The Crime: embezzlement The Punishment: deportation
Written as part of Amy Johnson Crow’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge. This week’s topic: Crime and Punishment.
Deodatus Carr was my 1st cousin 3 times removed. I call him ‘cousin’ Deodatus Carr to distinguish him from my great-grandfather and his cousin Deodatus Carr jr., as well as my great-great grandfather and his uncle, Deodatus Carr sr. This cousin was to go far, for in 1841 cousin Deodatus was tried at the Oxford Quarter Sessions and sentenced to 7 years in Van Diemen’s Land.
Born in 1817 in Oxford, cousin Deodatus was married in January 1836, at the age of 19 to Sarah Redhead, from Deptford in Kent. Their son Richard was born in February 1837 but died a month later. Deodatus then joined Her Majesty’s 12th Royal Lancers but was released on a medical discharge in 1840.
The 1841 English Census shows that Deodatus Carr was a tailor, living on Queen Street in the parish of St. Peter le Bailey in Oxford. The census was recorded on 5 July, but his wife Sarah was not with him.
1841: Deodatus Carr, age 20, Tailor, Queen Street, Oxford
A few months later Deodatus was in trouble with the law. On September 6, 1841 he and a colleague, William Harris, were acquitted of larceny, but on 18 October they were found guilty of “having embezzled the sum of £1.1 sh(illing), the property of Thomas Ashley, their master.” While Harris was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, Carr was to be transported for seven years.
He was conveyed to Portsmouth where for the next nine months he was confined in the Prison Hulk “Leviathan.”
Prison Hulks
Transportation convicts were often held in prison hulks after they were sentenced while their deportation was arranged. These were floating prisons in old or unseaworthy ships. The HMS Leviathan had been a 74-gun ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1790 and had taken part in the Battle of Trafalgar. But after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Leviathan was converted into a prison hulk, had its rigging removed, and moored in Portsmouth Harbour to accommodate prisoners awaiting transportation to Australia.
These prison hulks were kept close to shore so the prisoners could be engaged in hard labour during the daytime. In some cases convicts spent their entire sentence on board the hulks and were never sent overseas. They spent 10 to 12 hours a day working on river cleaning projects, stone collecting, timber cutting, embankment and dockyard work while they waited for a convict transport to become available. Life aboard was described as “floating hell.”
There can be no doubt that physical conditions were tough. Inmates were shackled in irons, rising daily at five am, before typically undertaking ten hours of hard labour in summer and seven in the winter, and being put down at seven pm. Despite this there is also evidence of periods of idleness. … in ‘wet weather and on the Sundays, none worked. They sat about dejectedly, moped, grumbled, recounted past misdeeds to companions anxious to profit by their experiences and planned mutinies and escapes.’ … (T)he accommodation was terribly overcrowded. The inmates slept, ate and passed time in the same below deck spaces. Sleeping conditions in particular were very cramped, and the overall effect was to provide ideal breeding conditions for the transfer of various diseases including typhus and tuberculosis. Clothing was basic but sufficient and the diet adequate, being no worse then that served on naval vessels according to the hulk overseers…. (T)he quality of the food was variable and concerns were raised at the time about the lack of fruit, vegetables and bread and the freshness of the meat.
https://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/prison-hulks/
The Leviathan register reveals that Deodatus was “Supposed to be very Bad,” which may explain the much longer sentence than his partner in crime.
UK, Prison Hulk Registers and Letter Books, 1802-1849 Leviathan Register 1837-1844
Eventually Deodatus was assigned to sail on the ‘Marquis of Hastings’ which departed Portsmouth on 15 July 1842, one of 240 convicts on the vessel. (https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/carr/deodatus/45479).
Transportation
There were 931 convict voyages to Australia, from 1787 to 1869. During that time 35,000 men, women and children were shipped to Australia, a voyage that took months. The crimes for which people were deported included everything from murder, assault and high treason, to stealing a handkerchief, of which 223 convicts were accused. The database at convictrecords.com lists name, where convicted, date and port of departure, port of arrival, and the source of the data. This is a wonderful site, with transcribed records of hundreds of convicts, beautifully organized and very easy to use. It even has a collection of photographs of convicts taken in the 1870s and 1880s.
https://convictrecords.com.au/resources
Deodatus arrived in Tasmania, where he would work as “tailor to prisoners” and was to serve a 15-month period of probation. While this was later reduced to 12 months for ‘good behavior’, his Conduct Register lists a number of later offenses. On 3 July 1843 he was “insolent to supervisor” on, for which he was “admonished.” Other offenses included a spree ending in his refusal to return to barracks, for which he spent 48 hours in solitary confinement, and several references to “neglect of duty” with some period of hard labor being assigned. The document is handwritten and somewhat illegible but it contains a full description of Deodatus, who was 5’11 ½” tall, of sallow complexion dark brown hair and black bushy whiskers. His eyes were hazel, his face broad, and his arms were covered with scars and moles. The last date on the record is 19 October 1848.
Despite his mixed record Deodatus completed his sentence. I have no record of his departure from Australia or arrival in England. But in 1868 a Poll Book records that he was once again in Oxford, a tailor, living at Abbey Place, in St.Ebbes Parish. Evidently his convict record did not prevent him from voting. And according to the 1871 census Deodatus and Sarah were living together, on Abbey Road. Sarah died in 1874, Deodatus in 1877, and was buried at Holy Trinity Church on 21 March.