Thomas Pearce

8

J Carter on 21st September 2024

With reference to wife Mary Ann and her children a son & daughter on the Experiment. The daughter's name is Maria Jane nee Pearce bc1804 d 13 Aug 1894, Wattle Flat, NSW. Don't know where the aka Mary Ann comes from. Maria Jane by the time of the 1824 Census was married to Henry Morgan so sadly there is no reference only the reference 'daughter' on Experiment.

54

Phil Hands on 12th June 2017

Thomas was 61 years old when he was tried and convicted at the Leicester Assizes on 23rd March 1803 for Stealing lead from different churches in Leicester, sentenced to transportation for 14 years. Left England on 4th December 1803. Ship:- the 'Coromandel I' sailed with 200 male convicts on board, there were no reported deaths during the voyage. Arrived on 7th May 1804. Thomas's wife, Mary Ann, was 28 years younger than he, born in 1770 and showing remarkable courage and loyalty, she decided that she too would make the journey to NSW as a free settler, accompanying her on the 'Experiment I' were her son and a daughter (Maria) who are not named on the shipping list. The Coromandel and the Experiment were to leave England at the same time, the former with male convicts and the latter with 130 female convicts, also wives and children of the prisoners on board the Coromandel. The Experiment set sail from England on 4th December 1803 but she ran into a violent gale in the Bay of Biscay, and lost her main mast. She limped back to Cowes for repairs, which took almost a month and sailed again on 2nd January 1804, thus Mary Ann would end up arriving on 24th June 1804, seven weeks later than Thomas. The 1806 Muster shows Thomas as a Government Man Overseer and Mary Ann as "married, one legitimate daughter, Came free". On the 1806 Muster, a girl Pearce is present but not a boy. Now thought to be Charles and Maria (aka Mary Ann). Perhaps the boy died enroute or soon after arrival. Thomas was 73 when a son William was born in 1815. On 16th January 1810, Mary Ann wrote a memorial to the new Governor "... to specify to your Excellency that she has by her industry purchased a frame of a house with a small allotment of land from a man named Thos Harper, resident of Parramatta for the sum of Eighty pounds Sterling, sixty of which your Petitioner paid in hand". Thomas received a Ticket of Leave, valid for the District of Parramatta, on 8th August 1810, seven years and four months after his trial. In 1810 he was made Constable and principal overseer of Cornwallis Farm, Hawkesbury. In the 1811 Muster, Thomas is recorded as "Landholder in the Colony" and on 6 March 1811 was on a list of persons who had obtained beer licences in February at Parramatta. At the time of the 1814 Muster, he was recorded as "Convict off Rations, Tinker and Dealer". On 31st January 1815, he was free. From 3rd September 1815 to 29th January 1817 he was a juror at inquests for Bartholomew Cooney, John Cunningham and Owen Dalton, held at Parramatta. He appears as 'Pierce & Peirce on records. In 1816 he had become an "Emancipated Landholder, Parramatta" and in 1818, the Muster Records show him as a "Labourer". On 19 April 1817 he was the Publican of the Rose & Crown, Parramatta and was on a list of persons licensed as publicans for 1817, at Parramatta. He is again listed as Pierce. He was on a list of persons receiving an assigned convict on 21 May 1822 at Parramatta. (Again as Pierce.) The 14 year lease on their plot of land would have run out in 1824 and on 4th October, he addressed a Memorial "To his Excellency Sir Thos Brisbane, ....will be pleased to locate such quantity of lands as Your Excellency may consider him deserving of". It was replied to on 7th April 1825 with Thomas Pearce as on a list of persons who have received orders for grants of land. The Pearce family moved to Liverpool. Thomas died at Liverpool on 10th March 1831 aged 89 years. Mary Ann also died at Liverpool (as Mary Ann Pierce), on 25th October 1838, aged 68. She had spent 34 years in NSW, (half of her life).

6

Ken Nolan on 5th January 2014

Thomas's occupation was a wire worker