| Name: | John David Gambold |
| Aliases: | none |
| Gender: | m |
| Date of Birth: | 1811 |
| Occupation: | Ag lab |
| Date of Death: | - |
| Age: | - |
Life Span
Male median life span was 51 years*
* Median life span based on contributions
Sentence Severity
Sentenced to Life
| Crime: | Horse theft |
| Convicted at: | Monmouth Assizes |
| Sentence term: | Life |
| Ship: | Mangles |
| Departure date: | 8th December, 1832 |
| Arrival date: | 17th April, 1833 |
| Place of arrival | New South Wales |
| Passenger manifest | Travelled with 235 other convicts |
| Primary source: | Australian Joint Copying Project. Microfilm Roll 89, Class and Piece Number HO11/8, Page Number 496 |
| 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 Project. |
Megan Roberts on 22nd October, 2018 wrote:
John David Gambold was baptised on 31 March 1811 at St. Michael’s, Rudbaxton, which is a parish to the north of Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, the son of George and Martha (nee Howells). When he was arrested in April 1832 and charged with stealing two horses he was a 19 year old literate, farm labourer.
Gambold was tried at the Monmouth Assizes on 8 August 1832, found guilty and sentenced to be transported to for Life. He stole a bay mare from Thomas Llewellyn of Ambleston, Pembrokeshire on 9 March. Mr Llewellyn recovered her from the Pontypool police on 5 April. A Pontypool butcher testified that he bought the horse from Gambold on 15 March. At the trial, evidence was given that Gambold also offered to sell the butcher two grey mares that he didn’t have with him at that time. However, Mr Llewellyn did have two grey mares. Gambold’s defence in writing was that he had purchased the bay mare, but that he was unable to get people to speak for him as he was far away from friends and that it was the first time that he had ever appeared as a criminal in a court. There was another indictment relating to the theft of a gelding valued at £15 from a farmer, Evan Thomas of Kenarth, Carmarthenshire on 26 March but that was not heard. Mr Llewellyn put in an application for expenses saying that he had travelled more than 800 miles in search of his mare.
Whilst awaiting trial Gambold was held in the Monmouth County Gaol. During the course of the trial the Judge explained to the jury that a recent alteration in criminal law had made things such as horse stealing punishable by transportation for Life. After being sentenced he was sent to the prison hulk ‘Justitia’ moored in Woolwich, arriving there on 21 August 1832. The hulk’s records state that he was healthy and well behaved. He was transferred to the ‘Mangles’ on 22 November.
After being disembarked in New South Wales in May 1833 Gambold was assigned to work for Leslie Duguire, in Sydney. The 1837 Muster shows that he was assigned to work for John Burke in the Maitland District. He was identified as ‘David’ and his age was given as 23. He received a Ticket of Leave on 11 December 1841 allowing him to remain in Port Macquarie District.
He married Mary Ann Moore on 31 January 1843 in St Thomas’s, Port Macquarie. She was born about 1824 in Ireland and had arrived as a free emigrant in February 1842 aboard the ‘Agnes’.
On 20 March 1843 Gambold’s Ticket of Leave was altered to Windsor, so he and Mary moved to that district. On 7 August 1845 he was given a Ticket of Passport which allowed for “travel with an entire horse between Windsor and Mudgee in the service of Mr Rouse for 12 months”. Between 1844 and 1846 John David Gambold and Mary Ann had two children, Martha in 1844 and George in 1846. Neither survived infancy. He received a first class Conditional Pardon on 30 July 1847.
In December 1849, the ‘Shipping Intelligence’ news section of a New South Wales newspaper shows that John and Mary Ann Gambold sailed for San Francisco via Auckland, arriving in San Francisco on 28 May 1850, aboard the Barque ‘Gloucester’. The last record found for John David Gambold is his application for U.S. citizenship in the Northern District of California, District Court on 4 November 1868.
Megan Roberts on 22nd October, 2018 made the following changes:
date of birth: 1811 (prev. 0000), gender: m, occupation, crime
This record was discovered and printed on ConvictRecords.com.au
