The following is a personal story of a convict that spent some time in Queensland as reconstructed from sources found at Queensland State Archives and online.
I am Daniel Scannell and I was one of the youngest convicts to ever be sent to Moreton Bay [Queensland]. My life was short and violent and it began in 1817 in Ireland.[1] On 24 of August in Cork City, aged just thirteen, I was convicted of ‘privately stealing and stealing wearing apparel’ and sentenced to seven years in Australia.[2] Unfortunately it seems that any record of this trial has long since been lost. I find this very regrettable because as you can guess from my age and sentence it would have been a thrilling read. A thirteen-year-old boy does not get sent across the world by himself without a good reason, or at least you would like to think not. I left Cork, Ireland for New South Wales, Australia on 1 January 1830 on board the Forth I, with David Padfoot as the master and William Clifford as surgeon.[3] We were at sea for 115 days, during which three male prisoners died of dysentery and the rest of us finally arrived in New South Wales on 26 April 1830.[4]
A muster was taken by Colonial Secretary Alexander McLeay on board the Forth I on 28 April 1830 and our details were recorded in the Principal Superintendent of Convicts, Bound Indents for the period 1829-1830.[5] And as such I was recorded to be the 21st convict from the Forth I and the 606th convict to arrive in New South Wales in 1830.[6] When I arrived they recorded I was from Cork City, Catholic, Single, and an Errand Boy, aged thirteen and 4 feet 6 inches tall.[7] They also put down the basic details of the conviction that resulted in my transportation to Australia.[8] Crucially, for me, they noted that I had been put in an Iron Gang. [9]
My initial stay in Sydney was brief. It was only a few months before I found myself before the Court of Magistery at Hyde Park Barracks with J. Bowman J. P. and William Macpherson J. P. presiding.[10] On 3 November 1830 I had run away from Carter Barracks and entered the shop of one Mark in Hunter Street where I stole ‘numerous articles of wearing apparel’, to use the words of their Honourable Justices.[11] However, I did not get far. On 24 November 1830 the Sydney Monitor reported that I ‘Scannell Daniel, Forth, from Carters’ Barracks’, had been apprehended during the past week.[12] This report was in fact slightly out of date because I had already been brought before the court on 15 November.[13] In a letter to the Colonial Secretary, dated 17 November 1830, the Justices wrote:
the Bench therefore sentenced him to be transported to such Penal Settlement as His Excellency The Governor may be pleased to Direct for Three years, in the mean time he has been sent on Board the Phoenix Hulk to await His Excellency’s command.[14]
It turns out his Excellency sent me to Moreton Bay and after a long stay on the Phoenix Hulk I arrived there on 1 January 1831 on board the Governor Phillip.[15] At some point, my Bound Indent record was amended to include my latest escapades and it then stated that my three years in the penal colony would be in addition to my original sentence, not part of it, so I was now looking at a total of ten years in Australia.[16] However, very excitingly, for me anyway, I had grown! I was now recorded as standing 5 feet and 2 inches tall.[17] And so, exactly one year after leaving Cork, I found myself slightly taller and in the penal colony of Moreton Bay.
Once again my details were recorded, this time in the Chronological Register of Convicts, held at Moreton Bay. Here they had my original conviction as larceny and my trade in Cork as a labourer.[18] They recorded that I was fair and freckled with brown hair and hazel eyes.[19] They gave me the prisoner number 2246 and in the remarks merely said ‘to Norfolk Island’.[20] It appears that no record remains indicating why and when I was sent to Norfolk. That being the case, I am not telling either! Unlike my first stint in Sydney, I did manage to stay in Moreton Bay for over two years more before trying to escape. The penal colony was brutal and harsh and by 1833 I had had enough. On 23 April 1833 the Book of Monthly Returns of Prisoners Maintained recorded that I had run away.[21] This time I was not alone: I was accompanied by Patrick Ryan, a labourer of the Florentia; James Ferrell, a blacksmith off the Countess Harcourt; and William Puckeridge, a native labourer.[22] Once again my freedom was short lived. In a letter to the Colonial Secretary dated 22 May 1833, my fellow runaways and I were named and he was assured that we had ‘embarked on board the Cutter Fairy for conveyance to Sydney’.[23] Strangely, my name was misspelt in this letter and my ship misidentified, but it would be a stretch to think it was not me and all the others named were the same people I was reported to have absconded with. We were not alone on board the cutter but were accompanied by many others, including special constables and witnesses for the prosecution.[24]
So began the most infamous part of my short life. Some time after I arrived back in Sydney, I have forgotten exactly when, I was assigned to the free settler Davis of Punch Bowl Road, and I conducted myself to the satisfaction of my master.[25] Punch Bowl Road and the nearby Parramatta Road were known to house ‘dens of infamy’ and it was in one of these roadside stops that I met William Carter, John Barlow and James Bryant.[26] In this group there was a convict (me), two natives and a free man.[27] In 1835 we formed a highway robbery gang and worked in the Liverpool Road area.[28] We undertook a series of highway robberies, the Sydney Gazette later stating that there was ‘strong suspicion’ that we were being harboured, stating that ‘otherwise it would have been impossible so long to elude the vigilance of the horse police’.[29] On 1 May 1835 we robbed Captain Clarke and Mr Manning on Parramatta Road, taking their money and watches; this turned out to be a very bad move on our part.[30] Our crime was splashed across the newspapers. On 3 May 1835 we were apprehended in the most embarrassing way, the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertise reporting:
the prisoners were in the bush near Duck River Bridge, evidently waiting a chance to commit a robbery; only two men of the horse police accidentally encountered them. They had five stand[s] of arms, two double barrelled pistols – and yet they surrendered without offering the least resistance, so powerful does the terror of this body of men operate – When they were secured the soldiers searched about, and at the spot where they took them, the watch of Captain Clarke, and other property, was discovered.[31]
We were caught by accident, we surrendered instantly, and we had incriminating evidence on us. On 9 May we were indicted before the Chief Justice and a civil jury.[32] We were found guilty and sentenced to death, despite Captain Clark stating that he hoped that ‘as no actual violence was used, mercy would be shown to the prisoners’.[33] The Chief Justice is reported to have said in passing the sentence that ‘the prisoners had been convicted in such evidence as entirely took away any anxiety or doubt from his mind, as well as from the mind of the Jury’.[34] On 26 May, attended by Rev. Mr Cowper, I was executed pursuant to my sentence and so ended my time in Australia aged just eighteen years old.[35]
[1] State Records (formerly Archives Office i.e. AO) of New South Wales – AO Fiche No 675 Fiche 2 of 3, Principal Superintendent of Convicts Bound Indents 1829-1830 (4/4015) 81 in Peter Mayberry, “Daniel Scannell,” Irish Convicts to New South Wales 1788-1849, http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/cgi-bin/irish/irish.cgi?requestType=Search2&id=26488.
[2] Ibid.
[3] New South Wales Government. State Records, “Chronological list of Convict Ships arriving at Port Jackson 1788-1849, and Item list of the various Papers for each vessel”, 242, https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/state-archives/documents/publications/Convict%20ships%20to%20NSW.
[4] Ibid; New South Wales Government. State Records, “Chronological list of Convict Ships,”. 242.
[5] Free Settler or Felon, “Forth I,” http://www.jenwilletts.com/ConvictShipsFG.htm#Forth1
[6] State Records (formerly Archives Office i.e. AO) of New South Wales – AO Fiche No 675 Fiche 2 of 3, Principal Superintendent of Convicts Bound Indents 1829-1830 (4/4015) 81 in Peter Mayberry, “Daniel Scannell,”, Irish Convicts to New South Wales 1788-1849, http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/cgi-bin/irish/irish.cgi?requestType=Search2&id=26488.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] State Library Queensland, “New South Wales- Colonial Secretary Letters received relating to Moreton Bay and Queensland Received 1822-1860,” Reel A2.5 (Letters received 1830-1831), 393-4.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Sydney Monitor (New South Wales : 1828 – 1838), 24 November 1830, 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32074569.
[13] State Library Queensland, Reel A2.5 (Letters received 1830-1831), 393-4.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Queensland State Archives, Index by Ship – Chronological Register of Convicts 1824-1839, 47.
[16] State Records (formerly Archives Office i.e. AO) of New South Wales – AO Fiche No 675 Fiche 2 of 3, Principal Superintendent of Convicts Bound Indents 1829-1830 (4/4015) 81 in Peter Mayberry, Daniel Scannell, Irish Convicts to New South Wales 1788-1849, http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/cgi-bin/irish/irish.cgi?requestType=Search2&id=2648.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Queensland State Archives, Series ID 5653, Chronological Register of Convicts at Moreton Bay, 70.
[19] Ibid., Description section at the end under “S”.
[20] Ibid., 70.
[21] Queensland State Archives, Item ID869688, Returns – Prisoners, 90.
[22] Ibid.
[23] State Library Queensland, “New South Wales – Colonial Secretary Letters received relating to Moreton Bay and Queensland Received 1822-1860,” Reel A2.7 (Letters received 1832-1833) 711-2.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Sydney Herald (New South Wales : 1831 – 1842), 28 May 1835, 2-3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12852266.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Australian (Sydney, New South Wales : 1824 – 1848), 5 May 1835, 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article42004778.
[29] Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (New South Wales : 1803 – 1842), 5 May 1835, 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2198052.
[30] The Colonist (Sydney, New South Wales : 1835 – 1840), 7 May 1835, 4- 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31716478.
[31] Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 5 May 1835, 2.
[32] Sydney Monitor (New South Wales : 1828 – 1838), 13 May 1835, 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32148896.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Sydney Herald, 28 May 1835, 2-3; The Colonist (Sydney, New South Wales : 1835 – 1840), 28 May 1835, 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31716562.
Students at the Archives 