John Mills

3

Patrick Dennis on 23rd January 2024

John was born about 1810 He was sixteen when he was convicted of larceny at the Gloucestershire assizes of 1826 and transportation for seven years penal servitude. He and most of his family were active members of an organised gang of thieves called the Wickwar Gang. The 27 member gang arrested in 1826 included Job Mills, labourer, his wife, Unity, their four sons, Thomas, Job Junior, William and John and two daughters, Catherine and Elizabeth. Job snr, jnr, Unity and the two daughters were acquitted for lack of evidence. The oldest boy, Thomas turned Kings Evidence and saved himself (and possibly the above family members). William Mills was hung, while John was transported on a lesser charge of stealing four geese. John was imprisoned on the Justitia, a hulk or floating prison, on the Thames River, before being transferred to the Andromeda for transportation. He arrived in Hobart Town Van Diemen's Land on 23 February 1827. He was assigned as convict labour for a short time before being transferred to Hobart, where he learnt the brewing trade under William Stallard. He was given his ticket of leave in 1831. He married on 21 December 1836 in Launceston, to 16 year old Hannah Hale. In 1837, he was the licensee of the Old Bell in Launceston. In May 1837 he sailed to Port Phillip and purchased land in the first land sales. He purchased a half acre block between Flinders Street and Flinders Lane. He returned to Launceston to collect Hannah and returned with her in October 1837. Their first residence was a wattle and daub hut with an earthen floor. On 10 January 1838, his daughter, Emma, was born. She was the third white child to be baptised in the records of Melbourne. He bought more land in the second land sales, buying a block on the corner of Elizabeth and Bourke Street, opposite the site of the General Post office. John Mills built the Melbourne Brewery on the Flinders Street site while he rented out the Elizabeth Street Site. He built the Adelphi, originally a shanty that later became a hotel, next to his brewery. He later built two more pubs: the Dundee Arms and the Crown Inn and extended the Adelphi to include a room sixty feet long in which balls and meetings could be held. He died at the age of 31 in 1841 at Somerset Cottage in Collins Street. He left a fortune to his only child, Emma. His will was dated 26 July 1841. John was born in 1810. He was the son of Job Mills and Unity Fisher. He passed away about 1841. Sources The Boyds by Brenda Niall Melbourne University Press. family searches