Summary
Personal Information
Crime
Voyage
Transportation
James Fitzsimones was transported on the Bangalore, departing 11th Apr 1848 and arriving 14th Jul 1848 with 205 passengers.
Built 1843 at Jersey. Wood barque of 877 Tons.
Bangalore (generic)References
| Primary Source | Australian Joint Copying Project. Microfilm Roll 92, Class and Piece Number HO11/15, Page Number 294. -0- National Archives, Kew, at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C10231720. -0- Edgar, W. (Bill). (2018). “The precarious voyage of her majesty’s convict ship ‘Nile’ to the Swan River colony, late 1857 – and the unexpected aftermath.” at https://www.jstor.org/stable/26783779. -0- Bateson, C. (2004), “The convict ships 1787-1868”, Library of Australian History, Sydney, pp.59-60. |
| 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
FOOTNOTE 2: 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.
FOOTNOTE: ARRIVAL OF THE BANGALORE July 14, 1848: — “Arrived the barque Bangalore, [departed] from Bermuda 11th April last, with 202 male convicts [landed]. Passengers -- Dr. Morris, R.N., Surgeon Superintendent, Lieut. D'Oyley and Ensign Hague 11th Regt., 49 rank and file 11th, 96th, and 99th regiments, 4 women, and 4 children.” (Colonial Times, 18 July, p2, at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8763146) REACTION TO THE ARRIVAL “LONDON AGENCY PAPERS. ...we cannot but notice the shameful conduct of the British Government, or rather our Governor, Earl Grey, in sending another bad cargo of exiles which has arrived by the Bangalore from Bermuda. When this abomination is to terminate it is difficult to say, but not, we firmly believe, until we receive our full rights from the British Government:— London, March 10, 1848.” (Colonial Times, 18 July, p3, at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8763150) Note: According to Bateson (2004, p7), “exiles” specifically referred to “prisoners who had served a probationary period in England and had been pardoned on condition of deportation”. However, the men on the Bangalore had served the bulk of their sentences on Bermuda, rather than in England . Most were sentenced to terms of 7 or 10 years. Others were serving 14 and 15 years. Only one man had a life sentence. Their records show they all held either Tickets of Leave or Conditional Pardons on their arrival in VDL during the period of the government's Probation System. --000--
WHAT THE SHIP’S SURGEON SUPERINTENDENT SAID In the hard copy of the Medical Journal required to be completed by a Ship’s Surgeon, Harvey Morris wrote “phthisis” (TB/consumption) as the disease that killed James Fitzsimones (not marasmus, as stated in the online records at Kew). He also wrote in great detail of his patient’s decline and death: “Had Fitzsimons been medically examined previous to embarkation the extreme emaciation of his body must have led even a careless person to suspect that extensive organ disease existed somewhere, but as there was no examination, and as sending one prisoner from Bermuda to Van Diemen’s Land in lieu of another was not allowed, this individual came on board in the last stage of consumption which there can be no doubt had existed for months if not years and had probably been kept in abeyance by residence in a warm climate. For nearly two months after we left Bermuda this man made no complaint, indeed while the temperature of the atmosphere was on the increase his spirits seemed good and although he was literally a walking skeleton he seemed to be in tolerable health and to enjoy his food; this state of things however only lasted during the fine weather for when we got into about the 38th degree of South Latitude the cold began to take effect and he complained of pain in the chest and difficulty of breathing for which he was blistered at the right side of the sternum; he had an exacerbation of fever morning and evening but there was little or no cough or expectoration, the absence of which symptoms and the desponding tone of the patient led me to the erroneous idea that his malady was principally of a mental nature and caused me to prescribe such things only as I thought best calculated to give confidence and keep up the little strength that still remained; I frequently spoke cheeringly to him about the shore and although it is said that death frequently terminates the existence of persons labouring under this disease at a time when they are vainly calculating upon future enjoyments I never could get Fitzsimons to admit the probability of his recovery; no matter how I attacked him or what means I used to erase his melancholy forebodings his outcomes were always of the same character and on one occasion when talking to him about the fine climate of Van Diemen’s Land and the certainty of the good effects it would induce upon his constitution, he most sincerely thanked me for my ... intentions and with but passing solemnity assured me that he felt confident he should never ever see the land, which presentiment proved literally true for although we sighted Tasmania before he died the poor man never saw it. The post mortem examination showed that only the upper third of the left lung was serviceable in breathing, the remainder being either hepatized or thickly studded with tubercles, some of them in a state of suppuration; the right lung was altogether gone, it had two large abscesses and several small ones in the substance and was totally unfit for the office of respiration. Taking all the circumstances of this case into consideration it is consolatory to know, that had I been able to look into the lungs the day the patient came on board, I could not have done him any good, and that his remaining at Bermuda could at best only prolong a miserable existence.” (UK, Royal Navy Medical Journals, 1817-1856; B; Bangalore; 1848 05 Jan-1848 22 Sep; at https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/2318/images/31792_626640_0682-00018) --000--
DEATH AT SEA 1848, 12 July: James Fitzsimons died on board the Bangalore. He was 30, according to the Bangalore's ship's surgeon, and the cause of death was “marasmus” (i.e. malnutrition). James Fitzsimons had been sick from 29 June, according to the same record (Medical Journal of the Bangalore, by Harvey Morris, Surgeon and Superintendent; ADM 101/7/1/21848, National Archives, Kew, at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/). The Australian Convict Transportation Register – Other Fleets & Ships, 1791-1868; 1846-1848, shows James Fitzsimones held a Ticket of Leave at the time of his death (https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/1180/images/IMAUS1787C_114262-00361). --0--
THE VOYAGE 1848, 21 May: James Fitzsimons appears on the ship’s sick list, “aged 26, convict; sick or hurt, dyspepsia; put on sick list 21 May 1848, discharged 5 June 1848 cured” (Medical Journal of the Bangalore, by Harvey Morris, Surgeon and Superintendent; ADM 101/7/1/21848, National Archives, Kew, at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/). --0--
THE BANGALORE LEAVES BERMUDA 1848, 11 April: The Bangalore sailed from Bermuda with 203 male convicts on board. --0-- 1848, 15 April: From despatches from Charles Elliot, Governor of Bermuda: Description: Reports the departure of the Bangalore [sailed 11 April, 1848] with 203 convicts bound for Australia. Comments on the £1071 they would receive for their reserve earnings. Notes that the £492, which was earned during their probation period, could be used to help purchase the passages of any female relatives who wished to join them. [Printed for Parliament September 1848.] Reference: CO 37/121/30; Convicts, No. 26, folios 207-219. Date: 1848, Apr 15 (National Archives, Kew, at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C10231720). --00--
1848, June quarter: Aboard the Dromedary hulk – convict #1645, James Fitzsimones, details as above; "good" behaviour for 8 preceding quarterly musters/two years on Bermuda. Deemed "healthy", according to this final record from the Dromedary’s surgeon. Charles Bateson’s (2004, pp59-60) description of the different agendas supporting a convict’s “passing muster” for transportation is instructive, given James Fitzsimons’ death at sea, in July 1848, and his “healthy” rating, before embarkation, by the Dromedary’s medical officer: “Both in England and Ireland many of the convicts had been in custody in the fever-ridden gaols or hulks for months and were in a wretched state of health. At first the lax medical examination led to the rejection only of those who were so obviously ill that they could not be moved, and many were embarked suffering from a contagious or infectious disease or in such a debilitated condition that their chances of surviving the rigors of the long voyage were slight. This was an important contributory factor in the high mortality rate in the early convict ships. Later, when the instructions to surgeons superintendent ordered them not to embark any convict suffering an infectious or contagious disease or who was unfit to undertake the voyage, there was some improvement. However, the gaol authorities, as well as the convicts, often conspired to defeat the surgeon’s utmost vigilance. The surgeons were subject to pressure as well as deceit. At the medical examination the prisoners were made to appear at their best. They were washed and dressed in new clothes and warned to appear smart and cheerful before the doctor. As most of the convicts, sickened by their imprisonment in the crowded and unhealthy gaols and hulks, were only too eager to get away they concealed their disabilities and cheerfully lied about the state of their health. For their part, the hulk and prison authorities suppressed the health records of their charges and sometimes deliberately misled the surgeon as to a particular man’s record or illness. The circumstances under which the medical examination was carried out rendered it anything but thorough, even under the best conditions. The men were paraded in large numbers, so that there was no opportunity to examine each thoroughly and at leisure, and all the surgeon could do was to reject those who appeared obviously ill. Harvey Morris, surgeon of the Bangalore, was forced to carry out his examination of Irish prisoners in 1848 [those sent from Kingstown to Bermuda in early 1848] ‘almost in the open air on excessively cold days’, so that it was impossible to ask the men to remove their clothing.” Note: It appears that the Bangalore’s Surgeon Superintendent did not inspect the 203 convicts who boarded the ship at Bermuda (see the transcript below from the Surgeon Superintendent’s Journal). --0--
1846, June quarter: Aboard the Dromedary hulk – convict #1645, James Fitzsimones, listed as 23 when convicted; desertion, court martial New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, on 28 August, 1845, 7 years’ transportation; surgeon’s report “healthy”, behaviour “good” for May-June quarter (England, Criminal Lunatic Asylum Registers, 1820-1876 for James Fitzsimones; Quarterly Returns of Prisoners in Hulks; 1846; June, at https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/441192:9163, image 125). The Dromedary convict hulk arrived at Dockyard, Ireland Island, Bermuda in 1826 (Bermuda Journal of Archaeology & Maritime History, Vol 2 1990, pp88). HMS Dromedary was originally a teak-built mercantile vessel, the Kaikusroo, built in Bombay and launched in 1799. In 1805 she was bought to serve as a 40-gun frigate and commissioned as the Howe. In February 1806 the Admiralty converted her and fitted her out as a 24-gun store ship and renamed her HMS Dromedary. In 1809, under the command of her master, Samuel Pritchard, she carried Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie to New South Wales where Macquarie was to take over as governor from William Bligh. In 1819 Dromedary was fitted out as a convict transport ship and on 11 September 1819 under Captain Richard Skinner she sailed for Australia with 369 convicts. The Dromedary arrived at Hobart on 10 January 1820 where she landed 347 convicts before proceeding to Sydney where the other 22 convicts were landed. Early in 1826 the Dromedary, carrying another 300 convicts, joined the Antelope in Bermuda. Until 1851 the Dromedary was home to convicts sentenced to hard labour, remaining close to the quarries and construction sites where the convicts laboured. In 1851, 300 convicts from the Dromedary, together with another 300 from the Coromandel [hulk] were moved to barracks on shore, and for the next 12 years the Dromedary was used as a kitchen for working convicts and those who guarded them (https://search.findmypast.com.au/search-world-records/prison-ship-hulk-registers). --0--
BERMUDA Portsmouth, Portland and Chatham in England, Spike Island in Ireland, along with Gibraltar and Bermuda were listed public works stations and the second stage in the penal process. After separate confinement, prisoners were “placed on work parties at various locations, most commonly naval stations, where maintenance of facilities was vital for the effective protection of Britain’s far flung commercial and military influences around the world. While there, attitude and behaviour were monitored closely. In theory, only after consistently positive reports was a prisoner moved on to the third stage of his incarceration—transportation.” (Edgar, 2018, p40). --0--
1845, 10 December – Article from the Morning Chronicle, p4: “The Barretto Junior left her moorings off the Royal Arsenal, and was towed down the river by the Monkey steam-vessel, Sir William Bryant master. The Barretto Junior has 200 convicts on board, and a guard of the 20th Regiment of Foot for Bermuda, and it is expected she will return with about 150 convicts from that place whose periods of transportation have expired, or been commuted to five years and lesser periods in consequence of their good conduct. The China, hired convict ship, dropped down from Deptford yesterday to moorings off the Royal Arsenal, to take on board convicts for Norfolk Island. It is said that 800 convicts altogether will leave this country before the expiration of the present month.” (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000082/18451210/010/0004) Note: After a long delay due to a cholera outbreak on board, and adverse weather, the Barretto Junior set sail for Bermuda on 2 February, 1846. She returned to England from Bermuda on 7 May. --0--