Walter Matthews & Mary
Keogh
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MATTHEWS Birth Details
Death Details Immigration Details |
Surname:
KEOGH
Birth Details Death Details
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Family Stories Life in Australia: Thomas was born about 1824. He was tried at the Central Criminal Courts, London on 6th July, 1840 for embezzlement and sentenced to seven years' transportation. His gaol report indicated he had been convicted before. The prison hulk report noted that he was orderly and single. It stated "this offence, stealing two sovereigns from my master - Mr. Gardener, once embezzling £25". Although just 16 years of age, and 4’7” tall, he was transported and imprisoned with adults and was not afforded the more favourable conditions of the Parkhurst Scheme for juvenile convicts. Thomas was described as having a fair, freckled complexion, round head; and light brown hair. It also noted that he had no whiskers; a high forehead; light brown eyebrows; light hazel eyes, with medium nose, mouth and chin. He could read and write and was a Protestant. On 28th September, 1840 he embarked on the "Hindostan" and arrived in Tasmania on 19th January, 1841. As well as the features above, the following information is recorded on his convict papers: Trade: labourer; Native Place: Clerkenwell. Period of Probation: Two years. Station of Gang Rd, Pt Puer. Remarks: 11/42 Tailor orderly good ... 6/42 do, do 7/42 do do 1/42 fair 4/5/44 .... 1/7/44 RW. The vessel sailed on 7th October, 1840 from Sheerness and the voyage took 104 days. 210 convict males embarked and one lost his life on the journey. George Lamb was the ship's Master and Andrew Henderson, its Surgeon. 30 guards of the 96th Regiment acted as escorts. The "Hindostan" was a ship of 424 grt, built at Whitby, England in 1819. Thomas served two years at Point Puer before receiving his Ticket of Leave on 24th July, 1844. Point Puer (Latin for boy), was on a narrow peninsula one mile across the bay from Port Arthur and adjacent to the Isle of the Dead. Under strict discipline boys were taught trades from shoe and boot making, carpentry, blacksmithing, baking, sawing, boat building, gardening and book binding. The site was badly chosen, having a poor sandy soil and no supply of fresh water. Water, fuel and supplies were delivered daily by the "old hands" from Port Arthur, who it was feared would upset the moral reformation of the boys. "Port Arthur 1830 - 1877" by Ian Brand, FCIS notes that "most of the Port Puer boy convicts were young thieves, and all were potential hardened criminals. The boys were under strict discipline, rising at 5 am. After stowing their hammocks and bedding, they attended prayers and a scripture reading. Between then and breakfast at 7 am, they washed and were allowed time for relaxation within a specified area outdoors. Work was from 8 am till 12, with lunch being at 12.30 pm. Work recommenced at 1.30 until 5 pm. Supper was served at 5.30 pm, then they attended school from 6.15 to 7.15 pm. Schooling ended with a hymn, scripture reading and prayer before bed. On arrival, the boys were employed initially in the "Labouring Gang", cultivating ground, carrying sawn timber, making roads, cutting and carrying firewood, washing, cooking, and barrack duties. Most of the Point Puer buildings were erected by these boys. The daily food ration was: 1 3/4 lb flour or bread equivalent; 3/4 lb fresh or salt beef or l/2 lb salt pork; l/2 lb potatoes or 1 lb cabbage or turnips; 3/4 oz salt. No work was done on Saturday afternoon except by boys under punishment. On Sundays, they attended prayers at 9 am, were issued with a clean shirt and the week's soap ration (3 l/2 oz), then attended Divine Service at 10.30 am. School was also held on Sundays from 2 till 4.30 pm and this session was devoted to reading, spelling and the Church Catechism. A second service took place at 6 pm. After each service the boys were questioned on their understanding of the sermon. Breaches of the regulations were strictly punished and boys under punishment for minor offences were not allowed any amusements. Most serious breaches resulted in confinement to the cells outside working hours, and their meals had to be taken in their cells. Talking in cells was forbidden. They were, however, permitted to attend school. The next grade of punishment involved solitary confinement on l lb of bread and unlimited water daily. These solitary cells were 5'6" x 3'6" and boys were normally confined for very short periods only, mostly three days or less, although periods up to seven days were awarded. They were not permitted to work while undergoing solitary confinement. The aim of Point Puer was to train boys to be useful members of society by providing them with trades. They were not allowed to leave the station until they were familiar with their chosen trade and then only if their behaviour had been good. They went from Point Puer to the hiring depot at New Town, where they worked on the farm at the Queens Orphan Schools, until they obtained work at their trades". [Thomas's future wife Mary was first placed in Queens on her arrival in 1848]. From "Convicts, Databases and Curriculum - The Point Puer Resources" by Malcolm H Mathias: "Transport of convicts to Tasmania started with European settlement in 1803 and lasted until 1853. A unique feature of this period was the establishment of a boys' prison in Van Diemen's Land, as Tasmania was then called. Clothed in tanned sheep-skins and boots made by themselves (but with no socks), the teenage prisoners aroused conflicting responses both then and now. From its inception in 1834 to its closure in 1849, Point Puer on the Tasman Peninsula was the only juvenile penal station outside Britain in the British Empire. On a wind-swept point opposite Port Arthur, the adult prison started in 1830, Point Puer and its parent settlement functioned as "sawing stations". The heavily forested peninsula provided sawn timber for government projects in the south of the island. The total prisoner population to pass through Point Puer was approximately 3,500. Most lads were from 15 to 17 years old, a smaller number were under 15 and a very few were 12 and under. The population rose from 161 youths in 1834, 473 in 1838 to 800 in 1842, the peak year… The conclusion by Malcolm H Mathias notes "… I was soon struck by the unique nature of this chapter in Australian history. Here was a group of boys, many the same age as children I have taught in Victorian State High Schools, but these boys were many thousands of miles away from home, without their parents, and subject to the harsh discipline of the British penal system, in an environment quite unlike anything that they had ever experienced. … The Point Puer boys attended school and learned a trade. However, they were also subject to an extremely harsh code of discipline and many suffered from periods of solitary confinement, reduced rations and beatings. On my visit to Point Puer and Port Arthur I saw the hand-made bricks which the Point Puer lads had made over 150 years ago. I put my thumb in the thumb prints made by the lads as they pushed each brick from its mould. At the Latrobe Library in Melbourne I inspected a woollen cap not unlike a modern day football beanie: it was grey in colour, made of a coarse wool, small in circumference, and labelled as Port Arthur relic. It was clearly a hat which had been worn by a boy. I stood lost in thought about a boy who had once worn the hat I held in my hands. Some of these boys were only 9 years of age when convicted in England. Many were undoubtedly "children of the street", and perhaps never knew what it was like to have parents ad a home of their own. For many a life of crime was the only way to survive. It is not surprising that many judges passed a transportation sentence on these boys in preference to jail or perhaps the gallows in England… As I sit and write these comments I feel immense sympathy for their suffering but marvel at the resilience displayed by their very survival.…." On 24th July, 1844, Thomas was granted a Ticket of Leave and an offence "Absent from place of residence" was recorded on 29 July. He was at Oatlands in March, 1845 and made "Free of Servitude" on 6 July, 1847. He gained his "Certificate of Freedom" that year and was employed as a shepherd and later was a squatter/farmer in the Bothwell, Brighton and Green Ponds areas. He gave his age as 23 when he married 17 year old Mary Keogh in 1851. No birth records have yet been found for him, but according to his convict papers, he would have then been 26. Mary signed the certificate with an "x" her mark. For reasons unknown, Thomas killed himself by poisoning aged 51 in 1880. I wonder if he suffered the long-term anxieties of being brutalised emotionally and physically at Point Puer. A notice in the "Mercury" newspaper appeared on Friday, 3rd September, 1880: MATTHEWS: On Aug 10th at Rosebanks near Spring Hill, Thomas Matthews aged 51 years. Deeply regretted by all that knew him. Thomas is buried at the Church of England Cemetery, Kempton. His headstone reads: "To the memory of Thomas W. Matthews who died 10th August, 1880 aged 51 years. In death lamented as in life beloved". Mary was born about 1834, the daughter of Irish convicts, Martin Keogh and Elizabeth (nee Arkin). She was transported on the convict ship "Kinnear" with her mother and placed in Queen's Orphanage on 7th October, 1848, the day they arrived in Hobart. "Children in Queen's Orphanage Hobart Town 1828-1863" compiled by Joyce Purtscher states that a Royal Commission of inquiry was held in 1867 into the institution. "Its finding were damning upon both the system and the buildings. The system was likened to the prison system rather than a benevolent institution. The Commission criticised the confinement of children behind walls, the lack of equipment and training, and noted the "listless and demoralised" character of the children. The commissioner attributed these characteristics "in the first place, to the total loss of home influences and sympathies and in the second place to the entire loss of individuality by the children being massed together". ... According to the booklet, Superintendent Charles O'Hara Booth's letters and reports to an Inspector of Education, C. Bradbury in 1848, gave an insight into daily lives. Booth requested clothing and equipment for the institution, but was refused on the grounds of financial hardship. For example, Booth had asked that the supplied shoes be of different sizes, not just the four sizes distributed to children aged 2-14! Those children with larger feet had to cut the toes out of their shoes, or be crippled. The senior boys wore moleskin clothes during the week and rough, blue cloth suits on Sundays. Girls wore blue and white-patterned dresses with a white pinafore, and were given socks as well as shoes. Senior girls were permitted to grow their hair long in the front, although all girls had short hair at the back. The girls detested the punishment of short-cropped hair. Breakfast and supper consisted of tea with bread and milk, midday dinner of soup with meat and vegetables mixed in, plus a large piece of sweet wheaten bread. An 1839 recommendation was that forms be issued so that children could sit down to eat. Children arose at 5 am in summer and 6 or 6.30 in winter, and went to bed at 7 or 8pm in summer and 6 pm in winter. Infants slept three to a bed, and the boys slept in hammocks, eighty to a dormitory. They were allowed to play from 12 to 2pm and from 4 pm till bedtime, but equipment was in short supply and energy lacking. They had half a day in the classroom and half learning a trade, working on the farm or doing domestic duties.The washing places, or lavatories consisted of cell-like rooms, paved with flags, with a stone trough in the centre. Bed-wetters were awoken at 10 pm to go to these cold toilets. In the 1850s the matron was accused of beating young children for "dirty habits" namely bed-wetting.Overcrowding accelerated the spread of diseases, and many children died of measles. 1843 must have been a terrible year as 56 children died from scarlet fever. When children turned 14 years of age, they were apprenticed out. They had to work for no money until they were 18. They were at the mercy of their masters regarding, food, clothing and housing. The minutes of the Hobart Benevolent Society, 11 Oct 1865 describe the case of a 15 year old girl found in the street bruised and with VD inflicted on her by her master. Another girl had been turned out into the streets after giving birth to her master's baby. Fortunately for Mary, she was discharged to her father, "free" thirteen months later, on 29th November, 1849. In 1851, aged 17 years, Mary married Walter (Thomas) Matthews and had nine children. Sadly he took his own life at Springhill, near Rosebank, Green Ponds District, by strychnine poisoning, when the youngest was five. He is buried at St Mary's, Kempton, in the Green Ponds District. Some time between 1880 and 1888 Mary moved to Melbourne, Victoria and married James Clark, a widower and father of seven children. Oral family history relates that Mary's children were sent to a convent as James did not want them. Perhaps Mary had to look after his children. James' will left no provision for Mary. She died at her daughter, Charlotte's home and was described as an old age pensioner/housewife on her death certificate. "The Age", Melb. Vic 5 Apr 1909 Mary Clark died at residence of her daughter, 17 Hanover St, Windsor - beloved and devoted mother of C. Matthews and relict of late James Clark age 75 years. Beloved by all who knew her". Life Before Australia: Finding Thomas's parents has
not so far been successful. It was said by the older folk that he
was related to the famous stage performer, Jessie Matthews, who was
born to costermonger parents. Costermongers are sometimes known in
various parts of the country as "barrow boys". A costermonger
was someone who sold produce such as fruit and vegetables and sometimes
fish and poultry from a barrow. They used to shout out their wares
with words such as " Get yer luvly caulis 'ere only sixpence!!"
or " King Edwards.....tuppence a pound!!" [King Edwards
were a type of potato]. |
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Family Contacts Surname: DODD |
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Descendants Grandchildren Great Grandchildren Great Great Grandchildren Great Great Great Grandchildren NB: Superscript
behind each descendant name represents the lineage number of that
descendant. |
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Date : March 1999
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