The sentence of transportation was
introduced towards the end of the sixteenth
century. Its purpose was to provide a cheap form
of labour for the fledgling colonies in North
America, drawn from the growing pool of convicted
prisoners who would otherwise have been executed
for one of the hundreds of capital offences then
on the Statute Book. As well as convicts,
vagrants and other socially ‘undesirables’
were also included in this human cargo.
The American War of Independence in 1775
brought the practice to an abrupt halt, yet the
courts continued to hand down sentences of
transportation. Parliament empowered the courts
to impose an alternative sentence of hard labour
on redundant ships mostly moored on the Thames.
Those moored at Woolwich were the Warrior and the
dilapidated old Justitia, unofficial flagship of
the hulk fleet. Transportation to New South Wales
commenced in 1787. Before reaching Australia,
convicts spent about eight months on the hulks
doing hard labour for about ten hours a day. Many
convicts attempted to escape the rigours of
transportation and the opening chapters of
Dickens’ Great Expectations paint a vivid
picture when guns were fired, warning people
about escapes from the hulks. Indeed Magwitch
would either have escaped from the Warrior or the
Justitia.
This article focuses on one individual,
Peter Ford’s great great uncle, Francis
Ford, who was sentenced to seven years
transportation in 1849 for stealing half a bushel
of oats and other unspecified articles. Like many
prisoners he was not transported but served his
sentence on the Justitia.
Francis was an agricultural labourer, the son
of the village blacksmith at Silchester, a
village with a population of around 400 on the
Hampshire/Berkshire border. At the time of his
crime he was married with three children and a
fourth on the way. It was only the rector’s
note on the infant’s baptism ‘n.b
father serving 7 years transportation’ that
gave me the first clue about this episode of
criminal history in our family.
The theft was committed on 1 December 1848.
Francis appeared at Winchester Quarter Sessions
on 2 January 1849. The judicial process was
distinctly ‘fast-track’. The land-owning
Justices dealt with 95 cases. The age range of
the prisoners was between ten and 51. All were
either illiterate or, at best, could only read
imperfectly. There was no legal representation
for the prisoners and no distinction was made
between children and adults — a 12 year-old
was given six months’ hard labour for petty
theft. All those found guilty were given periods
of imprisonment with hard labour varying from one
week to six months, other than eight who were
sentenced to transportation.
Apart from the barest details of age, standard
of literacy, crime and sentence, no other records
of Quarter Sessions remain, unlike Assize Court
records which can be found at the Public Record
Office. We must, therefore, best guess the
Justices’ sentencing policy with regard to
the eight. Five were found guilty of sheep or
horse stealing for which transportation was very
much the traditional punishment and one had a
previous conviction. But Francis and his partner-in-crime
stole goods of much less value than those who had
only received up to six months’ imprisonment.
Why were they sent for transportation? The reason
for the draconian punishment is probably to be
found in their Plea for Mercy.
The Plea
The legal right of appeal against sentence or
conviction was not established until 1907, so
until then a convict’s only hope for relief
was to submit a plea for mercy either himself or
through a third party on his behalf to the
Sovereign. In practice this meant to the Home
Secretary. Francis Ford’s plea took the form
of a lengthy obsequious letter signed by 35
leading villagers — the rector,
churchwardens, farmers, Poor Law Guardians,
postmaster, private landowners and tradesmen. The
bundle which contained the plea together with
associated correspondence was located in the
Public Record Office and as well as providing
useful information about local history gave the
important clue about his sentence. He had stolen
from his employer while he was in a position of
trust. We would think today that the language in
which the plea was couched was excessively
grovelling and humiliating —full acceptance
of guilt, the deepest regret and contrition, led
astray by his colleague, an honest sober and
industrious father and so on. But like nearly all
the pleas the fateful annotation ‘Q7 nil
meant it was rejected.1
‘In Durance Vile’
The penal object was that conditions on the
hulks should mirror those in the convict
settlements as closely as possible. The prisoners
were roused at 5am to a long day of unremitting
backbreaking manual labour in the dockyard; the
only respite afforded was compulsory chapel
services when the prisoners could at least sit
down.
Eventually, if the prisoner escaped death through
typhus, cholera, tuberculosis or one of the other
numerous potentially fatal
<image to be provided>
The Warrior moored
on the River Thames at Woolwich
infections which plagued them even more than
the public at large, the day for release would
eventually dawn. Francis returned to Silchester
seemingly healthy in spite of the rejection of
the Plea for Mercy which had been submitted
shortly after the sentence. He must have earned
some remission for good behaviour as there was
only a four year gap in the parish baptism
register for his offspring. He fathered five more
children and died in 1889, aged 71.
The fate of anyone convicted of a crime in the
Victorian era was in all probability one of
unmitigated brutality, although we should bear in
mind the conditions in which the poor lived at
this time. I doubt if the honest poor were any
better off. Punishment pure and simple was the
ethic of the penal code. Meaningful
rehabilitation had no place. Of course there were
reformers and good men (and women) who spoke out
but they were not the establishment and it would
be some time before their more humane and
constructive attitudes had much real impact on
penal reform.
References and further reading
1 PRO Plea for Mercy and attached
correspondence HO18 277/24
Illustrated London News 21 February
1846. An extensive, illustrated description of
the hulks and the daily round.
Branch-Johnson, W. The English Prison
Hulks, 1957, Christopher Johnson
Carter, Paul. The Local Historian,
vol. 31 no. 3. ‘Early nineteenth century
criminal petitions’
Priestly, Philip, Victorian Prison Lives (1999),
London
PRO/H08, quarterly returns of prisoners in the
hulks
PRO/HO19, register of criminal petitions
PRO/HO18, the criminal petitions
with any queries
