Hugh Wallace Hossack

218

Dianne Jones on 26th October 2023

NOTE: Year of Birth is based on an official record but not the day and month. The latter dates have been entered as 01/01 because the site does not allow those fields to be left empty.

218

Dianne Jones on 22nd May 2020

NAME: His surname is often misspelled. I have found 19 versions so far! I settled on HUGH WALLACE HOSSACK after cross-checking against some of the more reliable and literate sources, such as the "Dorothy's" surgeon, Dr Robert Espie, whose record of the voyage (May 15, 1820) refers to "unironing" seven men for good behaviour, including HUGH HOSSACK. Another reliable source is George Busby, Officer-in-Charge of the Bathurst Hospital, and the Informant for his Death Certificate. Again, he is listed as HUGH HOSSACK. Family researchers posit Wallace as his second name, as do two newspaper reports of a court case (see below). The letter W is also on his Marriage Certificate of 1822. The same certificate, however, misspells his surname as HOZAK! TRANSPORTATION: His crime was apparently "Felony of oil lamp black". The significance of lamp black was its use in printers' ink in the 1800s, according to "The London Commercial Dictionary and Seaport Gazetteer" (Aug 1819, p90). Most high quality lamp black had to be imported from Germany, Sweden and Norway. So it was probably quite expensive. Note: Some records underestimate the number of convicts aboard the "Dorothy". Dr Espie's diary records 30 male convicts being loaded at the Cove of Cork on April 20, another 102 on April 23, and the rest by May 2 to make a total of 190 men. THE VOYAGE: The "Dorothy" weighed anchor and sailed out of Cork Harbour on May 5, 1820. On Sep 20, she weighed anchor and stood in for Sydney Cove. In his roundup of the voyage, Espie wrote that 189 prisoners had arrived in good health due to his regime of cleanliness and regulation that he was "most tenacious in enforcing", including "exercise of the mind and body, free admission to the deck" and the success of his school for 30 men who learned to read and write. MARRIAGE in 1822: Hugh married ELIZABETH KILLETT GRAY, a widow and former convict (per "Nile"), at Windsor, NSW, on Nov 4. FAMILY: Hugh and Elizabeth had two children - Margaret Hussack (b 1823) who drowned at Windsor in 1830; and Mary Ann Hosack (b 1826) who died in 1827, cause unknown. Again, note the inconsistencies in the family name in "official" records. CERTIFICATE OF FREEDOM in 1826: Granted on Aug 31 to "Hugh Hasack". This document records his age as 39 (suggesting a birth date of about 1787). This is not supported by his Death Certificate where his age is 68 (pointing to his birth in 1789/1790). OTHER: Various official records and newspaper reports help to sketch the post-transportation life of Hugh Wallace Hossack. He was Overseer of a convict work gang at Windsor in 1822 and, later in the same year, became a Constable at Windsor (Constable Hussock). He held appointments as Constable at Penrith in 1826 (Hussack) and Parramatta in 1826 (Hugh Wallace Hasack), was Town Constable at Windsor in 1827, and Constable at Penrith in 1832 (Hugh Wallace Hossack). It appears he was sacked from each of these positions, only to be re-appointed somewhere else! His offences included "improper behaviour" and - in a separate incident - "drunkenness". In 1835, Hugh Wallace Hossack (The Australian, Feb 10, p3) was a key witness in the trial of three men accused of murdering Alice Cooper at Emu Plains. The Sydney Gazette (Feb 10, p2) reported that Hugh Wallace Hassack "lived at the house of the deceased" and worked for Mr Kabble at Emu Plains. AFTER 1835: Hugh Wallace Hossack almost disappears from the records - or at least those I have located so far - until his death at Bathurst Hospital on Nov 1, 1858. He may have gone north to the Warwick district, in or before 1856. A man named Hossack was employed by Surveyor Henry Sanderson of the Department of Land and Public Works, until December 1856, at his camp near Warwick. BURIAL: On Nov 2, 1858, undertaker Sebastian Hodge of Bentick Street, Bathurst, buried Hugh Wallace Hossack somewhere in Bathurst. Perhaps the burial, witnessed by Thomas Ward and Patrick McKinley, occurred in the hospital grounds? Most likely Hugh was not well off. Bathurst was one of three convict hospitals that (newly arrived) Governor Gipps transferred to local administrations in 1842, making them responsible for the "gratuitous treatment of sick and indigent persons". This would explain the lack of a marked/known grave for Hugh Wallace Hossack (along with the entry, "a widower", on his Death Certificate), and his wife's - my great great great grandmother's - reversion to her first married name well before her death in 1875. WHAT NEXT: Do you have any information that would help to find the final resting place of Hugh Wallace Hossack? Please get in touch.

343

Maureen Withey on 15th November 2019

Irish Convict Database by Peter Mayberry Hugh Hasack, age 33, ship Dorothy 1820, Tried 1819 in Dublin City, sentence 7 years, Native of Glasgow, Scotland. Soldier. Government and General Order. Colonial Secretary's Office, June 29th, 1825. The Governor has been pleased to approve of the following Appointments : … and Hugh Hassock (Dorothy) to be a Constable, in the Room of Kelly, resigned.