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John Pepperdine (Transported to Australia)

John Pepperdine

By John Pepperdine of Norwich first published in Pepperdine Exchange December 1991 and May 1992

Grantham is 23 miles south of Lincoln City on the limestone ridge which stretches northwards to the river Humber. There is a gap in the ridge at Lincoln where the river Witham flowing north from Grantham on the western side of the ridge turns to the east, passes through the gap and then flows south east to the sea at Boston. The eastern counties of England are for the most part quite flat and today Grantham is the highest point above sea level on the railway line from London to Edinburgh

John Pepperdine was born in Grantham at the end of the eighteenth century. At this time the Grantham canal was completed connecting the town to the river Trent at Nottingham. Water transport was an energy efficient method of moving agricultural produce to the markets of south Yorkshire and the Midlands and of moving raw materials such as wood imported at Hull. During the period of his life there, this was a market town of growing importance surrounded by some of the largest estates with resident owners in Lincolnshire. There were larger estates in the north of the county but their owners usually lived elsewhere in England.

Quite where John Pepperdine’s immediate ancestors came from is still not certain. They may have arrived in Grantham seeking employment in the town from country parishes further east and closer to the sea or they even be the remnants of a branch pf the Pepperdines which moved south into Northamptonshire in the seventeenth century of which very little trace can be found. Whoever John’s grandfather was, we can be fairly certain that his father was the John Pepperdine who married Mary Williamson in Grantham June 30 1794. Two children arrived. Ann in 1795 and John on September 19, 1797. Their father, a labourer, died in 1811. Ann married in Spalding in 1816 and John took a little longer to make up his mind marrying Susannah Clark in Grantham September 26, 1825. John was a brick maker a useful trade at a time when the use of bricks for building was being extended to the construction of worker’s cottages. They had two children, Joseph born Grantham in 1825 and Mary Ann in 1827.

The war against France ended in 1815 and the agricultural revolution in Lincolnshire gathered momentum. The social unrest this generated would have been less noticeable in Lincolnshire where agricultural wages were higher than they were further south. There would have been some displacement of workers from the land but increased usage was also made of previously unproductive land and the transport systems existed to export surplus production to other counties.

A John Pepperdine age 28 “late of Grantham” was tried in court April 21, 1827 by oath of Michael ASHWELL of Barrowby, (which is just out in the countryside to the west of Grantham). He had stolen from Barrowby on January 20^th of that year, seven tame pheasants property of M ASHWELL and been brought to justice by gamekeeper John WHITE. (In Scopwick at this time a different John Pepperdine was a gamekeeper bringing to justice other poachers but almost certainly they did not know each other.) John is also mentioned in the Record Office at Kew, London. Here he is recorded as being sentenced to 7 years transportation for stealing meat. He was convicted at the Easter session for Grantham on April 16, 1830. (Criminal Registers 1830 ref H027/39). The labouring classes diet included little meat and a poor selection of vegetables perhaps he was driven to crime by the thought that his strength was failing. Or perhaps he could have heard tales of Australia and realizing that he had a useful trade, felt that prospects were better for him there. Perhaps there is no excuse for his behaviour. Whatever the reason he must have had cause to reflect that this was an irreversible decision when he heard something like: “It is therefore ordered and adjudged by this court, that you be transported upon the seas, beyond the seas, to such place as His Majesty, by the advice of His Privy Council shall think fit to direct and appoint for the period of seven years.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

An Act of Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1597 provided for the banishment of criminals on pain of death if they returned to this country. Convicts under commuted death sentences were sent to labour in Virginia in 17C. From 1618 a steady stream of convicts were sent to the States including Cromwell’s prisoners of war. Here they (or the right to their labour for the period of their sentence) were sold. American independence put an end to this trade. Some forty thousand persons had been transported from Great Britain and Ireland and now the limited number of jails would soon fill up and prisoners were employed on public works or kept prisoner on the “hulks” (unserviceable ships in London or along the south coast. Both the private jails and the hulks were soon subject to outbreaks of epidemic diseases and there was political agitation for a solution. Consideration was given to destinations in Africa but eventually parliamentary committees were persuaded by evidence from Sis Joseph BANKS that Botany Bay in New South Wales (NSW) was a suitable destination. BANKS had sailed with Captain James COOK as botanist on the voyage to New Zealand and Australia in 1770 and reported the natives in Australia were timid, backward, poorly armed and had no property to defend. The first fleet was assembled in haste once the belated political decision was made and the emphasis was on speedy despatch of the first group of prisoners rather than thought for their future well being. They sailed 13 May 1787 to an unexplored land.

By 1810 9,300 male and 2,500 female convicts were transported. From 1811 to 1830 44.100 males and 6,100 females were transported and in the peak period from 1831 to 1840 43,000 males and 7,700 females were transported. Transport to NSW ended in 1840, to Tasmania in 1853 and to Western Australia in 1868. The earliest arrivals endured a near starvation existence. On Norfolk Island they had exterminated the mutton bird by 1830. In Tasmania kangaroos were hunted for food but skins were mare valuable for shoes, hats, bags. Jackets and pants. There was no steam power and few draft animals but convict labour was plentiful. By 1830s merino cross bred sheep were kept in the Hunter River valley having been introduced first from Spanish stock in 1805. By 1830s wool replaced whaling and fishing as the main industry. Tens of millions of seals had been wiped out in earlier years. Transportation eventually ceased when adequate prison facilities were built in England and due to pressure from Australia tired of absorbing convicts for fifty years and from English reformers who were now able to point to the evidence that criminal tendencies are obviously not hereditary.

THE VOYAGE

John was transported on the Burrell with 192 male convicts for NSW, Australia (Convict transportation records ref H011/7). It is quite likely that he had never travelled more than fifteen miles from Grantham in his life and had almost certainly never seen the sea before so he was in for quite an adventure.

Information on the transport ship Burrell is found in the book “The Convict Ships 1787 – 1868” by Charles Bateson: “The Burrell a ship of 402 tons was built at Newcastle, England in 1825. The voyage in 1830 was her first as a convict transport ship/ The master on the voyage was John METCALF and the surgeon William WEST. She sailed from Plymouth on 27 July 1830 and arrived at Port Jackson NSW on 19 December 1830 after a voyage lasting 145 days.

William WEST’s surgeons log is also available at Kew Record Office. His summary of the voyage covers the period 26 June 1830 to 3 January 1831. He reports that there were scarcely any of the prisoners that were not affected by some symptoms of scurvy but also states that lime juice was given liberally to all whether affected or not and commenced very early on the passage and long before the slightest symptoms of scurvy appeared. The guard which consisted of 30 soldiers were as long on board as the prisoners and equally unaccustomed to a sea life yet not one of them had a symptom of scurvy which he attributed to the fact that they had more exercise and occupation of mind since their provisions were the same value and quality as the prisoners. We also learn from his account that the prisoners were confined 13 hours out of each 24 and in temperatures which reached 80-90 degrees F in hot weather. Cleanliness was a problem and he suggests that mortality in the ships would be little less than in slave ships if the surgeon superintendent had not the power of enforcing his authority. Three of the prisoners died on the voyage, one he said was maniacal and he was at a loss to put a name to the disease which affected the other two. There had been rumours of mutiny on the voyage but nothing developed

AUSTRALIA

John’s age is given as 31 on arrival in NSW. He was assigned to an employer R JOHNSTONE (the initial R is uncertain and the name could be JOHNSON) of Annandale near Windsor NSW, now a suburb of Sydney (Convicts arrived 1828 – 1832 ref H010/29). Who was this man? Could he be a relative of the Reverend Richard JOHNSON who sailed with the first fleet and built the first church in Australia or Lt Col George JOHNSTON who arrived with the same fleet and on 26 January 1808 led the coup d’etat deposing Governor Bligh? Perhaps he had been a convict himself but the fact that he lived at Annandale whilst finding work for John further north in Maitland perhaps suggests wealth or influence. The Great North Road was surveyed in 1825 and completed in 1831. It connected Sydney to the Hunter valley, further north, which had by then been cleared of timber and was a developing farming district, better known today as a wine producing centre. Presumably John would have been employed in or near the expanding town of Maitland but once again we need more information from Australia before we can add detail to the story.

Amongst the convicts on the first fleet was a James Bloodworth who had encountered initial difficulties in applying his trade as brick maker. A source of clay was found near Sydney but it produced bricks which dried so unevenly that level courses of brickwork were impossible and mixtures of wool and mud were used for mortar. The element calcium forms 3-4% of the Earth’s crust but there was no apparent source of lime to make the mortar and initially shells were collected on the beach and burned. Later after 1801 when Newcastle was being established one of the tasks delegated to convicts was the collection of oyster shells from the beach which were burned to produce quicklime. It would be interesting to discover how and when this particular production difficulty was overcome and whether it continued to be a problem in 1830. If there were no reliable source of lime the chances of any surviving buildings incorporating our John’s bricks must be very slim.

Unfortunately the first printed record of John’s existence in Australia was a list of male convicts who arrived on the Burrell, recorded in convict number order. On the original hand written list in alphabetical order his name appeared to be John TERPERDINE and although it was listed under the letter P it was transcribed on the printed list as TERPERDINE.

In Australia James La Praik was trying to identify the origins of his wife’s 3x great grandfather, a John Pepperdine. Australian death certificates are very informative and John’s is no exception. He was a brick maker who died in Morpeth (which was the first settlement on the Hunter River, Newcastle NSW, Australia) of a lung disease from which he had suffered for 2 years, on 15 January 1866. He was said to be 67 years old and born in Lincolnshire (his mother’s maiden name was not recorded). He had married in 1861 and been in Australia about thirty years. The certificate also lists his eight children from John age 27 to George age 11. James was puzzled by the late marriage but had soon come to the conclusion that John had left a wife in England and could not remarry until it was confirmed that his first wife was no longer alive. He sounded like a convict but no evidence of this was found in Australia.

All of John’s other official records showed him as John Pepperdine, only the first register you would search to find him in Australia shows him as TERPERDINE. Now that I could provide information on date of transport and name of the ship, James was able to locate John in the records. Once his convict number 30/2657 was known we learned that he could read but not write. It was confirmed that he was married and had two children, a son and daughter and was a brick maker from Grantham. Details of his conviction agreed (except that he was shown as having no previous convictions, perhaps the earlier episode with the pheasants was not regarded as too serious). He was 5 feet 4½ inches tall with a ruddy pock pitted complexion, had light brown hair and hazel eyes and had two large raised moles close to each other on the left side of his nose.

As long as a convict conducted himself well and had a fair employer he could expect a ticket of leave after four years of a seven year sentence. This meant that he could now sell his labour and choose his employer and place of work. From the convict’s point of view he ceased to be a slave and became a peasant. It was a limited freedom as the annual renewal of the ticket depended upon his continued good behaviour. John was issued with a ticket of leave effective from 31 December 1834 allowing him to remain in the district of Maitland. In 1830 a pass system was introduced. Anyone who could not produce their ticket of leave and a travel pass was arrested until they could prove they were not escaped convicts. The system was policed by mounted police force founded in 1825 to track down outlaws.

When John’s certificate of freedom was issued 4 November 1839 the only change in his details is that the two moles close to his nose have been oxidised and he now has a “sallow complexion”. We do not know whether this was due to his diet, his working conditions or the change of climate but if it was poor health it cannot have been too serious a problem for we know he went on to have eight children: John 1836, Mary 1837. Sarah 1840. Joseph 1843, Annie 1845, William 1848, Susan 1851 and George. Obviously he now had no wish to return to England as he had already established the relationship with Sarah HOLMES who he was eventually to marry in 1867.

There are some interesting comparisons here. The first brick maker James BLOODWORTH had lived for sixteen years with Sarah BELLAMY until his death of pneumonia in 1804 leaving seven children. Bloodworth had increased his skills to become a master builder who was buried with military honours whereas our John no doubt remained a humble brick maker.

By 1847 only 3.2% of the population of NSW were under sentence and many former convicts were established business and tradesmen. Their children born in Australia were growing up on a basic but much healthier diet than their parents had experienced in Britain and consequently tended to be taller. Much of their leisure time was spent in swimming and water sports. They were keen to learn skilled jobs to disassociate themselves from their parents past and showed very little evidence of criminal tendencies. The distinctive Australian accent was already in evidence by 1820s.

To date we have no evidence that any of John’s sons in Australia married but Ron Farrow widower of on the Lincoln City Pepperdines lives in Australia and has found a few intriguing facts not all of which have a ready explanation

Mary Ann Peperdine married Richard I TAYLOR in NSW 1855

Sarah Pepperdine married George BATTERBEE NSW 1860

Ann Pepperdine born 1871 NSW (Mother Mary Ann)

Sarah Jane Pepperdine born 1872 NSW (Mother Sarah)

Susan Pepperdine married Henry COOPER in NSW 1874

Jane Pepperdine born 1878 NSW (Mother Mary Ann)

JOHN’S OTHER FAMILY

Back in England the death certificate of John’s first wife Susannah shows that she died age 48 years, 11 November 1852 at Malt Hill, Little Gonerby (a suburb of Grantham). Cause of death pneumonia and described as “widow” of John Pepperdine, a labourer, so she had possibly hidden the truth from her friends and children, unless there were two Johns in Grantham at that time. We may not know for certain until I can search all the burial records in and around Grantham.

Joseph married Ruth Riddle in Grantham 10 October 1869 but not before he had begun his family. Construction of nearby railways provided him employment which took him to Sheffield after the birth of his first child in 1851. There he and Ruth had five children before moving on to Peterborough where he is described as railway foreman and here another five children are born only the last two being after his marriage to Ruth. In all fairness we should remember that they may have married earlier in church but for some reason the marriage had not been notified to the registrar. Only their son Walter married and perpetuated the Pepperdine name through his family brought up in Peterborough. Joseph is variously described as traveller and agent in later life when he moved to Cleethorpes on the coast of north Lincolnshire and it was here that two of his younger daughters married fishermen.

Joseph’s sister Mary Ann married an inn keeper Robert WRIGHT in Grantham 1853

Notes

1. The figures and some of the facts in this article are taken from “The Fatal Shore” by Robert HUGHES
2. In March of 1829 John Pepperdine 1797 – 1866 appears in a list of prisoners (serving a three month sentence for poaching) in the House of Correction at Folkingham. All that remains of this prison, which was built in 1825 is the gate house. It has a stone front and brick back and sides and is situated at the foot of the Castle Hill in the village. As it is unlikely he would be serving a sentence in 1829 for an offence in 1827 it would appear that this is yet another brush with the law

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