William Barrowcliffe

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 12th May 2022

FOOTNOTE: William Barrowcliffe left behind a family in Leicester -- his father Robert and three sisters Mary, Esther and Bessy. William was able to read and write, and was a framework knitter by trade (https://stors.tas.gov.au/CON14-1-24$init=CON14-1-24P94). On the voyage to VDL, his behaviour was "good" and he had been given the job of "messman" by the ship's surgeon superintendent (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch/convict/chain/ai03352). --0--

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 12th May 2022

EXCELLENT ARTICLE ABOUT POINT PEUR... "Silenced by an evil system: The boys the empire sent to Point Puer" By Steve Harris October 12, 2019 — 12.00am If government-sanctioned slavery is seen as perhaps the greatest stain on the British Empire, then the forced exile of thousands of boy convicts to the extremities of the globe to endure severe punishment amid the faint promise of a better life is perhaps its greatest crime. It’s often said that history is written by victors, but the history of victims can sometimes be more truthful and revealing. And if one embraces the value of a "bottom-up" or "history from below" approach to understanding culture and values, and accepts Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner’s view that jails are "the true records of a … community’s history", then seeing history through the eyes of child convicts like Charles Campbell and Henry Sparkes offers a powerful prism. In the remotest part of the British Empire, without formal British government approval, instructions or appropriate resourcing, Tasmania's Point Puer was the first prison built exclusively for boys, and a seminal foundation in the world’s contemporary attitudes and debates around juvenile crime management. While the stated intent was to "save" and transform boys, Puer was a largely unplanned facility on a poorly-chosen site with insufficient resources and facilities to provide adequate accommodation, supervision, moral reformation and trade training and was too exposed to older Port Arthur convicts. Perhaps the harshest verdict was that of Chartist leader John Frost: "If I had 12 sons and it was left with me whether they should be transported or hanged, I should at once say to hang them soon rather than allow them to go to Point Puer." Read the rest at https://www.smh.com.au/national/silenced-by-an-evil-system-the-boys-the-empire-sent-to-point-puer-20190925-p52upv.html.

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 12th May 2022

IN VDL: INQUEST: 5 September, 1846: An inquest at Port Arthur found William Barrowcliffe died of acute inflammation of the lungs on 27 August, and was scathing in its slant on the circumstances. Coroner Robert Pringle Stewart said "the disease whereof he died was aggravated and in so much accelerated by" the treatment administered to him by Jospeh Webster, "an unqualified person at Point Puer" of an emetic; and also that William Barrowcliffe's death was accelerated by the "criminal negligence" on 26 August of a Doctor of Medicine, William Dessaix [sic], "under whose medical care the deceased then was while laboring under acute inflammation of the lung". (https://stors.tas.gov.au/SC195-1-19-1535) --0--

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 12th May 2022

MORE ABOUT WILLIAM: TRIAL: 27 June, 1842: William Barrowcliffe was 16 when convicted at Leicester and sentenced to 10 years' transportation for stealing mutton and a teapot from a house in Leicester. He had been in trouble previously -- acquitted for stealing a duck but sentenced to 6 months' jail for stealing a pound of butter (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch/convict/chain/ai03352). --0--

Level 68

Leonie Dolley on 7th June 2013

William was 14 when he was transported for stealing a teapot. He died in hospital at Port Arthur.