Vincenzo Bucchieri

Born in Sicily Died 27 Oct 1842, Hobart, Tasmania

Vincenzo Bucchieri was transported for ‘Desertion’ and arrived in NSW on the Guildford 1812. He was then sent to VDL and arrived there per ‘Ruby’ 19/2/1812. Vencenzo was 30 years old, 5’8” tall, sallow complexion, hazel eyes, black hair. Colonial Secretary: BUCCHIERI, Vincenzo. Per "Guildford", 1812 1822 Sep 18: On list of convicts in Van Diemen's Land, as called for by Lieutenant Governor Sorell (Reel 6009; 4/3506 p.297) 1826: Married Mary Foley. They had been living together and already had 6 children. 1830-1832: Assigned to his wife. 2/4/1833: Colonial Conviction, Hobart – “Receiving 640lbs., of Barley. The property of the Government, knowing it to be stolen”. 1833: Transported to Port Arthur. 1835: Public Works 16/9/1837: TOL 6/1/1841: CP 29/10/1842: Inquest of his death: Died of water on the chest – Natural death. The Inquest paper was signed by his daughter Harriet. This is from a paper by Lucy Frost: Protecting the Children: Early Years of the King’s Orphan Schools in Van Diemen’s Land. On 16 May 1833, the Committee considered the petition for a ‘distraught & destitute family’ whose father had been sent to Port Arthur after his conviction for receiving 614 pounds of barley, the property of the Crown, knowing it to be stolen. For this theft from ‘our sovereign Lord the King’, Vizenza Buccheri was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. Buccheri and his wife Mary Foley were among the colony’s earliest convicts. Before female transports began sailing directly to Van Diemen’s Land, Mary had been sent from Dublin to Sydney and then on to Hobart, arriving in 1817. Sentenced to seven years’ transportation in 1815, she was free by 1824, two years before she married Buccheri, with whom she had been living for most of her time as a prisoner. Buccheri, a Sicilian by birth, was illiterate and never learned to speak English very well, but in these years before Arthur arrived to regulate the convict system, he managed to purchase a cart and four working bullocks, the source of support for his growing family—ten children were born to the convict couple, though three at least died quite early. Buccheri had an unusual background. He had been a private in a Sicilian regiment serving with the British when he deserted in Malta, was caught, tried by a court martial in 1809, sentenced to transportation for life — and then sent to London to be put on the ship which would take him to the ends of the earth. In 1814 he participated in a bold attempt to escape the penal island, and might have succeeded in making it to South America with his co-conspirators if they had paid as much attention to their water casks as to the boat they built. Almost twenty years later, his conviction for receiving the stolen barley looks like another wild scheme gone wrong. It certainly left his children unprotected. The Committee of Management recorded finding them in a most neglected state, some of the children almost blind’. Rev Bedford had performed the marriage ceremony for the parents in 1826 after they had six children, only three of them living, and had been concerned about the abject poverty of this family ever since. Now that their father was locked up, he arranged for all the children to be removed from their home to the hospital. ‘The eldest a girl of 11 years of age of most abandoned habits has been sent to the Female Factory’. Suddenly, by despatching an 11-year-old girl to a women’s prison, the concept of ‘protection’ turns darker. Some sort of struggle may have ensued between the impoverished mother and the determined clergyman, because even though the Committee agreed to admit 6 year old Harriet and 4 year old Thomas in May 1833, the children did not actually go on the record books until late November, six months later. Their oldes sister, Elizabeth, managed to get out of the Female Factory and into the Orphan School the following February. At least two children were still at home, baby Agnes and the blind Mary Ann; in June 1836 they also entered the Orphan School. Getting out was not easy. On 30 June 1838, after Buccheri had returned from Port Arthur and was granted a ticket of leave to live in New Norfolk, he retrieved his eldest daughter Elizabeth who was now 16 and could be sent out to work. The next year, Thomas, aged 10, absconded and never returned to the Orphan School. In 1841, Buccheri retrieved his youngest child, Agnes, perhaps a sentimental favourite. In 1842 Harriet, after almost nine years in the institution, was apprenticed. Now all the siblings were gone except the blind Mary Ann, who faced another ten years in the Orphan Schools before she was removed to the infirmary, Hobart, aged almost 30.

The following Prisoners having made their escape in a Boat. Antonio Martinio, Servant to P. G. Hogan Esq. Forteso De Santo, from the Boat-builders gang. Patrick McCabe, Servant to Mr. Lang. Vissanso Boucherie, Servant to the Military Hospital. Antonio Janio, Servant to Lieut. Colonel Geils. Montrose Johnson, Servant to John Robley Settler. William Green, Clerk to the Naval Officer. John Fawkner Junr. Free man — having aided and assisted the said Persons in making their escape, and also accompanied them. Van Diemen’s Land Gazette, 21 May 1814.

List of 80 male convicts (originally sent on Guildford 1812) be embarked per Ruby of Calcutta to Hobart Town, with the indents from Guildford, master Johnson, in 1812. https://stors.tas.gov.au/CON13-1-1$init=CON13-1-1P22 Vincenzo Bucchiere, La Valetta C.M., tried 9 Aug 1810. Life.

When His Majesty's schooner Estramina was leaving the Settlement of Hobart Town in August last she met at the entrance of the River Derwent, a lugger-rigged vessel of very singular appearance. Sending to enquire what she was, found two prisoners on board, and learnt from them that she had been built by a number of bush rangers, [see entry: Van Diemen’s Land Gazette 21 May 1814, p. 1.] near the South west Cape, with a design of leaving Van Diemen's Land entirely. For this purpose they had actually sailed; but when 60 miles at sea were obliged to put back, from the fear of perishing, their Water, for want of secure vessels, having all leaked out. The vessel was about 36 feet keel, & well modelled; their cordage was contrived of twisted bark, and their number consisted of 4 or 5 and twenty persons, who, with the exception of the two found on board, had gone on shore to look for fresh supplies. She was taken possession of by the Master of the Estramina, and given up to His Majesty's Government at Hobart Town. (Sydney Gazette 8 Oct 1814, p. 2.)