The voyage of the Moffatt, transporting 400 convicts to Van Diemen’s Land in the year 1834, might be unique in that there are no less than two narrative accounts of the same passage, written with considerably more detail than the usual bald official accounts of departure and arrival, and the invariably incomplete manifests of passengers… Continue reading Tales of the Moffatt
Tag: convict
One who has been “convicted” of a crime, but in this context, one who had been convicted of a crime and then sent to the Colonies of Australia to serve out their sentence. To have a convict in the family is either the deepest shame or a badge of honour.
Researching a Convict Ship
Researching a particular convict ship I find more that I expected. This will turn out to be a damn good chapter when everything has been assimilated.
What has been left unsaid..
There is a particular family in Australia who trace their lineage back to a William Murrells who arrived in the colonies of Australia as a young man. He married a very young lady called Emily Buffin and they proceeded to breed like rabbits. This is not their story.
Alias Hoffington
I believe I have successfully reconstructed the baroque, Byzantine story of the first Mrs Dyson. I’m now prepared to state my theory and die on this hill if that be my fate.
Choose your own Adventure
This is the tale of two convicts in Van Diemen’s Land. Their story does not have an end yet: happy, sad or otherwise. Can you help?
Dyson’s hat
Kings Meadows Convict Station discovery finds artefacts, convict hat
Winterbottom’s End
Joseph Winterbottom was the old bastard pursued by Oldham police across the border from Lancashire into the West Riding of Yorkshire in the summer of 1833. Arrested by the Halifax Constabulary, he was immediately identified by visiting Oldham bloodhound Heywood as a known rogue and vagabond, and proceeded to squeal like a pig, identifying the… Continue reading Winterbottom’s End
Steam Powered Luddites
James Dyson had built something of an empire in Western Australia on the back of supplying timber sourced the old fashioned way—by hand. Pity the other pit-sawyer though, who had to stand in that pit when the logs were being sliced into planks, and pity also the poor sap (pun intended) whose on-the-job-training did not… Continue reading Steam Powered Luddites
Timber!
Timber was the business of James Dyson from his earliest years in Western Australia. A year after his arrival in 1841 he was working as a labourer. Of the few people from this time we know for sure that he associated with, Stephen Hyde was a carpenter, and his next door neighbour in Perth for… Continue reading Timber!
In Old Hobart Town
If you want to get an idea of what the Hobart Town of 1834, the year that the convict James Dyson arrived there – was like, you are better off travelling roughly north about 25km from the modern city to the settlement of Richmond, once a convict depôt and staging post on the road to… Continue reading In Old Hobart Town