The Angel on Sarah Ann Ellis’ Grave

Sarah Ann Ellis’ Grave, Footstone,
Tasmanian Wool Centre Ross

Sarah Ann Ellis’ Grave, Headstone, The Old Burial Ground Ross.

Poor Mary Ellis. Perhaps her friend in Ross was Mary Herbert who probably had borne a child not long before. There is no official record, only a reference to herself and the family in a letter written to Daniel by Major William Turner, the erstwhile superintendent of the Ross Bridge Party.

Sarah Ann’s angel is naive, reminiscent of Saxon angels in churches, illuminations and gravestones in England.

St. Laurence, Bradford-upon-Avon

King Edgar on the Charter of the New Minster Winchester 966

Gravestone of A. Weldon, Northampton 1792

They are busy angels flying about with bare feet and skinny ankles, blowing trumpets or carrying the risen Christ on His throne and inviting us to behold Him.

Sarah Ann’s angel is tender, personal, idiosyncratic … she tells us that the mason was empathic; that he was sad for this family who had lost their baby girl at one month old. She holds her trumpet and wreath, the symbol of her victory over death as she flies up towards Heaven. It is said Dan Herbert carved the head and footstones; if so, it is clear that he had learned his trade among the gravestones of an ancient people elsewhere in the world.

He had been free to establish himself in business in Ross since August and would have known John Ellis, a ticket of leave man, a blacksmith who was sucked into an investigation of the murder of Henry Richardson that had occurred on April 1st, Good Friday of the year Sarah Ann died. In fact, “a large portion of the jury at the Coroner’s Inquest were inclined to return a verdict of wilful murder against Ellis the Blacksmith holding a Ticket of Leave and since sent to Port Arthur”. CSO1-1-775 16555 Report of Major Deane J. P. Oatlands 4th July 1836

Ellis was incarcerated in the Campbell Town Gaol on the 2nd April on suspicion of the murder but discharged on the 24th. On the 26th, he was brought before the magistrates for “harbouring the assigned servants of Mr. Holmes, also for feloniously purchasing from them wool given out for bedding”. His Ticket of Leave was suspended until he became worthy of being entrusted with such an indulgence; Port Arthur was recommended by Frederick Forth, magistrate. He was to be worked at his trade vide the Lieutenant Governor’s decision on 6/5/36. I do not know if he was transported. In 1838, the family was residing in New Norfolk and his Ticket of Leave had been restored, temporarily.

Mary Ellis, née Pugh, had been transported in 1828, labelled a prostitute, arriving about six months before Mary Herbert (Witherington). Both had been tried at the Old Bailey for larceny. Before the Herberts had settled in Ross, Mary Ellis had been plying her London trade but had been caught and charged with keeping a disorderly house in 1834. It follows, she would have known the men of the Ross Bridge Party. John had been bound over to keep his wife in good behaviour. They had two boys, James who was born in 1832 and Thomas, born in 1835.

Cornwall Chronicle Saturday, April 2nd 1836 p2

Cornwall Chronicle Saturday April 9th P2 The veracity of this article is uncertain.

Inquest into the murder of Henry Richardson in a dwelling house belonging to John Dickenson held on 2nd April 1836

Why would a child have said such a thing and how could the jury not decide whether Richardson had been stabbed or struck?

It must have been a very troubled family into which Sarah Ann was born in September and from which she flew in October.