William Wade

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Maureen Withey on 14th November 2021

The Guardian transport was to sail this morning from Portsmouth on her voyage to Port-Jackson; she has 25 convicts on board, mostly carpenters and blacksmiths, and a lading of beds, clothing, and other articles, of which Commodore Phillips had not a sufficient supply, Eight superintendants of convicts embarked with them; and a skilful botanist, provided provided with glass frames, and every thing necessary for the preservation of rare plants, for the royal garden at Kew, also takes his passage on board this ship. Derby Mercury, 10 Sept 1789. Riou departed on the final leg of the Guardian’s journey to Sydney on 12 December 1789. About ten days later, the ship ‘fell in with several Islands of Ice, floating in the Ocean 400 leagues from land’. According to Riou’s account of what followed, he judged conditions safe enough to sail closer to the icebergs, so as to collect floating slabs of ice with which to supplement the ship’s supply of fresh water. But then the weather deteriorated and on the evening of 24 December the ship struck what Riou recalled as ‘a body of Ice full twice as high as the Masthead’. The collision opened a huge gash in the Guardian’s hull and tore off its rudder and part of the keel. The next morning, the crew attempted to remedy the damage: strapping a sail along the hull, pumping out water and jettisoning heavy objects such as guns, anchors and livestock. The following day, acknowledging that ‘little chance was left of safety’, Riou agreed to demands from roughly half of the ship’s company to escape in the longboats. All but fifteen of those who abandoned ship perished. Riou remained on board with 60 others, including 21 convicts, who managed to keep the stricken vessel afloat for nine weeks until it drifted within sight of the Cape and was rescued. The surviving convicts and salvaged cargo eventually arrived in New South Wales in June 1790, having been distributed among the ships making up the infamous Second Fleet when they called at Cape Town. Fourteen of the convicts were immediately pardoned due to Riou’s report of their ‘admirable and wonderful’ conduct in assisting to save the Guardian. https://www.portrait.gov.au/portraits/2011.65/part-of-the-crew-of-his-majestys-ship-guardian-endeavouring-to-escape-in-the-boats A lot of information about the voyage of the Guardian, and its collision with ice, twelve days after leaving the Cape, having taken on more supplies there. https://www.freesettlerorfelon.com/convict_ship_guardian_1790.htm William Wade was one of the 14 convicts who received a pardon.

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Maureen Withey on 13th November 2021

The following persons were all capitally convicted at Kingston assizes, viz,. Elizabeth Lemmon, Lydia Monro, Frances Hughes, and Ann Forbes, for shoplifting; Charles Farrell, Richard Preston, John Ralph, Joseph Smith, William Wade, and Alexander Falconer, for highway robberies; Thomas Smith, for coining silver; Thomas Powell, William Rymer, Henry Stamford, William Steer, and Anthony Richardson, for house-breaking John Johnson, for a felony George Wood, for sheep-stealing and John Amey, for horse-stealing.—Lemmon, Farrell, Preston. Smith, Powell, Rymer, Ralph, Smith and Johnson, are left for execution, and the 10 others reprieved. Kentish Gazette, 20 Apr 1787