John Long

71

Robin Sharkey on 23rd January 2025

JOHN LONG, aged 26, occupation: ploughman; was 5ft 7 inches tall, with dark brown hair, grey eyes, born in Co. Tipperary, and was tried at a Special Sessions at CASHEL, in Co. Tipperary in May, 1822. He was the brother-in-law of JOHN COLLINS, also aged 26, no 180, on the ship’s indent, who was also tried at the Cashel Special Sessions in May 1822 relating to the same incident of house burning and being seen in a ditch nearby outside the prescribed hours for being at home. SEDITIOUS ACTIVITY Special Sessions were held solely to try prisoners under the Insurrection Act of 1822. Anyone found guilty was deemed “An Idle and Disorderly Person” and transported for 7 years. The Insurrection Act could be proclaimed to be in force in any County where the Justices of the Peace considered the County to be in a state of disturbance. Once proclaimed, nobody in that county could be out of their homes from one hour after sunset until sunrise, without good reason. The Act itself prohibited activities such as swearing oaths to obey the orders of any association or secret society formed for seditious purposes; threatening evictions; injuring property. JOHN LONG of TIPPERARY appears to have been involved in such activities, and was found guilty under the Act. The facts involved a house being set on fire during the night, and a group of men being seen in a ditch nearby. The details of Collins’ arraignment were not published in the Freemans Journal, but there were no facts proving he had set the fire so his guilt was probably based on being seen with others in a ditch at night. Once he was found guilty of any offence under the Act he was deemed “an idle and disorderly person”, to be transported for seven years. From the facts reported, John Long was married to a daughter of one William Collins. John Collins was the son of William Collins, and therefore John Long and John Collins were brothers-in-law. They all lived together in the one house, not too far from the prosecutor, Mr Neal who was near Holycross in Tipperary. John Collins was also involved in the activity that night, was found guilty, and was transported with John Long on the ship ‘Mangles’. The sarcastic words thrown at Neal by someone in the Collins family house - “There’s cabbage and butter for you!” – indicates that Neal leasing the land (i.e. to produce “cabbage & butter”) had only brought him trouble, such as the house being burnt down. This implies that the Collins family believed the land was leased unfairly to Neal, or to his landlord John Ryan who he sub-leased from. For example, perhaps Neal had offered a higher rent causing an existing tenant to be evicted, or John Ryan had. John Long’s activity that night hints at him being part of the local illegal agrarian association – perhaps the Whiteboys – and that they had taken action to frighten Neal off the land. REPORT OF TRIAL Freemans Journal, Wednesday 29 May 1822, p.3: “On Saturday last (25 May 1822) at the special sessions of Cashel under the Insurrection Act, …. “John Long and John Collins were next arraigned under the Act, at the prosecution of a man named Neal. Neal was in the charge of a house and farm at Holycross that had been taken [i.e. leased] by one John Ryan from Mr Sadlier [i.e. the landlord]. On the night of Tuesday, the 17th [May] the house in which Neal was, as well as one or two other houses, were burned near the same place, by banditti. “Neal deposed that on the said not his wife awoke him in consequence of finding smoke in the house, which had almost stifled herself, a boy and a child; that Neal and the other inmates of the house got up and with great difficulty groped to the door and escaped, carrying with them only a feather bed. “Neal saw, behind a ditch, four or five men, one of him was the prisoner. Long, who went quickly off, and was followed by Neal into the House of William Collins, who is Long’s father-in-law, where he, Neal, on telling how his house had been burnt, was answered by a man who said: “There’s cabbage and butter for you!” “Long had got [himself] into Collins’s [house] some time before Neal, and had stripped himself and slipped into bed. With regard to the identity of the other prisoner, John Collins, son of William, Neal proved that he saw John Collins also inside the ditch, who turned aside his face – but he knew him also from his voice. Both the prisoners were convicted. “Mr Blacker, in passing sentence, pronounced their crime so atrocious as to be sufficient to disgrace the most savage nation, and had they been tried at the assizes for such an offence he had no hesitation in saying their lives would be forfeited. He then sentence them to seven years transportation.” In NSW • Sept 1825 Convict Muster – Convict, 7 yrs, Residing at Parramatta as Government Servant to Robert Crawford. Robert Crawford, a young man of only about 23 years, had been granted the 800 acre property he called “Hill End” at Prospect (near Penrith) during 1822 and was assigned 25 convicts to clear the land by the time of the 1822 Muster. John Long was assigned to him straight off the ‘Mangles’, as was another Insurrection Act convict off Mangles, Pat Lysaght from Limerick. At the beginning of 1823 an ex-sergeant, Henry Campbell, was employed by Crawford as the farm superintendant, but Robert Crawford removed him at the end of 1825 to replace him with his own newly-arrived brother, Thomas Crawford. Robert Campbell had been having an affair with poor Henry Campbell’s wife and seduced her away to Sydney with the five Campbell children. (See magazine ‘Australiana’, Vol 24, no 4. Nov 2002, chapter ‘Clyde Bank’ by John Hawkins, at p.100). • Nov 1825 Letter from Robert Crawford – John Long, on list of convicts mustered in the service of Robert Crawford in the musters of 1823, 1824, and 1825. • Letter of 9 Nov 1825, written by Robert Crawford, reports the death by suicide of John Collins per ‘Mangles’ in 1822 (does not specify the method). John Collins, same age as John Long, who was his brother-in-law, was also in the service of Robert Crawford at the time. Collins however had only been transferred to Robert Crawford earlier that year in May, from Roger Terry’s farm in the Evan district. John Collins’s death by his own hand must been a terrible event for John Long. • 1827 Ticket of Leave number 27/362; • 1828 Muster. John Long, aged 32 years. Catholic. Now Ticket of Leave, 7 yrs per ‘Mangles’ 1822; tried at Tipperary Special Sessions in 1822. He was employed as a labourer with Thomas Crawford and resided at Crawford’s ‘Ellelong’ in the district of Luskintyre (near Maitland in the Hunter Valley of NSW). Thomas Crawford was Richard’s brother and would have known John Long from when Thomas was appointed farm Supervisor at ‘Hill End” by his brother Robert at the end of 1825. In 1828, John Long was one of two ticket of Leave holders working for Thos. Crawford, together with six assigned convicts. • 1829 Certificate of Freedom, dated 27 Aug 1829, number 29/0850 LONG'S TIE TO THOMAS CRAWFORD Thomas Crawford was John Long’s employer while he had a ticket of Leave in 1827 and 1828. He had arrived as a free settler in October 1825 on the ship ‘Triton”. Son of Hugh Crawford, solicitor, of Glasgow, and brother of Robert who had been in NSW since 1821. Started in late 1825 as superintendant on Robert’s farm, ‘Hill End’ at Prospect, when John Long was a convict there. Thomas Crawford was given a Land Grant almost immediately on arriving – a government order for land in his name was dated 7 November 1825 for 2,000 acres. His grant was at Luskintyre, near Maitland. When Long got his Ticket of Leave in 1827 he probably applied to Thomas Crawford to work for him at Luskintyre and was living there by the time of the 1828 Census.

221

D Wong on 23rd April 2016

John Long was 27 years old on arrival, his native place was Wicklow, Ireland. John Long was transported for 'Offence under Insurrection Act'.

43

Old School on 23rd April 2016

TOL granted 27 june 1827 , to remain in district of Prospect ,altered for district of Upper hunter River 21 Sept 1827 , cancelled when cert of freedom granted 27 Aug 1829