Stephen Hallpike (1786-1844) was a convict from Lancashire sent to the Australian colonies. It was in Liverpool that he was finally busted for the most Lancastrian crime it was possible to commit — stealing 100 yards (91.44 metres) of cotton cloth.
This was not his first (or even his second) offence, but this time it was going to stick. He was sentenced by the Liverpool Sessions Court in October 1817 to be transported over the seas for seven years. By February 1818 he was on a hulk in Portsmouth. He was transferred to another at Woolwich in May, prior to embarkation on the Lord Sidmouth at the end of August.
The Lord Sidmouth set sail on 20 September 1818 for New South Wales. This vessel with 158 convicts on board arrived in Sydney on 11 March 1819.
However
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It was what Hallpike was up to in the weeks immediately before his arrest, conviction and transportation that are most cognisant to this story. Stephen Hallpike was allegedly a married man. The qualification “allegedly” has to be made, as no formal record of Hallpike’s first marriage has so far been located, and to muddy the waters still further, his second wife will have the same first name as her predecessor (but we get ahead of ourselves).
You do the sums
A baby boy was born in Liverpool on 8 March 1818. Six months elapsed before he was baptised in the church of St Peter on 6 December 1818. Stephen Hall-pike is described as being the son of Stephen Hall-pike, a whitesmith, and Ellen (his presumed wife).
Strangely enough, we can only know this child’s actual date of birth because 46 years later he would apply for in job in the Colonial Convict Service of an entirely different Australian colony to the one his father had been sent to. By then, he had also dropped the “Aitch” in his name from Hallpike to Allpike.
Whitesmith or Blacksmith?
While Stephen Hallpike (the elder) had proven to be profoundly ineffectual both as a thief and a father, he possessed other skills that were highly prized in the land he was exiled to. As a blacksmith, he was assigned to the New South Wales civil engineer’s department headed by Major George Druitt. After this Major resigned his commission in July 1822, Hallpike was retained by Druitt as a blacksmith on his estate until at least December 1824.
It is worth noting that in the NSW Colonial Secretary’s Index to correspondence mentioning him as a convict, his name is spelt “Allpike”. It is also worth noting that the reason why he was mentioned in dispatches was that he was discovered working at his own business when he should have still been employed by Druitt.
Nevertheless, the day came when he really had earned his freedom by serving out his sentence.
Since this was published in 1824, its a bit strange that another mention in the Colonial Secretary’s office (Reel 6064; 4/1788 p.10) states he was still not free by servitude until 5 April 1825.
When ever it was he did become a free man, 1826 is the only year I’ve seen quoted as his arrival in Singapore. This was the same year the free port was confirmed as a British possession, although it was not yet designated a formal colony of the British Crown.
He set up trade as a blacksmith, boat and coach builder, then he opened what was possibly the first hotel in Singapore’s history…
ADVERTISEMENT
S. Hallpike returns his thanks to the Public for the encouragement he has hitherto met with, and begs to state that he has opened a Board and Lodging House in High Street, where Families visiting the Settlement will meet with every attention for their comfort.
N.B. S.H. continues to execute Ships Blacksmith Work in general, and paints and repairs Carriages of all descriptions on moderate terms.
Carriages lent on hire.
Singapore, 11 May 1831Singapore Chronicle and Commercial Register, 26 May 1831, Page 1
https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/singchronicle18310526-1.2.3.2
But he was not doing all this alone.
The boarding house part of his little empire was apparently managed by his wife. Quite when there was a Mrs Hallpike again on the scene and if this was the same Ellen who gave birth to his child back in Liverpool are all mysteries.
Whether their thirteen year old son was also in Singapore too is another unanswered question, however the younger Stephen also followed the trade of a blacksmith later on, so his apprenticeship may have begun at his father’s forge.
It is not until December 1832 that the first hard evidence emerges that there really was a Mrs Hallpike in Singapore … and that was only because she was leaving him, this time.
NOTICE.
MRS. HALLPIKE being about to leave the Settlement, the Undersigned requests that all claims against her and himself may be sent in before the expiration of the current month, after which they will not be attended to.
S. HALLPIKE.
Singapore 3rd Decr. 1832.
Where she went next, remains as obscure as why she departed. The only certainty is that well before 15 July 1834 she was known to be dead, for that is when Mr Stephen Hallpike married Miss Ellen Richardson, also of Singapore, in the original St Andrew’s Church in Singapore (to the left in the picture below).
Ouch.
Once his father started breeding again, that son from his first marriage needed only have seen this birth notice in the newspaper for August 1837 to know he had no future in Singapore — If he had not worked that out already, many years before.
BIRTH.
Singapore Chronicle and Commercial Register, 19 August 1837, Page 2
On Monday the 14th. Instant, MRS. HALLPIKE of a Son and HEIR.
https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/singchronicle18370819-1.2.9
The new Hallpike family wound up their business affairs in Singapore, then travelled back to England sometime after September 1838. but Hallpike, senior, at least, returned to Singapore sometime before July 1842.
There he died on 22 June 1844.
If it wasn’t a respectful family that paid for his headstone in the Fort Canning burial ground, he definitely had some greatly appreciative friends… or he was really was that greatly respected by the community he returned to.
Not bad for a former convict whose speciality proved to be driving away his family.
Coincidence time
I’ve visited the Fort Canning burial ground in Singapore. I most definitely would have seen Hallpike’s headstone then, but that it would later be significant to the Dyson story, ie: my story, would have completely passed me by. Instead, here are some generic images from 2006.
Coda.
Stephen Allpike, son of Stephen Hallpike, was certainly knocking about the Australasian colonies by the end of the 1830’s. He spent some time in Van Diemen’s Land, not as a convict though. His business there is unknown.
There he could have met a young lady. She was also not a convict, but she may have felt like she had being treated worse than one. Her name was Hannah Dyer. She had been sent from Western Australia by her employer, the brother of that colony’s Colonial Secretary, to give birth to his child away from the public eye. It was not even the first time he had impregnated his maid servant, but his wife had already adopted the resultant daughter for her self.
This time the baby had not survived, but Hannah did. She was permitted to return home during the year 1839. If she did meet Stephen Hallpike in Van Diemen’s Land it had to be before that date.
When Stephen Allpike made his first visit to the Swan River settlement in Western Australia is not entirely certain. However, on 4 May 1841 he boarded a barque called the Napoleon at Launceston in Van Diemen’s Land, bound for Port Philip Bay in was would one day be the future colony of Victoria.
There is no evidence he reached his intended destination. Nor is there any record that he did not. He is not alone in that regard. At least one other passenger known to have been on board this vessel for the entirety of her two month voyage between Van Diemen’s Land and Fremantle in the Colony of Western Australia is likewise completely absent from any contemporary paperwork as well.
If he was on the colonial barque Napoleon, one of his fellow travellers was a fellow Lancastrian and recently freed Van Diemen’s Land Convict by the name of James Dyson. and they had two whole months to get to know one another.
Once in Western Australia, Allpike married Hannah Dyer in the year 1844.
During 1864 he applied for a job in the Convict Establishment of Western Australia.
