THE SABLE PROVENANCE
by
John Namnik
***
PUBLISHED BY CHARGAN AT SMASHWORDS
This book available in print from
www.chargan.com
The Sable Provenance
Copyright © 2012 John Namnik
Graphics, 2009, Steve Whitfield
www.idstudios.net.au
Cover Design by Benjamin Namnik
ISBN: 978-1-4661-7915-8
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
John Namnik has asserted his right under the Copyright Act 1976 to be identified as the author of this work.
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At the rear of an unremarkable tenement situated in a nondescript cobbled street of Newcastle-on-Tyne, John Mould, twenty-seven year old carpenter and joiner, was silently congratulating himself. In a few minutes he would turn out another faultless, shiny, sixpence. Not only could he give himself a pat on the back for that, he was chuffed that he and Eleanor had twice escaped committal for stealing and for uttering false coinage. It was Ellen’s idea to exchange ten counterfeit sixpences for Mary McArthur’s two and six. Well, that made two stupid women – he would not make the same mistake next time.
He sniggered at the irony of his name, Mould, as he prepared to pour the molten metal into a mold. Into the brass that was now liquid in his crucible, he placed one drop of pure silver, added a little arsenic to lighten the colour of the brass, and then prepared to add two drops of nitric acid which would bring the silver to the surface, giving the whole concoction the appearance of pure silver.
He didn’t need distractions at this point and bristled at the crying and thumping that he heard coming from the front of the house.
“Ellen! Control your little brats, will ya!” But the hubbub continued and increased in volume.
“Ellen!” he roared, “I’m not tellin’ you again. Shut those…”
He swung around as the door behind him flew open. Five constables burst into the room.
“John Mould, you won’t be gettin’ out of this one. You’re nicked laddie, and your missus along with you,” threatened the senior constable.
Eleanor’s voice screeched above the crying of her three children.
“I can’t leave me kids. What about me kids?”
“The Welfare’s outside; they’ll be taking your children” was the passionless reply.
***
A nervous couple stood before a solemn-faced bewigged magistrate as he pronounced:
“Eleanor Mould, you are found ‘not guilty’ on the charge of Coining; you are hereby discharged. John Mould, you are found ‘guilty’ on the charge of Coining. This offence is considered to be treason and as such, carries the penalty of execution by hanging. However, this court hereby commutes your sentence to transportation to the colony of New South Wales for the term of your natural life. Such sentence is not to be considered as an act of compassion, but is due to the need for skilled tradesmen in that colony. You are to be taken forthwith to the hulk prison Retribution where you will remain until such time as you are transported.”
Feeling returned to John’s legs – feeling that had drained away the instant that ‘hanging’ was mentioned – and he was able to march under his own steam to the holding cell.
***
As the magistrate pounded his gavel to signal the closure of proceedings against John Mould, that day the gavel was pounding the magistrate’s bench in Sydney to bring to a close a case involving the pastoral magnate, John MacArthur.
The bench of magistrates determined that he could keep the two stills he had imported from Glasgow and which had been impounded by Governor William Bligh, who had banned the practice of distilling. This was yet another episode in a litany of acrimonious incidents between the country’s most senior public servant and its most powerful businessman. Concurrent with the proceedings over the stills were several other issues, most seriously the matter of aiding the escape of a convict via the schooner Parramatta, which was owned by MacArthur.
Bligh had MacArthur tried for sedition and while Judge Advocate Richard Atkins, having endured a haranguing outburst by MacArthur, promised that the pastoralist would be thrown into prison; Atkins himself was in turn berated by his six fellow magistrates (members of the NSW Corps), whereupon Atkins stormed from the court.
What followed amounted to Australia’s only coup d”état. Next day, on the 20th Anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet, the NSW Corps rebelled against the administration and invaded Government House. They placed Bligh under house arrest where he remained for about a year. So, having lost his ship, Bounty, to mutiny, now Bligh had lost the whole colony to mutiny. Major Johnston of the Corps appointed himself as Lieutenant Governor and soon after appointed MacArthur as Colonial Secretary and Magistrate.
***
Such was the state of the colony when John Mould arrived several months later on the Admiral Gambier, a ship of 500 tons, carrying 200 prisoners. For most of the journey the ship was part of a fleet led by HMS Polyphemus of 64 guns. At home, Eleanor again turned to crime but not always for the purpose of supporting her children for, although she had another child of unknown paternity, she remarried one Christopher Bunbury. It was four years after John departed before she was arrested and departed for NSW on the Minstrel. John and Eleanor did not get together again. Ellen was soon living with another, Richard Woollock, and John had his eye on a lass named Lydia.
As John Mould tinkered with coining in Newcastle-on-Tyne, a secretive meeting was taking place two hundred miles south in a manor in Worcester. Lydia Martin (née Chambers), Maria and Sarah Hopkins and Mary Pearsale were taking a tea break from their domestic duties at the home of the manager of the Worcester Weaving Factory.
“Let’s do it tonight, Mr Earl is taking his old bag to the theatre. Let’s hope Mrs La-de-dah don’t wear too much jewellery. When Sarah and I have done their dishes after dinner, we’ll beg a ride into town with them, sayin’ we want to visit our mum.”
“What about the dogs, Maria? Henry, their loyal do-all, will let ’em out before he drives the old farts to the theatre.”
“Cripes, Mary, don’t be daft. I’ll leave ’em out some meat laced with laudanum. They’ll be asleep or dead by the time Henry gets back,” re-assured Maria. She and her sister, Sarah, lived on site with the dogsbody Henry. Lydia and Mary, the daytime domestics, had their own homes to go back to every day.
“Now,” continued Maria, “Lydia and Mary, you don’t go home after work. You two hide in the greenhouse. When the dogs are knocked out, you break in an’ pinch the old bag’s jewels.”
“We’ll only have ’arf an hour before Henry gets back,” said Lydia.
“That’s right, so don’t ’ang about, when Henry drops Sarah and me off, we’ll go ’round the corner and get a Hansom and pick you up in front of the neighbours. Then you’ll give me the booty and I’ll give it to me bruver ’n ’e can fence it in Birmingham. An’ yoose two get yourselves some alibis.”
The scheme played out as planned but two factors brought the women down. Henry, when asked by the constabulary if he’d seen anybody near the manor on the said evening, reported that he recognised the Hansom driver who picked up a fare near the manor. The driver was traced and reported that he had picked up two women next door to Mr Earl’s manor and furnished a description. The second factor was Mary’s greed. When her belongings were searched, Mrs. Earl’s diamond ring was found in her possession.
Two weeks before the gavel sealed John Mould’s fate, the gavel came down on Lydia (Chambers) Martin’s sentence of seven years, to be served in parts beyond the seas, for Grand Larceny. Both were interned for exactly one year before embarking for the antipodes: plenty of time for the married Lydia to manage a tryst with the prison guard, John Moore. Such a relationship was not necessarily a fleeting folly for it gave a girl protection, especially if the guard was assigned to the maritime transport which, in John Moore’s case, he was. But it was hardly a relationship of love, judging by Lydia’s future activities.
The result of this tryst saw Lydia board ship five months pregnant, so these were two reasons she did not have to be concerned about rape – her lover John, and her embryonic John. As her lover-guard assisted her mount the gangway to board the Aeolus on the Portsmouth Docks she could have cast her eyes to the left and seen John Mould ascending the gangway of the Admiral Gambier.
Two months later, after the arrival of the flotilla in Rio, John could have seen a pregnant woman scrambling along the deck of the 200 ton ship docked adjacent; not unlikely since the lascivious eyes of two-hundred men would certainly be cast toward the deck-load of eighty women. But they would not dock together in Port Jackson (Sydney) for Aeolus left Rio later, got caught in storms and found it necessary to return for repairs. Such conditions blurred any distinction between morning sickness and seasickness but at least – since the Aeolus was single-decked – one did not have to bother calling out the standard warning of “watch under” or “chunder,” as one leaned over the railing to vomit.
Lydia delivered baby John. At least, she thought, I will have some rest-time before they set me to work in the Female Factory. Just two weeks after docking at Port Jackson on the twenty-first anniversary of white settlement in Australia, and exactly one year since the Rum Rebellion and Bligh’s arrest, Lydia first set foot on Australian soil.
Eventually, John Moore gained promotion which entitled him to private quarters and a servant. He chose Lydia naturally, and within two years of their arrival in NSW they were parents of their second child, Eliza. However, the home was no love nest. Within nine months of Eliza’s arrival, Lydia was pregnant to another man – John Mould. It was no longer a problem if Lydia wished to leave her Master and de facto because she had been granted her Ticket-of-Leave just before she became pregnant. Convicts were eligible for a Ticket-of-Leave after three years, a Conditional Pardon after ten years, and an Absolute Pardon after fifteen years.
Lydia had fallen for the five-foot-nine dark-haired, tanned, ruddy thirty-year-old foreman of the Colony’s lumberyards. He must have had the looks, for there were ten times as many single men as single women which gave women plenty to choose from when seeking a mate. Not that either was single. Whilst married convicts could remarry after seven years if their spouse was left in Great Britain, this condition did not apply to John, since Eleanor, his wife, was also in NSW. So John and Lydia formed a de facto arrangement and would have four children of their own. That Lydia registered young John and Eliza with the surname of Mould at their baptism (as well as their own four children) is testament that Lydia had quite some respect for her new man. However, the reader will, most likely, not be of the same opinion about the man whose consistent criminal behaviour saw his first three children left orphaned in the small settlement in which they both lived. His future behaviour too, may not be regarded as an endearing trait.
It is only the first issue of John and Lydia which concerns our story. Her name was Jemima and she arrived on April Fools Day, 1814, and, fortunately for her descendants, she would prove to be very foolish, sixteen years hence.
The two intrepid burglars had only just closed the first floor window behind them when the bigger of them, William Sanderson, blurted in a whisper, “my God Johnno, there’s somebody coming up the stairs!”
“Damn, you said the house would be deserted. What do we do now?”
“Get out fast.” But it was too late to make a getaway.
“Who might you be then?” asked the young lassie, dressed as a maid and holding a lit candle.
“Good evening to you, miss. Your master asked us to check this faulty window with a view to replacing it. Sure enough it ain’t working since you’d be beholding us standing here.”
“But it’s the night,” she challenged. The quick-witted Will gathered from the few words she had said that he was dealing with an intellect well below par. He thought too that since she hadn’t asked why they hadn’t knocked at the front door, then she may be quite gullible.
“Aye, ’tis the night as you say. But we are so busy fixing things in the day that we can only come at night. And what might your name be, lass?
“I’m Sarah.”
“Same as me own little daughter. May I say that you have lovely red hair, Sarah. We’ll be going, now that we’ve checked the window and I’ll be getting in touch with your master about the fixing of it.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, blushing over the compliment, “I’ll show you to the door.”
Once back in the street, John Waddell turned to Will: “Whew, not even me own cut-throat shaves that close. Are ye thinking it could mean trouble?”
“Seein’ as it’s our sixth job, it could well mean trouble. Maybe we had better quit it for a while.”
“Margaret’s lined up the house of her mistress, Mrs Paton, for tomorrow night: she’ll be going to the Kirk for a few hours.”
“Let Hodgey and Licky do it. I want to get home for a shot of single-malt,” replied Will referring to the Scotch they had picked up on their previous job.
“Hey, I want to sell that stuff, Will! You know I’m savin’ desperate to start me own smithy business.”
Within a week, the burgling syndicate of four couples would be wondering what had given them away.
Nine months after John Mould and Lydia Martin had separately received their sentences, and while they were serving time awaiting transportation, a short-lived crime wave in Glasgow came to an end.
Once again the gavel fell, this time on John Waddell and his wife Margaret (née McDonald) as they were sentenced to 14 years transportation.
In the interim John was sent to The Tollbooth, built in 1636 at the intersection of Trangate and High Streets. (The steeple was preserved and still towers above the Glasgow Cross). Like John Mould who was currently interned in a prison hulk, John Waddell was later moved to another hulk, the Zealand. Margaret was sent by coach to the notorious Newgate Prison in London. Unlike the Moulds, the Waddells had a great mutual affection so they could only hope that it would not be long before they were re-united in Terra Australis.
Apart from their immediate plight of privation and separation, John and Margaret suffered the guilt of bringing shame upon their own families, who were hard-working, honest people, just as they themselves had been until...
John was ambitious; once he qualified as a smithy, under his master Wright, he would move from New Lanark Village to the big city. The village was a company town owned by the Glasgow banker, David Dale, who built the textile mills housing for the workers and all the facilities required by a small town; as such it offered little opportunity for private business. His mother and father, Margaret Young and John Waddell from Falkirk and Paisley respectively, had moved their family to New Lanark for work in the mills. The family consisted of young John and his five sisters. John was ready to leave the town (which is still preserved by the National Trust), but his father was seriously ill. John senior did not hold out for long and young John left shortly after his father’s death for Glasgow where he soon met and fell in love with Margaret McDonald who, born in 1783, was six years older than he.
Margaret was a servant for Mrs Paton and John was a wright for Mr Auchinvole and both were saving to set up an independent business when John was laid off due to lack of work.
Both were hard working and honest until John and several friends found themselves without work.
Margaret and 100 other females sailed from England on the Friends and arrived in Port Jackson on 10th October 1811. She spent an anxious four months in the Women’s Factory awaiting John’s arrival. As Friends docked, John left England on the Guildford for the four-month voyage. He arrived on 25th January, 1812 which was a day of celebration in the colony for His Majesty’s birthday. The next day, the 24th anniversary of white settlement, John and Margaret were re-united and had their own celebration. They were told that they were listed for further transport to Van Diemen’s Land and they would be dispatched together. But, while at Port Jackson, they found suitable time and circumstance to conceive their first child.
***
The colony had regained some stability since the arrival of Gov. Lachlan Macquarie. Conspirators of the Rum Rebellion were being tried and punished. John MacArthur was under an Order of Exile from NSW.
On 21st April the first horse race meeting was held at Parramatta. Carnivals were held that included horse racing, foot racing, cock fighting, and boxing. Macquarie, though, banned gambling, drunkenness, swearing, quarrelling, fighting and lewdness.
The first bank was mooted – The NSW Loan Bank – to overcome the fraud associated with hand-written promissory notes and the holey dollar was introduced as coinage.
Ralph Malkins led his wife into the streets by a neck-rope seeking bids for her sale and Thomas Quire bought her for £16. Prosecution saw Malkins receive 50 lashes while his wife was sent to Newcastle. Quire simply lost his money.
Rev. Samuel Marsden exported the very first load of wool, 4000 lbs, to England on the Admiral Gambier, the ship which had transported John Mould.
House numbers were ordered to be painted on all dwellings at the cost of sixpence.
Macquarie was touring Van Diemen’s Land and ordered a town and port to be built at Port Dalrymple, at the mouth of the Tamar, to be called George Town. At the time he was under some pressure to account for the escalation of the colony’s expenditure which was £72,500 in 1810.
The Governor ordered a decrease of the military population which stood at 1,100 soldiers in a total population of 11,000. The Select Committee on Transportation wanted more women transported but Macquarie said they were simply a drawback, to which the Committee replied: “But yet, with all their vices, such women were the mothers of the colony’s inhabitants.”
The brig Emu, bound for Hobart, was captured by the US ship, Holkar, as a consequence of the War of Independence between England and America.
Sam Jervis came out of the bush after living with Aborigines for 23 years. He had jumped ship on the Tamar when he learned that the Captain planned to maroon him and assume his inheritance.
***
On Gov. Macquarie’s return from his tour, he set to with his quill to tackle his paperwork. On 12th June, 1812 he penned a memorandum to Major Gordon, the Commandant at Port Dalrymple. In essence, he mentioned that he was sending, on the Lady Nelson, thirty males and twelve female convicts among whom he would receive “five very good and useful tradesmen, namely a blacksmith, a wheelwright, a carpenter and two bricklayers”… allowing the blacksmith and wheelwright to work occasionally for the settlers (as well as the Government). The blacksmith was John Waddell. The population at the Port consisted of just some 300 people of whom half were convicts.
Within months the first son was born to the Waddells. His name, of course was John (the third); Elizabeth arrived five years later and David in 1819. They were all baptised by Rev. Knopwood at St John’s Church of England in Launceston. The Anglican minister found himself administering the sacraments to all the Christian denominations as he travelled the height and breadth of Van Diemen’s Land.
John and Margaret were sent to Launceston not too long after landing at Port Dalrymple and whenever they had the opportunity they applied for land and livestock by grant or purchase. Eventually they built their own house – one of the first ever built in Launceston – and attached to it was a smith; thus John and Margaret finally achieved their dream of owning their own workshop.
Genealogical table: The Morris Ancestry
Genealogical table: The Family of John Waddell IV and Mary Ann Russell
Genealogical table: The Family of John Riley and Mariah Morris
In 1814, bushrangers were creating so much mayhem in Van Diemen’s Land that Gov. Macquarie offered them an amnesty, but made the mistake of allowing them seven months to surrender, thus giving them carte blanche to create further havoc in that period.
The conditions on convict ships became worse instead of better, with many dying from typhus, including many of the crew. Conflicts with natives were on the increase and in New Zealand a European crew had been massacred, roasted and devoured.
The great explorer who had mapped the coastline of New Holland and christened the continent “Australia” was released by the French after six years of imprisonment on Mauritius. He died, aged 40, just before Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo ending conflict between France and England.
Pugilism finally gained official acceptance with a bare-knuckled prize fight over 50 rounds.
The first steam engine was imported from England, an invention patented over 30 years previously.
The Adamande carried Van Diemen’s Land’s first free settlers into Hobart on 20th September 1816. The exodus of convicts from Norfolk Island to Van Diemen’s Land ceased.
John MacArthur returned to NSW after eight years exile in England to resume his breeding of merinos and exporting of the fleece which his wife and sons had carried on in his absence. It would not be long before he would clash again with the Gov. – this time Macquarie. The new Gov. was an emancipist and insisted on the equality of pardoned convicts; MacArthur and other elite powerbrokers wanted a two-tier social structure and were thus the pioneers of any consequent class system in the country.
Fr Jeremiah O’Flynn was the first Catholic Priest to enter the country. The Gov. banned him from practising and sought confirmation that he had permission from London to migrate. He was soon sent packing back to Ireland. To date, that amounted to 20 years of anti-Catholic discrimination, if not persecution, since the First Fleet arrived. It took a further five years for two priests to be permitted entry, and then they were restricted in their ministrations while general gatherings by Catholics, outside church service, were banned.
As Macquarie was replaced by Sir Thomas Brisbane, driving on the left side of the road became law.
***
The warm morning sun glinted off the sabres of the two Redcoats who heeled their chestnut steeds on either side of Gov. Macquarie’s grey. Lachlan Macquarie had today donned his royal blue tunic bearing gold epaulettes; his navy blue breeches were tucked into long shiny-brown leather boots. He was returning to Government House, having visited the courthouse to sort out the objections to his appointment of Dr Redfern to the magistracy. (Commissioner John Bigge had recently arrived from England to investigate the Affairs of the Colony and to assess the system of transportation. He criticized Redfern’s appointment claiming that London would not approve an emancipated person holding such an office.) An adjutant took command of the grey as Macquarie dismounted and strode off to his home and office. On entering, he detoured down the west wing with the intention of calling on the Colonial Secretary, John Thomas Campbell, whose office was situated at the wing’s extremity and currently undergoing repairs and extensions. Because of the noise of hammering, scraping and sawing and the attendant dust, the secretary had removed himself to an office further up the corridor.
“Good morning, Your Excellency.”
“How are you handling the disruptions, John?”
“They will soon be finished, Sir, then I’m sure my sanity will return as though it never left.”
“What’s your verdict on the workmanship?”
“Fast and thorough. The head carpenter is a master of the mortise joint.”
“Let’s have a look, shall we?”
The two men approached the area under work in a breezy quasi-march. The Secretary called the tradesmen to attention.
“Governor Macquarie present, Gov…”
“Yes, That’s all right Mr Campbell.” The workers downed tools and stood at a casual attention awaiting, they supposed, an inspection or an oration meant to hurry them along. They received neither.
Macquarie approached the foreman and spoke in a manner that could be called casual considering his voice was the most powerful in the land.
“Mr Mould, how goes the work?”
“Ahead of schedule, Guv.”
The secretary chastised, “Excellency to you, Mr Mould!”
“Yes sir,” was all John Mould would concede.
“That’s pleasing news, Mr Mould,” continued Macquarie, “as I have a rather large project I wish you to assume the charge of.”
“What might that be Governor?”
“Mould!” chastised Mr Campbell at the seeming insolence.
“It’s all right, Mr Campbell. Mr Mould, have you heard of Port Dalrymple in Van Diemen’s Land?”
“Heard of it, yes Sir, that I have, but I ain’t never seen it.”
“I have commissioned a new town to be built there; it will be called George Town and I am appointing you chief carpenter. I have seen your work since you arrived and I have all confidence in you.”
“Thank you sir, but ah……”
“I know the objection you wish to raise.”
“He can’t object, Your Excellency,” interrupted the Colonial Secretary, “You’re a bloody convict, Mould!”
“John, please don’t bother. Now Mr Mould, I believe your Pardon is due in seven weeks and you would like to know where you stand. While you are obliged to attend at George Town, should you continue the work as a pardoned man until the completion of the project, I will grant you a fifty-acre allotment of land at beautiful Launceston. Should you choose to desert the project when granted your pardon, you will find it difficult to find gainful employment and there will be no grant of land.”
John Campbell beamed at the Governor’s besting of the convict, but stayed silent, acknowledging that the Governor always got the best of everybody.
“I’m sure your wife and children will find the cooler climate more agreeable,” concluded Macquarie, delaying his departure momentarily to receive any forthcoming reply.
Two thoughts raced through John Mould’s mind: the bugger is totally familiar with my record and, here I am, an Englishman of the Church of England, being ordered about by two Scots. But all he said was,
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Good Mr Mould, I will write forthwith to Lt-Gov. Sorrell in Hobart, informing him of your commission.” He turned, took a step, then turned back to the convict taunting, “haven’t tried coining the Holey Dollar, I hope?”
John’s face flushed, “Not yet, Guv,” he answered. He flushed not through embarrassment but from guilt, for his pocket held a number of nails that he would take home tonight, as he had done most nights, for use in forging coins.
Seated behind his grand oak table, the Gov. penned his instructions to Sorrell, part of which read:
... I have at the same time appointed our very best house carpenter here to be Superintendent of Carpenters at George Town whither he now proceeds in the Prince Leopold and I must beg he may not be removed on any account from the works which with this man’s able assistance and skill under the Superintendence of Lt. Vandermuelen ...
Dated 27th Feb. 1819.
***
Lydia was a little piqued that John Mould had ignored her first summons to the dinner table, so now she would have to brave the drizzle to fetch him from his workshop which stood at the rear of their house which was on the corner of Sorell and Cimitiere Streets.
“John, the food will be cold by ... Well, for goodness sake, is that a rocking horse you’re making?”
“That’s what it is, lass, a surprise for Jemima’s 5th birthday. I’ve got the paint for it and I’ll be leaving that job for you.”
“John, just tell me you’re not nickin’ this stuff.”
“Would that be Saint Lydia speaking?”
“I’m having nothing to do with stealing again. I got kids who need me and so do you.”
“You’re daft, woman. We throw bits of timber and paint into the rubbish cart every day.”
“That’s as may be, but ’spose you tell me about those new boards that appeared in our yard yesterday.” To this, John gave a shrug of his well-muscled shoulders.
“Just can’t help yourself, John Mould. You must like prison life is all I’ll be sayin!”
“Won’t happen. I’m teacher’s pet, don’t ya know. Matter of fact, Gov. Sorrell is coming up from Hobart Town tomorrow with Commissioner Bigge from England, to look at our progress and, I’ll have you know, they will be interviewing your husband.”
“Lordy, Lordy husband, why don’t you bring them to our little mansion for petite fours and show them all the little goodies that suddenly appear about in the yard.”
“The only petite you’d be giving is your pettifogging pointless prattle.”
“Keep that up, Mr Mould, and tonight you’ll be getting trés petite.”
As he left, she thought she heard a mumbled, “as usual.”
His incorrigible criminal tendencies aside, John Mould was well educated and not a stupid man. So, when Commissioner Bigge interviewed him, (“Mister Big” was how John referred to him privately), he knew that Bigge was out to find fault with Macquarie’s administration. Notwithstanding, he answered all questions truthfully. He admitted that no paper had been available for months to submit his “Work Returns”.
“And so how has Mr Bootham been appraised of matters?” asked Bigge.
“Well Sir, I’ve been keeping notes on spare planks of wood,” replied John, cunningly aware that this would provide the reason that he was in possession of government timbers in his own yard.
“Ingenious, Mr Mould. Now I want to ask you about the conditions you endured under transportation.”
As a result of this interview, on the 15th May, 1820, Lt-Gov. Sorrell sent a dispatch to Lt. Col. Cimitiere regarding the cost of erecting a chapel in Launceston, part of which read:
... Bigge interviewed John Mould regarding the working habits of the carpenters working under him and the returns of work he was required to submit for carpenters, sawyers, timber fellers and wheelers that he submitted verbally to Mr Bootham, who took them down until the paper ran out four months ago after which he made a memorandum in pencil on a board.
“Captain,” ordered Macquarie of his adjutant, “regarding my itinerary for the tour of Van Diemen’s Land in April, see that Messrs Mould and Hubbard act as guides for the George Town inspection.”
Some months later the entourage arrived from Launceston.
“Mr Mould, nice to see you again. Any additions to the family?”
“Welcome, Your Excellency. No, sir, no additions.”
“Excellency, may I show you to your carriage,” said the boat builder, Mr Hubbard.
“No, Mr Hubbard. I have had enough of coach rides. ’Tis a long ride from Hobart; I would prefer horseback if that can be organised. That way I can summon whomsoever I wish to my side. If this party travels by coaches, I am stuck with my immediate passengers.” At which he bowed his head in acknowledgement of his revered entourage, “as pleasant as that company may be.”
The tour proceeded with the Gov. summoning various persons to answer his queries. John Mould was summoned often. The “Hobart Town Gazette” would report extensively on the Gov’s tour, but no mention would be made of John Mould in its edition of 30th June, 1821 (but he would be the subject of an article published on 2nd November, 1822).
“An excellent job, Mr Mould, very impressive.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“When I return to Hobart for departure to Port Jackson, my last day will be spent witnessing the execution of 19 bushrangers.” (A none-too-subtle warning).
“An awful business, Your Excellency.”
“I trust you have not been tempted to soil your record since your pardon?”
“Definitely not, Sir. I am looking forward to a new home in Launceston next month and to working our 50 acres as an honest farmer and carpenter,” was the reply given in John’s full understanding that the Gov. would show no favouritism to criminals.
Hobart Town Gazette: Nov 7, 1821. Sir Thomas Brisbane arrived in Port Jackson today to take over from Gov. Lachlan Macquarie.
Hobart Town Gazette: Dec 11, 1821. Lt. Cuthbertson leaves with a detachment of soldiers, craftsmen and convicts to establish a penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Van Diemen’s Land (Sarah Island).
Jun. 19, 1822. London. Commissioner Bigges first report was released today and contains many harsh criticisms of Macquarie’s policies. He condemned the Gov.’s lenient attitude towards emancipated convicts as well as the expense incurred on public works ... and records that Macquarie’s recall to London was justified.
Oct. 29, 1822. St Mary’s Chapel, the first Catholic Church in the colony, celebrates its first anniversary.
Oct. 1822. Homebush: Introduced swarms of honeybees produce first harvest.
Nov 1, 1822. Launceston. “John, there are constables dismounting outside. Have you done something?”
“Course not, Lydee, I’m clean.”
“I’m six months pregnant, John!”
“I’m clean I’m telling you.”
“You had better be, otherwise you’ll have me and five kids dying of starvation on your conscience – if you have a conscience.”
Nov 2, 1822. Hobart Town Gazette: John Mould … was found guilty of receiving 500 feet of boards, the property of the Crown, knowing them ...
On 22nd February 1823, once again John Mould boarded ship, this time for twelve months transportation to Macquarie Harbour: to the dreaded Sarah Island.
Sarah Island, in Macquarie Harbour, was a place of extreme deprivation and existed as a prison for the worst of recalcitrants until the 1830s when Port Arthur became the penal settlement of future infamy. John Mould’s talents were fully utilized as the main task of prisoners was to fell the Huon Pine on the mainland and float it to the island for processing. Huon Pine was the world’s premier timber for boat building.
Six months before he arrived, a group of prisoners escaped into the hinterland under the leadership of Alexander Pearce. Pearce survived by eating his companions. Conditions were horrific enough at the time on the penal island but, with the group’s escape, privations became even worse by the time John Mould arrived. By the time of his release he was well and truly cured of criminal adventure.
John Mould returned home, emaciated and oblivious as to how Lydia had fed the family in his absence. He managed to father their sixth child in 1826.
Four years later, the stunning flower of the family, Jemima, turned 16 and was de-flowered.
In the decade that followed the establishment of a prison settlement at Port Dalrymple, the years 1812 to 1824 saw Officialdom change its mind many times in regard to where the main centre of administration should be sited on the north coast of Van Diemen’s Land. Firstly Dalrymple, then Norfolk Plains (to accommodate the convicts removed from Norfolk Island), then Launceston, then George Town and finally Launceston yet again, were the choices made.
John Mould was sent to supervise the carpentry works at George Town in 1819 once the Governor had ordered that that site become the major settlement of the area. But seven years previous, in 1812, John and Margaret Waddell were sent to Port Dalrymple: John as the metal smith of the building team which was to develop the camp into a major settlement. Barely a year later, he was despatched to Launceston to develop that settlement as a major centre after the authorities changed their mind.
And all the while that John and Margaret were shipped from NSW to Port Dalrymple to Launceston, Margaret battled not only the rigours of scant housing, poor diet and constant relocation, she endured such privations while battling the biliousness of pregnancy, the pain of childbirth and the disruptions to a peaceful program that nursing an infant requires.
“Wake up now Maggie,” John urged his wife in a hoarse whisper. He would never have done such a thing as disturb his wife’s rest on an afternoon of rare peace for her and the baby, but his excitement outweighed his paternalistic consideration. She won’t mind on this occasion he reasoned.
“What is it, John?” drawled the drowsy voice. “Is the baby awake?”
“No, little John is still in the land of fairies. Peter Moore and I have been workin’ through the night and I want you to come and have a look. Peter’s wife will stay with the baby. Come on then, get yourself presentable.”
Margaret splashed her face with the water that was in the nearby bowl, dried off vigorously to get the blood to rush and slipped on her black leather slippers. John clutched her hand and pulled her out of their tiny barracks room and onto Brisbane Street. He walked her briskly 200 yards to the site he had been working on for weeks.
“There now, what do ye think of that? We got that whole wall and door put up since dinner last night!” The house was a rectangle of outer walls and now, due to a long night’s work, it contained one enclosed room.
“Well done husband. Yer moom and dad, and yer five sisters, would be so proud of you, just as I am.” Too late, thought John wistfully, for his father, John, and mother Margaret (Young), had died just five years previous probably, he reckoned, still then in the service of Mr Dale at the New Lanark mills.
“Won’t be long then,” continued Margaret, “’til we’re taking up residence.”
“Long? We’re movin’ in today, lass. That’s why I brought you here to see.”
“Will we be sleepin’ on the floor, then?”
“Peter’s next door in my smith, my smithy mind, knockin’ up bed and cupboards. We will have the basics by tonight but, my love, the way the government orders are rolling in, it won’t be long before we’ll be orderin’ new suites in the Louis XIV style.”
Margaret’s face adopted a glowering concern as John’s oration was punctuated by a wheezing cough. “You’ve done mighty work, John Waddell, but you must slow down with that consumption of yours.”
***
As Margaret now sat in that very bedroom ten years later, wet-towelling her husband’s fever into the night, she recalled the day they occupied the house and everything that had occurred since.
Proud that they had achieved so much, she mentally enumerated the holdings of property and stock. Their full pardon was remembered with a silent smile at the irony of themselves being robbed by what’s-his-name while they were at Kirk – just as they had done unto others so long ago in Scotland, and how John had to travel to Sydney for the trial of what’s-his-name who got fourteen years and how taxing the trip was on her husband’s health.
The friends they had made sprung to mind, both convict and free. William Field, the quasi-solicitor who had instructed them on how to petition for land and what rights they were entitled to. Pastor Knopwood who had baptised their children. There were the neighbouring farmers of their Norfolk Plains farm who were far more congenial than the townsfolk – people like the young Riley family from Deloraine, who made no issue that they were Irish Catholic and the Waddells were of the Scots Church. Then there were the Moulds who arrived in 1819 – oh, my, the Moulds! Lydia Mould and Margaret were good friends but her husband – he was not her lawful husband really – he was not Margaret’s cup of tea was John Mould. And proved right she was, for John Mould had just been arrested and sentenced to a term on Sarah Island. Poor Lydia! Margaret intended to support the poor woman just as soon as her own husband gained strength. Her own young John and Elizabeth were schoolmates with John, Eliza and Jemima Mould and often they played together – at least when their father wasn’t hauling them off to help him work. Poor young John Mould, 13 years old and taken out of school to become a slave to his father. Anyway, they would all have a year or two of peace from the domineering man. Don’t know what Lydia sees in him, Margaret thought. The thoughts of such matters halted abruptly as her husband muttered.
“Maggie, Maggie bring the kids in to our bedroom.”
While the initial impulse was to wait until they woke in the morning a stronger impulse prevailed; an impulse that was born of the secret knowledge so common to the Scots. Margaret somehow knew that the children must be woken now.
The three-year-old David rubbed his eyes as Margaret carried him from the cot, five-year-old Elizabeth held her mother’s hand and nine-year-old John walked independently and resignedly to his father’s bedside in the dim candlelight. Young John and Elizabeth kissed their father with foreboding. “We love you, papa,” they intoned in unison. They returned to bed but not to sleep, they too possessed the Scottish intuition. Except for David, they cried and prayed silently.
Margaret, alone with her husband, kissed him tenderly, drew back to see John’s lips form the silent words, “I love you,” and then exhaled the breath that Margaret had heard many times on prison ships, in the women’s factory and neighbour’s houses, the breath expunged from the deep, only once in a person’s life.
Lydia Mould delivered her fifth child, named after herself, just three days after her de facto husband was sent to Sarah Island. She was distraught at the thought of raising five children without an income.
“And, there’ll be no worrying about things,” said Margaret Waddell; herself mourning the loss, the permanent loss, of her own partner. “You have enough friends to help you through. I’ll see Mr Field about pressing the Governor to give you that 50 acres that MacArthur promised you. I have plenty of stock and I’ll put some on the land to keep you goin’. You won’t be going short of meat or milk or eggs. That’s for sure.”
“Annie Hagen is looking after Eliza and Amelia until you’re on your feet and Jemima is doing just fine with us.”
But she wasn’t; not in one respect.
Margaret had caught her own 10-year-old John, examining the chest of the 8-year-old Jemima, to ascertain if any enlargement was taking place presumably. Margaret hoped that her short, acrid lecture and a seeing-to on the back of John’s thighs with her husband’s razor-leather would deter further such experiments. That Jemima appeared non-plussed about the whole business, set off warning bells for Margaret.
In her present frame of mind, what with her own situation as a widow with three dependants as well as Lydia’s circumstance, it was as well that John Mould was not within her reach right now, otherwise she would serve him with a tongue-lashing that he would feel sharper than the pain of a razor-leather.
A confrontation would indeed come to pass but not for some years. John Mould returned home and he got on with life, not troubling to be overly effusive with gratitude to the community who had supported his family during his internment.
But, one day in 1831, not too long after Jemima turned 16, Margaret received a visit from John, Lydia and Jemima.
“Do you know why I’m calling on you then, missus?”
“Yes John, I do; my son just told me.”
“Well then, since it’s your young John what’s put us in a bad situation, I propose a property settlement and an annuity to support the child until it comes of age. He has defiled my daughter and given us an extra mouth to feed. I’m thinking of a grant of your house in the crescent and one hundred and twenty acres ...”
“Excuse me, John. Defilement and taking advantage, you say? You are on shaky ground here Mr Mould, as one who is not without sin. I see a man standing before me on one wooden leg and my axe is very sharp.”
“So you expect a Ticket-of-Leave without serving time do you? What about I bring charges of rape against your boy? Seems to me, he’s come to nothing since his father passed away.”
At this, Margaret battled for self-control. Had not Lydia and Jemima been present she would certainly have reached for John’s old stropping-leather.
“Jemima, my dear,” intoned Margaret, “did John rape you?”
“Of course not, Mrs Waddell.”
“Well, Mr Mould, there goes your case. You have made your proposal, now hear mine. This is a case of immature people making a mistake – which of us hasn’t done what we later regretted?” She could not be challenged, she knew, with this indirect reference to their common criminality. She continued, “As I see things, you are concerned foremost with the future costs of an extra mouth to feed. I propose then that my son and I assume the care of the child and compensate Jemima for the pains of childbirth.”
“What compensation would …?”
“Pa, no!” interrupted Jemima. “It’s my baby too!” Margaret felt this plea was somewhat disingenuous.
“What compensation?” repeated John Mould, while Lydia hung her head silently.
“Twenty five cows for your property,” she offered feeling guilty at horse-trading over human life, but it was the only language that John Mould negotiated by.
“Throw in a breeding bull and I think we will be able to deal with our pain and loss.”
“Very well, John.” And Margaret inwardly breathed an immense sigh of relief that the Moulds had not raised the possibility of marriage. She and young John had discussed affairs fully sometime earlier when John had broken the news that Jemima was pregnant. He was adamant that he did not want to wed and Margaret was just as determined that her grandchild would not be brought up in the Mould family. She congratulated herself that as John Mould set out on the hunt for her wealth she had laid her trap well.
John Waddell senior had done very well in accumulating assets over 10 years valued at the time of his death at £500 which, in anybody’s day, equated to over five years of one’s gross wages. But John was a well-paid tradesman. In the next decade, his widow Margaret would increase this fivefold to £2500.
As well as hundreds of head of cattle and bullocks and horses, hardware, ploughs and carts, land-holdings were spread around the perimeter of Norfolk Plains: 122 acres at Selby Creek, 2 lots of 60 acres at Longford, 50 acres at Evandale as well as interests in Westbury and in Launceston.
The scores of citizens, free and otherwise, that settled around Launceston and environs when she had first landed there had now grown to hundreds and was heading into the thousands.
The Deloraine area had been explored by Capt. Roland in 1823 and land there was for sale but it was not until 1831 that Bonney’s Inn was built.
Joseph Solomon built the first store at Evandale in 1836 (his son, Albert would become Premier of Tasmania in 1912).
Irish military pensioners were pouring in to establish the town of Westbury.
Emu Bay (Burnie) was just getting going as a timber port in 1830.
Needless to say that the stores and wrights and smiths in Launceston were very busy servicing outlying settlers with provisions, stores and hardware.
A day at the providores for Margaret and her children would find her engaging with neighbours who would forever be recorded in Australian history and folklore. Any ordinary day…
“ Morning, Mrs Waddell.”
“Good morning to you, Mr Batman. I see you are expecting a cold snap at Deddington.”
“Why’s that, Margaret?”
“You must have a hundred blankets in your wagon, sir.”
“So, you’ve not heard? I am sailing into Port Phillip Bay on the mainland soon. I am stockpiling goods with which I will purchase large tracts of land from the natives.”
“You have been sanctioned from Sydney, then?”
“Of course not. Don’t need it. Let them run me off if they want, but there is good land there and I’ll be claiming it, at least if John Faulkner does not beat me to it, but I hear he is more interested in land at the mouth of the Yarra Yarra.”
“Good luck, Mr Batman, I wish you well. Oh, by the way, I believe you and the English painter, John Glover, became the first whites to climb Ben Lomond. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Margaret. Hope to see you in Victoria in a few years. And what are you buying today?”
“I am building at Evandale and require some glass and tiles to complete it. Excuse me ...” She broke off to address a wagon driver. “Mr Kelly, please take the trap out back to collect my order. Sorry Mr Batman, I didn’t want him to miss the queue.”
“Is your Mr Kelly an employee or builder?”
“Heavens no. He’s a young Irishman, recently transported to work for settlers around Evandale. Please excuse me, I must arrange payment.”
As Margaret approached the clerk, one of the many greetings directed towards her came from young Denis Riley. “Top of the morning, missus. When might you be buyin’ into Deloraine? You know the land is selling for just £1 an acre?”
So it went; John Batman stocking up to buy new places to be known as Geelong and Melbourne. Ed Kelly, the convict set to work at Evandale who would father, in 1854, Ned Kelly, the great anti-hero. Denis Riley one of whose descendants would marry one of Margaret’s. It really was a small world in that time and place.
And Margaret Waddell continued in the following years to grow her small empire in company with her small family: John (17), grandson John (newborn), Elizabeth (14) and David (12). But, within six years, by 1837 all would change.
Margaret Waddell and Lydia Mould were two of the seventeen thousand female convicts who formed the beginnings of Convict Australia. After the birth of the bastard-child John, contact between the two women and between their children lessened to the point of being very infrequent. John Mould was quiet, morose and prone to illness after his stint at Sarah Island and he kept his wife and children under a firm thumb. Margaret and son John were working themselves to exhaustion in the management of their many interests and were often away from Launceston, leaving Elizabeth to care for the infant John as well as to keep her brother David in check.
Margaret constantly battled the bureaucracy right up to the Lieutenant-Governor of the day, all of whom fought against the right of women to own property. When she could not get her way, Margaret signed over property to John. The best revenge that the bureaucrats could exact against her was to fine her for possessing an unlicensed dog (which could be used by convict escapees to find food). But, she continued to be a tour-de-force, outbidding the men for cattle, bullocks, horses and property. Her holdings circled the Norfolk Plains and more than once she overheard it said: “There goes Norfolk-Plains Maggie.”
Perhaps she should have spent more time with her teenage daughter Elizabeth for she was tipped off more than once that Elizabeth had been seen on her walking trips with little John, talking to a man eleven years her senior. At the same time her co-manager and son John was making it plain that he was seeking a wife. Margaret intuitively knew that John put love second to the need for a mother for the infant (and maybe even someone to care for himself).
The distraction of raids by Aborigines was almost at an end as Head Protector Robinson had rounded the vast majority up and impounded the lot on Flinders Island, supposedly for their own good. The latest farcical mass round-up that swept across Van Diemen’s Land found but two natives.
However, bushrangers were another matter. Margaret was forever losing stock and feed to marauding bands of escaped convicts. She hoped that the young Irishman, Ed Kelly with the twinkle in his eye, would never go that way. The Lieutenant Governor was threatening to enforce martial law on the whole colony because bushranging was so rampant.
***
Elizabeth was 18 when her secret, much older, suitor declared his intentions followed soon after with a request for permission to marry her. Margaret’s permission was required by law in the case of a teenager wishing to wed.
Maggie-Of-The-Plains was quietly amused by Peter Clyne’s formality: “While I am almost thirty and still a bachelor, I can assure you Mrs Waddell that my single state is due to the fact that I have not found a lady that I loved enough to marry. But in Elizabeth, I have now found that person. As you already know I live in Westbury but as a licensed victualler I travel the district buying and selling provisions. While this provides a handsome income I intend to lease the new Berridale Inn in Longford which would provide a family with stability and robust means. As you own two farms in Longford we would always be in close proximity to your own family and finally I am, of course, like yourselves a God-fearing Scots Presbyterian.”
Margaret had already made discreet enquiries into Peter Clyne and found little fault with the man. His ambition and wealth allayed any fears that he might be motivated by Elizabeth’s future inheritance. The five-year-old John related to him fondly as the second most important adult male in his life behind his own twenty five year old father. His sixteen year old uncle David was more a playmate than a father figure.
The wedding was celebrated on 21st June, 1836 in Launceston. Unfortunately the beautiful churches of St Andrews in Westbury and Christ Church in Longford were still under construction. Peter and Elizabeth moved straight in to Barridale Inn and were virtually an instant family since young John (the fourth) still spent much of his time under Elizabeth’s care.
The new John senior was about to bring about a change to this arrangement for it was not much later that he was introduced to Ann Bennett and a courtship ensued. Once again Margaret was consulted in relation to a marriage.
“Mother, I wish to ask for Ann’s hand but I feel some guilt about my own motives.”
“What do you mean John?”
“My health fails day by day and I think I may simply be seeking a mother to wee John. I like Ann of course but I am not sure that I love her.”
“John, John, for the Lord’s sake John! You are but young. What makes you think you are about to expire on us?” questioned his mother with concern – a concern borne of her own feeling that she herself was not long for the world, though only 54 years of age herself.
“Call it the Scots’ prescience Mother. Besides a man knows each succeeding day that he has not as much life in him as he had the previous day.”
“I believe John, that that is called aging. Anyway, Ann either feels enough for you to marry or she will refuse you. It’s not as though you are tricking her. Let your conscience be clear and do what you think you ought. The best marriages are not necessarily born out of a love that takes your very breath away.”
“Thank you mother. And I’m saying this – you are the woman I have loved most in my life.”
“Get about your rounds, John Waddell, before I start weepin’ tears into my porridge.”