Glad to hear you enjoyed reading this letter Judy, it is amazing to think that all those years ago our ancestors talked and your Daniel Smeaton helped my William Hunt with his belongings, and now, 185 years later we are reading the letter! The 14 years could be an error, maybe when the letter was being transcribed it was mistaken for 14. Kate, Melbourne. Thank you for posting this Kate and Dai for finding it. It is some time since I have read the NOTTs posts as they get filtered into a folder I was particularly interested in the snippet about Daniel Smeeton I have done a little research on him over the years. My direct ancestor William ROGERS b.c 1815 Nottingham who went to Calais as a lacemaker came to Australia arriving Sydney December 30 1848. On the shipping index, it states that he has a cousin living in the colony- Daniel SMEATON. I think William's wife (Mary HASLAM's mother was a SMEATON) hence the link. Sadly, Daniel died 5 July 1848, a couple of months before William actually left England. I am pretty sure he didn't marry, I have found a baptism of a Daniel Smeeton in 1800. He was convicted in 1819 and sailed in 1820 so the 14 wasn't quite correct though he was a free man in 1827 and then worked as a stone mason. Seeing early Sydney was built from sandstone, there would have been plenty of work Judy Gifford (nee Rogers), living just north of Sydney Researching ROGERS HASLAM HAZLEDINE SHACKLOCK SMEATON from Nottingham.. and yes I am a member of the ASLC- the Society of the descendants of the Lacemakers of Calais ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kate Winks" <[email protected]> To: "NOTTSGEN" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 10:54 AM Subject: [NTT] The Nottingham Review, 1827. Letter from William Hunt. Hi again List, Just want to thank everyone who replied to my post about a letter from Royal Veteran William Hunt which was published in The Nottingham Review in 1827. Special thanks go to Dai Bevan who was visiting a library and actually obtained the article from the above newspaper and sent to me off list. I am delighted to have the full copy as I previously only had snippets of the letter transcribed. Dai suggested I post the letters published here for anyone who may be interested, the letters give a good account of what it was like on the journey over to Sydney and food, housing conditions, wages etc. Then William travelled to Hobart Town in Tasmania where he was stationed as an overseer of a convict gang, he seemed quite proud of the fact that his gang completed the first street in Hobart Town. Williams story is very interesting, he was at the Battle of Waterloo in the 59th Regiment, although his Reg did not partake in the fighting, more covering the right flank of Wellington, also William survived the wreck of the English warship ‘Seahorse’ just off Tramore, Ireland, in 1816, and the loss of 363 lives. Sadly William died in 1828 at Birch’s Bay, Tasmania in 1828. Kind Regards to everyone, Kate Winks, Melbourne, Australia. The Nottingham Review, August 24, 1827. Extract from a letter written by William Hunt of this town who went out at the latter end of last year, as a private in the Royal Veteran Company, for New South Wales. The letter is addressed to Mr Samuel Preston of Nottingham who has obligingly favoured us with it:- Hobart Town, Van Dieman's Land 20 March 1827 Dear Friends, We had a very fine passage from Spithead to New South Wales. We had a very fresh breeze of wind through the English Channel, which made my daughter very sea-sick for the first fortnight, but she never was sick afterwards; my wife never was sick at all, and it is needless to say I never was sick. I wrote to you before we arrived at Portsmouth and stated the particulars of our situation on board which was very comfortable, as we had a large birth to ourselves; we had room enough in it to put one of our boxes which we slept in, in the birth, all the passage, and the other box we kept in the sick-bay, so that we had all our stores under our eyes. There were ten women brought to bed on the passage. We had the small pox and measles on board and we buried twelve children and one women during the passage; we had very few men sick. We anchored in Sidney Cove the 8th of July which was four months to the day from the time we left Spithead. We had no particular accident occurred worthy of notice during the passage. When we arrived at Sidney there was no place provided for our reception but they soon set to work, and cleaned out a part of soldiery barracks, and an orphan school that had been unoccupied for some time, so that in two days all was ready and we went on shore, and soon made ourselves very comfortable. As we sung out for the grog, and got our rations, which was fresh beef, so we struck up a tune on the frying pan and were all jovial together. Mrs Plowright died at Sidney four months before we arrived there; she died very suddenly. The first man that spoke to me was a Nottingham man, to ask me if we had any from Nottingham belonging to our corps; his heart leapt for joy when I told him I was from Nottingham and while we were talking, John Sinter's son came up, so they helped me with my boxes and luggage; the man's name was Daniel Smeeton; he was 14 when he left Nottingham and was for seven years; he is a free man this month; he was the same trade as me, but he has learned stone-cutting since he has been in Sidney, and was getting 2 pound a week, set wages, when I saw him.