From Crime to Destitution... The Story of a Convict!  

I would love to present my Family History in a book, but don't really know how to go about it? As it consists of a convict Ancestor, who married a full blood Aboriginal women, who travelled very widely and lived in great poverty, I thought it would be of interest. Here is a summary of it so far:

FROM CRIME TO DESTITUTION
The Story of a Convict

I did not know I had a convict ancestor until the year 2000. What I did know was that my g-g-g-grandmother, Jane Buncer/Bonster, was married to John Lancaster and anecdotal evidence strongly suggests she was Aboriginal. In my endeavours to discover more about Jane, to no avail, I decided that learning about her husband, John, might lead me in the right direction.

I could not find John Lancaster on any immigrant ship, anywhere in Australia, nor was he on the deserters record or a sailor. Just by chance I decided to look at the 1839 general muster. There I found a John Lancaster, whose age matched that of my John Lancaster. He was a convict. I was stunned and so were my family. Verification later proved the convict John Lancaster was indeed my g-g-g-grandfather.

John Lancaster was born in Blackburn, near Manchester in 1812. His parents were probably John and Martha (nee Hooley) who were married on 13 February 1803 at the Cathedral in Manchester, Lancashire. John was christened on 17 May 1812 at the same Cathedral. It seems that John had two sisters, Mary b.1804 and Sarah b. 1806.

By the age of twenty John was married with a young son and was a cotton spinner by trade. At the time John was practicing his trade the cotton industry was being mechanised, particularly in Manchester. Presumably John could not find work and turned to crime because he went on trial for housebreaking on 10 April 1833 at Lancaster Quarter Sessions. An entry in the Quarter Sessions book states:

Whereas John Lancaster late of the township of Blackburn in the said County Labourer hath at this session been convicted of Felony: This court doth therefore order and adjudge that the said John Lancaster shall be sent and Transported to some Part-beyond the Seas for the Space of seven Years next, pursuant to the Statute in such case made and provided.

John's name does not appear in the Calendars of Prisoners, and Liberates for prisoners at Lancaster Castle around the same time.

John was transported on the ship Lloyds departing London-Portsmouth on 26 August 1833. The "Lloyds" was a barque of 403t and was built at London in 1830, class E1. The captain on this voyage was Edward Garret and there were 201 male convicts on board. A Surgeon's journal was kept, but it proved to be half unintelligible. Only about six convicts were sick and one died, almost before the voyage began. No reference was made to John so presumably he was healthy as were the vast majority of convicts for the entire voyage. I have not been able to find a picture of Lloyds.

A sister convict ship, the Amphitrite, containing female convicts, was to accompany Lloyds on this voyage, but tragically Amphitrite was wrecked off the coast of Boulogne (France) on 30 August 1833 with 134 lives lost, including the Captain Jn. Hunter. After the wrecking of the Amphitrite, Lloyds must have sailed uneventfully to Sydney, as there is no reference in the Surgeons journal to other events. Lloyds arrived in Sydney on 17 December 1833.

John's convict indent states that he was 5 feet 6 inches with dark brown hair and chestnut eyes. His complexion was described as dark sallow and he had a scar on the left side of his upper lip and a slight scar on the right eyebrow. There were three small moles on his left cheek. John also had a "tattoo of a man sitting on a cannon with a flag in hand and having such on upper left arm.....of a ....back of right hand." The prisoner number accorded to John was 33/3383. John was a Protestant and could neither read nor write. He would have been 21 years when transported.

John appeared in the official muster of 1839 as living at Bathurst assigned to Mrs. Redfern. It is assumed that the owner of the land was a Dr Robert Redfern, who was granted land between 1823 and 1825. “Robert Redfern took up 2000 acre grant in the Wiseman's Creek area, fronting onto the eastern bank of the Campbell River” . Presumably this is where John spent all his convict years, as there is no other record of him. Most literature describing that era states that the majority of convicts were shepherds but he could have been an assigned personal servant to Mrs. Redfern.

John Lancaster received his Ticket of Leave on 1 March 1838 and his Certificate of Freedom No. 40/735 on 22 April 1840.

I next came across John's name when he married Jane Buncer on 4 November 1841 in Melbourne at St. James. Both signed their names with a cross. Family anecdotes indicate that Jane was Aboriginal, although no written evidence has been found. Records indicate that no one was certain how to spell her surname and I have come across at least five variations, the most common being Bonster, which was used in our family for another two generations.

How and where John met Jane and how he found his way to Melbourne are not known. However a study of the economic conditions in Bathurst when John was granted his Certificate of Freedom in 1840 indicates possibilities as to how John left Bathurst to get to Melbourne.
In 1840 there was "an economic crisis in the pastoral industry" which combined with a drought forced many settlers to sell their properties. When the Bathurst district was settled only convict labour was available and there was a shortage of shepherds. John could have obtained work moving stock away from the drought areas along the overland route, which led to Melbourne. I believe this to be the most likely scenario as there is no shipping record of John Lancaster taking a passage to Melbourne.

One can examine the contact between Aboriginal people and white settlers and convicts to suggest a scenario as to how John met Jane. The Bathurst area was originally inhabited by the Wiradjuri group who owned lands through a large part of NSW reaching down to a narrow stretch of land near Melbourne. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Buncer/Bonster may be a Wiradjuri name. John could have met Jane either whilst in Bathurst as a convict, when he had a ticket of leave, or when he travelled on his way to Melbourne.

After the invasion of their land the Wiradjuri fought a war with settlers from 1822 to 1824 in which many Aboriginal people died. It was likely Aboriginal children were orphaned during these wars and as there were no orphanages or schools for Aboriginal children at the time, it can only be surmised that these children were taken into settler's homes. Jane would have been five to seven years of age during the wars.

An Aboriginal woman must have had significant contact with white culture to be married in a church in 1841.Despite extensive searching, Jane's name has not been found on any shipping lists, census records or any other kinds of records, except her marriage and death certificates.

The death certificate states that she died at Port Augusta, South Australia, at age 71 years of cancer on 23 October 1888. The certificate also states that she was the widow of John Lancaster.

Apart from the marriage record, there is no indication of the length of time John and Jane stayed in Melbourne, what employment John had or where they lived.

No information on John and Jane’s lives, from Nov.1841 until 1847-1850, was known, until a Bible was located in an ancestors house in 2002. The Bible had originally belonged to Ruth McDougan (nee Herd) and the entries are known to be hers. Obtaining a baptism certificate enabled confirmation of the entries.

After John and Jane’s marriage, they went to New Zealand. Mary Ann (Marianne on baptism certificate) Lancaster was born on the 28 September 1843 in the Parish of Wialamata, County Of Eden, Auckland. She was baptised on the 29 October 1843 at St.Paul’s Church, by the Minister of Auckland, John Fredrick Churton, the first Colonial Chaplain of New Zealand. Her parents were listed as John and Jane, and John was recorded as a Labourer.

The second child, Jane Lancaster was born on 18 April 1845 at Tamakia, New Zealand. Her Baptism has not yet been found. New Zealand researcher, Dr.Margaret South writes that ..” One might have expected to find some record of Jane Lancaster’s baptism, but the time of her birth was a very troubled one for Auckland as this was the time of Hone Heke’s rebellion in the north and the young city was on a war footing. Many settlers sold up and fled to Sydney.”

No record of John and Jane on ships passengers list has so far been found. However John cannot have left Australia before he was freed in April 1840. Whether he sailed to New Zealand and then returned to marry Jane (Nov. 1841), or if neither left for New Zealand until they were married, is also not known.

What is known is that permanent settlers did not arrive in New Zealand until 1840 and there was a serious shortage of labour. It is highly likely, with John’s convict experience being entirely on a farm, that he was one of the many labourers who had their voyage paid for them by settlers urgently needing assistance clearing land. He would have been one of New Zealand’s earliest settlers.
Although living conditions in New Zealand in the very days of settlement were extremely poor, it is likely that John and Jane would have been able to obtain sufficient food. There are no reports of starvation.

John and Jane have not yet been located departing New Zealand on any shipping lists, but is it likely they left during the Maori Wars of 1845, when many other European emigrants left also.

Birth records indicate that John and Jane were living in Adelaide in 1850. There are no shipping records to indicate they sailed to Adelaide so they may have trave