Thank you Kate very much for this wonderful submission. I am in process of arranging to have printed a study of my Huguenot family Duterrau (no Notts connexion in this line as far as I can remember!) BUT this gives a lot about Hobart in 1827. Benjamin Duterrau, brother to my direct ancestor John, went there in 1832, just 5 years later, when it was considered to be a fine town beside many of the other Australian colonies. His daughter became governess to the children of the governor and married a Scots merchant John Bogle. You filled in a lot of very useful background. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Duterrau http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=benjamin+duterrau&hl=en&rlz=1T4DAFR_enFR229FR229&site=webhp&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=K8AJT7vVEc698gPPkaiyAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CDQQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=536 Jean Wood > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 10:54:24 +1100 > 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. We went to old Jack Slater's the next day, and had a jovial carouse. > Slater is a prisoner for life but he has got a ticket of leave, so that he does no Government work as long as he gets into no trouble; they are doing very well. His wife has had a son since she arrived in Sidney so that they have two sons and two daughters; the eldest son is as tall as his father. Sarah the eldest is at home with the others; the other daughter is in service, in the same place as she went to when she first came into the colony. I can assure you, by being eye-witness, a prisoner in these colonies is no joke, for they work twelve hours a day for Government, five days in the week and they have only Saturday for themselves, so that it is not now as it used to be. We were at Sidney three weeks when our company were ordered for this place where we arrived in seventeen days. It is 700 miles from Sidney and that nearer to England. > We have very good rations, all fresh meat, beef and mutton. My allowance is seven pounds of meat and seven pounds of bread per week, and one quart of rum every six days (1.2 litres) and my wife's three pounds and a half of each, and my daughters' one-third, that is, one pound of each every third day. Women and children are allowed no liquor - the worse for me. We draw our liquor every Saturday, which makes a good Saturday night, then good-bye for a week. Our pay we receive twice a month. For further particulars, I must refer you to Wm Shaw, in his letter. Our kind love to your wife and Susan and her husband. > Your respectfully, Wm Hunt" > From the letter to Mr Shaw, referred to above, we extract the following:- > "This Island is divided into two counties, Cornwall and Buckinghamshire; the assizes are held every quarter, at Launceston, and at this place (Hobart Town). The first assizes held here after we arrived, there were twenty-seven cast for death, four of which were reprieved and sent to a penal settlement for life, twenty three were executed - on Wednesday seven, Friday seven, and on Monday nine, which made twenty-three. There is a drop here that they can execute twelve at a time. We went to see the nine suffer, and such a sight we neither of us saw before; all of them appeared to die very penitent. They are very severe with them here, as most of their offences were for sheep-stealing. > At the last assizes twelve were executed and I saw all of them. There is eleven of us here overseers over different gangs, and the rest are all over the country; the gang that I have charge of, are in chains, and are obliged to work with their irons on, according to the term of their sentence, and that is commonly from one to six months each, according to the offence, which is like crimes in the army, for being drunk or absent. My duty with them is to keep them close to work during the appointed time, and can assure you that they must work hard, for if the overseer reports any of them for neglect, they are sure of twenty-five or fifty lashes. Their allowance of provisions is one pound of bread and the same of meat (?) but no vegetables to their meat, so that they have none too much. > They have coffee morning and night, but they say it is very bad. The work my gang does is making the town streets and levelling and gravelling them and I have the honour to say that I have completed the first street in Hobart Town, and I believe there are nineteen more want completing, so that if, please God, I live and have my health, I have three years' work cut out for me. My superintendent told me that we were to serve three years as overseer, and then have a grant of land given to us, equal to former settlers, and receive our pensions here, so that these three years will just bring me in one shilling a day, if England can afford to pay it me! I saw and drank with John Slater at Sidney; his wife and family are with him, doing very well; they keep a shop, and sell almost every thing, not forgetting a "drop of the creature", but I think the old man drinks most of the profits. > "We have found many Nottingham men here, and Alfred Gelding is at this place, and in good health, doing very well, as he is a tailor, which is one of the best trades in the colony; and Mr Lamb's son is here, he is doing very well; and Geo. Lackenby is here, and is very well. We heartily wish you were all as well off as we are, for, thank God, and my lucky stars, that we don't want for the common necessaries of life; for we have plenty to eat and drink, and a good bed to lay upon at night." > We have also seen two other letters from William Hunt, from which we glean the following particulars:- > "Sydney is very pleasant town, and there is a good and well supplied market every Thursday, and public houses are almost as thick together as in Nottingham; rum is 1s the half-pint and plenty of good wine at 1s 3d per quart. Vegetables are very dear; we had to pay 6d for one cabbage, and potatoes are three halfpence a pound, bread 2d, meat 6d; tea, very good, 3s and sugar 4 1/2 per pound; soap and candles 1s per pound; very indifferent ale 9d per quart. Wearing apparel is very dear indeed, but the working people are paid very well for their labour; tailors, shoemakers, bricklayers and stonemasons, can earn from 10s to 15s per day. When we had been at Hobart-town about a fortnight we got a place of service for our daughter, at one of the first merchants in the colony, to nurse a child five weeks old; her wages are 13 Pound a year, and we draw her rations, the same as if she was with us. > "My station is over a gang of convicts, consisting of from forty to eighty, all in chains, with heavy irons round each leg; the cause of the different number of them is, they are put in irons for a certain time, some for one, two, and three months, and others for six months, or during the Lieutenant-Governor's pleasure; I have one that has been for pleasure one year and five months; their sentences are according to the nature and degree of the offence they may have committed and they never take their irons off until they have served their sentence, day or night. > I fetch them from the prison barracks at half-past five in the morning, and they work till nine o'clock, and out again at ten till one, for dinner; then again from half-past two till six at night; in winter time was work from seven in the morning till five in the evening, when I take them into the barracks, where they remain till I fetch them out in the morning. As there is no place provided for me in the barracks, I am obliged to find my own quarters, though I have petitioned to the Lieutenant-Governor, and wrote to the chief Engineer of my department, but all to no effect. The other overseers in town are similarly situated. > We have two rooms upon a floor, for which I pay three shillings per week currency, but they are very pleasantly situated, about half a mile from town. The business I have with my gang, is to overlook them with a stick in my hand, and to see them work, and I am obliged to be very severe with them, to keep them properly under; and yet they say I am the best overseer they ever had, for were I to make the least report against them for being idle, they would get five-and-twenty or fifty lashes, so that I abstain reporting them as much as possible, for whatever the overseer says is law." > > > Notts Surname List > > http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~hughw/notts.html > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message