Summary
Personal Information
Voyage
Transportation
John Shea was transported on the Calcutta, departing 19th Apr 1837 and arriving 5th Aug 1837 with 342 passengers.
HMS Calcutta was the East Indiaman Warley (1795), converted to a Royal Navy ship. This ship of the line served for a time as an armed transport. She also transported convicts to Australia. The French Magnanime captured Calcutta in 1805. In 1809, after she ran aground during the Battle of the Basque Roads and her crew had abandoned her, a British boarding party burned her. In 1803 the Calcutta sailed into Port Phillip bay where at least 4 convicts escaped , in Sydney in April 1804 it was reported that 8 had died on the trip. Of the four known escapees one was shot on escape, 2 turned back after 2 days to reattach to the group at the camp in bay before the boat left , one continued on ...into Australia's history books. At least 13 convicts were transferred on to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Australia.The ship also carried officers, wives and free settlers.
Calcutta (generic)References
| Primary Source | Irish Convict Database by Peter Mayberry. |
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Convict Notes
Our Assizes ended yesterday. …  John Shea, stealing lambs—transportation for 7 years. —… Kerry Evening Post, 18 March 1837.
John became a bushranger in the notorious Jew Boy Gang, and was executed. Supreme Court. John Shea, convict per Calcutta, was indicted for the wilful murder of John Graham, by shooting him at St. Alban's, on the 21st December; and John Marshall, convict per Clyde, James Everitt, convict per Mangles, Edward Davies, otherwise Wilkinson, convict per Camden, Robert Chitty, convict per Sophia, and Richard Glanville, convict per Lord Lyndoch, were indicted for being present, aiding, abetting, and assisting in the commission of the murder. A second count stated the murder to have been committed by some person unknown, and charged all the prisoners as accessories. .... Sydney Herald, 25 Feb 1841. (The case is fully reported in the above newspaper on this date.) EXECUTION.-On Tuesday morning the six bushrangers, James Everett, Robert Chitty, John Marshall, Richard Glanville, John Shea, and Edward Davies, who were convicted at the last criminal sittings of the wilful murder of John Graham, at Scone, on the 21st December last, all paid the forfeit of their lives by expiating their offences on the scaffold. An immense crowd was collected to witness the last awful scene of these men’s career, as they had been long notorious for the many burglaries which they had committed in various parts of the interior, but chiefly in the Hunter's River district. At a few minutes past nine o’clock the wretched men were conducted from their cells to the area in front of the drop, where they knelt for some time in the exercise of their devotions. Chitty, Everett, Marshall, and Glanville, were attended by the Rev. Mr. Cowper and the Rev. John Elder; Shea by the Very Rev. Mr. Murphy ; and Davies, being of the Jewish persuasion, was attended by Mr. Isaacs, the Jewish Rabbi. They all appeared to be deeply impressed with a full sense of their awful situation, and paid the greatest attention to the instruction and prayers of their spiritual attendants. After about ten minutes spent in devotion they arose, and Everett in a very hurried manner ran up the steps leading to the scaffold, and was followed by Chitty, Glanville, and Marshall; they all four in a loud and clear voice sung the first verse of the hymn commencing ‘Awake my soul, and with the sun.’ Shea was the next to ascend, and Davies, who was dressed in a suit of mourning, was the last to ascend; he cast his eye with a keen penetrating glance upon the crowd assembled in the gaol yard as if to recognise any acquaintance, and then with a firm step mounted the ladder. A few minutes more were spent in devotion, and then the ropes were adjusted and the caps drawn over their faces; they still continued (particularly Everett and Glanville) in loud and apparently fervent prayer till the bolt was drawn, and they were launched into the presence of their Maker. They all died almost without a struggle. They had long been a terror to the inhabitants in the district of the Hunter, and it is to be hoped that awful example which has been made of them will deter others from the pursuing such law The above report of the Execution was published in The Australasian Chronicle, dated Thursday 18 March 1841. They would have been executed on the 16 March 1841.
Irish Convict Database by Peter Mayberry. John Shea, age on arrival, 19, per Calcutta II, 1837. Tried 1837 at Kerry, 7 years, for Stealing lamb. DOB 1818, native place, Kerry Co. Single, Catholic. Labourer.