Thursday, December 29, 2011
Great Great Great Grandparents (Paternal)
Crick
Thomas Crick (aka Thomas Creek)
Born: 1786 in Tendring, Essex, England
Died: 1838 in NSW, Australia
Amelia (Milly) Francis
Born: 1794
Died: 1874
Children
With Amelia Francis
William Crick: born 1828
Zachariah Crick: born 1831, my great, great, grandfather
Charles Crick: born 1833
With Elizabeth Gosling
Elizabeth Crick: born 1809
Thomas Crick: born 1810
Hannah Crick: born 1814
Maria Crick: born 1813
Simon Crick: born 1815
Jemima Crick: born 1817
Robert Crick: born 1819
Thomas Crick (aka Thomas Creek)
Thomas Crick (or Creek) is my earliest ancestor that I know anything significant about. Born about 1786 (probably) in or around Bradfield in the Tendring area of Essex in England, my great, great, great grandfather appeared to be some sort of rural criminal genius. According to reports in the newspapers of the time, Thomas and his partner in crime, Samuel Barton, were threshing wheat for a local farmer, Benjamin Carrington, and seemingly taking a share of his corn for themselves. They were then selling the stolen corn to the local beer shop owner, William James, at a nice profit.
Then, in a move of epic stupidity, he asked a fellow worker, the 'faithful servant' John Ward, if he wanted in on the racket. Ward promptly ran off to tell the master (no doubt tugging his forelock as he did) who told him to keep his eye out and let him know further developments.
At Whitsunday (seven Sundays after Easter) 1833 Thomas and Barton took another two bushels, secreting it in the straw and coming back at 11pm to pick it up and take it around to James. Thomas bragged about their exploits to Ward the next day and was soon off to the colonies for an enforced seven year holiday, being convicted on 15 October 1833 at the Essex Assizes. Interestingly, Thomas' accomplice Barton rolled over and gave evidence against him and seems to have gotten off without punishment. Not bad considering he'd not long returned from goal.
Thomas is recorded as being removed from Chelmsford Convict Goal at Springfield to the hulk York lying off Gosport (Portsmouth) around 22 November 1833. At the time the British Government was using old warships as prisons to relieve the overcrowding in land-based prisons and as a holding place for convicts sentenced to transportation. The York had been a 74-gun battleship launched in 1807 at Rotherhithe. She was converted to a prison hulk in 1819 and served at Gosport and London from 1820 until 1848. Typically she confined about 500 convicts. She was taken out of service and broken up in 1854.
It seems the Portsmouth hulks looked like slum tenements, with bedding airing between the stumps of the masts, and the gun ports barred with iron lattices. They were cramped and wet inside, dark and apparently vile smelling. As they arrived, each convict was stripped of his clothing and all of his personal belongings. In exchange he received coarse convict garb and a 14-pound iron, riveted to the right ankle as a discouragement to escape by swimming. After the convict was shackled in irons, he was ready to work from dawn to dusk in the nearby government dockyards.
Co-incidentally, another convict ancestor of mine, my maternal three times grandfather, Thomas Gilham or Gillam, a smuggler, was also confined on the York in 1826 before being transported to Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania).
In any case, and fortunately for Thomas, he wasn't too long in the York, sailing on the Surry, leaving Portsmouth on 9 April 1834 for New South Wales. Not that the journey in a convict ship was a cakewalk - convicts were housed below decks on the prison deck and often further confined behind bars. In many cases they were restrained in chains and were only allowed on deck for fresh air and exercise. Conditions were cramped and they slept on hammocks.
After arriving in Sydney he was assigned to a landowner named John Galt Smith at his property Woodville at Paterson about 50km North West of Newcastle. He is then recorded as being buried in 1838 at Christ Church in Newcastle, his abode being recorded as Newcastle Hospital. Quite what Thomas was doing in Newcastle is a bit of a mystery. It is possible he fell ill while in Newcastle while on an errand for Smith, he could have escaped or it is very possible he committed a crime punishable by death while in Smith's service and was transported from the hospital to the church for burial. As I said, a real criminal genius!
It was common practice in England for the bodies of executed criminals to be handed over to the local hospital for use in dissection - maybe this accounts for Thomas' abode being given as the hospital.
In the meantime - again, as reported in the local newspaper - his wife Milly dropped two of her three kids off at the local poorhouse and headed off to live with a stepdaughter from a previous marriage about 20 miles away. The story hit the local paper as the wardens of the poorhouse took her to court for not supporting the children. The case was adjourned awaiting further information and I haven't found a final decision.
There's no doubt things were tough for the families of transportees. Not only did they lose their prime, if not only source of income, they quite often never heard from their family member again. Very, very few wives and families went with their spouse or joined him later. The British Government certainly did not advise families of the fate of their relative. They would not have, for example, advised Milly of Thomas' death in 1838. In 1841 she unaware of Thomas' death and seemed to be under the impression that Thomas might return. She said in court that she had heard from Thomas once in the seven years since his transportation, precluding him being declared dead.
However, back to Thomas, according the list of convicts on the ship Surry arriving in Sydney on 17 August 1834, Thomas was short (5' 6" same height as me), had dark brown hair (same as me), grey eyes (same as me), a dark (same as me) but sallow complexion (hard to see how you could be both, but in any case, not the same as me), a small mole on his left eyebrow and a few teeth missing. Sounds like Thomas and I might have looked something alike - but I'm not planning to repeat his apparent fate!
Things did not go well for the beer shop owner, William James, either. He was convicted of stealing the four bushels of corn he received from Thomas and Barton. He was sentenced to seven years transportation and arrived in Sydney on the Hooghly in 1834. At William's trial, Carrington admitted that he would not have known of the thefts had Ward not told him!
No doubt descendants of William will want to contact me with thanks for the role of Thomas in planting this branch of the James line in Australia!
A Little Bit of History
The world that my great great great grandparents lived in was vastly different to ours. Not yet fully immersed in the Industrial Revolution that transformed England in the nineteenth century, England's economy was largely based on agriculture.
Seven out of ten English folk lived in the country, mostly, like Thomas and many of my ancestors, in one of the thousands of small villages that dot the English landscape. Our ancestors probably lived in a small rented house with few of the amenities we would expect. There was no running water (that came from a communal village water pump), no toilet, bathroom or shower, no electricity and an earth floor. Houses were usually pretty crowded and there was little privacy. Thomas and Milly would have had at least three children with them in what was likely a one room house.
Most of the men in the village would work for a local farmer and were usually hired on a year to year basis.
Some Explanations
Creek or Crick
Court proceedings and Thomas' convict records record his surname as 'Creek' but I believe this was probably a court official's misunderstanding, most likely due to the country accent Thomas would have had. As Thomas was illiterate, he could not correct the record. Thomas' father was known as 'Crick,' and signed his name that way. Thomas' children certainly went by Crick.
The Beer House of William James
As a convict William's occupation given as labourer or farm labourer, no mention is made of his beer house.
My belief is that William probably worked as a labourer during the day and ran his beer shop after the work day was finished. This would make sense as he would have not had many customers during the day when the men were all at work. Also, William may not have actually paid the license fee for his beer shop and may not have wished to reveal this.
Under a banner of "reducing public drunkenness" the Beer Act of 1830 introduced a new lower tier of premises permitted to sell alcohol, the Beer Houses. At the time beer was viewed as harmless, nutritious and even healthy. Young children were often given what was described as small beer, which was brewed to have a low alcohol content, as the local water was often unsafe. Even the evangelical church and temperance movements of the day viewed the drinking of beer very much as a secondary evil and a normal accompaniment to a meal. The freely available beer was thus intended to wean the drinkers off the evils of gin, or so the thinking went.
Under the 1830 Act any householder who paid rates could apply, with a one-off payment of two guineas (roughly equal in value to £159 today), to sell beer or cider in his home (usually the front parlour) and even to brew his own on his premises. The permission did not extend to the sale of spirits and fortified wines, and any beer house discovered selling those items was closed down and the owner heavily fined. Beer houses were not permitted to open on Sundays. The beer was usually served in jugs or dispensed directly from tapped wooden barrels on a table in the corner of the room. Often profits were so high the owners were able to buy the house next door to live in, turning every room in their former home into bars and lounges for customers.
Comment by judge
Benjamin Carrington
Carrington seems to have been a substantial member of the Essex community and perhaps someone Thomas should not have taken on.
If I have it right, Carrington was born about and died in 1853.
In 1810 he owns a farm in Little Bromley and lives there. Little Bromley is about 5 miles from Bradfield. By 1841 he is described as being of 'independent' means and lives in Bradfield. In 1851 he still lives in Bradfield and is described as a retired farmer.
White's 1848 Directory of Essex lists him as the High Constable for Essex.
Australian Royalty
We usually think of punishment for crime being imprisonment or a fine - this was not so in Britain in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, most criminal offenses brought a death penalty, a fine and or whipping. Over 200 crimes were punishable by death, mostly crimes against property such as stealing or even cutting down a tree.
Transportation started during the seventeenth century as a humane alternative to the death penalty. At first most sentenced to transportation were sent to America, but after the American Revolution of 1776 this destination was no longer available. Sentences of transportation were still passed, but convicts were held in prisons which quickly became overcrowded. The overflow was accommodated in 'hulks' (see above) moored around the coast, but they too soon became overcrowded.
The solution developed was to found a new penal colony. After James Cook reported that Botany Bay in New South Wales in Australia was suitable for a settlement it was chosen and on 13 May 1787 the First Fleet set sail for Australia.
Transportation was not formally abolished until 1868, but in practice it was effectively stopped in 1857, and had become increasingly unusual well before that date. During that time about 160,000 convicts arrived in Australia including two of my great great great grandfathers.
For many years Australians were embarrassed by the origins of our country, despite it being one of the most peaceful and crime free countries in the world. Things have rather changed now - one of our most famous actors, Jack Thompson, on learning of his convict ancestry, exclaimed 'Australian royalty'!
Sources:
Elizabeth Gammell Hedquist, Escape from Van Dieman's Land The James Gammell Chronicles
Convicts to Australia website
Unknown, Crown Court, Essex Standard, 26 October 1833
Unknown, Local Intelligence, Chelmsford Chronicle, 22 November 1833
Unknown, Essex Adjourned Session, Chelmsford Chronicle, 29 November 1833
Unknown, Essex Adjourned Session, Essex Standard, 30 November 1833
Wikipedia List of British Prison Hulks
Wikipedia Convicts in Australia
Wikipedia Pubs
The National Archives, Research Guide Transportation to Australia 1787-1868
Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore
Some information on Thomas and Milly Crick thanks to Patrick Denney
Amelia Francis
Died in 1874 at the age of 80, her abode given as Tendring Workhouse.
Thomas Crick (aka Thomas Creek)
Born: 1786 in Tendring, Essex, England
Died: 1838 in NSW, Australia
Amelia (Milly) Francis
Born: 1794
Died: 1874
Children
With Amelia Francis
William Crick: born 1828
Zachariah Crick: born 1831, my great, great, grandfather
Charles Crick: born 1833
With Elizabeth Gosling
Elizabeth Crick: born 1809
Thomas Crick: born 1810
Hannah Crick: born 1814
Maria Crick: born 1813
Simon Crick: born 1815
Jemima Crick: born 1817
Robert Crick: born 1819
Thomas Crick (aka Thomas Creek)
Thomas Crick (or Creek) is my earliest ancestor that I know anything significant about. Born about 1786 (probably) in or around Bradfield in the Tendring area of Essex in England, my great, great, great grandfather appeared to be some sort of rural criminal genius. According to reports in the newspapers of the time, Thomas and his partner in crime, Samuel Barton, were threshing wheat for a local farmer, Benjamin Carrington, and seemingly taking a share of his corn for themselves. They were then selling the stolen corn to the local beer shop owner, William James, at a nice profit.
Then, in a move of epic stupidity, he asked a fellow worker, the 'faithful servant' John Ward, if he wanted in on the racket. Ward promptly ran off to tell the master (no doubt tugging his forelock as he did) who told him to keep his eye out and let him know further developments.
At Whitsunday (seven Sundays after Easter) 1833 Thomas and Barton took another two bushels, secreting it in the straw and coming back at 11pm to pick it up and take it around to James. Thomas bragged about their exploits to Ward the next day and was soon off to the colonies for an enforced seven year holiday, being convicted on 15 October 1833 at the Essex Assizes. Interestingly, Thomas' accomplice Barton rolled over and gave evidence against him and seems to have gotten off without punishment. Not bad considering he'd not long returned from goal.
Thomas is recorded as being removed from Chelmsford Convict Goal at Springfield to the hulk York lying off Gosport (Portsmouth) around 22 November 1833. At the time the British Government was using old warships as prisons to relieve the overcrowding in land-based prisons and as a holding place for convicts sentenced to transportation. The York had been a 74-gun battleship launched in 1807 at Rotherhithe. She was converted to a prison hulk in 1819 and served at Gosport and London from 1820 until 1848. Typically she confined about 500 convicts. She was taken out of service and broken up in 1854.
The hulk York
Co-incidentally, another convict ancestor of mine, my maternal three times grandfather, Thomas Gilham or Gillam, a smuggler, was also confined on the York in 1826 before being transported to Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania).
In any case, and fortunately for Thomas, he wasn't too long in the York, sailing on the Surry, leaving Portsmouth on 9 April 1834 for New South Wales. Not that the journey in a convict ship was a cakewalk - convicts were housed below decks on the prison deck and often further confined behind bars. In many cases they were restrained in chains and were only allowed on deck for fresh air and exercise. Conditions were cramped and they slept on hammocks.
After arriving in Sydney he was assigned to a landowner named John Galt Smith at his property Woodville at Paterson about 50km North West of Newcastle. He is then recorded as being buried in 1838 at Christ Church in Newcastle, his abode being recorded as Newcastle Hospital. Quite what Thomas was doing in Newcastle is a bit of a mystery. It is possible he fell ill while in Newcastle while on an errand for Smith, he could have escaped or it is very possible he committed a crime punishable by death while in Smith's service and was transported from the hospital to the church for burial. As I said, a real criminal genius!
It was common practice in England for the bodies of executed criminals to be handed over to the local hospital for use in dissection - maybe this accounts for Thomas' abode being given as the hospital.
In the meantime - again, as reported in the local newspaper - his wife Milly dropped two of her three kids off at the local poorhouse and headed off to live with a stepdaughter from a previous marriage about 20 miles away. The story hit the local paper as the wardens of the poorhouse took her to court for not supporting the children. The case was adjourned awaiting further information and I haven't found a final decision.
There's no doubt things were tough for the families of transportees. Not only did they lose their prime, if not only source of income, they quite often never heard from their family member again. Very, very few wives and families went with their spouse or joined him later. The British Government certainly did not advise families of the fate of their relative. They would not have, for example, advised Milly of Thomas' death in 1838. In 1841 she unaware of Thomas' death and seemed to be under the impression that Thomas might return. She said in court that she had heard from Thomas once in the seven years since his transportation, precluding him being declared dead.
However, back to Thomas, according the list of convicts on the ship Surry arriving in Sydney on 17 August 1834, Thomas was short (5' 6" same height as me), had dark brown hair (same as me), grey eyes (same as me), a dark (same as me) but sallow complexion (hard to see how you could be both, but in any case, not the same as me), a small mole on his left eyebrow and a few teeth missing. Sounds like Thomas and I might have looked something alike - but I'm not planning to repeat his apparent fate!
Things did not go well for the beer shop owner, William James, either. He was convicted of stealing the four bushels of corn he received from Thomas and Barton. He was sentenced to seven years transportation and arrived in Sydney on the Hooghly in 1834. At William's trial, Carrington admitted that he would not have known of the thefts had Ward not told him!
No doubt descendants of William will want to contact me with thanks for the role of Thomas in planting this branch of the James line in Australia!
A Little Bit of History
The world that my great great great grandparents lived in was vastly different to ours. Not yet fully immersed in the Industrial Revolution that transformed England in the nineteenth century, England's economy was largely based on agriculture.
Seven out of ten English folk lived in the country, mostly, like Thomas and many of my ancestors, in one of the thousands of small villages that dot the English landscape. Our ancestors probably lived in a small rented house with few of the amenities we would expect. There was no running water (that came from a communal village water pump), no toilet, bathroom or shower, no electricity and an earth floor. Houses were usually pretty crowded and there was little privacy. Thomas and Milly would have had at least three children with them in what was likely a one room house.
Most of the men in the village would work for a local farmer and were usually hired on a year to year basis.
Some Explanations
Creek or Crick
Court proceedings and Thomas' convict records record his surname as 'Creek' but I believe this was probably a court official's misunderstanding, most likely due to the country accent Thomas would have had. As Thomas was illiterate, he could not correct the record. Thomas' father was known as 'Crick,' and signed his name that way. Thomas' children certainly went by Crick.
The Beer House of William James
As a convict William's occupation given as labourer or farm labourer, no mention is made of his beer house.
My belief is that William probably worked as a labourer during the day and ran his beer shop after the work day was finished. This would make sense as he would have not had many customers during the day when the men were all at work. Also, William may not have actually paid the license fee for his beer shop and may not have wished to reveal this.
Under a banner of "reducing public drunkenness" the Beer Act of 1830 introduced a new lower tier of premises permitted to sell alcohol, the Beer Houses. At the time beer was viewed as harmless, nutritious and even healthy. Young children were often given what was described as small beer, which was brewed to have a low alcohol content, as the local water was often unsafe. Even the evangelical church and temperance movements of the day viewed the drinking of beer very much as a secondary evil and a normal accompaniment to a meal. The freely available beer was thus intended to wean the drinkers off the evils of gin, or so the thinking went.
Under the 1830 Act any householder who paid rates could apply, with a one-off payment of two guineas (roughly equal in value to £159 today), to sell beer or cider in his home (usually the front parlour) and even to brew his own on his premises. The permission did not extend to the sale of spirits and fortified wines, and any beer house discovered selling those items was closed down and the owner heavily fined. Beer houses were not permitted to open on Sundays. The beer was usually served in jugs or dispensed directly from tapped wooden barrels on a table in the corner of the room. Often profits were so high the owners were able to buy the house next door to live in, turning every room in their former home into bars and lounges for customers.
Comment by judge
Benjamin Carrington
Carrington seems to have been a substantial member of the Essex community and perhaps someone Thomas should not have taken on.
If I have it right, Carrington was born about and died in 1853.
In 1810 he owns a farm in Little Bromley and lives there. Little Bromley is about 5 miles from Bradfield. By 1841 he is described as being of 'independent' means and lives in Bradfield. In 1851 he still lives in Bradfield and is described as a retired farmer.
White's 1848 Directory of Essex lists him as the High Constable for Essex.
Australian Royalty
We usually think of punishment for crime being imprisonment or a fine - this was not so in Britain in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, most criminal offenses brought a death penalty, a fine and or whipping. Over 200 crimes were punishable by death, mostly crimes against property such as stealing or even cutting down a tree.
Transportation started during the seventeenth century as a humane alternative to the death penalty. At first most sentenced to transportation were sent to America, but after the American Revolution of 1776 this destination was no longer available. Sentences of transportation were still passed, but convicts were held in prisons which quickly became overcrowded. The overflow was accommodated in 'hulks' (see above) moored around the coast, but they too soon became overcrowded.
The solution developed was to found a new penal colony. After James Cook reported that Botany Bay in New South Wales in Australia was suitable for a settlement it was chosen and on 13 May 1787 the First Fleet set sail for Australia.
Transportation was not formally abolished until 1868, but in practice it was effectively stopped in 1857, and had become increasingly unusual well before that date. During that time about 160,000 convicts arrived in Australia including two of my great great great grandfathers.
For many years Australians were embarrassed by the origins of our country, despite it being one of the most peaceful and crime free countries in the world. Things have rather changed now - one of our most famous actors, Jack Thompson, on learning of his convict ancestry, exclaimed 'Australian royalty'!
Sources:
Elizabeth Gammell Hedquist, Escape from Van Dieman's Land The James Gammell Chronicles
Convicts to Australia website
Unknown, Crown Court, Essex Standard, 26 October 1833
Unknown, Local Intelligence, Chelmsford Chronicle, 22 November 1833
Unknown, Essex Adjourned Session, Chelmsford Chronicle, 29 November 1833
Unknown, Essex Adjourned Session, Essex Standard, 30 November 1833
Wikipedia List of British Prison Hulks
Wikipedia Convicts in Australia
Wikipedia Pubs
The National Archives, Research Guide Transportation to Australia 1787-1868
Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore
Some information on Thomas and Milly Crick thanks to Patrick Denney
Amelia Francis
Died in 1874 at the age of 80, her abode given as Tendring Workhouse.
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