Rachel Wright

338

Penny-Lyn Beale on 29th December 2024

1835 - Australia Convict Musters, Tasmania. No; 57. Assigned to her husband 1838 - New Norfolk Colonial Hospital. Admission dates: May 1838 Remarks: Admitted with mania 1848 - Name: Wright, Rachel Gender: Female. Age: 55 Date of death: 16 Aug 1848 Registered: Hobart

54

Phil Hands on 5th July 2017

Rachael Wright was born in Glasdrumman, County Down, Ireland, in around 17901. In May 1808 she sailed to Scotland and travelled to Glasgow in search of an uncle and aunt who were living there. She only remained in Glasgow for about a week, and left it upon Friday 8th May without being able to find out her uncle and aunt, that having happened to go into the house of Michael McMillan spirit dealer in Glasgow, she there met with two women whom she had never seen before, and who had a little child in their arms, and which they gave to the charge of the declarent, along with six pence to purchase bread for it, and after purchasing two pence worth of bread, she set off to Ayr with the child in company with the said two women but who left her on the side of one of the bridges leading out of Glasgow, after a while she went into a field of cut hay and wrapping herself and the child into a cloak, slept there among the hay till after sunrise next morning. Her intention was that she intended to keep the child and bring it up herself. Rachael's attempt to return to Ireland with the child failed. She was found near the Prestwick Toll Bar with the child ‘upon her back’ and she was taken to Ayr where she was charged with ‘manstealing … Flora Amos a child between two and three years of age or thereabouts the daughter of Archibald Amos shoemaker in Glasgow’. On 17th September 1808: Rachael Wright pleaded guilty to stealing 'Flora Amos. The crime was so rare in Scotland, especially in the case of stealing an ‘infant of tender years’ that, having found her guilty, the Glasgow court found it necessary to refer the matter to the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh in order ‘to enquire how far any or what pains of law could by the present Law of Scotland be inflicted’. On 10th October 1808: Rachael Wright was to be taken 'under a sure guard' from Glasgow tollbooth to the tollbooth in Edinburgh. On 23rd January 1809: The High Court began to hear the case of Rachael Wright, and on 25th January the original judgement was upheld and they pronounced that she ‘be hanged by the neck, by the hands of the common executioner, upon a gibbet, until she be dead’, Rachael was saved from the noose when her legal counsel and the child's parents sought royal clemency. On 27th February 1809, by Royal Clemency, the sentence was commuted to transportation for life. Rachael arrived in Sydney on the ship ‘Friends’ on 10th October 1811, which had left England on 30th July 1811. In July 1812 she was sent to Port Dalrymple on the ‘Lady Nelson’. In an 1816 muster she is recorded as a hospital nurse. In the following year she was in Hobart and in 1819, like so many female convicts, she was a ‘servant to a settler’. By 1816 Rachael had formed a relationship with convict Timothy Quinn ('Admiral Gambier'1808). While there is no record of a marriage, her convict records sometimes referred to her as ‘Quinn’ and ‘wife of Quinn’, and she was at times assigned to him. There is no indication as to whether or not the two convicts knew each other in Sydney before they were both sent to Van Diemen's Land in 1812. It is also unclear if this was a match born out of love or necessity. If it was the latter, it certainly fits the pattern of many convict women who formed relationships in order to sustain themselves in the colony. Timothy Quinn, born in about 1780, was found guilty of burglary at the Old Bailey in February 1807 and sentenced to seven years' transportation. In July 1808 he left England on the ‘Admiral Gambier’, arriving in Sydney in December11. He was included in a list of absconders that appeared in the Sydney Gazette in January 1810, and then in July 1812 permission was given for him to proceed to Port Dalrymple as part of a group of four convicts assigned to James Cox, who had received a large land grant near Port Dalrymple. Cox later built ‘Clarendon’ at Nile. By 1816 Quinn had left Cox's service and settled on a grant of his own on the North Esk River in what is now St Leonards. It was here that his and Rachael's three children were born: Jane (1816), Frances (1817) and John (1819). Muster details show that Timothy was actively farming his land, but the success of his efforts was limited. A survey of children requiring education notes that Timothy and Rachael could not afford to send their children to school. By 1824, records begin to reveal a pattern of growing debt and conflict. Timothy had ongoing disputes with neighbours and local businessmen, and an encounter with William Field in October 1829 clearly shows how this directly affected Rachael and the children. Field came to their property with three men. One struck Rachael and another knocked her down on Field's orders. Within days of the dispute Timothy was in gaol and, in his own words from an 1831 petition to the governor, ‘My poor children were driven upon the mercy of the world without a friend or a home and my wife to utter destruction and placed in the female penitentiary’. Rachael's earliest recorded offence was on 21st March 1827 when she was admonished for being drunk in the street. This was the first of numerous occasions when she was let off with a reprimand for public drunkenness. There may, of course, have also been earlier misdemeanours, but if these did occur, no record of them appears to have survived. At other times Rachael was either fined five shillings or put in the stocks for a number of hours. In one instance she was even fined the considerable sum of £10 for ‘offending against decency by the Exposure of her Person’. The first of four known terms of imprisonment came in June 1828 when Rachael was charged with being drunk and disorderly and sentenced to 28 days in the House of Correction. On 13th September this was followed by a further seven days for being drunk and disorderly. Both of these sentences may have been served at the Launceston Gaol. On 20th April 1830, with her husband in gaol, Rachael was to be ‘returned to the service of Government & be placed in the Factory at George Town’ for being drunk and disorderly in the street again. This is the only conviction that specifically mentions the Female Factory at George Town. Nothing is known of Rachael's actual time in the Factory; we are left to assume that she was engaged in prison industries while incarcerated. Rachael’s lot did not improve after Timothy's release at the end of January 1831. On 28th February she was charged with ‘insolence and drunkenness’ while assigned to W. Fisher, and sent to the Female House of Correction for six weeks. It is unclear from her conduct record where Rachael was imprisoned. She may have remained in Launceston or returned to the Factory at George Town, a place she was familiar with from the previous year. A register of indulgences for convicts includes a request from Timothy Quinn for his wife to be released from the Female House of Correction and assigned to him. The request was dated 29th April 1831, but Rachael appears to have been held long after her sentence expired. On 9th June, Timothy's request was sent to the governor for a second time but a response has not been recorded. Timothy fared no better than Rachael. He had many convictions for being drunk and disorderly, and it is clear from government documents that he lost the ability to manage his personal life and livelihood. A petition to Governor Arthur in 1830 was entitled ‘The humble memorial of Timothy Quinn, a debtor’ and in October 1835 his daughter Jane accused him of beating her and ‘taking liberties with my person’. Accounts with the Launceston merchants Archer, Gilles and Company attest to the amount of alcohol purchased by Quinn on trips to town. Mounting debt eventually led to his lands being taken and his house destroyed by a creditor. One particular spell in the Launceston Gaol brought on by financial woes lasted from October 1829 until January 1831. During this time he was among the first recipients of the generosity of the newly founded Charitable Society . His family appears to have been left without support. At one point his son John hid in the bush and ‘had not tasted any other food than opossum flesh for three weeks’. Timothy Quinn died in October 1839. Rachael's records show a final encounter with the authorities in May 1837 and in 1841, after Timothy's death, she is listed in a muster as married. After 33 years in Van Diemen's Land and 27 offences, she was granted a ticket of leave on 25th February 1845. It is no small irony that the ticket of leave was granted while she was an inmate at the New Norfolk asylum. Rachael was admitted to the asylum in 1838 suffering from ‘mania’. How she came to be admitted is not clear from the records and there is no suggestion, in spite of the 1841 muster listing and the 1845 ticket of leave, that she was ever well enough to leave the asylum. The detailed case books paint a picture of a tortured existence. In July 1846 she was recorded to be: 'complaining bitterly of her situation, and talking incoherently about her husband and children, at the same time threatening vengeance and violence to anybody - has however never been known to commit the smallest act of violence'. By July 1848, Rachael's physical health had begun to deteriorate. Her 'mental state the same as it has been for many years'. She refused to take any medication and suffered 'maniacal excitement, followed by corresponding depression'. She was also indifferent to food, although she did take the wine and milk given to her. On 13th July, her notes read: 'General health failing day by day - looks wretchedly ill - obstinate and would be violent if she had the strength’ By the 27th, she was 'very feeble ...’uses at times most violent and obscene language'. On 8th August she 'continues in the same note, except that she is getting more feeble day by day - takes but very little nourishment and refuses medicine of any kind’. On the 15th, she was 'still alive, but sinking fast'. She died the following evening between 11 and 11:30 and was buried at St. Matthews, New Norfolk, 2 days later.

44

John McGowan on 25th October 2013

On 25 January 1809, Rachel Wright appeared at Edinburgh High Court on 'referred informations'. She had been convicted in September 1808 at Glasgow Circuit Court for child-stealing. The High Court confimed that 'child-stealing is a crime - punished capitaly.' She was then sentenced to be executed on 8 March 1809, but later respited and transported for life. See Scots Magazine (1809) Vol.71, p 156 (circumstances of case reported in detail)and McGowan, John (2013) A New Civic Order: he contribution of the City of Edinburgh Police, 1805-1812,p 152 and p 230.