Summary
Personal Information
Crime
Voyage
Transportation
Thomas Bushell was transported on the Edwin Fox, departing 24th Aug 1858 and arriving 20th Nov 1858 with 284 passengers.
892 ton ship, built in Calcutta, India in 1853. Transported convicts, pensioner guard, soldiers and their families - from Plymouth, England to Western Australia - 1858. (Had been to Australia previously, in 1856, as a passenger ship.) (Later went on to service in the Crimean War.) Converted to be a passenger ship and carried immigrants to New Zealand. In 1880 converted, again, as a cool storage facility in Picton, New Zealand. Ship was in use until 1950 when abandoned. In 1965 she was bought by the 'Edwin Fox Society' and towed to Shakespeare Bay for restoration and then towed to Picton Harbour, New Zealand for display and is on the National Trust Registry, NZ. She is the second oldest surviving merchant ship.
Edwin FoxReferences
| Primary Source | Australian Joint Copying Project. Microfilm Roll 93, Class and Piece Number HO11/18, Page Number 303 (153) |
| Source Description | This record is one of the entries in the British convict transportation registers 1787-1867 database compiled by State Library of Queensland from British Home Office (HO) records which are available on microfilm as part of the Australian Joint Copying Pro |
| Original Source | Great Britain. Home Office |
| Compiled By | State Library of Queensland |
| Database Source | British convict transportation registers 1787-1867 database |
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Convict Notes
Thomas Bushell was born in Ireland, at 22 years of age he was a soldier serving in Malta – he struck a superior officer and was sentenced to life imprisonment and was sent to Western Australia. Thomas was 5’ 8 ½” tall, dark complexion brown hair, hazel eyes, middling stout, scar from musket shot right leg. Thomas was working in the kitchen of the Convict Establishment and on 11/1/1859 he wrecked some kitchen tools which he had used to clean the boilers. Charged with “willfully destroying prison property” he was committed to the Refractory cells – here he tried to commit suicide using a cord made from the lining of his jacket. He was then sent to the Lunatic Asylum and put into solitary confinement. After 4 months in the Lunatic Asylum he was to be transferred back to the Convict Establishment, but hearing of this he tore up his bedding and threatened to kill himself and any warders who came near him. He was then declared insane again, but too violent for the Asylum and was returned to the Establishment again. Bushell was constantly in trouble from then on, he made threats of violence, insubordination, refusal to work and absconding. He was flogged, put in solitary confinement and worked in irons, and was then transferred to the prison on Rottnest island. 9/7/1865: Bushnell was in the Prison bakehouse where he stabbed a warder in the shoulder because the warder had told some prisoners that Bushell had provided information about other prisoners. Bushnell was charged with ‘malicious injury with intent to murder.’ Bushnell pleaded not guilty, conducted his own defence and claimed to have been urged to attack by the other prisoners, and also that he was drunk at the time. The warder spoke in defence of Bushell and said he did not believe that he intended to harm him. Bushell was found guilty and sentenced to death. 12/9/1865: Bushell was hanged for his crime.