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BEDFORD CONVICTS—1789 LENT ASSIZES

by Rhonda Cole

first published in Tasmanian Ancestry Vol. 20, No. 2, 1999, pp. 99–103 and reproduced here with the consent of the author and the Editor of Tasmanian Ancestry

1789 Lent Assizes, Bedford

Amongst the many minor gems for the Australian researcher at the Public Record Office in Kew is piece ASSI 94/1317. Described as 'Indictment Files,' they may be the best clues we have to the history of several convicts sentenced at Bedford in March 1789, four of whom would find themselves on the third fleet to Australia.

One of them – the main subject of this article – is my ancestor, Samuel Odkenbaker, but it's worthwhile looking at the fate of others. The files, some quite detailed, concern eleven defendants. One was hanged; two were sentenced to transportation for seven years; three, of whom Odkenbaker was one, were sentenced to death commuted to transportation for life; there were two findings of ignoramus, and three acquittals. One of those acquitted was William Mayes and the finding is interesting given that he had pleaded guilty. He was up on a charge of stealing from his employer and any family historian might conclude that 'a piece of cotton value 16s, a ready made shirt value 3s & other articles of smaller value' would be good for at least seven years. There is nothing in the files to indicate what role his employer played, and Mayes 'says it is his first fault,' but acquittal on a charge you confess to seems strange given the severity of sentences we believe our ancestors could come to expect.

The seven-year men and the three respites were: John Williamson, William Green, Joseph Hall, George Davis and Samuel Odkenbaker. Williamson and Green, both of the parish of St Paul, Bedford, were tried jointly on a charge of stealing seven geese from William Sharp in the parish of St Peter – one year for each goose, they might have said to each other, of their sentence. There were three other charges against Williamson and one other against Green, none of them heard. Green signed a confession but, unlike Mayes, no good came of it – he was to die, aged 50, on the hulks, eighteen months into his sentence.

Of Joseph Hall we learn that he was sentenced to death for stealing 'a nag mare, chestnut colour with only one eye, aged, about 14 hands, value £6, from Edward Kitchener of Hawnes' [probably Haynes]. He is described as a cordwainer or shoemaker, married (he subsequently remarried on Norfolk Island), of Houghton Conquest, late of Clophill, earlier of Pulloxhill, Bedfordshire. (This is the stuff family historians love to find!) A second charge of stealing four sheep was not heard.

Davis and Odkenbaker were also tried jointly and fortunately the paperwork is informative. There are the usual bill of indictment and the recognizances of the witness and prosecutor to appear in court, but both made (but refused to sign) statements which have survived. There are slight inconsistencies between the various documents, but it seems that on the night of 7 August 1788 Davis and Odkenbaker broke into the shop of Francis Millard, a draper at Hockliffe in Bedfordshire. They removed stockings and handkerchiefs to the value of £6 15s, and possibly also £3 13s 6d in cash.

Less than two days later, they were picked up at Harpenden in Hertfordshire, on 'very strong suspicion.' It was also suspected that there were unknown accomplices involved.

Odkenbaker's defence was that, a week before they were apprehended, 'as He was travelling in the Country, but He doth not know where, He met [Davis] whose Christian Name alone viz George, He hath known, and who was carrying a Burthen of things to sell. [Davis] retain'd Him to accompany Him on his Travel and carry for Him a part of his said Burthen – That the Wages He agreed for are 8d pr day and his victuals.'

Davis claimed that he had bought the goods from a 'John Smith of Castle Street in the Town of Birmingham' and had paid twenty-five guineas for them.

Both were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.

The court sat on 11 March 1789 before the Chief Justice, Alexander Lord Loughborough, and Justice Sir Nash Grose, and it was Grose who ordered reprieves for Hall, Davis and Odkenbaker. On 29 April 1789 Lord Sydney wrote from the Home Office informing Grose of the King's decision: the sentences of all three were commuted to transportation for life.¹ I've so far found no petitions on behalf of any of them. It seems unlikely that Davis, at least, would have had anyone to petition for him. We learn from his statement that he was from Bristol – 100 or so miles away – formerly a seaman, and had been an itinerant hawker for the last five or six years.

It wasn't until December 1789 that these three, along with Williamson and Green, were transferred, probably on foot, from the county gaol to the hulks at Portsmouth. Home Office correspondence of the time shows regular letters from County Sheriffs pleading for relief for their gaols. Just as regularly the Home Office writes back pointing out the 'extreme danger' of overcrowding even more the already overcrowded hulks.

But by December the second fleet had loaded its cargo. Two days before Christmas, the five Bedfordshire convicts were received on the Ceres hulk in Langstone Harbour, there to labour on the rebuilding of Fort Cumberland at Eastney Common.²

Conditions on the Ceres would have been no better than on the other hulks and may well have been worse. By the middle of 1790, Joseph Hall – 45 years old we learn from the hulk returns – had developed rheumatism. By September, William Green was dead. The work on the fort consisted in 'digging and making Moats; delivering Vessells loaded with Stones; in Hewing the same; making Bricks; raising Glacis, and in various other works.' Perhaps there was a feeling of relief when, on 3 March 1791, Williamson, Hall, Davis and Odkenbaker were delivered for transportation on the third fleet. They were among the last convicts to occupy the Ceres – on 7 March, Lord Grenville at the Home Office ordered the vessel cleared and discharged from service.

If there was any feeling of relief, it was misguided. The four were embarked on the Matilda. Twenty-five of the 230 convicts died on the voyage and John Williamson, at 50 the eldest of the four, was one of them.³ Many of the survivors required treatment on arrival at Port Jackson and there were further deaths. George Davis, though only 26, may have been one of these. He appears on the Matilda indent but I can find no further record of him in the colony and no death is registered.

For Hall and Odkenbaker, the journey was not yet over. They were obviously considered fit and on 8 August 1791, a week after arrival, they sailed on the Mary Ann for Norfolk Island.

Hall's record appears in Irene Schaffer and Thelma McKay's Exiled! Three Times Over; now I shall try to piece together something of Samuel Odkenbaker's life.

He was my great great grandfather, but who was he? And what kind of a name is Odkenbaker anyway!

He is referred to as Odkinbaker in all the assize records except one – the bill of indictment is a fine parchment document which clearly shows that it has been scraped and an 'e' inserted over an earlier erasure. Why? Was it to overcome the technicality by which 'if a man's name was wrongly spelt in the Indictment, the Indictment was quashed, and he went out a free man'?⁴ Quite possibly Samuel could at least spell his own name and it's as Odkenbaker that I've come to think of him. So he appears in all the hulk returns (from which we learn that he was aged 20 in December 1789) and the Matilda indents. On the transportation registers he appears as Oakenbaker but this occurrence is unique and seems to be a transcription error.⁵

From his arrival in the colony, however, he becomes known as Samuel Baker, Odken being used as a middle name. It appears often though, and it's clear he must have used it when asked his name. And is it just a blemish on the microfilm or is he really 'Samuel O'Baker' on Major Foveaux's list of settlers holding land on Norfolk Island?⁶ No doubt a sense of humour, Irish or not, would have stood him in good stead.

His name is found in most of the standard Norfolk Island lists and victualling books of the time but there is little to fill in any fine detail. It's unlikely that he left the island between 1791 and his final removal to Port Dalrymple on the Minstrel in 1813. He worked as one of the convict sawyers and was usually victualled from the stores. In 1801 a son, William, was born to Samuel and convict Elizabeth Lewis.⁷ She had been transported on the Britannia in 1798 for seven years for 'privately stealing 6 guineas &c' and was described as 'an old offender.'⁸ The child died within three months of birth and the relationship didn't become permanent – Lewis completed her sentence and returned to Port Jackson in 1809. By that time, Samuel had become the holder of 15 acres of land with 14 pigs, subsequently erecting a 'small dwelling house.'⁹

The consensus of recent opinion is that there was great reluctance amongst the Norfolk Islanders to quit the island. It was certainly true in the period up to about 1808, when large numbers were transferred to Van Diemen's Land, but by 1813, with fewer than 200 remaining, the end must have seemed inevitable. What would Odkenbaker have thought? There were the prospects of a pardon, compensation for the building he was to leave, assigned servants and a larger grant of land. He may well have been suspicious of these promises – news no doubt filtered through from those transferred earlier that things hadn't quite worked out like that – and he may not have received news of the pardon granted in January 1813.¹⁰ But there was no choice.

It was undoubtedly no bowl of roses, but there would have been some brighter moments over the next few years. In 1814, the Kangaroo brought from Port Jackson Mary Brennan, a 26 year-old from Dublin transported on the Catherine for seven years. She was probably originally an assigned servant but, in 1816, she became the mother of the first of their three daughters. By 1818, a second daughter had been born and Samuel was approved constable in Launceston, qualifying for an extra half-ration from the stores.¹¹ Thirty acres on the South Esk had been located to him, although it's not clear if he ever occupied the land. (It was situated where Baker Court now stands in Blackstone Heights.) At some stage he became locatee of two blocks in Brisbane Street.¹² A third daughter was born in 1820. He may also have been the 'Mr Baker' appointed in 1818 as the agent to whom Port Dalrymple subscribers to the Hobart Town Gazette were to give 'a satisfactory Reference 'for the punctuality of their Payments.' The index to the facsimile edition gives this as Samuel Baker, but I am not yet wholly convinced. There were at least two other Bakers in town and, constable or not, Samuel Baker the convict sawyer from Norfolk Island seems a strange appointment.¹³

Mary Brennan is variously described as 'married to S. Baker' and 'wife of Baker' but there is no record of a marriage.¹⁴ When the children were baptized together in 1825, Rev. Youl in the St Johns register named the parents as 'Samuel and Mary Baker,' which he then crossed out and replaced with 'Samuel Baker and Mary Brenan' [sic], the convention of the time to indicate that the parents were unmarried.¹⁵ (The entry in the register also gave rise to a minor error. The children were baptized in May, but it does I admit look like 'Aug' and whoever prepared the transcription which was subsequently microfilmed can be forgiven. The error has been carried forward to the Tasmanian Pioneers Index.)

By now though, the wheels were starting to fall off.

On 15 August 1826, Samuel Baker appeared before Magistrate Peter Mulgrave charged with having in his possession a stolen blanket. The charge was dismissed but, only four days later, Mulgrave might have recognised the man up on the much more serious charge of 'illegally retailing spirituous liquors' – the sly grog shop! The fine of 100 Dollars (£25) would have been a great blow.¹⁶

But there was worse to come. Eight days later, on the 27th, Mary Brennan died. 'Occasion'd by Drink,' noted Rev. Youl of the death, and so we gain some clues to what life may have been like in the household in the preceding years.¹⁷

So the children lost their mother, but it seems little else changed. The following year, the grog shop was still running and in November came another £25 fine, this time with costs. We get a measure of the severity of these fines by the price agreed when, three months later, and probably of necessity, one of the Brisbane Street blocks was sold. The buyer, Alexander Wales, commander of the brig Tranmere, might have struck a bargain. Baker received £35.

He was now some 60 years old and describing himself as a carpenter. As early as 1819 he had gone off the stores and his service as constable was probably long over. In July 1831, the two elder daughters married within twelve days of each other: Mary Brennan Baker was 14 when she married James East, and Elizabeth ('Betsy,' Samuel used to register her as – a human touch) only 13 when she married John Brown. They were likely skilled homemakers and older than their years – their father had been busy accumulating six appearances before the magistrates for drunkenness, each resulting in a 5/- fine.

The second Brisbane Street block was sold in 1833, raising £160, but then there is a period of silence in the records about the life of Samuel Baker and his youngest daughter, Sarah. She was married in June 1840, aged 19, to John Bassett. Samuel had surfaced again three weeks earlier. It was yet another 5/- fine but, after nine years of an apparently clean sheet, you feel like being charitable and suggesting that it's only natural for a father to celebrate perhaps his daughter's engagement. And anyway, as a family historian, you would know already that Samuel Odkenbaker had less than one year to live. He died at Launceston on 7 April 1841, an old man but probably three or four years younger than the 77 he was stated to be.

There remains much to be discovered (I hope!). The very name is, in my experience, unique – I have never come across anything even vaguely similar. In the statement taken down all those years earlier in 1788, he describes himself as 'Samuel Odkinbaker of Rickmansworth in [Herts.], Chimney-Sweeper and Chair-Bottom Maker.' But even plain Bakers are thin on the ground in the Rickmansworth parish register after 1750. More interesting were two Backer entries. I have wondered if the name could be a corruption of a Dutch or other Germanic name. The Dutch pronunciation of 'Hootkenbakker,' or some such, if it isn't wholly fanciful, could well end up as Odkenbaker at the hands of the typical parish clerk. Could the family, or even a collateral line, have chosen to become known as Backer? A James Backer died in 1772 and a Sarah in 1783, but any family they may have had were not registered in Rickmansworth.

Whatever name it is we're looking for, it has died out now in Australia. Had he lived, Samuel Odkenbaker would have become grandfather figure to twenty-six grandchildren through his three daughters. There are many descendants of those trying to piece together his life and his ancestry.

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