Charles Emery

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 19th July 2022

DEATH: 29 April, 1875: Charles Emery, male, 81 years old, pauper, died at the Cascades Invalid Depot from “senilis” (https://stors.tas.gov.au/RGD35-1-8p314j2k). --0-- FOOTNOTE: AKS Piper paints a grim picture of life for pauper inmates at these invalid depots. He talks of such institutions increasingly implementing “a regime of coerced labour, strict discipline, confinement, surveillance, regimentation and punishment as a means to control the lives of pauper invalids” (https://eprints.utas.edu.au/8306/7/02_ch6_Piper_Thesis.pdf, p168). “Charitable institutions tended to be converted convict establishments and often underwent several reuses. The Cascades, for example, witnessed a marked degree of re-utilisation of its extensive buildings over a period of many years. The conversion of the old female factory into a pauper invalid depot involved considerable expense and significant modifications to the establishment's built space. Nevertheless, this was by far the path of least expense for the government… “In addition to its reuse as an invalid depot, the Cascades was also utilised by the government as a boys' training school and reformatory, a hospital for the insane, a contagious diseases (or lock) hospital, and a lying-in hospital. Parts of it were also leased to private philanthropic groups who established a home of mercy and a prison gate home for discharged prisoners.”(pp173-74). --00--

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 19th July 2022

A PAUPER: 8 September, 1870: Charles Emery per St Vincent, 77 years old in 1870, was listed as an “Imperial Pauper” in the “Return of Convicts, Paupers and Lunatics at Port Arthur, Tasmania 1870” (https://stors.tas.gov.au/HAJ1870-128$init=HAJ1870-128_04) --0--

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 19th July 2022

IN VDL: 26 May, 1853: On arrival in VDL, CHARLES EMERY was listed as convict #27899, a shoemaker, 60 years old [note he has aged 10 years in a 5 year period], 5’3½” tall with black hair, grey eyes and a sallow complexion. He was married with 4 children, Protestant, and literate. He said he had been transported for cutting and wounding his wife. “She was struck only with my hand,” he said (https://stors.tas.gov.au/CON33-1-115$init=CON33-1-115p54). Family: Wife Charlotte at Northampton; mother Ann at Weedon (Weedon Bec) (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch/convict/chain/ai21893). For further details see his VDL Conduct record at https://stors.tas.gov.au/CON33-1-115$init=CON33-1-115p54 and his Indent record at https://stors.tas.gov.au/CON14-1-47$init=CON14-1-47_00152_L. —00—

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 19th July 2022

On Gibraltar, Charles Emery was listed as 50 years old when convicted, sentenced to 12 years for “feloniously cutting and wounding his wife”; prior convictions “unknown”; born in Wellington; Church of England; brown hair, grey eyes and fair complexion, 5’4¾” tall; literate; shoemaker; married; relatives/family living in Northampton. --0-- 3 February, 1853: He was sent aboard the St Vincent for transportation to VDL (UK, Prison Commission Records, 1770-1951; Misc.; Register of Prisoners; 1810-1822 [mislabelled]). --00--

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 19th July 2022

TO GIBRALTAR: 4 March, 1851: EMERY, CHARLES #1509, arrived on Gibraltar from England per Cornwall. Held on the Europa hulk (UK, Prison Commission Records, 1770-1951; Misc.; Register of Prisoners; 1810-1822 [mislabelled]). Gibraltar and Bermuda were listed public works stations (and the second stage in the penal process). On Gibraltar, as “convicts worked together with free men on the dockyards, lines between them became blurred. Convicts, like seamen, were ‘easily recognised’ by ‘their swarthy, weather beaten complexions…[and] muscular well-knit frames’. The discipline on the penal settlement was also influenced by the naval department, who superintended part of the works. In the 1840s, for example, convicts were provided ‘a half gill of rum’ at 11am and 5pm, which they drank from a trough. This mirrored the daily allowance of diluted rum, known as grog, to Royal Naval seamen in the Victorian era. Convicts were also allowed to use part of their earnings, to buy goods, usually tobacco, which they were allowed to smoke in the evening in the barracks. Though official correspondence cited health reasons for grog allowance, it seems likely that the convict authorities feared insubordination if they were banned from drinking and smoking, which were provided to the sappers and dockyard workers whom they worked alongside… In 1854, the acting overseer stated that “half of the offences were committed when the men were excited by rum”. For more serious offences, convicts were flogged with a ‘cat o’nine tails’ whip against the ‘flogging mast’, and during an investigation Dr William Baly concluded that the whip which was used was an old naval cat, which was ‘much heavier than any now used in the government prison and hulks at home, or in the army.’” (Roscoe, Katy (2018), “Convicts and the Sea: the naval influence on Gibraltar Convict Establishment” at https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/). --0--

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 19th July 2022

A PETITION: 10 February, 1849: “NORTHAMPTON PETTY SESSIONS… A Wife: The wife of Charles Emery [Charlotte Emery], who at the last Assizes was convicted of a most murderous assault upon her, and sentenced to seven years' [sic] transportation, came to request the magistrates sign a petition in mitigation of punishment- the magistrates expressed their astonishment at the request, considering the brutality with which she had been treated. ‘Sir,’ was the reply, ‘he always behaved very well to me.’ The bench considering that half-murdering a wife hardly came within the category of kind and husbandly treatment, refused to sign the petition.” (Northampton Mercury, p3) --0--

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 19th July 2022

NEWSPAPER report of the trial: 15 July, 1848: “NORTHAMPTON SHIRE SUMMER ASSIZES… Charles Emery… charged – Northampton, wilfully and maliciously cut and wounded his wife, with intent to kill her…” (Northampton Mercury, p3, at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/) --00--

Level 218

Dianne Jones on 19th July 2022

TRIAL: 15 July, 1848: Charles Emery, 50, semi-literate, was convicted and sentenced at the County Assizes, Northampton, to 12 years’ transportation for “malicious stabbing and with intent to do bodily harm” (England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892 for Charles Emery; England; Northamptonshire; 1848). --0--