.
Sir George was evidently not inclined to show leniency towards Ann. He may have concluded she had no great prospects for long-term survival in England and no hope of redemption. He may have concluded that Ann could not be worse off in Van Diemen’s Land, and that she might be more useful to British society there. According to the British Dictionary of National Biography, Sir George became a judge of the King’s Bench in 1816, retired in 1828, and died at his house in Berkshire in 1831. There is a monument to him in Wargrave Church. Ann and Sir George were definitely not of the same class.
While there is no direct evidence that Ann Higgins worked as a prostitute prior to her transportation, it was likely she traded her body. If a servant girl was working in a pub in Birmingham, as Ann was, then prostitution may have been an expectation. She may have worked under the direction of a pimp or a gang who expected that she steal valuables from her clients. Women who had spent time on the streets may have had few options.
According to government records Ann was born at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Bristol, a major port city in southwest England. If you were from the poorer sections of town, Bristol was probably not a healthy place in which to grow up, especially if you were a girl. As noted by writers such as Charles Dickens, there were many street children in the large port cities of England during the early nineteenth century, some of whom were utilized by criminal gangs as thieves. The city was riven by class division at the onset of industrialization and the drift of the rural poor to urban centers.
At the time of Ann’s birth, Bristol played a major part in various aspects of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Merchants from Bristol were responsible for transporting over 500,000 enslaved Africans to the Caribbean and North America. From the eighteenth century the Society of Merchant Venturers controlled much of the trade through the port. This small group of merchants and proprietors amassed great wealth from the slave trade.
Trade through Bristol also involved commodities produced by slave labor, such as sugar, rum, indigo, cotton and cocoa. These commodities were imported from plantations in the Americas and used in manufacturing industries like sugar refining, tobacco processing, chocolate making and textile production. Thousands of people in Bristol were employed in these industries. Manufactured goods, particularly textiles, were shipped from Bristol to Africa to exchange for the slaves. Commerce underpinned by slavery was a significant factor in the industrial revolution sweeping across Britain.
Recent research undertaken by Dr. Richard Stone, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Bristol, has concluded that 242,332 enslaved people were trafficked on voyages in which Bristol merchants invested. Many enslaved people did not survive the journey from Africa to America. However, it was not just the merchants and investors who were involved in the slave trade. Within Bristol there were many people who worked to supply the things needed for a year-long slaving voyage to Africa and then across the Atlantic Ocean. Profits were reinvested through banks and investment houses that later became major institutions.
Some of the money generated from Bristol’s involvement in the slave trade ultimately found its way to Australia to bankroll the expansion of the pastoral industry. Following the Slave Compensation Act of 1837, which compensated slave owners for the loss of their property, plantation owners based in Bristol claimed over £500,000 from the British government, equivalent to two billion pounds in 2020 values according to the British Museum. English cities such as Bristol were globally linked.
Although born in Bristol and convicted in Birmingham, Ann left England via London. The convict transport ship “Providence” departed the Thames Estuary in December 1825 on its long voyage to Hobart. Ann Higgins was among the 100 female convicts on board. The women and girls had been primarily taken directly from English prisons.
The names and the prison records of the young women aboard the “Providence” are available online, and it is interesting to compare Ann’s circumstances to the other women on the voyage. Perhaps a third of the women had been convicted of crimes which involved the theft of money and property, often from their male clients. Government records show that Ann’s conduct on the vessel “Was generally well behaved until we advanced towards our destination, when she became very disobedient, but still conducted her actions with great mildness.”
Upon reaching Hobart, the on-arrival report for Ann Higgins lists her skills as “cook, wash, iron and needle work”, which made her suitable for an assignment as a domestic servant. Perhaps these purported skills suggest that she had been in domestic service as a house maid or a kitchen hand in England prior to transportation. She was described as four foot nine inches in height. This is tiny, even by the standards of the time, and is most likely indicative of malnourishment caused by sustained childhood poverty. Poor nutrition and illness in childhood limits human growth and height is strongly correlated with living standards.
According to her ledger, Ann had light grey eyes and dark brown hair. She was probably in her early twenties upon arrival, although no birth certificate has been found. Age estimates for transported convicts in the early colonial period can be unreliable, as there was often no record of an official date of birth. Clerks would record what was made known to them, which might not be accurate.
Most convict women in Van Diemen’s Land were transported for theft. Around twenty-five percent subsequently had some note written into the ledger of their being “on the town” during the course of their sentence, according to a study conducted by Janet McCalman and Rebecca Kippen for the Melbourne University. Being “on the town” was an expression that “had the general meaning of prostitution, but more broadly meant that these were women without a family and without a household. Most had been transported for stealing from their clients”.
McCalman and Kippen found that “under-sentence-women who had been ‘on the town’ had more conduct offences, more alcohol-related offences and were more likely to react against the system with bad language, threats or violence. ‘On the town’ women were just as likely as other female convicts to marry after transportation but were less likely to have children. They also had significantly higher mortality than other female convicts, who, in turn, had higher mortality than both free-settler and locally born women.” A transported woman’s fate in Van Diemen’s Land depended upon the extent to which her master and his associates would exploit a vulnerable woman in servitude. A female convict’s life was a lottery, given that she had no control over her master.
The “Providence” was a medium sized vessel of 380-tons and was built in England in 1812. She had made a previous visit to Australia in 1821, also carrying female convicts. On her 1826 voyage to Australia she stopped at the Canary Islands for supplies. The “Providence” arrived in Hobart Town on 16 May 1826 after one hundred and forty-three days at sea. One convict died during the journey. From Hobart the “Providence” sailed for Sydney and soon departed there for India. By December she had docked at Bengal. From there she sailed back to England, arriving in April 1827. The round trip from England had taken well over a year to complete.
Researchers such as McCalman and Kippen have found that there is little evidence in the archive to indicate that experience as a prostitute influenced the way that such women were treated on board the transport vessels that carried them to Van Diemen’s Land. There was no segregation of prostitutes on board, nor were they exempted from holding positions such as matron, nurse or cook. On the long voyage to Australia some women learnt to read and write and some stitched and plaited to pass the time at sea, learning skills that might help them in service at their destination.
The wives and ladies of Hobart society had impatiently anticipated the arrival of these predominantly young women. Driving the demand for such woman and girls in Van Diemen’s Land was the widely articulated need for female domestic servants on the part of English ladies who were managing the domestic households of the free population of the distant British colony. This is particularly evident from the reports of the arrival of the “Providence,” which generated great excitement among the ladies of Hobart. The news of the new batch of convict women quickly spread as female domestic labor was scarce.
A Hobart newspaper of Saturday 20 May 1826 reported that “most of the females of the Providence were selected from the prisons in London. The majority are young women, of a very superior class to those which have been recently sent. When we consider the great disproportion that exists between the numbers of the two sexes in this Colony, which is said to be ten to one female, perhaps not a more desirable consignment could be made to this Colony than a cargo of the fair sex. The Government at home, at length seems to be aware of this fact, as scarcely any females are now sent to the Penitentiary at Millbank.”
The British Government had clearly responded to the calls from Hobart’s ladies to send more domestic help, as the convict women aboard the “Providence” were sent more or less directly to Van Diemen’s Land at the start of their sentences, rather than being kept for long periods in English jails. The view of the government was that it was desirable for the women to be sent straight to Hobartinstead of to “the Penitentiary at Millbank”. It was clearly considered preferable for these lasses to be working as servants in the houses of the gentry at Van Diemen’s Land rather than languishing uselessly in English jails.
At the conclusion of the voyage, female convicts were allocated to private settler households under the assignment system. Although it is sometimes assumed that the British authorities sent female convicts to serve as prostitutes for the colony’s men, the reality was that many of the convict women worked as domestic servants for the ladies of Hobart. While some did find themselves quickly attached to single gentlemen who wished to engage them, most of the transported women were assigned to the households of the gentry. Free settlers tended to reside in specific areas designated for them.
Christine Jessie Leppard, in her University of Tasmania PhD Thesis titled “The Unfortunates” – Prostitutes Transported to Van Diemen’s Land 1822–1843 makes the point that no documentary evidence exists to suggest that transported women were categorised according to a past history of prostitution. Rather it was skills which determined their future. A form of discrimination did perhaps operate at this level because the lack of the most highly desirable skills meant that women who had been former prostitutes were often less valuable as household servants. A women who could read and write and who had some education and some experience as a personal maid to a lady was likely considered more desirable.
In determining to whom a convict was assigned, the woman’s background of prostitution was either unknown or irrelevant. Christine Leppard argues that “Critically, information about former prostitution was removed from the skills section of the convict record keeping system, and entered instead on the convict’s conduct record. This information was not provided to the officials who allocated convict labor nor to the masters and mistresses who managed assigned servants.”
Furthermore, Christine Leppard argues that there is little to indicate that women who had worked as prostitutes in England were treated any differently from unskilled female convicts with no prior record of prostitution and nor is there much evidence to suggest that a history of prostitution rendered a women ineligible for marriage. The fact that prostitutes were not treated any differently to other women supports the case that in the early nineteenth century prostitution did not possess the same stigma which so dismayed middle-class people in later eras. Being labelled as a prostitute was hardly more significant than being labelled as a thief and there was a greater degree of equanimity concerning the evident fact that many poor women at certain times worked in prostitution.
The Hobart Town Gazette of Saturday 27 May 1826 reports that half the female prisoners from the “Providence” had been assigned to free settler families just one week after the arrival of the vessel. Another newspaper, the Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser reported that all of the female prisoners of the “Providence” had been disembarked and within the first week of their landing had been assigned as servants to families. Ann Higgins is an example of a transported women who was assigned to a prominent women of a colonial gentry family.
On-arrival records show that Ann Higgins was assigned as a cook, wash, iron and needle woman to a certain “H. Beaumont.” It is very likely that this was Mrs. Harriet Beaumont, the wife of Mr. John Beaumont. Both of the Beaumonts had significant social status in Van Diemen’s Land. Harriet Beaumont was the daughter of Surveyor-General George Evans, one of the more prominent gentlemen in the colony. She had come to Australia with her parents as a child when her father had been appointed to his position. Harriet married John Beaumont in Tasmania in 1820 when she was sixteen. She would have been in her mid-twenties when Ann Higgins came into her service, not much older than Ann.
John Beaumont was a Tasmanian free settler and a senior Van Diemen’s Land civil servant. He had already been in the colony some thirteen years when Ann Higgins arrived there as a transported convict. Upon arriving in Hobart in 1813, John Beaumont began his career under the mentorship of Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Davey. He initially received a grant of three hundred acres and two assigned convicts as personal servants. Beaumont gradually climbed the colonial ladder. He later became a protégé of Lieutenant-Governor William Sorell, Davey’s successor.
John Beamont was appointed Acting Provost Marshal by Lieutenant-Governor William Sorell in 1819 and subsequently held numerous government positions, including Postmaster General, Treasurer of the Police Fund, Registrar of Deeds, and Sheriff, among others. After retiring in 1841, Beaumont lived comfortably in Hobart until his death in 1872. One of his most significant contributions to the development of Van Diemen’s Land was his exploration of the Central Plateau in December 1817. In recognition of his service to the colony, a memorial was erected in this location in the late 1800s.
After gradually accumulating wealth from his various official roles, in 1823 John Beamont became an original subscriber to the Bank of Van Diemen’s Land. Beaumont chaired the protest meeting in October 1823 against Sorell’s recall to England and acted as Sorell’s agent after his departure from the colony. Beaumont was among the signatories of the 1824 petition advocating for the separation of Van Diemen’s Land from New South Wales, which was granted in 1825. In short, John Beaumont was deeply involved in the factional politics of Van Diemen’s Land during the 1820s.
William Sorell was himself a true child of the British Empire. Prior to being appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Tasmania, Sorell was a military officer who served in various far-flung colonies of the Empire. He was born and grew up in the slave colonies of the West Indies, the son of Major-General William Alexander Sorell. He was promoted lieutenant in 1793 and fought in a battle in the West Indies where he was severely wounded. He also served as an officer in the wars against Napoleon and in 1807 he served at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
John Beaumont’s background in England was not particularly privileged but he became quite wealthy in Tasmania, and in 1819 he owned five hundred acres of land north of Hobart, adjacent to another three hundred and seventy acres owned by his soon to be father-in-law, Surveyor-General George Evans.
As Surveyor-General, Evans was often away on official duties in mainland New South Wales, especially prior to 1825. During Evans’ absence, it is likely that the Beaumonts had oversight of both estates. Properties of this size typically received at least ten assigned convicts. Additional workers, including emancipated convicts and those on tickets-of-leave, could be hired for wages.
John and Harriet Beaumont may have been more considerate masters compared to many others in the colony. Ann Higgins’ employment with the Beaumont family seems to have lasted for years, as indicated by musters taken in 1832, 1833, and 1835, which show she remained assigned to “Mr. J. Beaumont.” This continued through most of Ann’s sentence until she was recommended for a conditional pardon in 1836, which she finally received in 1838. It was common for convicts to stay with the same master throughout their sentence, as Ann appears to have done.
Demonstrating good behavior was necessary for convicts to be granted a ticket-of-leave. Such tickets allowed some local freedom and the chance to earn money through paid work. If a convict committed a serious offense, such as insolence, drunkenness, or absence without leave, the masters brought the convict before a magistrate for trial and punishment.
Ann’s employment with the Beaumonts coincided with the period in which she started her family. When James and Ann married on 1 June 1827, permission was granted through the official channels. Convicts needed permission to marry and Ann was already pregnant when she married James. Ann Higgins and James Lowndes likely began their relationship some months after her arrival in May 1826. Their first child, James Junior, was born in Hobart on 30 August 1827, which indicates the child was conceived late in 1826, or early 1827. Their second child, Harriet, was born 16 February 1829, also in Hobart. James Lowndes Junior is the first of the forebears in this family history to be born in Australia, over two hundred years ago.
It is likely that James Lowndes Senior was also in the service of John Beaumont, at least at the time when he married Ann Higgins. From 1829, James was officially “appointed to his wife,” meaning that James, Ann, and their two children were considered a household unit that should not be split up while their parents were assigned. This established household status, along with some proper understanding on the part of the Beaumonts, may have contributed to James and Ann’s evident success in raising their two children.
James Junior and Harriet grew up to become competent and responsible adults, staying on the right side of the law. Evidence suggests that James Junior received a basic education, as he could read and write. It is possible that the Beaumonts made arrangements for the education of convict children on their estate.
It is almost certain that James Senior and Ann were not literate, as they consistently marked their names with an X throughout their lives. Illiteracy was widespread among the poor in England during that era. Since literacy was a significant indicator of social status, the fact that these convict forebears were illiterate is indicative of their low social standing in the colony.
It is curious that Ann and James Lowndes chose the name Harriet for their daughter. Ann’s mistress was Harriet Beaumont. Perhaps naming the child in this way was a means of currying favor with her mistress, or it might have been a genuine gesture of respect and gratitude. The relationship between Ann and Harriet was bound by the social expectations governing the behavior of masters and servants and the two women were likely in frequent close proximity within the household. One woman was totally subservient to the other.
Given their lack of agency, life for most convict women was a lottery. The regulations governing convict women’s lives gave employers and officials substantial power over these women, potentially leading to significant abuse. Marriage was an option that could be granted by the authorities, with the employer’s consent. Permission to marry was not always granted. A woman needed to be deemed worthy in that she had conducted herself “properly” for at least one year, without any fault being recorded against her.
James Junior was born in Hobart in August 1827 and his sister Harriet arrived some eighteen months later. It was by no means a forgone conclusion that transported convicts would form personal relationships that could nurture children. Because of material deprivation and a harsh upbringing, some transported convicts lacked the emotional and social skills to form and maintain stable families. Nevertheless, despite difficult circumstances, Ann and James raised their two children to the point where they were competent and responsible adults within their society. It is largely to their parents’ credit that James Junior and Harriet established admirable lives for themselves as free people after moving to Port Phillip.
It appears that providing for the family was not always straightforward for James. Records show that he was fined one pound for being caught cutting down and carrying away timber from the Estate of Tolora, owned by a Mr. Seagram. James had to pay a fine of one shilling for each load he unlawfully lifted.
Free settlers took advantage of having convict servants assigned to them and were able to use convict labor and land grants to expand their businesses. Free men and women had at their disposal various means to ensure compliance from their servants. The sanctions for non-compliance with the regulations could be severe. Convict women who transgressed could be sent to the female factory, and this threat likely served as a powerful incentive for submission. Men could be sent to hell holes such as Port Arthur.
After serving part of their sentences, convicts could apply for a ticket-of-leave, which granted them some freedom, however they still had to report regularly to the local police and to be of good conduct. The system of probation and tickets-of-leave was a highly effective method to enforce good behavior in convicts, potentially even more so than corporal punishment. This system was designed to incentivize good behavior by offering convicts the chance to shorten their servitude. Additionally, tickets-of-leave helped the government reduce costs by allowing those who could support themselves independently and honestly to do so. Eligibility depended on the length of the original sentence and a record of good behavior.
During the mid-1830s, both James and Ann were granted tickets of leave. The ticket was a document given to convicts outlining their freedom to work and live within a given police district. Convicts on such tickets could hire themselves out or be self-employed within that district. Those on tickets could also acquire some forms of property. Nevertheless, they were still required to attend regular musters and weekly church services. Convicts on tickets of leave were strictly forbidden from leaving the colony on their own accord.
The ticket itself listed the physical description of the convict and his or her transgressions. It had to be carried at all times. The system was introduced primarily to save the government money by making convicts more self-sufficient and as means of offering some incentive to convicts through the promise that their lives might improve if they followed the rules.
Convicts could have their limited freedom snatched away for the smallest misdemeanor. Tickets could be revoked for various infractions such as absconding, missing muster, being illegitimately pregnant, or cohabitating with a man without permission. Once a ticket-of-leave had been held for a certain time, convicts could apply for a conditional pardon.
Convicts needed to have held a ticket-of-leave for a specific number of years in order to qualify for a pardon. A minimum number of years of the original sentence had to be served before a ticket could be issued. For those serving a life sentence, the period was eight years served plus three years good behaviour on a ticket-of-leave. A fee was required to apply for a conditional pardon. If granted, convicts were accorded most of the legal status of a free person.
A conditional pardon was the most common form of pardon granted to convicts. Men and women holding such pardons effectively became emancipists, a designation which had a specific connotations in the Australian colonies. Those on pardons generally did not have to attend musters or church services, though they were still required to produce their pardon papers if legally challenged. They could also marry without the government’s permission. Convicts who had been sentenced in Britian for fixed terms, such as seven or fourteen years, and who had served out their sentence in Van Diemen’s Land, were deemed “free by servitude”.
Men and women sentenced to life, such as James and Ann, could never be free by servitude. They were expected to stay in the colony for the rest of their lives. The conditional pardons gained by James on 26 February 1836 and Ann on 1 September 1836 would likely have been welcomed with celebrations. However, although they now had a degree of formal freedom in Van Diemen’s Land, they nevertheless were required to remain in the colony until their original sentences expired with their deaths.
James Senior and Ann thus likely considered it important to apply for full pardons so that they could leave the prison island. Their conditional pardons did not permit them to return to the United Kingdom or to travel overseas.
In 1838, recommendations for full pardons were issued for both James Senior and Ann, and in July 1839 their free pardons were granted by Queen Victoria. A free pardon gave those transported for life the complete remittance of their sentences. James and Ann were no longer “Prisoners of the Crown” and crucially they now had freedom to travel to other colonies, such as to the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. Obtaining free pardons was not an easy task and usually involved some expense paid to well placed people who might leverage their connections within the administration. In colonial Van Diemen’s Land, much could be achieved with the right connections.
In 1839 when their free pardons were granted by Her Majesty, James Senior had been in Van Diemen’s Land for sixteen years. Ann had been in the colony for thirteen years. James was forty-four and Ann was in her mid-thirties. James Junior and Harriet were around twelve and ten years old, respectively. It is significant that James and Ann waited until their children were grown before opting for life on the mainland. Many of their emancipist fellows were crossing to Port Phillip and this was made easier in the mid-1840s when the government eased travel restrictions for those on conditional pardons.
Government census data provides some clues about the Lowndes family at the time when both held conditional pardons. In 1837, the government held a “Census of Households”. In the census, James Lowndes was listed as a farmer, Ann Lowndes as his wife, and James Junior and Harriet as their dependent children both under 14 years of age. They resided in New Town and their religion was recorded as being Church of England. The family likely leased a plot of land, although from the time they gained conditional pardons in 1836 they would have been entitled to buy land if they had the means.
New Town, now a leafy suburb of Hobart, is about four kilometers north of the city center. It is considered Hobart’s oldest suburb, and in 1837 it was home to the newly constructed Saint John’s Anglican Church. The history of Saint John’s Anglican Church in New Town provides a fascinating glimpse into the social structure of Van Diemen’s Land during the colonial era. Much information can be found on the “Friends of the Orphan Schools” website. The Lowndes family likely witnessed the church’s construction and may have been involved in it. The church and its surrounding buildings were constructed by convict laborers and emancipist tradesmen.
During the construction period of the church, James Lowndes was still a convict living in New Town, although likely working for wages under tickets of leave. Convicts made the raw materials used in the church, including the hand-made bricks for the walls, the hand-hewn stone blocks of the tower, and the large timber beams of the roof, which were cut from the largest trees on Mount Wellington. Construction work continued well into 1836, and the church was officially consecrated in 1838. By the time of the 1837 census, the church complex had mostly been completed and services had commenced.
During services at Saint John’s Anglican Church, the seating arrangement underscored the social hierarchy of the time. Orphaned children were seated in a low gallery on one side, while convicts occupied a gallery on the opposite side. The orphans were relegated to the least desirable seating positions. Convicts, including those on tickets of leave, were required to attend church. The Lowndes family sat with the less privileged groups, sitting on the hard, uncomfortable benches. The central pews were reserved for the respectable free settlers and offered considerably more comfort. These seats were assigned based on rank and respectability. The emphasis was on ensuring that convicts and their children were kept separate from the more worthy members of the congregation.
The Church of England clergy, all gentlemen by definition, ran the church to reflect their view of the proper social order. Almost by definition, convicts were deemed less worthy by the clergy. The lower classes were seen as socially inferior and morally lacking. This belief in the disparity in worth of different social classes enabled the gentry to ignore injustice without troubling their consciences.
For James and Ann, the years immediately following their conditional pardons shows the difficulties in adjusting to newfound freedoms. Several reports and notices from early Hobart newspapers detail some of their activities. These mostly unedifying appearances in the police reports of Hobart’s newspapers can be found using the Trove portal as a search engine.
On 16 October 1838, “The Colonial Times” of Hobart published a list of people granted licenses to sell wines and spirits for the next twelve months. James was listed among those who held such a licensee. He had been granted a license to run a premises on the New Town Road called the “Rose and Crown”. In May 1838 he was granted permission for the license on the “Rose and Crown” to be transferred from Robert Newman. Records show that the “Rose and Crown” was built in 1831. The old walls of the hotel can still be seen at the rear of the Empire Hotel on the corner of Burnett Street and Elizabeth Streets.
Barmen working in licensed premises were not supposed to serve alcohol to convicts under sentence. One day, two convicts still under sentence entered the “Rose and Crown” and were served drinks at the bar, which was against the law. Luckily, on this occasion James was acquitted as he was able to prove he had not been on the premises at the time of this alleged offence. The next time, James was not so fortunate. Records show that James, identified as a publican in New Town, was fined two pounds for allowing a prisoner into his licensed establishment.
In a separate incident, James was fined forty shillings for striking a police constable while intoxicated. The serving magistrate noted that this offence would be adverse evidence at the next renewal of James’s license to operate as a publican. A police report subsequently describes James as a former publican at New Town. This was at a time when he was charged with making unlicensed alcohol sales, although this case was eventually dismissed.
James was also charged with theft during this period. The Hobart Courier of 1 Dec 1840 has a report regarding a hearing of the Quarter Sessions of the previous day. “Before the Court, James Lowndes, of New Town, farmer, pleaded not guilty to a charge preferred against him, of receiving property, the goods and chattels of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, knowing the same to have been feloniously stolen. The property named were stones that had been hewn out of a quarry, and were intended for fireplaces, and valued at about 12 shillings. It was judged that the evidence adduced was not so conclusive as to satisfy the minds of the jury that he was guilty of the charge, and an excellent character being given him for honesty and integrity, the jury at once acquitted him.” It seems the jury took James’s side in this matter to the annoyance of the presiding magistrate.
Ann probably suffered from alcoholism for much of her life and continued to engage in habitual petty theft. Hobart newspapers reported extensively on convicts and ex-convicts for the benefit and amusement of those who could read. Amusement at the expense of the underclass seems to have been a form of entertainment for the gentry. Ann had several interactions with the police in Hobart, and these show that she suffered from ongoing health and psychological issues.
In 1837 there were three police reports published in newspapers concerning Ann. The first of these is from the police report in the “Colonial Times of Hobart” of 25 April 1837, which reads as follows: “Ann Lownds, a regular old drunken visitor, was committed for further examination, on a charge of stealing a gown.” The second report is from the “Hobart Town Courier” of 9 June 1837, and reports proceedings before the Supreme Court, as follows: “Before His Honor Mr. Justice Montagu, and a Military Jury, on Saturday June 3, 1837, Ann Lowndes was sentenced to 10 days imprisonment in the jail.”
Finally, the police report of the “Colonial Times of Hobart” of 1 August 1837 includes the following account: “On Monday, July 24, Ann Lowndes, a very old hand on these boards, was passing Mr. O’Hara’s shop, and walked off with three of his crayfish. Mrs. O’Hara was sitting in her parlor, and observed the lady apparently very choice in her taste, and went to the door, when the lady walked off with three, and was afterwards stopped with them in her possession. She was remanded.” It is evident that grog was not good for the well-being of either James or Ann.
For former convicts and their children, run ins with the police appear to have been common. Newspaper accounts reveal an entrenched “us and them” mentality on both sides of the social divide. James Lowndes Senior must have been very worried when his son, James Junior, had problems with the District Constable of New Town, a certain Mr. Esdaile. According to the “Colonial Times of Hobart” of 16 September 1845, unspecified information against James Junior had been received by the police, but the matter was eventually dropped. An exchange of money may have helped resolve the issue.
The fact that James Junior’s difficulties with the police occurred in late 1845 is perhaps significant. Once in the penal system a youth could find himself trapped forever and the last thing James Senior would have wanted was for his son to have any form of police conviction. The opportunity that arose in 1846 to leave Van Diemen’s Land must have been very appealing. In that year, the entire Lowndes family moved from New Town to the Port Phillip District. They were seeking a new life on the mainland where they could leave behind for good the hard times of the prison island.
In September 1845 Harriet Lowndes married David Wilson, a blacksmith and farrier. He was twenty-seven years old, and she was just seventeen. Harriet and David married in New Town at Saint John’s Church of England. For this young couple, the prospect of leaving Hobart for the greater freedom and anonymity of the Port Phillip District must have been very appealing. David and Harriet’s first child, Maria, was born in Melbourne in 1847, so Harriet may have been pregnant when she left Tasmania in September 1846. Maria, born over 175 years ago, is the first of the second generation of children born in Australia.
It does seem worth noting that Maria was the Australian-born child of Australian-born parents. Her Tasmanian convict background was not considered respectable in Melbourne society at the time she was born. Some of the newly arrived English middle-class in the city were calling for the enforced repatriation of Tasmanians back to the island.
During the mid-1840s, widely advertised recruitment campaigns were launched in Tasmania by pastoral and business interests. These recruitment drives placed prominent advertisements in Tasmanian newspapers seeking skilled laborers with the promise of free passage and good wages at Port Phillip, working for employers who had set up shop on the mainland. Tasmanians were well aware of the high demand for labor across Bass Strait. Over the previous decade, many Tasmanian free settlers had expanded their pastoral and business operations to Port Phillip, creating a demand for labor that persisted despite the economic downturn of the early 1840s.
The employers of the Port Phillip District were well known to Tasmanian working people such as those of the Lowndes family. Opportunistic investors and their agents were frequently traveling between Van Diemen’s Land and Port Phillip spruiking their enterprises. The gentlemen had many ties to the island, and younger members of this class would return to Tasmania to marry partners of their own class, and to secure finance, procure sheep and recruit labor. It was fortunate for the employers that in Van Diemen’s Land at this time there was a surplus of workers, largely due to the increased numbers of convicts sent to Tasmania.
In 1846 the Lowndes family crossed Bass Strait under the auspices of the “Geelong and Portland Bay Immigration Society”. This society was the largest of the various labor hire schemes recruiting Van Diemen’s Land workers. In 1845, the squatters of the Western District, desperate for workers, successfully lobbied the Van Diemen’s Land government to ease restrictions on the regulations governing the travel of former convicts. The authorities made it easier for those holding applications for Conditional Pardons to travel to New South Wales, and so greater numbers of former convicts and their families were able to legally cross to the Port Phillip District.
Emancipists and those on pardons were drawn by better employment opportunities and the chance to escape their past. The expansion of pastoral activity to the mainland drove the migration of thousands of working-class people across Bass Strait. On both sides of the Strait, the lobby of influential pastoralists was politically well organised. Workers in Tasmania responded to the economic incentives on offer.
The year 1846 marked the height of this wave of immigration, with many Tasmanian men and women moving to rural areas of Port Phillip. The opportunities on the Australian mainland attracted Tasmanians of all classes. Extensive maritime trading networks connected Launceston and Hobart with Melbourne, Geelong, Portland and Port Fairy. These connections across Bass Strait were crucial in underpinning the rapid takeover of southern Australia.
The Shadows of the Gentlemen 