Summary
Personal Information
Voyage
Transportation
John Foley was transported on the Hougoumont, departing 10th Oct 1867 and arriving 9th Jan 1868 with 281 passengers.
875 ton ship was built at Moulmein in 1852. http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/on-this-day-in-history-australias-last-convict-ship-docks.htm ---------------------------- Incorrect Image ....This is a four masted steel hulled Barque in the drawing , im surprised Australian Geo didn't do a bit more research on this .......The Hougoumont was a works ship on the Forth Bridge Project in 1885 ....the one potrayed as a drawing in Aust Geo is the later version of this ship.....the photograph i have attached is the correct and original convict vessel. --00-- 1867 "The hired convict ship Hougoumont, which has been taken up by the Government for the conveyance of a numerous party of convicts to Freemantle, Western Australia, left the Nore on October 1, and proceeded down Channel, after receiving on board 150 convicts from the establishments at Chatham and Millbank. The convicts from the Chatham establishment, at St. Mary's, embarked from the dockyard on board the paddle-wheel steamer Adder, Mr. W. J. Blakely, and were in charge of a numerous party of convict guards and wardens, all heavily armed. Among the convicts shipped were a party of fifteen Fenians, who were engaged in the late conspiracy in Ireland, together with the officers and crew convicted of scuttling the ship Severn, and some others who have achieved notoriety from their crimes. The Fenian convicts, like the remainder of the prisoners, were chained together in gangs, but it was observed that they were kept apart from the other convicts in a portion of the vessel by themselves. The steamer Petrel also took down a number of convicts from the establishment at Millbank for shipment on board the Hougoumont, in charge of a strong escort and convict guard. On Tuesday, October 8th, the Hougoumont arrived in Portland roads. Shortly before midday ninety convicts were marched down to the Government pier at Portland under a strong escort of the 12th Light Infantry. The party included twenty-three Fenian convicts, among whom it was said, was Moriarty. The Government steamer employed in the breakwater service was used for conveying the convicts on board the Hougoumont transport ship. The convicts were chained together on embarking, and on board the steamer a strong guard of marines from her Majesty's ship St. George was formed, and saw the convicts safely placed on board the Hougoumont. The Governor of the penal settlement at Freemantle, Captain Young, is on board the Hougoumont, and returns in that ship to his sphere of duty after paying a visit to his native land." Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Thu 19 Dec 1867, p4, English Shipping, available on Trove at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28608271?searchTerm=hougoumont.
HougoumontReferences
| Primary Source | Australian Joint Copying Project. Microfilm Roll 93, Class and Piece Number HO11/19, Page Number 266 |
| 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
Fenians and imprisonment: In his thesis, “The Fenians and Australia c1865-1880”, Keith Amos (1987) says all of the Fenians transported to WA on the Hougoumont “had been arrested, tried and sentenced between September 1865 and August 1867 for a variety of roles in a concerted but ill-fated attempt forcibly to establish Ireland as an independent republic. Immediately after the first convictions, sympathetic countrymen began to agitate for official recognition of Fenians as political prisoners, hoping that certain privileges accorded to Daniel O'Connell and the Young Irelanders might be granted, the most important being physical separation from ordinary criminals." Their efforts were unsuccessful. Amos says “all Fenians were treated at first as ordinary criminals. Shortly after sentence, beards were cut off, hair cropped, clothes exchanged for prison dress, and photos taken as the prisoners held before them black slates bearing their names and numbers inscribed in chalk. Most served about three months in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, where they were lodged in separate cells and worked during the day, in solitude, picking coir. They were then shipped to England to serve a further six months solitary confinement at Pentonville or Millbank, and progressed from there to Chatham, Portsmouth, Portland, or for intractables, Dartmoor, where limited conversation was permitted during gang labour and one letter allowed each month. Conditions were undoubtedly harsh, stretching sanity to the limit under the stress of solitary confinement, and physical health to the point of collapse under heavy labour. On the whole though, most Fenians were not singled out for worse treatment than other convicts unless, like O'Donovan Rossa, they attracted attention with acts of defiance.” (1987, pp110-111) --0--
1867, 6 May: John Foley, was convicted by court martial at the Royal Military Barracks, in Dublin, of mutinous conduct – concealing a mutiny when a driver in the Royal Horse Artillery and “proved to be a Fenian and to have deserted in London to come over to Ireland for the rising” (Amos, 1987, p366). He was sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude. It’s likely that he was held at the military prison at Arbour Hill, on a small site north of the River Liffy and near the site of the old Provost prison. Built in 1845-88, Arbour Hill served solely as a military detention centre (PD O’Donnell, Dublin Historical Record, Vol 25, No 4, p145). After his conviction, John Foley would have been dressed in convict garb and then sent to Mountjoy convict prison, also in Dublin. --0--