Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Source:
In the Service of the Company
Details:
Prisoner under sentence of 14 years transportation. Sir Edward Parry requesting that Watt be assigned to the A.A. Company as his services as a Clerk and book keeper were required.....In the Service of the Company: letters of Sir Edward Parry, Commissioner to the Australian Agricultural company: volume 1, December 1829 - June 1832. Letter 445
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Source:
AO NSW Convict Indents. Fiche No. 670
Details:
Age 22. Married with 1 child. Banker's clerk, tried in London for embezzlement and sentenced to 14 years Transportation. Notes - Drowned
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Source:
Application to Marry. State Records of NSW
Details:
Application of William Watt age 29 T/L holder, to marry Ann Howe (age 31 born in the colony). Granted
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Source:
Convict Death Register
Details:
Remarks: W. Gray P.M.
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Details:
Correspondence of William Watt of the Sydney Gazette to Edward Smith Hall editor of the Sydney Monitor
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Details:
William Watt's defense at his trial for receiving a piece of paper. Includes character references from several people
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Details:
Shortly will be published- The public and political life of William Watt , his connections with the Government Offices and the public press in NSW his laudations of the present Governor etc., together with his trial before the supreme court, the speech of his counsel his examination before the police office, Sydney his residence at Port Macquarie etc with some original letters of his anecdotes. Also an appendix, containing the draft of a petition to be signed by the Colonists of NSW praying His Excellency the Governor and the Honorable the Executive Council that as the said William Watt had been obviously connected with an employed by the government of this Colony, he is entitled to be considered as a State Prisoner and not to be treated in that degrading manner he was lately at Port Macquarie
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Details:
William Watt has it seems been captured and sentenced to receive fifty lashes for absconding. This man was injured by the great countenance he received from some of our civil officers of rank. He is a man of great talent and energy, but with little principle, and his present degradation is the consequence of his own misconduct. We do not, however approve of his being punished by flogging. As an intellectual and educated man, he was entitled to consideration so far as to have been sent to an iron gang in lieu of being scourged. To torture men of education who have once ranked as gentlemen with the whip is a degradation to all men of education, and will shock all men of right feeling. We see in this brutal punishment as regards Watt, a glaring inconsistency in the authorities. At one time, the man is buoyed up with official applause, and allowed counsel and three days to prepare an elaborae defence. At another he is treated with little consideration as the a ruffian from Norfolk Island. We are sorry for the man....(Monitor)...We quite agree in the view above taken as to the punishment stated to have been inflicted on the subject of it, but surely the Chief Executive Authority cannot be reasonable blamed for this, it being solely the act of the Magistrate concerned. If the Government fostered William Watt as is pretended, then we perfectly agree with the Monitor, but this can be only regarded as a weak invention of the enemy who have been so very magnanimously empllyed in bravely abusing and persecuting the man for many months past, for no sufficient cause that we could discover, but that he was not in a capacity to defend himself.
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Details:
WILLIAM WATT. This is the first time we have ever mentioned the name of this individual in the Gazette. It will be the last. The unfortunate man was drowned by the upsetting of a boat, in endeavouring to get on board the steamer, three days prior to her sailing from Port Macquarie. The same vessel brings the news that Alfred Howe, the eldest son of Mrs. Watt, had died from the effects of lock jaw, occasioned by his being dreadfully bitten in the calf of the leg by a shark when bathing.
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Source:
Life Among the Convicts - Charles B. Gibson
Details:
THE CONVICT WATT. Watt was an English convict, though a Scotchman by birth. He was sentenced to fourteen years transportation, for embezzling large sums of money belonging to his employers, to whom he was clerk. He was sent to Wellington Valley, a penal settlement for educated convicts, where he obtained his ticket-of-leave, and was employed as clerk in the Corporation Office, under the Archdeacon of the colony. When the Corporation Office was dissolved, he was solicited by Mr. O Shaughnessy, an Irishman, and a State prisoner, and the editor of a newspaper, called the Sydney Gazette, to become his Sub. Nothing could have suited Watt s ticket better; and as Mr. O Shaughnessy depended too much on the bottle for his editorial inspiration, and as Mr. Watt was a moderate man, in this line, the latter soon gained the entire control of the paper. Watt laboured hard to show there was no moral difference between a convict and a free emigrant, to the great annoyance of the colonists, who only waited a fit opportunity to deprive him of his ticket-of-leave. He was charged with living in concubinage with a female prisoner, but the evidence broke down. . But Watt was not long in affording his enemies another opportunity of assailing him. He induced a convict compositor in the Herald Office a rival journal to steal a copy of a number of that paper, which had been printed, but suppressed before delivery, as it was supposed to contain a libel against a gentleman in the colony. Watt got the paper, quoted the libellous matter, attached Herald to the foot of it, and posted it to the gentleman assailed. The trick was discovered. He was tried on the charge of stealing proof copy; but, as the jury were composed chiefly of discharged convicts, whose moral equality, if not superiority, he had always upheld in the Gazette, they found Not guilty, inasmuch as the property was not of sufficient value to constitute felony. But the judge represented to the Colonial authorities that Watt ought to be removed from Sydney. He was accordingly sent to Port Macquarie, where he married the widow of the former proprietor of the Gazette. Here he managed to get two Government officers dismissed, which led to an investigation that resulted in his losing his ticket-of-leave. He therefore absconded, but was retaken, and flogged, as a runaway.
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Source:
Gaol Description and Entrance Books
Details:
Admitted to Sydney gaol. 5ft 9 3/4 in, stout, sallow complexion Brown hair, hazel eyes.
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Source:
UK Prison Hulk Registers and Letter Books (Ancestry)
Details:
Age 21. Tried 29 May 1828 at the Old Bailey. Admitted to the Leviathan hulk from Newgage on 18 June 1828. Transferred to the Marquis of Hastings for transportation to New South Wales 24 June 1828
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Source:
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online
Details:
Sentenced to 14 years transportation for embezzlement....DANIEL FORRESTER . I am a City officer. I made search in London for the prisoner, and in consequence of information I went to Edinburgh on the 26th of April and found him there, at ten o'clock on Sunday night the 27th I was waiting the arrival of a smack and took him near St. Andrew's-square; he then had on a pair of mustachios; I went in front of him and seized him by the throat; we had a struggle and both fell - some person came up to my assistance and secured him. He answered to the name of Watt, and gave me up everything he had about him - I found this paper on him. MR. DILLON. This is in the prisoner's hand-writing -(read.) To Mrs. Williams, Post Office - to be called for. MY DEAR CAROLINE. - Be careful, at Stall's,121, Rose-street. To prevent watching go into several houses and ask after furnished lodgings, and you will see if any one is coming after you. - I am, your affectionate husband WILLIAMS. Prisoner. I do not conceive it necessary to say any thing to the charge, it may go to the Jury as it is. GUILTY . Aged 21..
Ship:
Marquis of Hastings 1828
Place:
Old Bailey, London
Details:
William Watt, a respectable looking man, apparently about 30 years of age, who had been for some years in the service of Messrs Todd, Morrison and co. mercers and drapers, Fore St. Cripplegate, as the superintendent of their business , was indicted for feloniously embezzling the sum of 228 l., the property of his employers. Mr. forsyth deposed, that he had had dealings with Mess. Todd Morrison and co. and on the 3rd of August last he paid the prisoner the balance of his account, amounting to the sum of 228l.........Mr. John Dillon stated, that he is a partner in the firm of todd Morrison and co who employ about 150 persons as shopmen and assistants, The prisoner was their foreman and in that situation he was authorised to receive money on account of the firm. Up to the 2n January the fraud practised by the prisoner was not discovered. On that day he left his service, and engaged wit hMessrs. Ellis and co silk mercers. Ludgate hill as their shopman. Daniel Forester stated that he is a city constable. In consequence of information he received, he went to Edinburgh, where he apprehended the prisoner on the 26th of April last. The prisoenr made a great resistance, but being overpowered, he was secured and conveyed to London, and having undergone an examination at Guildhall, was committed to prison. On the part of the prisoner who witnesses were called, who gave him a good character up to the period when the offence was committed for which he was indicted. The Recorder summed up, and the jury found the prisoner guilty. The Recorder called him up for immediate judgement and sentenced him to the full penalty of the law, transportation for 14 years.
