William Harris

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Penny-Lyn Beale on 8th December 2024

** Ship; NEPTUNE ** Australia, Convict Index, 1788-1868 Name William Harris Age 23 Birth Year Abt 1764 Arrival Year 1787 Arrival State New South Wales Trial Place Warwick Ship Neptune Comments D1790 • © 1997-2024 Ancestry

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Robin Sharkey on 9th December 2016

WILLIAM HARRIS was transported to Australia on the Second Fleet ship “NEPTUNE”, arrived 28 Jun 1790, at Sydney. He had been tried on 4th August 1787, at the assizes in Warwick, for burglary in Birmingham . At first sentenced to death, he was then reprieved to transportation for Life. He was a previous offender, having just got out of jail in Birmingham. in NSW he was executed by hanging, together with Edward Wildblood, only four months after arrival. They were the 25th & 26th persons hung by the state since the colony commenced in January 1788. ENGLISH CRIME Derby Mercury - Thursday 28 June 1787 p 4 “Birmingham, July [sic] 2. “On Tuesday night last, William Harris, (who had but the preceding morning been released from a Three months imprisonment, for robbing an outhouse of Lady Holt, at Aston) broke into a small house in Mr Reynolds’ yard, in the High Street, in this Town. The man who inhabited it, being alarmed by a Noise while in bed, got up, and meeting with Harris, immediately apprehended him. He was examined before the Magistrates on Thursday last, and by them committed to the County Gaol, which he had so lately quitted. Northampton Mercury - Saturday 11 August 1787 p 3 “Birmingham, August 9. On Tuesday evening, the Assizes for this County ended at Warwick, when the nine following prisoners were capitally convicted (several of whom were old offenders) viz, … William Harris for a burglary in the house of Joshua Palmer, in a yard in the high street, in this town the same day that he was released from prison for a former offence.” THE VOYAGE Harris left England 2 and a half years after his trial - in January 1790, and arrived at Sydney Cove six months later on 26th June 1790 Two other ships of the second fleet - Surprise and Scarborough - arrived at much the same time. Edward Wildblood, with whom Harris would be forever linked, had come on “Surprize”. All these ships disembarked malnourished and sickly convicts (including with scurvy) who had been severely mistreated on the voyage. The death toll was high. On the ‘Neptune, the male convicts were confined in filthy conditions primarily on the orlop deck’, the women convicts were unchained and housed in a section of the upper deck and had more liberties than the men, who received “ inadequate rations and were chained together in 'barbarous' irons”. * Around 160 convicts died on Neptune. In 1791 a number of Neptune crew members lodged statements alleging cruel treatment of the convicts on the ship and in 1792 legal action was taken against Capt Donald Trail and Neptune's chief mate , William Harris had been lucky to survive this treatment. Yet he would be executed within four months. FOUR MONTHS IN NSW. David Collins (Lt Governor of the Colony, and Dep Judge Advocate) in his book “An Account of the English Colony in NSW, Volume 1” wrote about the circumstances of Harris’s execution. From this, the following is Harris’ story. William Harris must have been assigned at Rose Hill after his arrival in June 1790, as was Edward Wildblood (who was tried at Shrewsbury, about 50 miles NW of Birmingham where Harris committed his two known offences). Collins wrote that “these people had given a great deal of trouble before they committed the offence for which they suffered.” In the three months from his arrival in NSW until the end of September, Harris, with Wildblood, had more than once or twice robbed their companions at Rose Hill, and towards the end of September, “ … they took to the woods. Since they were well known, the watch soon brought them in to the settlement at Sydney. They confessed that the night before they were apprehended they had killed a goat belonging to Mr White.” “ The Governor directed them immediately to be linked together by the leg and sent them back to Rose Hill, there to labour upon bread and water. It was in this situation that, taking advantage of their overseer’s absence for a few minutes, they went to the hut, having previous knowledge of it, and robbed it of everything they could carry away.” In October 1790, William Harris and Edward Wildblood, were tried for ‘housebreaking’ - entering the hut in Parramatta, and stealing from it. Collins recorded that there had been only one man in the hut and that he was “… a sick person, whom they knocked down, and then robbed the hut.” Collins’ view of their execution on 28th October 1790,: “ They were clearly convicted of the offence, and being most daring and flagrant offenders, were executed at Rose Hill, near the hut which they had robbed.” Buried 28 Oct 1790 Burial registered at St Philip's Church of England * William Hill, letter to Jonathan Wathen, 26 July 179 (NSW Mitchell Library, MLMSS 6821)