2 hours at the archives all for one sentence

September 4th 2021

One sentence in the 19 page report of the Relief Committee called to aid the distressed passengers of the late ship Hibernia , June 4th 1833

The murder of Henry RIchardson happened on Good Friday, April 1st, 1836, at Ross. As was to be expected, the district constable suspected the perpetrator was a member of the Ross Bridge Working party. But who was Henry Richardson?

Was he an assigned convict, ticket of leave man, emancipist or was he free? The Tasmanian Archives online, Names Index, is the site where you might find details like these. So I typed in his name and selected two possibilities among many:

Henry Richardson, Inquest

Henry Richardson, arrival 1833.

The name appeared on the second page of a list of passengers who had arrived in the Adelaide on May 20th, 1833. It rang a bell: Charles Atkinson, a former Superintendent of the Ross Bridge gang, had arrived in the Adelaide too.

Hobart Town Courier Friday May 24th 1833

Tasmanian Archives, Names Index CUS30/1/1 p231

Detail of the second page of the passenger list of the Adelaide, arrived Hobart Town, May 20th, 1833

Turning back a page, there was Atkinson’s name higher on the list as he had been a cabin passenger, not confined to the steerage quarters as was Richardson …

CUS30/1/1 p 230

And on the previous page, was the list of crew of the Lotus, the convict transport ship that had rescued some of the poor souls, including Henry, who had scrambled into a longboat and a gig and survived six days at sea after a fire had destroyed the Hibernia on February 5th, in the south Atlantic, about 1400 miles east of Brazil.

CUS30/1/1 p 229 crew of the Lotus, Convict Transport Ship

Thomas G. Clark wrote the book, Class Distinction, A True Story of Social and Maritime Disaster (Lodestar Books). It is a galvanising account of the horrific fire that destroyed the passenger ship, Hibernia, the struggle for places in the three inadequate boats; the screams of the orphan girls who plunged to their deaths from the burning gunwales and bowsprit; the self sacrifice, courage, selfishness and cowardice, blaming and self-defence that followed in its wake all the way to Van Diemen’s Land. The author extracted the story from contemporary reports in the Hobart Town Courier, the Tasmanian, The Colonist and the Sydney Herald as well as personal letters and British newspaper reports.

Sydney Herald, July 4th 1833

It can only be imagined how lonely and bewildered the young Henry Richardson felt, disembarking without a possession, only his memories. Every man and woman who landed in Hobart Town had their own losses and grief to bear. He was one among sixty-three steerage passengers. The cabin passengers were few and privileged but not united in common feeling or friendship owing to differing accounts about a dispute that occurred at sea between Captain Brend in command of the longboat and gig and the First Mate Henry Taylor, in command of seventeen people the pinnace. As well, there were accusations made against the officer in charge of the prisoners in the Lotus, Major Schaw, that not only did he wish to return the survivors to their leaky lifeboats, albeit well provisioned, but that, when it was deemed by Captain Brend that they come on board, he divided them into cabin and steerage passengers and sent the latter group between decks to share the space and provisions with the prisoners. If it had not been for the wives of the soldiers, the women who survived would have been among them. If it had not been for the Lotus’ ship’s surgeon, H. G. Brock, the men would not have been allowed on deck. It transpired that the convicts and soldiers were kind and generous in their reception of the bedraggled and exhausted “unfortunates”.

In Hobart, a Relief committee was formed to assess the needs of every person. Financial aid and a job for each steerage passenger were the aims of the committee men.

It was their report that I had sought yesterday afternoon in the archive’s rolls of microfilms of the Colonial Secretary’s correspondence. (CSO1-654-14662 Z1904). Henry Richardson had accepted a situation as a shopman in Campbell Town. I thought this was reasonable proof that the poor young man who had been bludgeoned to death behind the counter of Mr. Hamilton’s store in Ross in the Police District of Campbell Town on Good Friday in 1836 was the same bloke who had survived the wreck of the Hibernia.