Source:
NSW Courts Magistrates, Newcastle Police Court: 1823-1825, 1826-1827 (Ancestry)
Details:
Assigned to government service. Missing from muster and church
Details:
On list of prisoners transported to Newcastle per Prince Leopold
Source:
Ancestry.com. New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia Convict Musters. Class: HO 10; Piece: 19
Details:
Assigned to government service at Newcastle
Source:
NSW Courts Magistrates, Newcastle Police Court: 1823-1825 (Ancestry)
Details:
George Smith in the service of the Rev. G.A. Middleton, charged with various acts of robbery at the Parsonage and for harbouring improper persons at unseasonable hours.....Elizabeth Hannell alias Walton, in the service of government, charged with being an accessary to the said robbery. Margaret Lawrence, prisoner of the Crown states....About two months ago Betsey Walton came to my house between eight and nine clock at night and asked me to go out with her. She took me to the parsonage. Mr. and Mrs. Middleton were at Pattersons Plains at the tie. We found a supper prepared by George Smith - it consisted of boiled fowls, pickled pork, vegetables, milk and a bottle of white wine. After supper Smith and Walton retired to Mrs. Middleton s Bedroom. They were absent nearly a quarter of an hour, when they came back, I saw in Walton s possession a piece of striped muslin. The muslin I know Walton has since made into the trimmings of a gown. About the same time I purchased a yard of blue crossed bar d cotton from Walton which I made into an apron. I have good reason to believe that Smith some months since gave a number of yards of cotton to a woman named Elizabeth Robinson, not now on the settlement, with whom at that time he was in the habit of intimacy. About three weeks since I called in the morning early at Walton s house and asked her where she had been sleeping all night as the evening before the man with whom she usually cohabits had been at my house to seek her. Walton was lying on her bed with her clothes on. She told me she had been at the Parsonage all night. She then got from off the bed and shook herself and from under her petticoats I saw drop another piece of striped muslin which I believe she has since made into a child s dress. My motive for making this discovery in the first instance not because Smith wished to favour Walton in the work at the Parsonage and impose all the hard labour on me......James Calvert, chief constable, states....In consequence of instruction from the Police Office, I went to Elizabeth Walton s House and on searching her box, I found a gown, part of which was made with white striped muslin which matched a pattern I had been furnished with. Margaret Lawrence also delivered this morning at the Police Office a blue gross bar d cotton apron. .......The Rev. Middleton states....The striped muslin composing part of the gown now produced I have no doubt is my property. Mrs. Middleton has lost about 5 or 6 yards of it. There has also been stolen from the parsonage about 30 yards of blue cross bar d cotton of the same pattern and quality now before the court. I have also ascertained that the lock of my store room has been picked. I miss as quantity of salt pork, sugar and about 30lb of rice. I had a good opinion of Smith until within the last ten weeks when he has fallen under suspicion. He has lived with me nearly three years. George Smith in his defence denied having at any time robbed his master and states that the accusation of Margaret Lawrence if false and originating in malice. The stock keeper of the Rev. Middleton being called states.... I have seen Smith making rice puddings for himself during the absence of my master and mistress, I have also seen him weight seven or eight pounds of sugar several times when the family were from home and carry it away from the house. Elizabeth Walton in her defence denies having ever slept at the Parsonage and states that she brought the muslin and cross bar d cotton in the market place at Sydney about ten month ago. She produced a Child s frock also made of the same muslin and calls Sarah Perkins who states...on the return of Elizabeth Walton from Sydney last year, I saw some striped muslin and blue cross barr d cotton in her possession which is very like that now before the court...Both prisoners found guilty. Sentence - George Smith sentenced to 50 lashes and returned to his master. Elizabeth Hannell sentenced to Port Macquarie
Surname:
Lawrence (Laurence)
Details:
Margaret Lawrence and Margaret Cuddy sentenced to Newcastle Settlement for robbing Charles Tunstall
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On list of prisoners sent to Newcastle
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James Nangle, for stealing a blanket, sentenced to two years at Newcastle
Source:
Colonial Secretarys Papers. (Ancestry)
Details:
Former gaoler at Newcastle. Claim that he was treated as a convict due to clerical error. Had received sentence of transportation for life at Omagh and arrived on the Rolla in 1803. Having been nine years in the colony was sent to Newcastle for life also but there he behaved so well first as overseer and then as jailer that Governor Macquarie emancipated him on the recommendation of Captain Wallis, commandant at the settlement. Since then he had endeavoured to procure honest livelihood and was at one time employed by William Gore. He lately had the misfortune to be brought before the magistrates on a charge which was not proved however because of an alleged informality on his Certificate of Emancipation, he was returned to Government service and sent to work in an iron gang........after a residence of close upon twenty years in the colony, seventeen years of which, seventeen of the best years of his life, he has passed in the actual employ of Government, coping the most part of that time with hardships and difficulties which can scarcely be conceived, unless by such as have had the misfortune to experience them - thus has he been plunged at once into a state of helpless, he had almost said hopeless misery for a mere clerical error
