Meeting Place

Our families are all over the World I have created this space as a Family meeting place--it is part of an ongoing homeschool study done by myself and my children

Busher Whacker/Whaler


William was released after serving his full sentence June 1838. 
There has always been talk (family talk that is) that when William was released from his term that he joined a bushwhackers gang..Is there any truth to this?, I have no idea ..all we have to go on his oral history so I will assume that somewhere in his stories William relaid to his family his stint as a bushwhacker but it cannot have been for long because he was back on the high seas again Whaling



In the 1830s, the revenue from whale exports was greater than any other produce from Van Diemen's Land.



In Otago Harbour the Weller brothers, like many early whalers originating in and financed from Sydney, established a station in 1831 called Otago (present-day Ōtākou). In 1835 the 85 men there killed 103 whales, producing 260 tuns (248,300 litres) of oil – despite competition from foreign bay whalers. Like other stations which survived for any time, Ōtākou doubled as a trading centre purchasing potatoes, pigs and flax from Māori for sale to Sydney merchants. But it was a precarious existence, and as catches declined in one area a new station would be established elsewhere. In 1841 Ōtākou closed after producing only 10 tuns (9,550 litres) of oil that year.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/whaling/print

The job of a whaler was dangerous and disgusting — with crews of men braving the southern ocean in tiny, wooden boats to pursue the enormous animals.
The death rate among whalers was reportedly "huge".

William is in Van Dieman's Land




arrived in Van Dieman's Land 28th May 1833

Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, part of Australia. The name was changed from Van Diemen's Land to Tasmania in 1856. 
all things relating to William's arrival  are documented are here 

Convicts were a source of labour to build roads, bridges, courthouses, hospitals and other public buildings, or to work on government farms
Assignment
 As expected William & other prisioners would be assigned to do  jobs according to their skills.William was a Labourer and Stockman very likely he was assigned a job using these skills..according to the below document he was assigned as Labourer.



copied from the booklet "tangled threads"


The weekly ‘ration’


The convicts were allocated a weekly food allowance, or ‘ration’ which was set by the government . The ration components altered from time to time, but records show that the convicts living at the Hyde Park barracks between 1819 and 1848 generally received for one week:
7 pounds (3.1 kg) of flour
7 pounds (3.1 kg) beef OR 4 pounds (1.8kg) pork *
3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) maize (corn meal)#
1/2 pound (225 g) of salt
1 pound (455 g) of sugar
1/4 pound (110 g) tea

The daily diet

The superintendent would divide this up so that each day the convicts were given 450 g bread, 450 g meat, a cup of maize (corn meal), a couple of tablespoons of salt, 1/4 cup of sugar, and 15 g tea. The convicts were given two meals a day – breakfast at daybreak, before marching off to wherever they had to work, returning for dinner, which was taken in the middle of the day. The meals were cooked in the barrack’s kitchens, located in the middle of the ‘mess’ halls, or dining rooms.

  • The flour was baked into bread, made by convict bakers at the barracks own bakery, on the northern side of the barrack’s compound.
  • Because there was no refrigeration when fresh meat was available it had to be cooked very quickly or it would spoil.  Alternatively the meat was salted – like today’s corned beef or pickled pork. Pork, which was richer and fattier was issued at a lesser rate of 4 pounds (1.8 kg) per week.  The meat was cooked into soupy stews with whatever vegetables were available.
  • Maize is made from corn, which grew in abundance in the early colony and was very cheap. The convicts ground the corn on the dreaded treadmill to make it into cornmeal, a bit like polenta. It was made into ‘hominy’, a type of porridge or gruel for breakfast, with sugar and salt added to make it palatable. If wheat flour was in short supply it was used for bread.
  • When compared to a 2 g tea bag today, 15 grams would make almost 2 litres of tea! It would be served black, with some of the days allocation of sugar.
  • The ration was supplemented with vegetables that were grown by the convicts in their kitchen garden or could be bought cheaply at the market – generally cabbage, turnips and onions.
    •

Crime and punishment

Convict discipline was invariably harsh and often quite arbitrary. One of the main forms of punishment was a thrashing with the cat o’ nine tails, a multi-tailed whip that often also contained lead weights. Fifty lashes was a standard punishment, which was enough to strip the skin from someone’s back, but this could be increased to more than 100.
Just as dreadful as the cat o' nine tails was a long stint on a chain gang, where convicts were employed to build roads in the colony. The work was backbreaking, and was made difficult and painful as convicts were shackled together around their ankles with irons or chains weighing 4.5kg or more.
During the day, the prisoners were supervised by a military guard assisted by brutal convict overseers , convicts who were given the task of disciplining their fellows. 
At night, they were locked up in small wooden huts behind stockades. Worse than the cat or chain gangs was transportation to harsher and more remote penal settlements in Norfolk Island, Port Macquarie and Moreton Bay.

https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/convict-experience
convict shirt
William served his full sentence and was released 
28th June 1838

Thomas Dies


Thomas Geary 

29 July 1774 - 26 March 1833
Your Memory Lives On


He didn't make it... life was just so hard ,disease was everywhere ,appalling conditions.. 
Conditions on board the floating gaols were appalling. The standards of hygiene were so poor that disease spread quickly. The sick were given little medical attention and were not separated from the healthy.

Williams alone... on his way to Australia, to who knows what?his wife ,mother and children are stricken with grief ..Life is truly hard..

But we are Geary's 

Fortiter et fideliter..Boldly & Faithfully we have to go on


[Death of a convict on the hulk ‘Justitia’], artist unknown, c1830s





Life on the Hulks

A hulk is a decommissioned ship that cannot sail anymore but can stay afloat.

have a read thru this site to get an idea of a day in the life of
 Thomas & William

Justitia
Convicts perform hard labour at the Woolwich Warren. The hulk on the river is the 'Justitia'. Prisoners were kept on board such ships for months awaiting deportation to Australia. The 'Justitia' was a 260 ton prison hulk that had been originally moored in the Thames when the American War of Independence put a stop to the transportation of criminals to the former colonies. The 'Justitia' belonged to the shipowner Duncan Campbell, who was the Government contractor who organized the prison-hulk system at that time. Campbell was subsequently involved in the shipping of convicts to the penal colony at Botany Bay (in fact Port Jackson, later Sydney, just to the north) in New South Wales, the 'first fleet' going out in 1788.
Both Thomas & William are sent to the Justita,but then the unthinkable,they are separated.


HMS Ganymede
William is sent to Ganymede he is here for approx 1 year
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HMS Ganymede was a British prison hulk which was moored in Chatham Harbour in Kent, England. HMS Ganymede was the former French 450 ton frigate Hébé (20 guns, pierced for 34), which, under command of Lieutenant Bretonneuire, was captured by the British frigate Loire on 6 February 1809 while en route from Bordeaux to San Domingo, carrying 600 barrels of flour. Renamed Ganymede, she served with the Royal Navy before being decommissioned. She was converted to a prison hulk in 1819 and later broken up in 1838
Jupiter
and then in 1832 the Jupiter sets sale to Van Dieman's Land

"What you Chaps doing here ?"





Thomas  and William were indicted and tried for feloniously breaking and entering, on the 9 May 1831, a building owned by William Eyre. They jointly stole two bushels of wheat valued at sixteen shillings. They were sentenced to be transported to the Van Dieman's Land, later renamed Tasmanian, Penal Colony in Australia , for a period of seven vears."


5 foot 6 suggest malnourishment(common for the times)
Brown hair
Reddish beard
Grey eyes
Labourer/Stockeeper


Workman worth his Wage

Both Thomas & William are noted as being Labourers & Stockman
During these times you worked hard &long for very little.


 Economic and social
change in Derbyshire between 1830 and 1850. It maintains that there was a breaking down of the old social order. The composition of the ruling classes was changing with the relative growth of industry. In consequence, the responses of the authorities to social protest were changing. There was an increasing reluctance to offer aid to those less fortunate during times of need.

Crime was a problem, and a significant proportion of the crime statistics stemmed from poaching incidents. Poaching was endemic throughout the county, the game reserves proved to be to irresistible for poachers from Derbyshire and the surrounding counties. All too often the confrontations between poachers and keepers turned to violence, and it was not unknown for this violence to result in the death of one of the two parties. Evidence suggests that the crime of poaching was not seen as a crime by most rural dwellers.
The early nineteenth century was a time of significant social transformation in
population, technology and poor relief. Very few people, whether rich or poor, escaped unscathed from these changes. There were losses of jobs, new working environments, more stringent attempts of social control and attempts by the government to enlarge their sphere of influence.
Industrial workers in Derbyshire when put out of work, facing financial distress and hardship, may have resorted to poaching.
Read thru the links below and you see a bleak picture painted of the state of Derbyshire in and around the time of Thomas & William.




Even children worked hard on the farm from as young as six years old.
Boys would be employed to scare the birds from the crops, guard the livestock from straying, pick hops, sow potatoes and beans, gather mushrooms and herd animals to market.
They would also collect firewood, fill sacks with grain and shred turnips.
With age they would progress to ploughing and other hard physical tasks. At harvest time everyone lent a hand making hay or harvesting crops.
 the Geary children in 1931 where aged 11,9,7,6,5 and most likely they also where put to work,no parent wanted to have there children place in a workhouse.







The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was gradually
applied.All a little to late for our grandfathers.

Education


Education
In the Middle Ages the peasants of England were unlettered. The monks at Newstead would teach a few of the youth of neighbouring parishes in the western cloister up to the time of the dissolution  of the  Priory.
A long dark interval of time elapsed between A.D. 1539 and A.D. 1788 when next a centre of education was to be found in Hucknall itself—at the Parish Church—taught by George Green, the Parish Clerk. It is possible that the Byron Charity Trustees had many years previously provided for the instruction of some children, but no books or documents are to be found to tell us.
A hundred years ago a school at Bog End, in Greasley parish, attracted the youth of the district; the Widdowsons and Shaws, of Hucknall attended this school.
The Church marriage register at that period shows that out of 63 people who were required to sign their names, only 26 could write, although George Green was still teaching a few in the Parish Church.

So highly unlikely that Thomas or William could read 

Cost of Living

Wages

During the eighteenth century wages could be as low as two or three pounds per year for a domestic servant, plus food, lodging and clothing. A beggar would normally hope to be given between a farthing and two pence in alms, while a parish pauper could hope for a weekly pension of between a few pence and a few shillings. For a young boy chopping wood the going rate was 1 ½ pence per hour, while a porter could expect a penny for shifting a bushel of coal. A waterman would expect six pence to take you from Westminster to London Bridge, while a barber asked the same to dress your wig and give you a shave.
Female domestic servants earned less than men. Wages for eighteenth-century women could range from the £2 or so mentioned above to between £6 and £8 for a housemaid, and up to £15 per annum for a skilled housekeeper. By contrast a footman could expect £8 per year, and a coachman anywhere between £12 and £26. Because they had to provide their own food, lodging and clothing, independent artisans needed to earn substantially more than this. £15 to £20 per year was a low wage, and a figure closer to £40 was needed to keep a family. The middling sort required much more still and could not expect to live comfortably for under £100 per year, while the boundary between the "middling sort" and the simply rich was in the region of £500. The First Lord of the Treasury enjoyed an annual salary of £4,000.

Food
The poorest people ate mostly potatoes, bread, and cheese. Working-class folks might have had meat a couple of times a week, while the middle class ate three good meals a day. Some common foods eaten were eggs, bacon and bread, mutton, pork, potatoes, and rice. They drank milk and ate sugar and jam. This is when the English tradition of afternoon tea started. At the beginning of the Victorian period, people ate what was available locally or pickled and preserved.


These foods would form a stable of most diets and would be a basis for most meals-Beef, mutton, pork, bacon, cheese, eggs, bread, potatoes, rice, oatmeal, milk, vegetables in season, flour, sugar, treacle, jam and tea.
In the early years of the Victorian era breakfast would have consisted, if you could afford it, of cold meats, cheese and beer.
The level of meat ratio at meal times decreases through the classes. The wealthy Victorian family would have meat daily and cheese and bacon for supper. Where wages begin to decrease meat would only be on the menu 2-3 times a week with a now increased volume of potatoes/vegetables. This would continue to decrease until the lowest rung of the ladder where the poorest would have potatoes as the sole food. The difference in eating habits was substantial
Potato peelings where common




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