Australian convict report

[Greaves]

Can anyone help with deciphering the handwriting on this document relating to one of my distant relatives.

[majm]

GAME Charles
Norfolk, 28th August 1835
London GD 4th Sept 1834,  7

GD is Gaol Delivery,
7 is number of years that he was sentenced to transportation beyond the seas.
Norfolk is the name of the vessel that delivered him to VDL

https://linctas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names/search/results?qu=charles&qu=game
(Scroll down)

http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON18-1-18,197,23,F,60  (right hand side)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35X3MvG76qo

I am sure there will be more informative RChatters along shortly.   I am very NSW centric.   

Cheers,  JM

[Wiggy]

Transported for stealing a parcel ? Good report
before. Hulk report or ? Married 5 children
This offence, stealing a parcel from my coach belonging
to a woman, once for taking a coat from my coach
no Bill, once fined £10 for breach of the coach ?
1month. I drove a stage coach, the ?
stage. Married 5 children, wife Charlotte at ?

May 21st 1839.      Can't read pale writing. I think it says 'stocks' at one point.

Sept 19th 1840 ?/ absent from Muster. admonished (doesn't seem to fit) & taking 8/for the ? .?

Free Certificate.    ??244
                             1843

Wiggy.       

The last line after muster -doesn't make sense to me so last bit could be wrong. Some of red writing seems to be around binding of book.

[horselydown86]

Following from Wiggy's comment about the red writing, I have found that the missing text at the right of left-side pages in these registers can usually be read from the image of the facing page ie the next image in the set.

It almost certainly says stated this offence (because they all do).

The Hulk Report is orderly.

The second word of the May 1829 entry I think is Drunk.

ADDED:  I think - ...breach of the Coach Act...

There were both a Stage Coach Act and a Hackney Coach Act.

ADDED 2:  I think Wiggy is right about admonished (with a long-s).

It may be:  ...admonished & to pay 8/ for the Summons...

ADDED 3:  The letters at the end of that entry - ...Summons |DW| - are probably the initials of the Police Magistrate who officiated.  The H at the beginning may mean Hobart.

[Wiggy]

   Thank you    Needed that help! 

- now I can see 'Drunk' and 'Orderly' -

Where does the 'stated this offence' fit in??

also makes sense  about paying for the summons . . . though if they are broke and stealing how they pay for the summons seems tricky! 

Thanks also for interpretation of initials at the end.   I'm learning all the time.

Wiggy

[Nova67]

I think this is your man, Charles Game, at The Old Bailey. Note: London G.D (Gaol Delivery) on Convict Record, 4 Sept 1834, 7 years (transportation):

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18340904-16&div=t18340904-16

[Nova67]

Link to previous topic: http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=711386.0

[horselydown86]

Here is the red section as seen from the facing page.  Not as useful as it can sometimes be, but gives a little more information - part of the name of his Stage - Ed___ - and part of the location of his wife - Dals__.

The word after Children is either Stated or an abbreviation for Stated.  (The other 5 records on the double page all have that phrase in the same place in the text.)

Regarding Stated this offence, some years ago I read - almost certainly in The Fatal Shore - that a senior law officer in one of the colonies had proffered the opinion that his colony had no legal right to hold the convicts, under the law as it then stood.

The solution was to make the convicts confess to their crime by stating their offence on arrival in the colony, hence the entry in most of the Conduct Records.

Sadly, I can't find the section again in the book, so I apologize if my recollection is faulty.

It does raise an interesting thought: that had a convict been sufficiently knowledgeable and well-resourced, they might have refused to state their offence and mounted an action for habeas corpus to secure their release or at least repatriation to England.