Samuel Whitaker

Level 46

Heather Stevens on 24th December 2018

Age: year of birth 1814 from indent (age 22) and CP; 1816 (age 20) in criminal register, hulk record; 1819 (age 32) in Vigilance Committee confession of 1851 Place of birth: Caernarvonshire from CP, however Manchester in the Vigilance Committee confession Description in printed indents 1836: 5ft 3 3/4in (not clear, note it is 5ft 4in in Newcastle Gaol description book 1847); trade or calling was furrier and indoor servant; dark sallow complexion, brown hair, brown eyes, scar on nose same a little cocked, eyebrows partially meeting. He could read and write, was Protestant and single. Tried 4th March 1836 Worcester City Assizes for the crime of burglary, death sentence commuted to transportation for life: Samuel Whitaker 20 and John Smith 19, charged with breaking in the dwelling-house of John Rouse, who had a bakehouse in High Street Worcestor, and stealing silver and gold coin of the value of 7l.10s. They were arrested at Stoke Lacey. [newspaper reports: Worcester Herald 5 March 1836, and Birmingham Journal 12 March 1836] 29 April 1836 transferred to the 'Justitia' hulk at Woolwich until 25 May when he was transferred to the convict transport 'Lady Kennaway', and arrived Port Jackson on 12 October 1836, 2 deaths on the voyage. During the voyage, when some of the convicts exhibited the symptoms of scurvy, the surgeon James Wilson directed the ship's master to go to Bahia where they obtained fresh meat and vegetables and oranges. 14 Oct 1845 Ticket of Leave 45/1862 "Allowed to remain in the District of Parramatta on recommendation of Wollongong Bench Dated June 1845". However it was cancelled "for swindling per Gov'rs minute on letter from Maitland dated 29 April 1847" 8 June 1847 admission to Newcastle Gaol, discharged 16 June to Hyde Park Barracks. Reported in SMH 12 June: Ticket of Leave cancelled by Maitland bench for false evidence 5 July 1847 admission to Newcastle Gaol for gambling, 24 Aug 1847 Ticket of Leave 47/645 "Allowed to remain in the district of Campbell Town", altered to Maitland 8 June 1848 1 Feb 1849 Conditional Pardon. During 1849 he sailed to San Francisco on the Louisa'. 16 Feb 1850, a report in the The People's Advocate and New South Wales Vindicator: "CALIFORNIA ... Samuel Whittaker, from Maitland, had lost all the money that he had with him, and was in receipt of 100 dollars a month, in a situation as cook." This a quote from Terry Smyth's book "Australian Desperadoes" which has Whitaker's confession to the Vigilance Committee: "He found work as a steward in a pub on Broadway, ran a delivery business, then a butchery before going into partnership with [Sydney] Coves member Teddy McCormick in the Port Phillip House hotel, in Jackson Street". 24 Aug 1851 Death by hanging by lynch law: He and Robert McKenzie were taken by force out of the county jail by members of the Vigilance Committee and they were hanged in front of the Vigilance Committee Room, on Battery-street, near California-street [reported in Australian newspapers in October, who quoted from the Californian newspaper 'Alta California'] In his confession to the Vigilance Committee, quoted in Sydney Morning Herald 20 October 1851 "it appears that they had committed, in connexion with several others, a great number of robberies, most of which were said to be planned at the house of a Mrs HOGAN, a woman, who with her husband formerly kept a public-house in Sydney. WHITTAKER appears to have been a native of Manchester ; to have come out to this colony in the ship Lady Kennaway, and to have gone to San Francisco in the Louisa. MCKENZIE was an Englishman, and went to San Francisco via New Orleans." Terry Smyth in his book "Australian Desperadoes" adds that in the confession Whitaker also stated that although transported under the name Whitaker, it is not his true name. More details about Samuel Whitaker and other members of the 'Sydney Coves' gang of San Francisco are in the book "Australian Desperadoes" by Terry Smyth (pub. Elbury Press 2017).