John Shine

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Dianne Jones on 22nd September 2023

From Amos (1987) contd: Release: CF 28/3/78; sailed for Melbourne on Rob Roy 1/7/82, with former Fenian convicts James McCoy and Thomas Delaney; probably left for America.

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Dianne Jones on 5th October 2021

John SHINE's WA Convict record, compiled by Amos (1987), p378: Record: (1) Refusing to return to his party, 1/2/69 - 7 days bread and water. (2) Remission of 3 weeks gang labour (fire near landing No. 1) 12/8/69. (3) Appointed constable, 1/2/70. (4) Remission of 1 month, 6/7/71 - cancelled. (5) Granted Ticket of Leave, 12/9/71. (6) TL revoked after various offences: absent from lodgings, failing to report at lodgings, being drunk and incapable and out after hours. Punishments: £1/5/6 in fines, 1 month 28 days hard labour. Ticket of Leave Work: (1) Labourer for Joseph Noonan, Perth, 4/- per day, 12/9/71. [Fenian Joseph Noonan, per Hougoumont, had been sentenced to seven years for treason-felony but received a special remission and Free Pardon in 1869. By 1875, he was a high profile builder and architect in Perth.] (2) General servant for R. Thompson, Bunbury, 30/- per week, 27/10/71. (3) Haymaking, rush cutting, reaping, labouring, general , servant and shepherd in Swan, Perth, York, Geraldton and Champion Bay districts 7/11/71 to 20/1/73. --0--

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Dianne Jones on 5th October 2021

From his Fremantle jail record: SHINE, John, prisoner #9871, arrived 10 Jan 1868 per Hougoumont Date of Birth: 1826 Place of Birth: Douglass, County Limerick [Error? Douglas is the surname of his sister.] Marital Status: Unmarried Occupation: Labourer, mason, soldier Literacy: Semiliterate Sentence Place: Dublin Crime: Mutinous conduct Sentence Period: 10 years Ticket of Leave Date: 12 Sep 1871 Conditional Pardon Date: 4 Feb 1878 Certificate of Freedom Date: 28 Mar 1878 Comments: One of 62 Fenians transported on the Hougoumont, the last convict ship sent to Australia. Its arrival at Fremantle on 9 Jan 1868 signalled the end of transportation to this country. Noted Expiree by 1876, before Conditional Pardon was given. Labourer, general servant, shepherd, reaper. To Victoria per Rob Roy, 1 Jul 1882. Member of 2nd Battalion 60th Rifles (https://fremantleprison.com.au/). --0--

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Dianne Jones on 5th October 2021

1868, 10 January: On arrival in WA, convict #9871 JOHN SHINE was listed as 40, single and a mason. He was 5’9¼” tall with brown hair, hazel eyes, a fresh complexion and of "healthy" appearance (Western Australia, Australia, Convict Records, 1846-1930; Convict Department Registers (128/40 - 43)). On his WA Convict Record, he was also listed as 40, single, able to read and write "a little", a Roman Catholic and a mason and labourer. His crime was "mutinous conduct". His sister Margaret Douglass [sic] of Limerick was listed as his next of kin. His physical description was as above. His behaviour was described as “good”. In the normal course of events he would have been eligible for a Ticket of Leave in February 1872 (Western Australia, Australia, Convict Records, 1846-1930; Convict Department, Registers; General Register for Nos 9599-10128 cont. (R16)). --0--

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Dianne Jones on 5th October 2021

1868, 9 January: Off the coast of WA In “The escape of the Fenians, Western Australia, 17 April 1867”, Ormond Waters (1997, p100) describes the transportees’ arrival off the WA coast and their transfer next day to the mainland: “The Fenian prisoners were the last to be taken ashore from the Hougoumont in small boats and brought to ‘The Establishment’ as Fremantle Prison was called. One convict described the scene in a letter home: ‘Very early on the morning of the 10th, we were put on shore in Fremantle, and marched through the little town of that name to our destination, The Prison. Here we lay for some two days, going through the ordinary routine of prisoners on the first reception. Dressed in a suit of Drogheda linen, ornamented with a red stripe and black bands, typical of the rank we hold in the colony. To wit, convicts.’ The prison rules were harsh. There was a long list of offences, the penalty for which was death. Cells measured seven feet by four feet wide by nine feet high. Prisoners slept in hammocks.” --0--

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Dianne Jones on 5th October 2021

1867, late September-early October: When the Hougoumont was boarded, all 17 military Fenians “were confined with ordinary convicts, whereas civilian Fenians were allotted separate quarters of their own. It would seem that this arrangement was at least a partial recognition that the civilian Fenians, all of whom were convicted either of treason-felony or high treason, were political prisoners rather than criminals – a concession that sympathetic Irish nationalists had earlier failed to gain official recognition of. Mutinous soldiers, on the other hand, were clearly regarded by the authorities as common criminals, and perhaps more dangerous ones in view of their training” (Amos, 1987, p107). Sleeping arrangements for the military Fenians consisted of “small airless compartments with eight rudimentary berths, 18 inches wide and six feet long, ‘constructed of commonest deal boards in tiers of two, one above the other’” (FitzSimons, 2019, p74). --00--

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Dianne Jones on 5th October 2021

1867, 24 May: After 6½ months at Millbank, he was transferred to Chatham prison, east of London at St Mary’s Island in Kent. He was listed as prisoner #9038. Chatham, a public works prison for male convicts, was notorious for riots in the 1860s (https://www.prisonhistory.org). —0— 1867, late September: Taken from Chatham jail to board the convict ship Hougoumont, John Shine was, according to newspaper reports, one of 15 Fenians sent from Chatham for transportation: “The hired convict ship Hougoumont, which has been taken up, by the Government for the conveyance of a numerous party of convicts to Freemantle, Western Australia, left the Nore on October 1, and proceeded down Channel, after receiving on board 150 convicts from the establishments at Chatham and Millbank. The convicts from the Chatham establishment, at St. Mary’s, embarked from the dockyard on board the paddle-wheel steamer Adder, Mr. W. J. Blakely, and were in charge of a numerous party of convict guards and wardens, all heavily armed. Among the convicts shipped were a party of fifteen Fenians, who were engaged in the late conspiracy in Ireland, together with the officers and crew convicted of scuttling the ship Severn [only two were on the Hougoumont – Thomas Berwick and Lionel Holdsworth, each sentenced to 20 years for fraud], and some others who have achieved notoriety from their crimes. The Fenian convicts, like the remainder of the prisoners, were chained together in gangs, but it was observed that they were kept apart from the other convicts in a portion of the vessel by themselves. The steamer Petrel also took down a number of convicts from the establishment at Millbank, for shipment on board the Hougoumont, in charge of a strong escort and convict guard. On Tuesday, October 8th, the Hougoumont arrived in Portland roads. Shortly before midday ninety convicts were marched down to the Government pier at Portland under a strong escort of the 12th Light Infantry. The party included twenty-three Fenian convicts, among whom it was said, was Moriarty [not the Fenian Centre; this was a teenager, Bartholomew Moriarty]. The Government steamer employed in the breakwater service was used for conveying the convicts on board the Hougoumont transport ship. The convicts were chained together on embarking, and on board the steamer a strong guard of marines from her Majesty’s ship St. George was formed, and saw the convicts safely placed on board the Hougoumont. The Governor of the penal settlement at Freemantle, Captain Young, is on board the Hougoumont, and returns in that ship to his sphere of duty after paying a visit to his native land.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 19 Dec 1867, p4, at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28608271). --0--

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Dianne Jones on 5th October 2021

1866, 1 November: After just a week, he was sent from Pentonville jail to Millbank at Westminster in London, which served as a holding facility for convicted prisoners before they were transported to Australia. There he was listed as prisoner #2557, 40 years old, a labourer, and Private 2nd Batt 60th Rifles, no.2202 [should be 2207]. He was described as single, Roman Catholic, able to read and write imperfectly, and sentenced to 10 years’ penal servitude for mutinous conduct, by General Court Martial, Dublin, on 23 August 1866. A notation says a parchment copy of his Discharge, received 20 December 1866, was attached. His behaviour was described as “good”; his next of kin was his sister Margaret Douglas, 4 Nelson Street, Limerick. Up to 24 October 1866, [or since 24 October – the record is not clear on this] he had served a total of 7 days in “Separate confinement” (UK, Prison Commission Records, 1770-1951, Millbank Prison; Register of Prisoners 1866-1867). Note: By the 1850s, Pentonville and Millbank were places for all male convicts to serve “their probationary term (by then reduced to 9 months), after which they would be transported or sent to a public works prison. This function continued more or less (notable exceptions including the reception of military prisoners in the 1860s…) until the decision to remove it from the convict prison system in 1885” (https://www.prisonhistory.org). --0--

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Dianne Jones on 5th October 2021

Prisons: 1866, August: John Shine was admitted to Mountjoy prison, in Dublin, where he remained for about two months. --0-- 1866, 24 October: He was transferred to England, to Pentonville jail in north London. Most likely he was sent under armed escort from Mountjoy via the Irish port of Kingstown and landed at Holyhead, for the land journey of 300 miles south to London and the penitentiary. Completed in 1842, Pentonville was built “for the detention of convicts sentenced to imprisonment or awaiting transportation” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Prison_Pentonville). At Pentonville, he was listed as prisoner #4063, a Roman Catholic and “known Fenian”, sentenced to penal servitude for 10 years. Also transferred with him were Martin Hogan, Patrick Keatinge, James Wilson, Thomas Hassett, James McCoy, Thomas Delaney, William Foley, John Donoghoe and John Lynch – all listed as known Fenians (UK, Prison Commission Records, 1770-1951; Pentonville Prison; Register of Prisoners 1866-1869). --0--

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Dianne Jones on 5th October 2021

Fenians and imprisonment: In his thesis, “The Fenians and Australia c1865-1880”, Keith Amos (1987) says all of the Fenians transported to WA on the Hougoumont “had been arrested, tried and sentenced between September 1865 and August 1867 for a variety of roles in a concerted but ill-fated attempt forcibly to establish Ireland as an independent republic. Immediately after the first convictions, sympathetic countrymen began to agitate for official recognition of Fenians as political prisoners, hoping that certain privileges accorded to Daniel O’Connell and the Young Irelanders might be granted, the most important being physical separation from ordinary criminals.” Their efforts were unsuccessful. Amos says “all Fenians were treated at first as ordinary criminals. Shortly after sentence, beards were cut off, hair cropped, clothes exchanged for prison dress, and photos taken as the prisoners held before them black slates bearing their names and numbers inscribed in chalk. Most served about three months in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, where they were lodged in separate cells and worked during the day, in solitude, picking coir. They were then shipped to England to serve a further six months solitary confinement at Pentonville or Millbank, and progressed from there to Chatham, Portsmouth, Portland, or for intractables, Dartmoor, where limited conversation was permitted during gang labour and one letter allowed each month. Conditions were undoubtedly harsh, stretching sanity to the limit under the stress of solitary confinement, and physical health to the point of collapse under heavy labour. On the whole though, most Fenians were not singled out for worse treatment than other convicts unless, like O’Donovan Rossa, they attracted attention with acts of defiance.” (1987, pp110-111) --00--