Cornelius Scott

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Dianne Jones on 16th November 2023

NOTE: Year of Birth is taken from official records but day and month are not known. The latter dates have been entered as 01/01 because the site does not allow those fields to be left empty. Cornelius Scott was 21 when he died, not 29 as stated in the Medical Superintendent's journal.

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Dianne Jones on 16th November 2023

FOOTNOTE: The journal of the Phoebe Dunbar's medical officer, John W Bowler, shows that Cornelius Scott was struck down by typhus more than a month before he died. "Folios 25-27: Cornelius Scott, aged 29, convict; case number 12; disease or hurt, typhus. Put on sick list, 24 July 1853. Died 29 August 1853." (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11542199) --00--

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Dianne Jones on 16th November 2023

MORE ABOUT THE DREADFUL VOYAGE ... By Weaver, P (2004) at https://fremantlebiz.livejournal.com/37766.html “Part 1. Irish prisoners for Western Australia on Phoebe Dunbar & Robert Small in 1853 This is the first part in series of eight which were extracted from a public talk which I gave at the Old Fremantle Prison celebrations in June 2000: On 30 August 1853 the 704 ton hired British convict ship Phoebe Dunbar hove-to in Owen’s Anchorage off Fremantle, Western Australia. On board was a consignment of 286 mostly Irish convicts and 29 British pensioner guards with their families, numbering 21 women and 42 children. A few days earlier on 19 August a similar sized consignment of Irish prisoners and British guards had arrived at Fremantle on board another hired convict ship, the Robert Small. Robert Small lost nine convicts and the figure would have been higher had it not been forced to put into Rio de Janeiro to off-load 150 tons of putrefied ballast, a black peat-like mixture of sand and Dutch clay. A medical board of enquiry convened at Fremantle laid most of the blame on the ballast, ‘...the smell of which was most offensive and likely to prove a fertile source of disease.’ However, had the leaky ship not inadvertently stopped off in South America where fruit and vegetables were purchased the death toll probably would have been much higher than nine. Surgeon Superintendent Harvey Morris - doctor on at least three other convict shipments to Norfolk Island and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) had by his own admission deliberately falsified his records by registering only one third of those who came to him sick. His intention, as he wrote in his shipboard journal, was to instil in the prisoners a false sense of confidence in his abilities: ‘It is always advisable in a Convict Ship, especially when diseases are numerous, to keep the sick list down, as it is termed, with a view of deceiving the general body as regards the healthiness or unhealthiness of the Ship; and the more effectually to do this it is often necessary to keep the names of some off the list who ought to be there, and to register those of others who have little or nothing the matter with them...’ Those passengers on board the other ship, the Phoebe Dunbar, were not so fortunate, being obliged instead to endure a non-stop, 89 day voyage from Ireland. The ship put to sea from Kingston Harbour on 2 June 1853 and by mid-June an epidemic described only as a ‘fever’ had broken out. Most people including the guards and their families were ill at one time or another, and diarrhoea was common throughout the ship. On the 21 June the first convict, a young man aged 21 died of typhus and by the end of July symptoms of scurvy were appearing in many of the prisoners. Most convict deaths occurred in August as the ship was bearing down on the Western Australian coast. Medicines which were carried on board were in the main ineffective. Although Surgeon Superintendent Bowler subsequently claimed that large doses of mineral acids and quinine were the most effective as remedies, this may have been because they were so repulsive that patients were reluctant to come back for more. Mineral acids as medicine had their origins in the 13th century and included nitric, sulphuric and hydrochloric acid. They were frequently mixed with wine to disguise the vile taste. Bowler was supposed to ensure that lemon juice was distributed about every three days in order to counteract scurvy, but his journal indicates that this did not happen. When this was queried at the enquiry in Fremantle he offered the excuse that the ‘temperance men’ on board would not take lemon juice mixed with wine, and that this was the reason it was not distributed more frequently. He also claimed that the stock of ships biscuit had deteriorated soon after departure and that as a result it could not be distributed to the prisoners. Including civilians, sixteen persons died on the ship en route to Swan River or while it was at Owen’s Anchorage off Fremantle [Cornelius Scott died off Fremantle]. In addition, three more convicts died not long after disembarkation, and eighteen of the Phoebe Dunbar convicts died before their tickets-of-leave had expired.” --000--

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Dianne Jones on 16th November 2023

OTHER RECORDS: CORNELIUS SCOTT, #2335 Birth: 1832 Death: 29 August 1853 at sea, Western Australia; off Fremantle Convicted: Felony and sentenced to 7 years on 20 December 1850 at Cork, County Cork, Ireland. He had been convicted previously. Family Status: Unmarried as at 3 June 1853 Occupation: Labourer on 3 June 1853 Convict No.: 2335 Transported: To WA on the Phoebe Dunbar leaving from Kingston, County Dublin, Ireland, on 3 June 1853. He had been collected from Ireland prison. He died on the journey. (https://waconvicts.fhwa.org.au/g0/p94.htm#i2335) --00--

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Dianne Jones on 16th November 2023

DEATH: 1853, 29 August: Cornelius Scott, aged 21, died from typhus, at sea off Fremantle (Register of Convicts on Convict Ships, 1851-53, image 128 at at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2308603007/view). --00--

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Dianne Jones on 16th November 2023

1851, 17 January: JAIL – Cornelius Scott was sent from Cork City jail to Spike Island, in Cork Harbour, Ireland. “After a sentence of transportation 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, p40). Portland, Portsmouth, 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--

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Dianne Jones on 16th November 2023

1850, 20 December: TRIAL “Recorder’s Court – Friday [20 December]... Cornelius Scott and Joshua Barrett, who were found guilty on a former court-day, of stealing a pocket handkerchief and other articles of wearing apparel, the property of one Julia Mackie, the former to be transported for the term of seven years, and the latter to be imprisoned for two months and kept to hard labour.” (Cork Examiner - Monday 23 December 1850, p3 at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000425/18501223/033/0003) --00--

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Dianne Jones on 16th November 2023

MORE ABOUT CORNELIUS SCOTT 1850, 19 December: JAIL – Admitted to Cork City Gaol; inmate #26854, Cornelius Scott, aged 18, no occupation, Roman Catholic, illiterate; 3 previous convictions; pleaded guilty to felony and larceny, sentenced to 7 years’ transportation; employed in the prison “teasing oakum”; conduct “orderly”. Jailed one day before his trial and held at Cork for 29 days after trial (Ireland, Prison Registers, 1790-1924; Cork; Cork City; 1840-1874; image 66). Oakum, a preparation of tarred fibre used to seal gaps, was traditionally used “in ship building, for caulking or packing the joints of timbers in wooden vessels and the deck planking of iron and steel ships; in plumbing, for sealing joints in cast iron pipe; and in log cabins for chinking. In ship caulking, it was forced into the seams using a hammer and a caulking iron, then sealed into place with hot pitch. Oakum was at one time recycled from old tarry ropes and cordage, which were painstakingly unravelled and reduced to fibre, termed ‘picking’. The task of picking and preparation was a common occupation in prisons and workhouses, where the young or the old and infirm were put to work picking oakum if they were unsuited for heavier labour... The work was tedious, slow and taxing on the worker’s thumbs and fingers.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakum) --00--

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Nell Murphy on 13th October 2016

Cornelius SCOTT was convicted at Cork, Ireland on 20 Dec 1850. 7yr transportation sentence. Sent to Western Australia per the 'Phoebe Dunbar' which arrived 30 Aug 1853. Cornelius died during the voyage - cause typhus.