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11 Sep 07 - 10:18 AM (#2146379) Subject: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: GUEST,Keith Murphy In Nic Jones' version of "The Isle of France", the singer has been sentenced to 7 years transportation but is sailing home when only 6 years are up and past, "going home to make up the last". How would it be that a convict would serve out the last year of a sentence of transportion at home? |
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11 Sep 07 - 12:47 PM (#2146487) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: The Sandman similiar verses in the penguin book of australian folk songs. presumably the seven years include,one year for sailing home or perhaps its poetic licence[for to makeup one]so that it rhynes when six of these they were past and gone,we were sailing home for to make up one[penguin book of Australian folk songs] |
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11 Sep 07 - 06:12 PM (#2146791) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: McGrath of Harlow "Six years being up and past" ( or "past and gone") could easily mean six months and a few months had been served, so that the seven years would be up by the time the ship arrived home. And it took a long time getting back from Australia. |
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11 Sep 07 - 06:26 PM (#2146805) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: Liz the Squeak Many prisoners were incarcerated in local prisons for months before being moved to ports and prison ships. Often these would lie at anchor for many more weeks until tides were right or the ships' complement was full. Read 'The Floating Brothel' by Sian Rees - it's a great book and gives a brilliant description of a prison ship and its inhabitants. The most difficult bit was actually getting back from Australia. Ships went when they could be paid for, they didn't just go out on the off chance someone would have finished their time. More often than not, prisoners spent years more than their alloted sentence ashore in various God-forsaken places. LTS |
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11 Sep 07 - 07:35 PM (#2146854) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: GUEST,Keith Murphy Thanks for the help. The bottom line seems to be that the length of a transportation sentence was somewhat dependent on other factors and was not exact in length. I assume you have all heard Nic Jones version from the album The Noah's Ark Trap - I have spent hours listening to it today. Classic Nic Jones in its power and beauty. |
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11 Sep 07 - 07:36 PM (#2146856) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: McGrath of Harlow We've always been rather proud of my great-grandfather who was supposed to have been transported to Australia for shooting a landlord's agent. My cousin's research into the records has suggested that possibly he may not have actually been transported at all, but allowed people to think he had been when he came back home after a few years away. Still he does seem to have shot the agent. This was in Ireland of course at a time and place when getting transported for something like that was liable to be pretty highly regarded. |
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11 Sep 07 - 08:27 PM (#2146880) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: CET I've often wondered about where any of the prisoners sent to Australia ever went back. It can't have been easy. Does anybody know how often this might have happened. Edmund |
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12 Sep 07 - 03:31 AM (#2147041) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: JennieG Edmund, It didn't happen very often, as the journey back to England (or Ireland, or Scotland) was long and expensive. Many folk took themselves a new wife or husband by whom they had a family - they probably knew there was a very slender chance that the first spouse would find out. Transportation gave many a chance to re-invent themselves long before the term became fashionable. I have several convicts in my ancestry so I am a fair dinkum Ozzie. Cheers JennieG |
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12 Sep 07 - 04:16 AM (#2147068) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: PMB Prisoners sentenced to transportation often never left British waters, but were confined on prison ships (hulks) for the term of their sentence, in squalid and often lethal conditions. These were abandoned when the hulk Defence caught fire at Chatham in 1857, fortunately without loss of life. So McG's ancestor could well have returned after serving such a sentence. The song is a bit odd- ex- prisoners were released, but not given a passage home. If he had been pardoned, he wouldn't have been in chains. On the other hand, hearers of the ballad would be expected to be familiar with the reality, and the ballad wouldn't have been popular if the scenario wasn't reasonably possible. Perhaps the early date, the 1800s, might be a clue. If only a few transport fleets had been sent, and many of the transportees had not yet finished their sentences, they might yet have been expected by the public to be sent home. |
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12 Sep 07 - 05:58 AM (#2147128) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: The Sandman The Isle of France was ceded by The French and became Mauritus approximately 1810 to 1815. |
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12 Sep 07 - 03:13 PM (#2147585) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: McGrath of Harlow Interesting speculation there PMB - the thing was, he was said to have come back carrying a big black box on his shoulder, and a fair bit of money, enough to buy a farm, and he said he'd been in Australia working with horses... |
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12 Sep 07 - 04:44 PM (#2147690) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: Q (Frank Staplin) The story of Pip and Abel Magwitch in "Great Expectations" comes to mind. Many interesting stories about escaped prisoners. One who had been sentenced to the Australian colonies and was taken on Mauritius is told in court records of New South Wales. Badderly and Howard I have only glanced at the records, but a new song, or added verses for Isle of France by Nic Jones, can be imagined. Many prisoners from Bengal and other Asian colonies were taken to Mauritius. In 1815, five years after the British took Mauritius, 700 Bengali prisoners were taken there to work. Many Malay prisoners also ended up there. Repatriation of the Asians was considered but, I believe, never accomplished. |
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13 Sep 07 - 04:59 AM (#2148053) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: PMB That's a good one Q, though the testimony seems just a little confused as recorded. But it seems that Clarkson committed his crime (murder) on Mauritius, and was transported (remarkably quickly) to Sydney, where he was given considerable freedom. For some reason, he ran away, but was taken in Hobart, Tasmania (sounds like out of the frying pan..). Put on board a ship back to Sydney, where he might have been liable to the death penalty, some accomplices on board the ship faked his suicide, and he was later smuggled onto a ship leaving for Valparaiso. The accomplices were convicted, and fined £50 and £10, equivalent to perhaps £10000 and £2000 today, which however they seem to have found no difficulty in paying. Interesting points- the freedom accorded to the prisoner, both in New South Wales and as a returning escapee. The wealth of the accomplices, second a mate and a boatswain- presumably they had been bribed, but if so by whom? The captain quoted his speed in "knots per hour", which I have always been told is a pleonasm. |
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14 Sep 07 - 06:02 AM (#2148922) Subject: Add Lyr: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: Bob Bolton G'day Keith Murphy (and the rest ... and JennieG), I realise that the 'Nic Jones version': of which Capt. Birdseye says: "similiar verses in the penguin book of australian folk songs", is the subject of the discussion (and some puzzlement over the most unusual return of a transported convict. The verses John Manifold published in the Penguin Book are, indeed, not really "Australian" (and the b***er didn't publish the single verse he had collected of an Australian version!). This was so annoying that, when the main singer with the 'bush band' I worked with in the '80s wanted to to the song ... I ended up trying to guess what a relevant Australian version might have looked like. These are my notes, preceding my (very loose) reconstruction: This was composed (c. 1990) in frustration at Ron Edward's printing, in The Big Book of Australian Folk Songs, Rigby Ltd. Australia, 1976) the Sussex text, collected by W. Percy Merrick … after Mrs M. Webb, of Cairns, Queensland could only remember a first verse of a version of the song her father sang. His song apparently had the ex-convict hero reaching the Victorian Goldfields and being killed in the Eureka Stockade uprising. I wrote a version within the original framework and an attempted mid 19th century style- but did not kill off the ex-convict hero! Isle of France Tune: Trad. New Words: Bob Bolton As the sun went down and the moon advanced, A storm swept up on the "Isle of France". That ship was swept on to hidden shoals, I alone was saved of one hundred souls. On a speedy barque, named for that fair isle, I was sailing home, freed from durance vile, To my old home town and to all I know, When vengeful fate struck this heavy blow. I fought the waves, fled the savage shark, On a broken spar from our shattered barque. I came ashore, in the dark of night, Fifty miles west of Port Phillip light. I was found and saved by a party bold, Bound for Ballaarat, there to search for gold. So I went with them, sharing good or ill: Staked a digger's claim, south of Bakery Hill. But the gold was scarce and the licence fee, Was a pound too much for a man like me; So with Lalor, Vern, and Black and Hayes, A flag of stars, at Eureka raised. That Sunday morn, we were scarce awake, When the Redcoat troops did our stockade take. Full thirty miners lay in their gore: They thought they'd crushed us for evermore! But the Miner's Right, we have won at last. It's history now, the reforms have passed. But remember how the reform was made At Eureka Lead, in a bush stockade. Regard(les)s, Bob Bolton |
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14 Sep 07 - 07:14 AM (#2148960) Subject: RE: Isle of France - 6 years transportation? From: Bob Bolton Errr ... G'day again, I'm sorry if that looks a bit confusing, with references to Ron Edwards' notes - while Capt. Birdseye was writing about John Manifold's entry in the Penguin Australia Song Book. In fact Ron Edwards and John Manifold worked together on early (self-published) collections of Australian verse from the early 1950s. They both, separately, collected the tune and a single verse - and the story of her father's quite different Australian version - from Mrs Webb ... Ron Edwards in Cairns, far North Queensland and John Manifold subsequently, in Brisbane. The details in both their books are quite similar ... and I overlooked the fact we were talking of two different sources. I ought to have explained a bit more about my reasons for some parts of my version - but My wife called to say my dinner was getting cold! I decided to use The Isle of France as the ship's name - since the ex-convict (I more or less hint he might have been reprieved - or been released after new evidence ...) wasn't getting out of Australia. Mrs Webb had recalled that in her father's version: "... the song concluded with the the convict finally arriving on the Victorian goldfields and being killed in a miners' uprising, which she thinks may have been the Eureka Stockade". I decided to present a more positive note ... have him survive ... and stake a new claim for having helped bring about the reforms that followed the Eureka Stockade rebellion. It worked well, at the time! Here are a few notes: Port Phillip: The seaport of Melbourne, Victoria - the nearest capital city to Ballaarat (19th c. spelling) and the Eureka Hill. digger's claim: Formal declaration of a spot to explore for gold Bakery Hill: The location of the digger's pallisaded encampment licence fee: The authorities sought to impose a very high fee for anyone aiming to seek gold. They (incorrectly) claimed this had been the practice in the recent American Goldfields. Lalor, Vern, and Black and Hayes: Leaders of the Miners' protest group. Lalor (or Lawler) lost an arm in the battle ... but survived ... and eventually held a cabinet position in the Victorian government! flag of stars: The miners' plag was a sky blue ground with a white horizontal & vertical cross - with a star at each corner and the centre ... representing the five stars of the constellation "The Southern Cross" (Crux Australia). This has become a very strong icon of radical views in Australia ... as well as the conservative political and racial stand of many of the right! Regards, Bob |