Summary
Personal Information
Voyage
Transportation
John Dea was transported on the Robert Small, departing 1st May 1853 and arriving 19th Aug 1853 with 30 passengers.
655 ton ship built in Newcastle, UK 1835. Conveyed convicts and passengers from England to Western Australia. Also carried approx. 100 free passengers. The register of convict passengers is currently being listed but not yet complete.
Robert Small (generic)References
| Primary Source | https://waconvicts.fhwa.org.au/g0/p87.htm#i2171 --0-- Ireland, Prison Registers, 1790-1924 for John Dee; Dublin; Mountjoy; 1846-1884 --0-- https://findingaids.nationalarchives.ie/ |
Claims
No one has claimed John Dea yet.
Convict Notes
NOTE: Year of Birth is taken from official records but day and month are not known. The latter dates have been entered as 01/01 because the site does not allow those fields to be left empty.
WA RECORD: JOHN DEA / DEE Birth: 1831 [1829 – see jail and medical records] Death: 23 June, 1853, at sea Convicted: Larceny; sentenced to 10 years on 3 January, 1849 [incorrect date, see trial record], at County Limerick, Ireland Family Status: Unmarried Occupation: Labourer Transported: To WA on the Robert Small leaving from Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland, on 1 May, 1853. He had been collected from Ireland prison. He died on the journey. Convict No.: 2171 (https://waconvicts.fhwa.org.au/g0/p87.htm#i2171). --000--
MEDICAL RECORD: The journal of the Robert Small’s Surgeon Superintendent, Harvey Morris, shows John Dee suffered from “fever” for nine days before his death: “Folio 16: John Dea [sic], aged 24, convict; case number 7; disease or hurt, fever. Put on sick list, 14 June 1853 at sea. Died 23 June 1853” (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C11542201). --0--
THE DREADFUL VOYAGE ... By Weaver, P (2004) at https://fremantlebiz.livejournal.com/37766.html “Part 1. Irish prisoners for Western Australia on Phoebe Dunbar & Robert Small in 1853 This is the first part in series of eight which were extracted from a public talk which I gave at the Old Fremantle Prison celebrations in June 2000: On 30 August 1853 the 704 ton hired British convict ship Phoebe Dunbar hove-to in Owen’s Anchorage off Fremantle, Western Australia. On board was a consignment of 286 mostly Irish convicts and 29 British pensioner guards with their families, numbering 21 women and 42 children. A few days earlier on 19 August a similar sized consignment of Irish prisoners and British guards had arrived at Fremantle on board another hired convict ship, the Robert Small. Robert Small lost nine convicts and the figure would have been higher had it not been forced to put into Rio de Janeiro to off-load 150 tons of putrefied ballast, a black peat-like mixture of sand and Dutch clay. A medical board of enquiry convened at Fremantle laid most of the blame on the ballast, ‘...the smell of which was most offensive and likely to prove a fertile source of disease.’ However, had the leaky ship not inadvertently stopped off in South America where fruit and vegetables were purchased the death toll probably would have been much higher than nine. Surgeon Superintendent Harvey Morris -- doctor on at least three other convict shipments to Norfolk Island and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) -- had by his own admission deliberately falsified his records by registering only one third of those who came to him sick. His intention, as he wrote in his shipboard journal, was to instil in the prisoners a false sense of confidence in his abilities: ‘It is always advisable in a Convict Ship, especially when diseases are numerous, to keep the sick list down, as it is termed, with a view of deceiving the general body as regards the healthiness or unhealthiness of the Ship; and the more effectually to do this it is often necessary to keep the names of some off the list who ought to be there, and to register those of others who have little or nothing the matter with them...’” --0--
From “Ireland-Australia transportation database” Last name: DEE First name: JOHN Full name: JOHN DEE Sex: M Age: 21 Trial place: Co. Limerick Trial date: 09/07/1850 Crime desc: Robbery Sentence: Transportation 10 yrs Ship: Robert Small Document ref1: TR 10, P 154 Comment1: Robert Small (embarked), 00/04/1853 (https://findingaids.nationalarchives.ie/). --0--
JAIL: 1850: On a list of “Convicts under sentence of transportation in the Mountjoy Government Prison” -- JOHN DEE [sic] was held at Mountjoy, Dublin; inmate #970; 21 years old (born 1829); robbery in a dwelling; convicted at Limerick on 9 July, 1850; 10 years transportation; single; labourer; illiterate; in “good” health; no previous conviction; no other details (Ireland, Prison Registers, 1790-1924 for John Dee; Dublin; Mountjoy; 1846-1884). --0--
SENTENCING: 1850, 10 July: Limerick Assizes, County Criminal Court, Rule of Court: “His Worship then sentenced the following... John Dea, Thomas Dea, jnr., and Thomas Dea, snr., robbery and assaulting habitations – 10 years’ transportation respectively” (Limerick Chronicle, 13 July, 1850, p4 at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000899/18500713/038/0004). --0--
IN IRELAND: TRIAL: 1850, 9 July: Limerick Summer Assizes, County Criminal Court -- John Dea, Thomas Dea, jnr., and Thomas Dea, snr., were indicted for assaulting the habitation of Michael Higgins, at Ballinvana, and stealing there 1cwt butter [about 50kg/111lbs] and a quantity [sic] the 3rd July. The jury retired for a quarter of an hour, and returned a verdict of Guilty. Sentence deferred.” (Clonmel Chronicle, 13 July, 1850, p1 at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003179/18500713/003/0001). --0--