Samuel & Janet Winch

Samuel and Janet Winch

One thing that all my early ancestors seem to share is that they generally appear to have been born and grown up in fairly poor circumstances.  Samuel Winch and Janet Robertson were no exception.  And like so many others, neither of them chose to make their home in Van Diemen’s Land! Instead, they found themselves on the wrong side of the law and transported to the ‘other side of the world’. 

I am still to confirm the efforts of other researchers that tell us that Samuel was the second son of Thomas Winch and Mary Brown and that he was born in the parish of Ippollitts in Hertfordshire on 27 December 1809.  Later documents record his ‘native place’ as the village of Preston, which lies within the neighbouring parish of Hitchin.  In April 1810 he was christened at the Independent Bethel Chapel in the town of Hitchin. 

There are a number of Baptist Churches in Hitchin, no doubt reflecting the early roots of this ‘dissenting religion’ in the ministry of John Bunyan who was born in 1628 and who frequently visited Hitchin from his home in Bedford.  The Independent Chapel in Back Street (now Queen Street) was established after a small group broke away from Hitchin’s Tilehouse Street Baptist Meeting. 

Thomas and Mary Winch had at least six children: William, Samuel, Daniel, Martha, George and Hannah.  Thomas worked as an agricultural labourer. Census records indicate that the daughters and subsequent generations of Winch women worked as straw plaiters, a cottage industry that flourished in Hertfordshire during the nineteenth century.  It seems likely that Mary Winch would also have supplemented the family income by working as a straw plaiter.

Like his father, Samuel was also an agricultural worker.  His convict records show that he was employed as a ploughman as well as in preparing milk. Given the seasonal nature of farm work, the men and boys in the family no doubt worked at a large variety of labouring tasks, from digging ditches, ploughing fields, setting seeds, hoeing and weeding, cutting chaff, spreading dung, threshing and harvesting, felling timber and cutting faggots of firewood.

In the 1830s, a farm labourer might expect to earn nine shillings a week, worth around £360 in today’s terms, or $742 (AUD).  In Hertfordshire the supplementation of family incomes from the women’s straw plaiting is credited with having staved off the worst of the agricultural unrest and rioting that occurred in other areas of the England at this time.

Trial and conviction

On 3 March 1830, when he was 21 years old, Samuel Winch was tried at the Lent Session of the Hertford Assizes.  Together with Daniel Worboys and Joseph Ward, Samuel was convicted of breaking and entering a dwelling house.  The young men had broken into Mary Hodgson’s house in Pirton, where they had stolen a shoulder of mutton, candles, a ham, a basket, ten eggs, a box, two shillings, three sixpences and six pence in copper. They were sentenced to transportation for life. 

Another four local boys were  also sentenced at the Hertford Assizes on that day and they also travelled aboard the Southworth to Van Diemen’s Land.  David Hosie and James Wheeler had been convicted for stealing a watch and money, while Joseph Pedder and Abraham Sommerfield were convicted of assault and highway robbery.

The Southworth sailed from Sheerness on 26 June 1830 and arrived at Hobart Town 115 days later, on 19 October 1830.  Shortly after arrival the young men were placed on assignment.  Ward and Warboys were assigned to a Mr Cawthorn, while Samuel was assigned to Mr A Reid.  It is likely that this was Mr Alexander Reid of Ratho Estate at Bothwell.

Alexander Reid migrated to Van Diemen’s Land from Scotland in 1821.  He had been a merchant and insurance dealer in Edinburgh’s port of Leith where his offices were less than 200 metres from public linksland where the first organised golf clubs were formed.  At Ratho, the Reid family established what is today Australia’s oldest golf course.

Convict life

Samuel Winch had not been long in the colony before he was in trouble again.  On 22 September 1831 he was committed to stand trial for robbing Henry Wakefield on the Highway, taking a silk handkerchief, silver and an order of £2.  It is not clear from the records though what the outcome was except to the extent that they show he was subsequently engaged in public works rather than assigned to a free settler.  On 11 February 1832 Samuel received 50 lashes for absconding from a road party and three days later he was officially reprimanded for neglect of duty.  In March he absconded again. His description was published in the Hobart Town Courier:

1. 1129  Samuel Winch, 5 ft 7, dark brown hair, gray eyes, age 23, a ploughman, tried at Hertford in March 1830, sentence life per Southworth, native of Preston Herts, absconded from Notman’s road party, March 21 1832. Reward 2l.
   

Another convict, 19 year old Robert Harris, absconded at the same time.  He had been tried in the same month as Samuel, at Southampton, and sentenced to fourteen years transportation for stealing sheep.

An 1838 account of Notman’s road party at Green Ponds, notes that Robert Notman was a Scotsman, familiarly known as Old Bobby Nutman and that his cruelty was known throughout the island.  Political prisoner, Samuel Snow, relates that they had ‘... heard of his whipping men nearly to death, and the old prisoners feared him as they would a tiger; but to us he was the most humane and indulgent overseer we found during our residence on the island.  He told us that murderers, thieves and robbers who had been placed under him heretofore, could not be governed without being flogged ...’. At the time that Samuel Winch served under Notman the party was probably working on the road from Launceston to Evandale and Perth.

Shortly after Samuel’s description was published, he must have given himself up or been apprehended as later that month he was sentenced to nine months imprisonment and hard labour for having absconded. 

By December that year, Samuel had again absconded - this time from a chain gang - and was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment with hard labour.  Samuel’s conduct record provides no further details about this period of imprisonment, including whether it was served at Port Arthur, in Hobart or elsewhere on the island.

In August 1834 Samuel was found at Hamilton without a pass and a recommendation was made that he be worked for three months at the Sorell Creek Road Party.  In November that year he was admonished for repeated idleness and neglect of duty with the road party.  A month later he is again in trouble for neglect of duty and also for ‘suspicion of hiding his Masters bullock Cows and Chains, One Week given him to find them’. It is not clear whether the next offence occurred at the same time or is simply not dated but the next entry is for ‘Gross neglect of duty, using most obscene language and Insubordination’ for which 18 months imprisonment and hard labour in a chain gang appears to have been recommended.  On 7 March the Lieutenant Governor decided to send Samuel to the Grass Tree Hill Chain Gang.

After this date Samuel’s record simply notes that he was granted a Ticket of Leave on 22 May 1839 and a Conditional Pardon on 15 June 1842.  What, I wonder, brought on this remarkable change in his behaviour?

Janet Robertson

I have found no further record of Samuel until his marriage, two years later, to Janet Robertson in Launceston.  Perhaps romance was a factor in Samuel’s reformation? But Janet’s conduct was hardly exemplary.  She was penalised on many occasions for ‘misconduct’, ‘insubordination’ and ‘insolence’.

I have yet to learn much about Janet’s early life. It seems she was born in Edinburgh’s port district of Leith around 1822.  Prior to her conviction in 1840, she was employed as a ‘servant of all work’ but she also seems to have had a history of misconduct as  she was sentenced to seven years transportation on 2 November 1840 for ‘theft by habit and previous conviction’.

Janet’s convict record indicates that she was eighteen years old on embarkation and had a birthday during the journey; she was single; could read and write; was just over five feet and two inches tall with dark blue eyes and brown hair, an oval face and fresh complexion.  She was marked by scars on her right leg, left shoulder, on the back of her left hand and under her chin on the right side. 

Her marriage certificate states that she was a ‘storekeeper’s daughter’ but that is all I have been able to discover of her parents if, indeed, it is true.

Janet was one of 180 convict women to sail to Van Diemen’s Land aboard the Rajah in 1841.  The ship left Woolwich on 5 April 1841, with the women having come on board from the 19th of March.  Most had been held in London’s General Penitentiary at Millbank before embarkation.  About 36 women and a couple of children came from Newgate. Interestingly, the Surgeon Superintendent’s report comments on a number of women who came on board but were removed before departure ‘... in consequence of Insanity.’  He goes on to say that ‘It may be right to mention that all those cases of derangement were exhibited in Females received on board from the General Penitentiary where I understand they are subjected to the silent system’.

Another of my GGG Grandmothers, Catherine Lowry, was also on board the Rajah.  She was about the same age as Janet so it seems likely that they spent some time together during the voyage.  Perhaps they were among the twenty or so women working together on the patchwork quilt that is today one of the most significant artifacts relating to the convict history of women in Australia.  Elizabeth Fry’s ‘Ladies’ Committee’ often provided convict women with personal items as well as needles, thread and scraps of fabric to keep them employed throughout their voyage. 

The Surgeon Superintendent’s report records that the weather was ‘very fine’ during the first part of the voyage, with ‘little inconvenience from Sea Sickness’.  He concludes that ‘With very few exceptions the Health of all was upon their arrival in Hobarton much improved and considerably better than when they embarked at Woolwich’.  There was one fatality, the day the ship anchored in Van Diemen’s Land.

A report of the Rajah’s arrival in the local newspaper claimed that ‘... the female prisoners brought out in this ship appear to be of a much better character than usual; their behaviour during the voyage was very good, doubtless in great degree the result of the indefatiguable care which appears to have been exercised both with reference to their morality and physical comfort’.

Janet’s conduct record doesn’t quite fit the ‘better character’ assessment, but perhaps she was unaccustomed to coping with authority.  While the newspaper report of the Rajah’s arrival on 19 July 1841 suggests that most of the women were assigned as servants and collected directly from the ship, it seems that Janet was sent to Launceston for assignment.  However, the first record I have of Janet indicates that by 11 November, she was residing in the Female House of Correction or the ‘Female Factory’ in Launceston.  On that day Janet was sentenced to seven days solitary confinement for ‘disorderly conduct in fighting’. 

Home Office records indicate that Janet was in service to a Mr J Impay of Launceston at the end of the year.  This is probably Joseph Impey whose marriage to Mary Ann Strange in Launceston in 1841 is the most likely connection I have been able to find.

However, by February 1842, Janet is in service elsewhere when, on the 15th, she is returned to the Factory charged with insolence and being absent without leave.  As a result, she is sentenced to six days solitary confinement.

Reassigned, Janet is again charged with insolence and with disobeying orders, for which she receives seven days solitary confinement from 13 April.

The merry-go-round of assignments continues, as Janet is reassigned again, this time to a Mr Govett.  Again she is found absent without leave and, on this occasion, escapes with a severe reprimand.

In September, Janet sought permission to marry James Herkes, a fellow convict from the streets of Edinburgh.  James had been transported aboard the Frances Charlotte in 1837.  His conduct record shows that he was transported for housebreaking, but like Janet’s record, it also indicates a longer history on the wrong side of the law, stating that he had been convicted and imprisoned before, and rather sadly, claiming he was ‘a Thief from Infancy’.  James spent his first years in the colony at Port Arthur, but by the time he was seeking Janet’s hand he was holding a Ticket of Leave.  Permission to marry was refused, with a notation stating that this ‘woman’s conduct must be amended’.

The refusal seems to have had little effect, except perhaps to further entrench Janet’s resistance to authority.   Once again assigned to work, Janet is charged on 16 November with disobeying orders and sentenced to 24 hours solitary confinement.

On 11 January 1843 Janet is returned to Government at her master, Henry Glover’s request.  She had been working for him at his residence in Evandale.  Henry Glover had a farm near the River Nile at Deddington. He was the son of famous landscape artist, John Glover. 

Although not recorded on her conduct record, there is a report of Janet being in trouble  at the Launceston Female Factory on 7 February 1843 when she set fire to some blankets and keys as well as to her own clothes.

Despite the lack of improvement in her conduct, James Herkes again sought permission to marry Janet.  Again the request was refused. 

Yet again, Janet leaves the Factory to take up an assignment, this time with a Mr Fall at Evandale.  To no avail; and on 14 March she is again returned to the Government at her master’s request.

On 27 March 1843 Janet is in Crime Class at the Female House of Correction when she is charged with insubordination and sentenced to twelve months hard labour, three months of which are to be spent in solitary confinement, the sentence to be served at HM Gaol Launceston.  Fellow Rajah convict, Ann Headspeth, was similarly charged and, like Janet, transferred to the Launceston Gaol.

On the 24th of July Janet is again in trouble for insubordination, the result being an extension of her existing sentence of transportation for a further two years and recommendation for transfer to Longford Gaol under the existing sentence of hard labour.  The Lieutenant Governor accepted this recommendation within three days and Janet was transferred to Longford.  Ann Headspeth was also involved in this incident, along with Elizabeth Barrett, also of the Rajah.

Janet’s record states that she is again guilty of misconduct in December 1843 and March 1844 and that she is ordered to serve further probation from January 1844 before reclassification.

Marriage and children

On 2 February 1844, Samuel Winch applied for permission to marry Janet, who was in assigned service in Longford.  On this occasion the application was approved and on the 1st of April Samuel and Janet were married; the ceremony was witnessed by Isaac Lefevre and S Dowsett.  Isaac was a former brick labourer from Whitechapel in London. He had been sentenced for larceny and arrived in Van Diemen’s Land aboard the Moffatt in April 1838.    It is a little more difficult to establish who S Dowsett may have been.  There was a Samuel Dowsett transported aboard the Commodore Hayes in 1823. And perhaps it was the same Samuel Dowsett who started the Cornwall Press, and later the Independent newspaper - possibly Janet had been assigned to him or Samuel Winch was working for him?

Just over a fortnight past their first wedding anniversary, Samuel and Janet’s first child was born.  Elizabeth’s birth registration indicated that Samuel was working as a carter and the family was living at Longford. Samuel registered the births of nearly all of the couple’s eleven children, in each case signing the registration with his mark, indicating that he was unable to write.  Until 1851, his occupation was described variously as carter, carrier and labourer.

In January 1846 Samuel registered the birth of the couple’s second daughter, Mary.  Mary had been born on 10 December.  Sadly she died when just three months old, suffering from convulsions.   Twelve months later a son, Daniel, was born, but he survived for less than two months.

In February 1849, another daughter, Martha was born.  She was to marry William Soden, the brother of my GGG Grandmother, Eliza Gillam (nee Soden). 

In July 1851, Alice Winch was born.  Her birth registration indicates that Samuel was working as a shopkeeper in Longford. Then,  in June 1853, another son, Samuel, was born.  But again, the family was to suffer the loss of an infant child, when Samuel succumbed to the rather graphically described ‘overflow of the bile’ at just two months old. 

There was little time for Janet to recover.  No doubt eight year old Elizabeth was helping with Martha and toddler Alice as Janet was soon pregnant again, and baby Agnes was born twelve months after Samuel’s death.  In August 1856 another daughter, named for her mother, was born; followed in July 1858 by Christina Elizabeth, who was to marry my Great Great Grandfather, Thomas Gillam.  Thomas was the son of Eliza Gillam (nee Soden) referred to above - so Christina was to marry her sister’s nephew.

Janet had now borne ten children, and lost three in infancy.  The next tragedy was the loss of young Agnes.  Just four years and nine months old, she died in May 1859, from ‘water on the brain’.  But still more tragedy was to follow.  In July 1860 another son, Samuel Thomas was born, only to die from dysentery before his second birthday.  Janet was already pregnant again and their last child, George, was born in October 1862. Happily, he was to live seventy years. 

Christina and Jannett also lived into their seventies.  Sadly the other remaining children had much shorter lives.

In March 1864, just short of her nineteenth birthday, Elizabeth died from ‘slow fever’.  While Martha was to marry and have seven children, she died aged 38; and Alice died at the age of 26, possibly while giving birth to her sixth child.  Sadly three of her children did not live past seven.

How tragic to lose so many children.  It is difficult not to think that there must have been some genetic predisposition that, at least, reduced the resilience of Janet and Samuel’s children during their infant years.  But, perhaps too the difficult years that Janet and Samuel had served in Van Diemen’s Land’s convict system had also taken their toll. 

There is more to do in the search to better understand Janet and Samuel’s life together and their living conditions.  Working for many years as a carter and a labourer, Samuel’s income was probably fairly low and his work arduous.  From 1851 he seems to have worked as a shopkeeper in Longford. The 1858 Valuation Roll shows that Samuel was occupying a house and shop on property of less than an acre, valued at £100, and owned by prominent citizen and parliamentarian William Dodery. 

In their later years, Samuel and Janet no doubt took some joy from seeing their surviving children marry and have children of their own.  The first to marry was Martha, and she was already well on the way to having children.  When she was seventeen years old, in April 1865, she married William Soden, a labourer and plasterer who was eleven years her senior.  Four months later their first child was born.  Sadly she survived for only a day, but the couple went on to have another six children, at least four of whom married.

Alice Winch married next.  In 1870 she married John Edward Reilly.  The couple moved to Victoria where they were to live for the rest of their lives.  They had six children, but only three survived childhood.

In 1874, Christina married my Great Great Grandfather at Exton.  As I intend to write their story more fully, I’ll simply note that they had a large family - a dozen children - and Christina lived until she was 71 years old.

Two years after Christina’s wedding, Samuel and Janet were paying for daughter Janet’s wedding which, like the other girls’ took place in the family home. Janet married James Garrett, a local labourer. They had seven children, losing at least the first in infancy.

With all their children, bar the youngest, George, married, Samuel and Janet’s next major challenge was the loss of two of their adult daughters.  In 1878, at just twenty-six years of age, Alice died in Melbourne, leaving her husband to care for an infant and young children.  Nine years later, Samuel and Janet were to lose their eldest surviving daughter, Martha.  At just under 37 years old, and also with young children to care for, Martha died on 11 November 1887 of scirrhus cancer of the brain.

Samuel Winch died on 18 December 1895.  He was 86 years old. The death notice in the Launceston Examiner said that he had died at his residence at Exton.  He was buried at Deloraine, following a service at the town’s Presbyterian Church on Sunday 22nd of December.

Perhaps having wondered whether her youngest would every marry (and perhaps hoping that he would not!), on 12 October 1898, Janet Winch, then aged 76, saw 36 year old George marry Charlotte Purton.  Charlotte lived locally, she was thirty one years old, an only daughter, and had not previously married.  Marrying so late in life, the opportunity for a big family was curtailed.  They had two daughters, Janet Sophia and Ellen (known as Nell).

Just over a year after George’s wedding, on 3 December 1899, Janet Winch, former Rajah convict, died before she could see in the new century.  What a life!  She was 77 and had died of senility, chronic gastritis and heart failure.  Her funeral, on Wednesday the 6th, left from her son’s home in Mill Street, Deloraine and she was buried, with Samuel, in the Presbyterian burial ground.

[Added 21 May 2009]

If you’re interested in Samuel’s early life or want to know more about straw plaiting, visit Preston, Hertfordshire in the nineteenth century.  A special thanks to Dr Trudy Crowley of the Female Factory Research Group for filling in some of the gaps in Janet’s convict history.  If you discover any mistakes above or have any information to share please contact me by email.