Thanks Tracey - I love finding these skeletons in the closet.
What may interest you is that both Richard Rees and Aaron Harding were convicts. Indeed, I have copies of Richard's convict records from Tasmania if you are interested. Here is something I have written on his early life:
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Richard Rees was born about 1812 in Llanidloes, Montgomeryshire, Wales. He worked as an agricultural labourer, and was known to have a cheery disposition. He was a Protestant, and was at least semi-literate, as he could read Welsh.
At the age of 29, Richard was described as being 5 feet and 5 inches tall, and in very good health. He was of fair complexion, with blue eyes, brown hair and eyebrows, and red whiskers. He had an oval face with a high receding forehead, a medium nose and mouth, and a broad double chin. There was a noticeable scar on his right arm.
On 3 January 1841 at the Breconshire Quarter Sessions, Richard was convicted of stealing two sheep. He was sentenced to ten years transportation. At the time Richard was married to Mary, and had two living children.
While awaiting transportation, Richard was imprisoned aboard the convict hulk HMS Warrior, moored on the Thames River at Woolwich Dockyard in Kent, England. The Warrior, a decommissioned 74-gun warship launched in 1781 and displacing 1642 tons, had only taken her first convicts in February 1840. She was 169 feet long, 47 feet across the beam, and the depth of her hold was 20 feet. Typically housing 400 convicts, the Warrior continued in service until 1856. Conditions aboard the overcrowded prison hulks were horrific, with appalling hygiene and diseases rife. The last prison hulks were retired from service in 1857. Richard’s received a good report for his incarceration aboard the Warrior.
The 730 ton convict barque Barossa sailed from Sheerness, in Kent, for Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) on 30 August 1841, commanded by ship’s master John Austin. Richard Rees was one of 350 male convicts on board, under the control of ship’s surgeon Dr Henry Mahon, RN.
After a 137 day voyage, the Barossa arrived at Hobart in Van Diemen’s Land on 13 January 1842. It is a credit to the ship’s surgeon that there were only three deaths on board. Richard Rees entered the colony as convict number 3782, one of 74,000 to arrive on the island until transportation ceased in 1853. The surgeon’s report states that Richard’s health and behaviour were both very good on the voyage.
Richard was assigned to a convict gang at Bridgewater on 12 March 1842. Work gangs typically consisted of 250 to 300 men, sent to the fringes of development. They would build their own accommodation, and often be in the employ of local stations. Convict assignment, which was tantamount to slavery, was abolished on 1 July that year. It was replaced with the probation gang system: a convict served a period of probation on a work gang, and if his behaviour proved satisfactory, was released to work for wages under strict supervision. Richard was set a probationary period of fifteen months, backdated to his arrival in the colony. His probation was scheduled to expire on 13 April 1843; his actual release from the Bridgewater work gang was seven days later.
Upon his release from the work gang, Richard was classified as a Class 1 convict; they were ticket of leave men working for wages. Their degree of freedom was gained through good conduct, thus achieving a higher wage, and eventually working towards a pardon. Only 10% of convicts were awarded this classification.
Lieutenant-Governor William Denison granted a conditional pardon to Richard Rees on 16 January 1849. Under the terms of the pardon, Richard was legally a free man in every respect, with one exception: he was barred for life from returning to the United Kingdom. Also, having been continually separated from his wife Mary for over seven years, and having no right of return, Richard was free to remarry under Section 22 of the The Offences Against The Person Act,1828, regardless of any knowledge as to his wife’s survival.
After eight years in Van Diemen’s Land, Richard Rees sailed from Launceston aboard the Halcyon on 8 January 1850, bound for South Australia. Now a free man, he arrived at Port Adelaide in South Australia on 18 January 1850.
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Cheers
Nudge
