William Lucas. Born 1824, Preston, England. Died 16 April 1906 Stanley, Tasmania, Australia. Buried in the Ollington Family Cemetery, Ford’s Road, Forest, Tasmania. Photo circa 1900 [1]
When Yvonne Bottomley was researching her family history she discovered that her great great grandfather, William Lucas, had been transported from Preston to Tasmania as a teenager after being convicted of housebreaking. Here she writes about what she has found out so far.
Yvonne is visiting Preston from her home in Tasmania next year to try to discover more. She would be delighted if anybody who can help her with her research would make contact: yvonneb999@gmail.com
William Lucas, born in Preston, Lancashire in 1824, was the founder of his branch of the Lucas family in Australia. His story demonstrates that a difficult beginning in life need not determine your future.
William’s father, Thomas Lucas, was a cotton spinner living in High Street, Preston, Lancashire. [2] A hard working man and a Roman Catholic, he’d fathered four children and been widowed. On Saturday 2nd of December 1841, Thomas sat at the Lancaster Assizes, Preston, along with his daughter Ellen and son Joseph, listening to the trial of his 17-year-old son William. A second offender, William was convicted of housebreaking and stealing thread and £2 or £3 worth of copper. William received a ten-year sentence of transportation to Van Diemen’s Land.
The realisation that they would never see William again in this life would have been devastating for the family! William could never return to Great Britain (a ten-year sentence precluded his return), and no cotton-spinner could afford to travel to Van Diemen’s Land. Thomas would probably never know what became of his son as neither of them could read nor write.
The social conditions in Preston in the 1840s had deeply impacted life for William and thousands of others. The effects of the Industrial Revolution meant the town had been flooded with desperately poor agricultural labourers and former military men from the Napoleonic Wars, seeking work in the cotton factories. Crime was one way to survive in a situation where starvation, overcrowding and homelessness were rife. William had had the misfortune to be caught.
William’s life changed immediately he left the courtroom. As Convict number 5296, he was taken to the hulk [3] “Justica”, moored on the Thames River and issued with clothing and food rations. [4]
Convict records were thorough and well-maintained. William’s physical characteristics for example, were described in great detail, given the lack of photography at that time. He had an oval face, a high brow, a large mouth and nose, brown hair and eyes, black eyebrows, and stood 5 foot 61/2 inches tall. In addition, he was tattooed in several places, had scars on the back of his left hand, rings on his fingers and had a mole on his right cheek. His record also notes that he could neither read nor write, was a Roman Catholic and was single.
Many convicts spent years imprisoned on the hulks – dismantled sailing vessels used as temporary prisons to alleviate the problem of overcrowded British gaols[5]. Some prisoners, indeed, served out their entire sentence on one of the hulks, employed as hard labour on local dirty and dangerous labouring jobs such as construction, clearing debris from the Thames, etc. The hulks became known as ‘Hell on Earth’, housing as many as 500 inmates at a time, with a death-rate of one in four convicts in the early years of the 19th century. During William’s time on the hulk (three months) and his subsequent journey to Van Diemen’s Land, he would have had ample time to examine his actions and reflect on their consequences. [6]
William was transported to Van Diemen’s Land on board the Eden [7]. The vessel left Woolwich on the 22nd of March 1842, on its second voyage to the colony. William was one of 280 male convicts, several of whom died on the voyage, who embarked on the ship [8]. It was a comparatively speedy passage leaving on the 12th March 1842 and arriving in Hobart on 5th July 1842 (no stops on route for fresh food!).
Conditions on board the Eden were much improved upon those that had prevailed in the early years of settlement in the Australian colonies. On the Second Fleet to Australia for example, one third of the convicts died on the voyage. From the early to middle 1830s, voyages were generally quicker and it was mandatory for naval surgeons to be appointed to tend to the convicts. Better food and conditions on board meant a lower death toll for the voyage. Additionally, the British Government in response to public outcry about the treatment of convicts, decided to pay captains a bonus for the number of living convicts who survived the voyage. Nonetheless, some convicts still died of diarrhoea, fever, tuberculosis, circulatory disease, etc.
On arrival in the colony, William’s life was governed by the Probation System. The transcription of his conduct record below indicates a mixed pattern of behaviour: reprimands for idleness and disobedience resulting in the extension of his probation period as well as some commendations for orderly behaviour. By 1846 he was living in Westbury (northern Tasmania, west of Launceston). The box in the bottom right-hand corner of the Transcript lists some of the people for whom he worked: W Lyons, John Lamont, North Esk, T Brugh “Forest Banks”, Thomas Brugh Circular Head. (See Tasmanian map below)
By the time William was granted a ticket-of-leave on the 9th of November 1847, he was living in the Circular Head district. This ‘indulgence’ allowed him to seek paying work within the colony of Van Diemen’s Land, though not outside the colony.
William had adjusted to the drastically different environment he now lived in, and had become an experienced agricultural worker. In August that year (1847) as a ticket-of-leave man, he found a job on a farm leased by John and Anne Poke, free settlers in the Circular Head District, in the northwest of Van Diemen’s Land. His life would once again undergo significant change.
Note: By the time of William’s arrival kin 1842, the aboriginal population who had survived the depredations of the colonists, had been moved to Flinders Island in Bass Strait.
The Poke family were free settlers who had decided to migrate to the district of Circular Head by the opportunity to buy their own land. Early explorers had recommended Circular Head as suitable for settlement – heavily-wooded, but with rich soil and plentiful rainfall. The Van Diemen’s Land Company (VDLCo), formed in London in May 1824 with the aim of supplying English woollen mills with a cheap supply of wool, had been granted large swathes of land in the north-west of the colony to supply that need. However, much of the land was more suitable for general farming rather than sheep-farming, so the VDLCo sold and/or leased 80-acre parcels of land to families like the Pokes.
By 1848, the town and port of Stanley (founded in 1842) had become the urban hub of Circular Head. Stanley provided the infrastructure to send local products (timber, seafood, livestock, crops) to colonial markets as well as to Britain. Schools, churches, hotels and other businesses were rapidly established. [9] Stanley’s port and its shipping flourished given the lack of roads for transporting goods by land.
The Poke farm in mid 1848, was partly cleared, livestock would have been introduced and a dwelling of sorts erected. [10] Anne and John Poke by now had six children. In November of that year, John was accidentally killed by a falling beam while constructing a barn with William. An inquest deemed John’s death accidental. [11] Ann, a widow with six children – the youngest of whom was only four months old – was in a difficult situation. Local farming families would have assisted initially, but this was not a long-term solution for her. Nevertheless, she decided to purchase the property from the VDLCo.
Over the next two years William continued to work on the farm. He and Anne formed a relationship that culminated in their marriage in October 1850, shortly after William had been granted his conditional pardon. [12] [13] William was now an emancipist (freed former convict), and a step-father to six children whose mother was around twelve years older than he. Anne must have carefully weighed up the pros and cons of marriage to an ex-convict and the social issues this may have raised in those days, with the need for a strong person to carry out the heavy work on the farm. Hopefully love and mutual respect played a part in their decision to marry.
Together, William and Anne had three children: twin boys James and Albert (born 17 June 1852), and a daughter Mary Louisa (born 14th January 1855). A child (Thomas 28th February 1851-17 September 1851) died a few months after Anne and William married.
In the years between their marriage at St Paul’s Anglican Church, Stanley, and Anne’s death on the 10th February, 1880, they had purchased the main farm, ‘Framlingham’, from the VDLCo, and had expanded it through purchases of other properties in the district. Property in the township of Stanley was also purchased.
William, as evidenced by his will, died a wealthy man at Stanley on the 16th of April 1906 and was buried at the Ollington Family Private Cemetery on Ford’s Road, Forest. [14] His assets were left to his children and step-children but with the main farm being left to his daughter Mary Louisa who had married William Ollington , a local member of The Bretheran community and owner of the private cemetery in which both William and his wife Ann were buried..
William Lucas had become a respected member of the Circular Head community. Local newspapers of the time reported that William had donated money to charitable causes, had lobbied Parliamentarians, supported the election of particular candidates. The metamorphosis from an impoverished labourer with no prospects, transported to Van Diemens Land, to wealthy landowner was complete!
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Conduct Registers of Male Convicts arriving in the Period of the Probation System, Tasmanian Archives.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, Preston District through time | Population Statistics | Population Change, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10197260/cube/POP_CHANGE, accessed: 13th November 2021
Inquest into the death of John Poke, 23rd November 1848, before John Lee Archer, Coroner, Stanley, Tasmanian Archives, NAME_INDEXES:1365198, SC195/1/23 (Inquest 1992)
Marriage certificate of William Lucas and Ann Poke, married 9th October 1850, St Paul’s Anglican Church, Stanley, Australia, Marriage Index, 1788-1950, sourced from Ancestry.com before 2017.
Probate Registry Files, Tasmanian Archives
UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed before 2017.
Secondary Sources
Alison Alexander (ed), The Companion to Tasmanian History, Centre of Tasmanian Historical Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 2005
Anthony, Paul, William LUCAS, Arrows of Hope, Volume 2, Descendants of Convicts’ Group Inc, ed Quint, Bronwyn, Melbourne, 2002, pp 131-133,
Article in the Digital Panopticon, Convict Hulks, accessed 20th May, 2021.
CMH Clark, Select Documents in Australian History, 1788-1850, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1970.
Howard, MJ Mark, ed, An Australian History Source Book, Vol 1, Shakespeare Head Press, Sydney, 1969, pp 19, 60-61.
Pink, Kerry and Ebdon, Annette, Beyond The Ramparts: a Bicentennial History of Circular Head, Mercury-Walch, Hobart, 1992.
[1] Bronwyn Quint, Editor, “Arrows of Hope Selected Convict Stories, Vol 2”, Descendants of Convicts’ Group Inc, 2002, Page 132
[2] 1841 Census Record for William Lucas, aged 15, High Street, Preston, Lancashire, 1841 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO 107/499/13, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed prior to 2017
[3] Hulks were “retired” ships anchored in rivers and bays around the British Isles and were used as temporary gaols to contain surplus prisoners.
[4] Article in the Digital Panopticon, Convict Hulks, accessed 20th May, 2021
[5] The American War of Independence meant that prisoners could no longer be sent to the American colonies to serve out their sentences.
[6] J Mark Howard, editor, An Australian History Sourcebook, Vol 1, Shakespeare Head Press, Sydney, 1969, page 58.
[7] The Eden was built in London in 1825, a wooden ship of 513 tons, British Convict Transportation Register, State Library of Queensland, https://convictrecords.com.au/ships/eden/1842, accessed 21March 2022.
[8] https://convictrecords.com.au/ships/eden/1842, State Library of Queensland
[9] Kerry Pink and Annette Ebdon, Beyond The Ramparts: a bicentennial History of Circular Head, Mercury-Walch, Hobart, 1992, page.22
[10] The farm was called “Framlingham”.
[11] Inquest into the death of John Poke, 23rd November 1848, before John Lee Archer, Coroner, Stanley, Tasmanian Archives, NAME_INDEXES:1365198, SC195/1/23 (Inquest 1992)
[12] William Lucas, Conditional Pardon granted 2nd February 1850, Conduct record, Conduct Registers of Male Convicts arriving in the Period of the Assignment System, Tasmanian Archives, CON31/1/40.
[13] Marriage certificate of William Lucas and Ann Poke, married 9th October 1850, Marriage Index, 1788-1950, sourced from Ancestry.com before 2017.
[14] Will of William Lucas, Died 16th April 1906, Probate Registry, Tasmanian Archives, AD960-1-27 file 6831.
Really interesting read, what an ordeal being sentenced to be shipped to the other side of the world knowing you will never see your family again.