Ann Brooks

17

Ian Bowie on 1st May 2021

James Morrisby and Ann Brooks were early convict settlers of Norfolk Island about whom much has been said but not a lot is known for certain, particularly about their lives before their convictions in England. A reason for this is that on the one hand public access to official archives in both the United Kingdom and Australia was restricted until the 1960s while on the other hand families with convict ancestors either stayed quiet or simply did not know about the details. These restrictions and inhibitions seem to have been particularly the case in Van Diemen’s Land, ie Tasmania (which is where James and Ann ended up) until after 1962. I knew nothing of James and Ann until told of them by a cousin in 1994. Other descendants did know more and earlier but families are not always good at sharing inherited information or their own research and until the advent of the internet seldom have had the means of doing so. Since the 1960s some writers have published biographical information on James and Ann but with inconsistencies and errors which often have since been amplified without reference to primary sources or other forms of corroboration. Sources are seldom referenced, which is particularly a problem when relevant primary records cannot be found. Many speculations and misinterpretations in reading the records now abound. I had no intention of researching James and Ann in 1994 beyond noting what had been said in books published then. Nor, as information came online, did I intend to do much more than to save copies of primary records I had seen. But, with intensive exposure to primary records over the last couple of years, I have become uncertain about some information and resolved to try to separate fact from speculation. In this Note I have tried to document information that can be tested against the known primary sources or that appears likely from secondary sources, excluding some of the lesser details of James’ and Ann’s lives in Norfolk Island and Van Diemen’s Land which are summarised elsewhere. I hope I have made it clear where I have drawn inferences or reported speculations. ……………………………………… James is generally believed to have been the James Morrisby baptised in Cawood (Yorkshire) in January 1757, in which case five generations of Yorkshire ancestors have been traced for him (including a father, Luke, said to have been killed in the Cape Breton Island battle of Louisbourg in 1758), but nothing is known of him for certain until he was tried in July 1784 in the Old Bailey for stealing an iron bar and for breaking-in with intent to steal. He was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. At his trial James claimed to have been in ‘the guards’. It has been widely accepted that he enlisted in the ‘Scots Guards’ (correctly, the Third Regiment of Foot Guards) in 1776 and was stationed in the Tower of London; it is possible but unlikely that he served in the composite Guards brigade that fought in America and returned in 1783. Less likely is that he served as a lieutenant in the Life Guards as suggested by other family sources. At his trial he was said to have claimed a wife and five children and, perhaps, to have been a watchman. After two and a half years on the prison hulk Censor in the Thames he was transported on the Scarborough in 1787, arriving in Port Jackson in January 1788. He was moved to Norfolk Island in March 1790 (where he was disembarked from HMS Sirius four days before it was wrecked). By February 1791, he appears to have been living with Ann Brooks on an acre in ‘Sydney’ (now Kingston) and by the expiry of his sentence in July was sharing a sow with her and her eldest son William known as Brooks, possibly the child referred to in Ann’s December 1787 trial who seems to have arrived in Port Jackson with Ann. Ann Brooks (not to be confused with a mother and daughter who arrived in Sydney on the Pitt in 1792, the younger of whom was also on Norfolk Island 1800-1813), was born in the early 1760s and was convicted in London for stealing two linen bed sheets. From London court and other records, she may have been any one of: a then-21-year-old daughter of Charles M’Ginnis; a slightly older Ann Lavender who may have become Ann Brooks in the early 1780s; or a completely different Ann Brooks; all living on the fringes of ‘respectable’ society at the time. This Ann (who appears in primary records only as ‘Brooks’ or ‘Moresby’ from 1787) was sentenced to seven years’ transportation and arrived in Port Jackson, reportedly with William, on the Lady Juliana subject of Sian Rees’ book The Floating Brothel, in June 1790. She was sent to Norfolk Island on HMS Surprize two months later by which time she was pregnant with her second son, who became known as Richard Larsom, fathered by an unknown seaman or convict (Larsom, perhaps, Simon Lavender, perhaps) who presumably had been her ‘protector’. It is said, but without a primary record, that James and Ann were ‘married’ by the Reverend Richard Johnson during the latter’s three weeks on Norfolk Island in November 1791 (if so, perhaps reflecting a concern for good order amongst the convicts rather than for any previously married states). Confusingly, Ann’s five children with James (all born on Norfolk Island), along with Richard (nothing seems known of William after 1801) were recorded as ‘Lavender’ in 1805, as they had been in 1802 excepting ‘Dinah’ (sic, who was named Brooks) but her three eldest sons were recorded as ‘Brooks’ in 1792-5. To add to the confusion Richard was listed as ‘Richard Brooks Lavender’ in 1802. In 1791 James was granted twelve acres of arable leasehold between Watermill Creek and the Mount Pitt Path (now Taylors Road) and by October 1793 when he was annotated as a blacksmith (he had enlisted as a labourer) he had cleared seven acres, probably with the help of assigned convict labour. This lot (‘known as Morrisby’s Farm’) appears to have been enlarged to 16 acres in 1794 in which year Governor King described him as ‘industrious’ and prevented him from selling up. Perhaps James, as his sentence had expired, had been planning to return to England. That lease was put into the name of James’ eldest son in 1796. Subsequently, James later took up a further 22 acres nearby, and he purchased another 34 acres (which is beside where an airport runway is now located) in 1802 when he was a constable. He also crewed on the island tender servicing HMS Reliance in 1798/99. In December 1807, on an 1804 recommendation by Lt Governor Foveaux, James and Ann left behind their small house and barns when the Norfolk Island settlement was being closed down and they were evacuated with their five shared children on HMS Porpoise in 1807 to Van Diemen’s Land where James initially was granted 80 acres in the Clarence Plains near Rokeby in exchange for his Norfolk Island leases. Richard followed them, Ann died in 1813 and James remarried in 1816 to Eleanor Murphy who died in 1821. James continued farming Belmont Lawn until his death in 1839, acquiring more land including land in Hobart (he had helped the Constables arrest a bushranger in 1817) which he assigned to his eldest son in 1818 and 300 further acres in Muddy Plains, Clarence Plains, which he was granted in 1828. James appears to have acquired further land also from his son in law, George Smith who married Grace the elder daughter and second of the five children of James with Ann in Hobart in 1810. The Smiths’ youngest son Henry was later to marry an unrelated Henrietta Letitia Smith, to become two of my great grandparents and the reason for my interest in Henry’s grandparents. As to the wife and child(ren?) James left behind in England, little is known for certain but a likely wife (Mary Eaves) and child (Catherine Dorcas Morrisby who married William Davison and later George Davison) have been linked to him – in which case it may have been his wife who died in a London poor house in 1823.

17

Ian Bowie on 14th September 2020

see notes for James Morrisby (Scarborough 1787). A fully referenced PDF of these notes is available

60

Eric Harry Daly on 5th January 2013

Ann Brooks nee Lavender was tried twice for house breaking the first she was found not guilty http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17870418-95-defend839&div=t17870418-95#highlight The second time she was found guilty of stealing but not house breaking. http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17871212-60-defend534&div=t17871212-60#highlight Ann married William Brooks in England and their son, William, accompanied her on the voyage to Australia. She married James Morrisby in 1791 on Norfolk Island.

2nd oct 1818 norfolk island..muster>Richard Larson,born on island and resident of.also woman ann larsom,resident. Parent R.Larsom = 2 children,one on stores,one off. also list of people boarded Porpoise at N.I 26 dec 1808 for the derwent tas=james morrisby,wife ann lavender/brooks,children all lavender/mossisby=grace,george,dinah,henry,john. Simon Lavender arrived N.Iship Surprize 11 sep 1791.departed 7 march 1795.convict. see my notes ann brooks,her mother etc on my other contributions..chez

my great(x7) grandmother. she had a son called richard larsom, whose father was simon lavander

Second Embarkation. People Who Boarded H.M.S Porpoise At Norfolk Island 26 December 1808,For The Derwent,Van Diemen's Land. James Morrisby(First Fleeter),wife Ann Lavender/Brooks),Children;Grace Lavender/Morrisby,George Lavender/Morrisby,Dinah Lavender/Morrisby,Henry Lavender/Morrisby,John Lavender/Morrisby.(no mention of sibling Richard).chez

N.I settlement recods; simon lavender.arrived N.I on ship surprize 11/9/1781.departed 7/3/1805.c, c=arrived as convict to the colony --chez.

norfolk island. james morrisby. ship tp N.I=scarsborough.arrived 17/3/1790.departed29/12/1807.c,c=arrived in colony as convict. m=lived as married person on N.I. ann brooks(lavender). Elder.ship tp N.I=lady julianan.arrived 7/8/1790.departed 28/12/1807.c,m ann brooks(younger). ship to N.I=pitt.arrived before jan 1802.departed 2o/1/1813. jane brooks. ship=lady juliana.arrived 7/8/1990.departed 13/2/1796. children?? ann brooks/cox. born port jackson.arrived before jan 1808.depart. 20/1/1813.child od corps member. charles brooks/cox " N.I child of convict 1812.depart. 20/1/1813.child of corps member. dinah brooks/morrisby. born N.I 4/12/1799.depart 26/12/1807. george brooks/cox.born N.I child of convict 1810.depart 20/1/1813.child of corps member. george james brooks/mossisby.born N.I 25/9/1793.depart 28/12/1807. grace brooks (lavender)/morrisby. born N.I 28/1/97.departv28/12/1807. henry brooks (lavender)/morrisby born N.I 11/5/1803.depart 28/12/1807. john brooks/cox. born port jackson.15/9/1794.depart 20/1/1813.child of corps member. john brooks (lavender)/morrisby.born N.I 9/12/1805.depart 28/12/1807. joseph brooks/cox.born N.I 25/7/1802.depart 20/1/1813.child of corps member. mary/marg.(brooks/belbin)/cox.born N.I 31/7/1808.depart 20/1/1813. richard brooks (lavender)/morrisby.born N.I 25/4/1791.depart after feb 1805. samuel brooks/cox.born P.J arrived by feb 1802.depart 20/1/1813.child of corps member. susannah brooks/cox.born N.I 29/7/1804.depart 20/1/1813.child of corps member. william brooks/morrisby.born england /arrived 7/8/1790.depart after oct 1796. ref N.I R.Nobbs. --chez.

ann brooks (younger),ann brooks(lavender)(senior) both on Norfolk Island. Many children..brooks/cox,brooks morrisby,refer to my details in previos submission. --chez.

1

Kevin Purnell on 5th February 2012

My Great Great Great Great Grandmother. We have a family history that mentions her. Her Daugther was Grace Morrisby 1797-1827. Son Richard Smith married Sydney Isles. Family well known in Port Welshpool, Victoria where there is a family museum Ref: http://cv.vic.gov.au/organisations/3962/port-welshpool-district-maritime-museum/