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William Green 1774-1806
William Green was born in Brixham in 1774, to Joseph and Mary (nee Tuckerman), and was christened on 29th November of that year. |
In adult life, William was to become a Miller, a Carpenter…and a burglar. By the age of 22, he was in serious trouble. On 4th March 1797, at around 1 o'clock in the morning, he broke into Robert Daniel's house in Stoke Damerell, and stole goods to the value of 13 pounds 4 shillings and sixpence. On 20th March, at the Lent Assizes in Exeter, the court gave Robert Daniel, John Gay and Dennis(?) Sullivan "recognizance to prosecute and give evidence against" him. He was found guilty, and the sentence he received was, in a word, terminal:
|  "William Green. Attainted of Burglary. Let him be hanged by the neck until he be dead"
However, William was be reprieved. His sentence was commuted in the document below, to being "transported to the Eastern coast of New South Wales or some one or other of the islands adjacent..for the term of seven years" |
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William was transferred to Portsmouth where, on October 18th, he was collected by the ship The Barwell. The Barwell sailed from Portsmouth on 7th November 1797, with 297 convicts aboard, 33 soldiers to guard over them, and three families of free settlers. Nine of the convicts died during the voyage, and there was an alleged plot to seize the ship after the Cape of Good Hope. |
However, The Barwell arrived safely at Sydney Cove on 18th May 1798. It was here in Australia that William met Mary Rose, who had arrived five years previously with her parents and family as a free settler. A little over a year after his arrival they were married on 15th February 1800 at St Philip, Sydney. Quite what Mary's father thought of his daughter marrying a convicted felon, we can only conjecture! Their first child, Elizabeth, was born on 21st July 1801 in Hawkesbury, NSW. She was followed by Thomas (b. 10th July 1803) and William (b. 8th May 1805) Less than a year later, on the 22nd March 1806, William died in the Hawkesbury river flood known as the Great March Flood. The Sydney Gazette reported his death on the 6th April, saying he had drowned whilst trying to recover property swept away by the flood. (Given his earlier conviction, it would be tempting to ask - his own or other people's?) He was only 31. The reprieve given him by the court back in Exeter had turned out to allow him just another 9 years of life. |