A change to our publicised the topic What We Wore [which will now be discussed at our July meeting] Hilary Blanford took us on a highly entertaining journey through ten years of research into a side line of her family tree.
It all started with the death of her three times great grandmother. The death was registered by a daughter-in-law, who gave her surname as Allender. When Hilary started to look into the name, she found a Uriah George Allender, a convict who died in Australia. Hilary was hooked by the possibility of intrigue, especially as there was no hint of any impropriety known in the family. Indeed, the children in the family had always been told that they came from ‘good’ people.
Hilary discovered that Uriah had been convicted in Kent in 1802 and eventually sentenced to 14 years transportation.
She wrote to the University of Queensland about the best way of finding further information and was advised to look at the Copying Project. She discovered that there was a letter written by Uriah to Nelson. Hilary wondered why this could possibly be.
On visiting the National Archive to access the Kent Assizes records, Hilary handled parchment for the first time. The document in question was dusty, crumbling and stored in a grubby brown envelope. She discovered the details of Uriah’s court case, his initial sentence which was for him to hang, the apparent unfairness of his sentence compared with that of others, and the reasons behind the change from the death penalty to 14 years transportation.
Around this time, Hilary took a DNA test. Results showed that she matched with fourteen people descended from Uriah Allender. She was definitely on the right track!
Hilary discovered that Uriah had been transported on the Calcutta. The ship contained a mixture of convicts and fee-paying passengers and was accompanied by the ship Ocean. A report by a child on board stated that ‘gross immorality’ started almost as soon as they set sail. Using prevailing winds, they initially sailed southwest to Rio de Janeiro before heading southeast and arriving in the Cape to find that Britain was at war with the Dutch. They were ordered to surrender and hand over their cargo, although when it became known that the cargo was convicts, they were told to take provisions and leave.
They landed in Australia in 1803 in a most unsuitable place, inside the bay at Sorrento. Marines had been sent to guard the convicts, but the conditions were so bad that there was a fear they might mutiny. With the crew’s water cask kept padlocked, some convicts died. Uriah, as a sailor, was not in irons but had travelled as part of the crew.
With conditions so bad, volunteers were called for to go to Sydney. Uriah headed off with others in a six-oared cutter. It took them many days to get out of the bay and when they did, the weather was horrendous. Fortunately, they were rescued by the Ocean, which was also heading to Sydney. There, they presented a petition to move the base camp. With this granted, they eventually moved to Hobart.
Hilary’s quest for further information about her convict family saw her make the long trip to Australia. On one plaque that she saw, listing those who were taken to Australia, she noticed numbers against some names. Against the name William Buckley was the number 3, which she was informed meant that he had escaped but was never found. Later, on giving this talk to an audience containing some Australians, she was informed that ‘Doing a Buckley’ was a saying meaning doing something wrong but getting away with it. Until that time they hadn’t known the origins of the saying. Both Hilary and members of her audience learned something that day.
Due to his meritorious conduct, Uriah was granted a pardon in 1805. He was granted 30 acres of land and went on to set up a ferry business across the river Derwent. On her trip, Hilary managed to locate Uriah’s gravestone. It stated that he was 90 years and 6 months old. He wasn’t, but Hilary thinks he probably just lost track of his age. There was space on the stone for his wife’s name, but she had remarried and was not buried with him.
While in the churchyard, Hilary got talking to a couple who were tending a grave about her quest. They suggested she read a book called Convicts Unbound. On finding a library copy on her return to England, Hilary discovered that Uriah featured several times and is part of the history of Hobart. She also learned that those on the Calcutta were picked for that voyage because they had the skills and trades needed to set up a new settlement.
Hilary has gone on to research other members of the Allender family. Some she had dismissed as ‘hers’ earlier in her research. However, the discoveries she had made enabled her to make links that had previously been hidden from her. It seems Uriah was not the only convict on the Allender side of her family. There really were ‘convicts galore’!
Report by Helen Stenhouse