William Simpson

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Robin Sharkey on 16th September 2021

William Simpson was only 20 when he was transported on the ship “Guildford” in 1812 with a Life sentence for stealing mail out of the Post Office – he was a P.O. employee, and also a waterman. His job was as a “river letter carrier”. Marriage: 29 October 1809 to Jane Sophia HUTCHINSON, at St Thomas’ Church, Surrey, Southwark, (England Marriages 1538 -1973, in Family Search). He was aged 19 and she was aged 18. Theft of letter with promissory notes: 20 August 1810 from the Post Office sorting tables Old Bailey Trial: 31 October 1810 Prison Hulk “Retribution” hulk at Woolwich: Received with four others from London gaol delivery (Newgate) 1811 on 27 March 1811, all capital respites, and sent to ship for NSW on 14 August 1811. Departed on “Guildford”: 3 September 1811. Arrived NSW: 18 January 1812. Simpson’s father had been a waterman on the Thames. Young William inherited his work (from evidence in Old Bailey trial). He was employed by the Post Office as a letter deliverer, and he delivered to boats on the Thames. But it was only a year later, on 31 October 1810, that Simpson was under trial at the Old Bailey for mail theft on 20 August 1810, a capital offence. He was found guilty but recommended by the jury to mercy on account of his youth. Old Bailey Trial The trial report is very long. Simpson was employed by the General Post Office as a letter carrier, and had been employed there for about two years. He had removed a letter containing five bank notes, addressed to a Whitechapel address, from the mail sorting table in the general post office in London. The trial report has many witnesses proving the chain of delivery of the five promissory bank notes of 40 pounds each, drawn on a Leicester Bank, from the time of the letter and noes being written to their being put in an envelope, then posted at Stamford, to the Stamford mail bag arriving in London next day. Simpson, on the 19th August, was to deliver letters to people on board ships in the Thames. His area fell within the Eleventh Division, whose mail was then sorted by one William John into twelve subdivisions. Simpson delivered letters to one of those twelve sub-divisions of the Eleventh Division, which covered craft on the Thames. He had this Thames boat work in particular “in consequence of his father having been a waterman, and he succeeded this business at his father's death.” (per Mr Critchard, the Inspector of Letter Carriers). He also occasionally delivered letters between the ships and London bridge. He also sometimes helped William John sort the letters of the Eleventh Division if he was directed to. Letters for Whitehall were not in Simpson’s sub-division area. Since he stood to the left of Wm John at the sorting table, it was supposed he had removed the letter while William John had momentarily left the table to take a sorted bundle to another letter carrier. When the letter, with its 100 pound note contents, failed to be delivered to the addressee in Whitehall when expected, he complained and the Post Office Solicitor investigated. The same day, 20 August, Simpson had given one of the notes to an old school friend, George Cain, asking him to cash it for him at the bank where it was payable. The friend did so and the lads went together to the Camberwell Fair. A few days later, George did the same for Simpson again, with another note. Then a third time, Simpson asked George to change forty pounds into small notes. (George got confused as to whether this was one forty pound promissory note, or two twenties and could not be certain as to which it was). However, the bank would only give George a single forty pound note, so Simpson then had George go to the Bank of England to change this single money note into forty x one pound notes. He instructed George to give a particular name and address, not his own and not Simpson’s. This he did. But on the 29th August when Simpson asked George to cash the final note, George got caught out. The bank would not pay it, (they had by then been asked by the drawer to stop payment). The bank told George it had been removed from a letter, and George obliged the bank officials by writing down both his name and address, and that of William Simpson as the person who gave it to him. Now the game was up for Simpson. When George went back to him, Simpson said he had found the letter. He arranged for a coach and invited George to go away with him, but George declined. The next day, 30 August, Simpson failed to turn up for work. The Solicitor for the Post Office put inquiries in chain, and the Post Office out a “bill” describing Simpson. On 2 September, Jane Simpson had gone to a public house at East Grinstead, and told the publican her husband was joining her. But the publican rode out to meet the mail coach, secured Simpson who was in it, and handed him over to the P.O Solicitor’s Clerk who had arrived at East Grinstead. He had several of the one pound notes on him that had been changed from forty pounds. _________________________________ He remained in gaol until late March 1812 when he was taken to the Retribution Hulk at Woolwich on the Thames. Now he was contained on the Thames, instead of gliding over it in his skiff as he had long done. He was on Retribution for five months before the “Guildford” departed. NSW, arrived January 1812 Simpson’s young wife, Jane, followed him out as a free woman on the ship “Minstrel” that departed in March 1812 arriving 25 October 1812. (evidence: 1814 muster as Jane Simpson, CF per Minstrel, wife of W. Simpson). She would have petitioned for a free passage as the wife of a convict. However, their marriage did not last. By 1822 she was living as the wife of Daniel Thurston (see Daniel Lock per “Ann” in 1810). 1814 Muster - Jane Sophia Simpson per "Minstrel"; Free, Mustered at Sydney, residence Sydney, wife of W. Simpson. 1814 Muster – William Simpson Mustered at Sydney “Labourer”. [possibly incorrect given his own 1817 petition and recommendation indicates he’d been a seaman for over three years] 1816 Muster – Seaman on boat “Lady Nelson” – at that time at VDL 1817 Petition for a Conditional Pardon: • has been a seaman on board the ‘Lady Nelson’ for three years, and is now on board HM colonial brig ‘Elizabeth Henrietta”, with Capt Smith. • He attended on the governor the year before last [1815] and Governor was pleased to order him to attend last year but he was prevented because he was at sea at the time. • Recommendation in support - David Smith (Capt) wrote that Simpson had been on board the 'Lady Nelson' with him since he first took command and “now on board the E. Henrietta”, with him, having also received a good character from Capt Whyte. January 1818 Received a Conditional Pardon. Native of London, occupation: mariner. 5ft 7 in Florid complexion, brown hair and hazel eyes. 1818 Master of the vessel "Young Lachlan". [Col Sec's office correspondence] John Howard the owner of the “Young Lachlan” (formerly the 'Henrietta' schooner of Hobart) was required to give gave a bond to the Naval Officer, and the document specified that William Simpson was the Master of the vessel. 1819 Muster – Government Labour; In the colony 1820 Muster - Government Labour; In the colony 1821 Muster – Emancipated. Dyer (?) in the colony 3 October 1825 – In the dockyard. Told in letter fro Col Sec's office that his application “to receive an equivalent for the rations which your family had been deprived, will be considered”. His wife Jane was then going by the name of Thurston (but not formally married) and running a school at Parramatta with Daniel Thurston. 1825 Muster – per Guildford, 1812, cloth scourer(?) 1828 Census – William Henry Simpson, per Guildford, aged 37, Cond Pardon, CLERK with John Jobbins, Cambridge Street, Sydney. John Jobbins lived at 31 Cumberland Street, and was an expired convict who’d arrived in 1815, and had a thriving butchery business. In the 1830’s he would go on to acquire large pastoral runs. In 1830, on 29 January, William’s estranged wife married under her maiden name - Jane Sophia Hutchinson - to Daniel Thurston at St John’s at Parramatta. To do this, her legal husband, William Simpson, would have had to be dead. There is an 1828 death for a William Simpson, at Liverpool but this seems unlikely to have been him given his life on the water and in Sydney city.