Prison Hulk to Redemption by Gerard Charles Wilson

Author:Gerard Charles Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: farm, rebellion, settlers, history 1800s, convicts in new south wales, bush australia, australian governors
Publisher: Gerard Charles Wilson

Chapter 12

The Scottish and dissenter connection

In April 1838, blacksmith John Burgess and his wife Barbara (nee Malney) packed their portable goods and chattels in preparation for a voyage of no return. They with their two sons, John and George, said goodbye for good to their little village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The colonial government had lured them into seeking their fortune in the Colony of New South Wales. They were assisted bounty immigrants, engaged by William Lawson and booked for passage on the Lady Kennaway. The shipping documents reveal that John was thirty, Barbara twenty-seven, son John eleven and son George two years of age. They were Presbyterian, in good health and (except for the two-year-old) they could read and write. It was significant that John Jr could read and write at the age of eleven years. We already have a picture of this young Scottish family. In social terms, they were a cut above the farm labourers of Wiltshire and the Irish stableman of Monaghan. The Lady Kennaway sailed on the 19th of April and anchored in Port Jackson on the 12th of August 1838. They eventually settled at O’Connell not far south of Bathurst. Three more children followed. They stayed in O’Connell, both passing away there in their early sixties. They were my great-grandparents (x3) on my mother’s side.

Faithful Chapman, farm labourer, and his wife Sarah, ‘dairywoman’, also made the trip to the Colony as assisted immigrants. The enticement must have been great, for Faithful was already thirty-eight and Sarah thirty-six years of age when they left the parish of Wistow, Huntingdonshire, which is part of Cambridgeshire. They arrived in Port Jackson on board William Metcalfe on the 13th of March 1844 with their four children, the oldest being twelve-year-old Elizabeth. The parents could read and write according to the shipping documents. They, too, were bounty immigrants and by coincidence also contracted by William Lawson. The bounty system under which they, the Burgesses and the Harrises were contracted was, as already mentioned, the work of Governor Bourke who in 1835 had refined the previous assisted passage system to reduce the risk of contracting unsuitable immigrants. The Chapmans show that the system was still working in 1844 under Governor Gipps. Before embarkation, the contracted settler required a physician to certify his health, a householder to testify to his character, and a magistrate or clergyman to certify that the testimony was correct. Faithful Chapman passed the scrutiny with the added comment that his health was ‘very good’. It was noted that the Chapman’s religion was Episcopalian, a breakaway sect from Anglicanism. On landing in Sydney, Faithful was further required to sign a ‘Memorandum of Agreement’. John Burgess and Thomas Harris would also have signed such a document. The following is the memorandum for Faithful Chapman drawn up and signed by Lawson’s agent:

Faithful Chapman – William Metcalfe

19th March 1844 4 days

MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT made this day between William Lawson of Prospect Esq., of the one part, and Faithful Chapman a free immigrant per ship William Metcalfe of the other part.

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