Summary
Personal Information
Crime
Voyage
Transportation
James Howe 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 243 (124). --00-- 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.” The Great Circle, 40(1), 20–43. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26783779 |
| 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
1867, 18 July: Admitted to Portsmouth prison, Hampshire; inmate #1060. Portsmouth, Portland, Chatham and Spike Island in Ireland 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, p40) --00--
1866, 5 September: Admitted to Millbank prison, Westminster, London; inmate #2337; Listed as 30 years old, clerk, married, literate, Roman Catholic; alias John Sweeney, John Seddon and John Dawson. Family – wife Elizabeth Howe (UK, Prison Commission Records, 1770-1951 for James Howe; Millbank Prison; Register of Prisoners; 1866-1867). --00--
JAILS: 1866: Salford County jail – served 1 month 9 days in solitary confinement; behaviour “good”. Previous convictions – August 1854, 4 years’ penal servitude; July 1859, 6 years’ PS; twice convicted, once summarily (UK, Prison Commission Records, 1770-1951 for James Howe; Millbank Prison; Register of Prisoners; 1866-1867). “After a sentence of transportation [or penal servitude] was handed down, the prisoner entered into a separate stage where he was placed into an individual cell, isolated from others, apart from brief periods of exercise and attendance at chapel. However, no communication of any kind with other prisoners was permitted at any time. The philosophy behind this penal methodology had its provenances in the religious, monastic traditions; i.e., that in the isolation of his cell the malefactor would be able to contemplate the errors of his way, unadulterated by the negative influences of former contemporaries, and be reformed.” (Edgar, 2018, pp39-40) When first put into practice, the mandated period of separate confinement was 18 months. By the late 1840s, authorities had conceded that such conditions of imprisonment were “injurious to many prisoners’ mental health” and the stint was reduced to 12 months. Periods of separate confinement were reduced further “as a prisoner displayed good behaviour tendencies” (Edgar, 2018, p40). Millbank, Pentonville, Wakefield and Mountjoy in Ireland were the “Probation” or “Separate” prisons, as were some local jails. --00--
2. From the Manchester Courier, 4 August 1866, p10: SOUTH LANCASHIRE ASSIZES. SALFORD HUNDRED. CROWN COURT Saturday. (Before Mr. Justice Lush) His lordship entered the court at nine o'clock on Saturday morning, when the trials of the prisoners were resumed. BURGLARY. Bernard McDermott, 28, and James Howe, 30, the former of whom pleaded guilty, were indicted for burglary. Mr. Saunders prosecuted. On the night of the 24th March [sic] the house of Mr. Hall, Pump-street, London-road, in the absence of its occupants, was broken into about ten o'clock, and on returning home soon after the prosecutor found that some boxes containing clothes had been emptied and the house was ransacked The following morning the prisoners engaged a porter named James Rothwell to cart some things to Ashton, where they were seen by a police officer disposing of the property at a clothes dealer’s. He asked them where they were from; they said Manchester, and were clothes dealers. He took them into custody, and the property was afterwards identified as that which had been stolen from Mr. Hall's. The jury found the prisoner guilty. Howe, who had been convicted five times, and had several times undergone penal servitude, was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude, and McDermott to one month's imprisonment. (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000206/18660804/061/0010) --00--
NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF TRIAL: 1. From the Liverpool Mercury, 30 July 1866, p5: MANCHESTER ASSIZES. SATURDAY, JULY 28. CROWN COURT. BEFORE MR. JUSTICE LUSH. BURGLARY.-Bernard McDermott, aged 28, and James Howe, aged 30, the former of whom pleaded guilty, were indicted for burglary. Mr. Saunders prosecuted. On the 26th March [sic] the house of Mr. Hall (who was from home at the time) was broken into, and a box of clothes was nearly emptied. The house was ransacked. Mr. Hall returned home at ten o'clock at night and discovered that the robbery had taken place, and gave notice to the police. On the following day a policeman saw the prisoners at Ashton with the clothing, and they told him they were clothes dealers. The property they had was identified afterwards as the property of Mr. Hall. Verdict, "Guilty." His Lordship said there were five previous convictions against Howe, and he had several times undergone penal servitude. He should therefore sentence him to penal servitude for ten years. McDermott said he was led into the crime by Howe, and as there was some probability that was true the sentence on him was one month’s imprisonment. (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000081/18660730/012/0005) --00--
TRIAL in 1866: 1866, 26 July: Manchester Assizes – convicted and sentenced to 10 years’ penal servitude for burglary and before convicted of felony (three previous convictions) (England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892 for James Howe; England; Lancashire; 1866). --00--
1864, 25 August: As John Dawson, he was “discharged on Licence” (Ticket of Leave). “From 1853 onwards the Penal Servitude Act created the facility for individuals serving time in convict prisons to be released part way through their sentence on a ‘conditional licence’ much like the well-established Ticket of Leave system in Australia.” (UK Licences for the Parole of Convicts 1853-1925 at https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/UK_Licences_for_the_Parole_of_Convicts_1853-1925) --00--
PRISON: 1864, 5 August: Admitted to Millbank prison, Westminster, London, having been received on this date from the Gibraltar penal station, per the Arabian; inmate #9375, 23 years old, married, clerk, reads and writes well (UK, Criminal Records, 1780-1871 for John Dawson; Prison Registers and Statistical Returns; 1865-1870; HO 24/10). -- Gibraltar and Bermuda were listed public works stations (and the second stage in the penal process). On Gibraltar, as “convicts worked together with free men on the dockyards, lines between them became blurred. Convicts, like seamen, were ‘easily recognised’ by ‘their swarthy, weather beaten complexions…[and] muscular well-knit frames’. The discipline on the penal settlement was also influenced by the naval department, who superintended part of the works. In the 1840s, for example, convicts were provided ‘a half gill of rum’ at 11 AM and 5PM, which they drank from a trough. This mirrored the daily allowance of diluted rum, known as grog, to Royal Naval seamen in the Victorian era. Convicts were also allowed to use part of their earnings, to buy goods, usually tobacco, which they were allowed to smoke in the evening in the barracks. Though official correspondence cited health reasons for grog allowance, it seems likely that the convict authorities feared insubordination if they were banned from drinking and smoking, which were provided to the sappers and dockyard workers whom they worked alongside…. In 1854, the acting overseer stated that “half of the offences were committed when the men were excited by rum”. For more serious offences, convicts were flogged with a ‘cat o’nine tails’ whip against the ‘flogging mast’, and during an investigation Dr William Baly concluded that the whip which was used was an old naval cat, which was ‘much heavier than any now used in the government prison and hulks at home, or in the army.’” (Roscoe, 2018). --
PREVIOUS CONVICTIONS – PENAL SERVITUDE: COMMITTAL: From the Manchester Courier, 25 June 1859: Daring House Robbery Moss-lane.—On Tuesday, at the New Bailey, two young men, named John Dawson and Robert Giles, were committed for trial for a daring robbery at the house of Mr. Henry Dewsberry, Moss-lane, on Saturday. Shortly before one o'clock the servant girl, Martha Williams, went into the dining room and there saw Dawson, who instantly leaped through the window and ran away with Giles, who was waiting outside. A cruet stand was missed, chase given, and Dawson captured, but Giles escaped. He was, however, apprehended in Manchester in the course of the evening. (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000206/18590625/043/0009) -- COURT: 1859, 4 July: As John Dawson – convicted at Salford and sentenced to six years’ penal servitude for larceny (stealing a silver cup) and previous convictions (UK, Criminal Records, 1780-1871 for John Dawson; Prison Registers and Statistical Returns; 1865-1870; HO 24/10). --
PREVIOUS CONVICTIONS – PENAL SERVITUDE: COURT: 1854, 2 August: As John Sweeney – convicted at Manchester Intermediate Quarter Sessions, along with James Downes, and sentenced to four years’ penal servitude for stealing a fixture (lead pipe) and previous convictions (England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892 for John Sweeney; England; Lancashire; 1854). PRISON: 1855, 18 January: As John Sweeney, he was sent from Manchester jail to Millbank prison, Westminster, London; inmate #242 (UK, Criminal Records, 1780-1871 for John Sweeney; Prison Registers and Statistical Returns; 1852-1856; HO 24/6 [Millbank p242]). 1855, 10 August: As John Sweeney, alias Sidons, 17, single, spindle maker, he was sent from Millbank to Portland prison. --00--