The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women

by Deborah J. Swiss

  Six weeks later, the strong-willed transport from a gritty industrial town skipped mandatory church muster and was punished with two more days on the giant circular tread wheel in the Hobart Town penitentiary. Colonial society relied heavily on fear to pave the path toward redemption. These devils were to be reformed by the word of God or the kiss of the lash. Extremes of all dimensions ruled an expanding populace caught between medieval practices involving subjugation and torture and rising emancipist sentiments favoring suffrage and freedom.

  Great Britain sent prisoners to Botany Bay, Australia, beginning with the First Fleet in 1788. When William arrived forty years later, the ten thousand convicts in Van Diemen’s Land were expected to cower and submit to the rule of the master, just as those before them had done. This mission supported the goal of a docile labor class serving at the whim of the wealthy. The cheeky Manchester transport was twice punished with a whipping by leather cat-o’-nine-tails. The first time he’d returned to the barracks one hour late, twelve lashes shredded his bare back that night.

  A year later, while working in a road gang, William was taken aside and punished with twenty-five strokes for insolence toward Mr. James Calder, the Surveyor General for Bruny Island. Nine knotted leather strips with lead weights fastened to the end were deliberately designed to rip and tear into the skin, thus prolonging his suffering. Salt, rubbed into the wounds to prevent infection, heightened the pain and the punishment.

  His back still bloody from deep lacerations, William was immediately returned to felling huge trees and cutting tracks through dense scrub, as the land was cleared for new roads and settlements. Despite a run-in with Surveyor General Calder, the now experienced ax-man was chosen for a ten-day exploratory trip up the Huon River and its heavily forested, undeveloped, and yet untamed shores.

  For the next two years, William’s transgressions were minor until he disobeyed direct orders and was sentenced to spend twelve months on a road gang outside the tiny settlement of Oatlands, breaking rocks and hauling them from the quarry. Marked for the Crime Class, he was made to wear the convict arrow of shame. The “pheon,” or broad arrow, found its roots in seventeenth-century markings on British property labeled to prevent theft. Petty thieves like William were considered property of the Crown and forced to wear coarse black-and-mustard-yellow “magpie” uniforms. Reinforcing public humiliation with no semblance of subtlety, one trouser leg was yellow and the other black, each emblazoned with three large arrows. His captors had cut back his shoes low on the sides, right at the point where irons would bruise and scrape his shins.

  William’s sentence dragged on under the threat of the lash and the press of the pulpit. In unwavering attempts to reform convicts through religion, Oatlands’ chief magistrate required even Ticket of Leave holders’ attendance at church, posting this notice:

  Chief Police Magistrate.

  POLICE OFFICE, OATLANDS.

  District of Oatlands Tickets-of-Leave.

  ALL male prisoners holding the above indulgence,

  and residing within two miles

  from the Court-house, are ordered to attend

  church muster in future every Sunday.

  Also those residing upwards of two miles,

  and not exceeding five miles, are ordered to

  attend church muster, the first Sunday in every month.4

  Benefiting from its location midway between the island’s chief ports because of its growing wool trade, Oatlands in 1835 had a free population of 598, plus 695 convicts. It had expanded from twenty dwellings to more than two hundred over the past eight years.5

  Still, Oatlands remained an outpost marked by contradictory components. The construction of convict-crafted Georgian homes and tree-lined avenues conveyed the superficial appearance of a civilized society. Yet the fringes of town defined its true outlaw flavor. Wide-open country offered fertile ground for marauding bandits who rustled cattle, robbed travelers on the lonely roads between Hobart Town and Launceston, and battled one another in the brutal fashion from which many legends were born.

  Notorious bushranger Richard Lemon defined the settlement’s early history before its link to other towns, encouraged after a visit by the governor of New South Wales in 1811. Exploring the northern jungles of Van Diemen’s Land on horseback, Governor Macquarie proposed a road linking Hobart Town to the settlement he named Oatlands because it looked similar to an area that grew oat crops in his native Scotland.6

  Until then, Richard Lemon, the leader of the first well-known bushranger gang, had terrorized the area. Between 1806 and 1808, Lemon ran wild and was the namesake for Oatlands’ Lemon Springs and Lemon Hill. Living his mocking creed “a short life and a merry one,” the ferocious murderer hid in a bark hut along the shores of Lake Tiberias until another ex-convict delivered his head in a sack and collected a bounty from the island’s Governor Collins.7

  Following Lemon’s marauding lead, escaped convicts held hostage large tracts of the island’s interior, still largely untamed and teeming with indigenous wildlife. Local herdsmen battled with carnivorous marsupials stealing from their flock, including the nocturnal Tasmanian devil and the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger), nicknamed for its stripes.8

  A different form of wildlife congregated on the fringes of the settlement, outside the order and control of the wardens and the church. Sly-grog shops, “notorious haunts of vice and immorality,” opened in secluded shacks and barns in the bush.9 Inside these treasured haunts, convict women and men re-created the working-class entertainment of their homeland, as they swapped tall tales, smoked tobacco, drank rum, played cards, gambled, and danced with reckless abandon. A lifeline to personal identity and good old-fashioned fun defined the after-dusk subculture from which convict solidarity prospered and dissidence brewed. In remote, predominantly male outposts like Oatlands, bare-knuckle boxing matches and cockfighting also filled the dark recesses of popular underground entertainment, which may have also filled the dark holes in many a lonely heart.10

  The petite renegade named Agnes McMillan had no trouble adapting to this rustic lifestyle, though she never forgave Superintendent Hutchinson for assigning her to the middle of nowhere. Despite the occasional gunshots and bushranger sightings, it was a rather boring town, with more sheep than settlers. The former street urchin, accustomed to big-city bustle and excitement, found little amusement in this dreary outpost until a certain William Roberts crossed her path.

  Twelve years into his sentence, at age thirty-six, after a long day laboring in the summer heat, #510 celebrated his probationary Ticket of Leave in a secret Oatlands grog shop. As he waved the parchment marked January 22, 1840, in front of his mates, beer after beer was passed through his gleeful hands. Perhaps on a dare or merely a celebratory whim, William jumped atop a horse, hooting and hollering his way through the midlands town for all to see. The sleepy citizens who lived securely inside the village’s neat orange-brick homes were not in the least amused.

  An Oatlands constable pulled the completely inebriated Englishman from his horse and dragged him down Barrack Street through the arched entrance to the old stone gaol. Staggering up the stairs, William stared down at the porous stone steps stained deeply red from blood running down the legs of men who’d been whipped earlier that day.11 Now that he’d been released from convict status, his sentence was lighter this time, a mere fourteen days in a solitary cell and a fine of five shillings. And the news was about to get better.

  On this very night, a spirited Scottish lass must have had a good laugh as she peeked through her master’s curtained window and took notice of a dark prince riding wildly through the streets in the bright moonlight. His behavior was comical when compared to the antics of the bushrangers and fugitives who lived in the surrounding woods, where outlaw justice ruled. In this midlands community, a rather clumsy and unexpected courtship ignited between the spirited Agnes and a Ticket of Leave holder with a roguish smile and a wink cast her way.

  Fifteen years her senior, William was n
ot the handsome prince of fairy tales. His face featured high, square temples and prominent lips. His unruly black eyebrows nearly met in the center, and he bore the heavy blue mark of the “king’s evil” (tuberculosis) on his neck.12 He had endured the gauntlet of imprisonment, and it was time to settle down and start a family. Nearing the end of his sentence, the lucky expatriate found work as a timber cutter and builder.

  William’s brassy humor and working-class roots made him a fine match for the bonnie beauty with the Scottish brogue. He taught Agnes to read, to shoot a gun, and to use his well-worn ax. He was skilled, ambitious, and full of adventure and vitality. Like Agnes, he cast off limitations, living with abandon and buoyant good hope. She’d found her wild colonial boy and knew he’d be her mate for life.

  Descendants of this well-timed union describe their meeting as fated. William had grown up with a mother and father and lived with them as a young adult, an apprentice at his father’s side. For Agnes, his compassion “was her first experience of any love and care in her whole twenty years.”13

  Transported beyond the seas for the temptation of a few coins, the strong and rugged woodsman had survived some of the worst hellholes in the empire. As he worked free in the forest, shirt tied around his waist, Agnes found her eyes drawn to the heavy scar tissue crisscrossing William’s back, the signature of the cat-o’-nine-tails. “Old residents speak today of having seen these convicts, in the days of their youth, peel off their shirts to wash, and their backs were cut and marked so that there was not a piece of skin unscarred and scarcely a ridge of the flesh left free of marks of the scourge.”14

  Speaking not a word, the typically gregarious Scot conveyed what she felt for William with a simple touch. She understood his journey and shared his resiliency, yet tears still welled up in her eyes when she placed a gentle palm against the thirty-seven lash scars crossing his back.

  With her best intentions now focused on romance and passion, a love-struck Agnes soon found herself climbing the cold stone steps into the Oatlands gaol. She’d been insolent to her master and was to be confined to two weeks in solitary confinement, but her only regret was time away from dear William. Probably aware of the reason for her distraction, Magistrate John Whitefoord put Agnes on the first police cart headed back to Hobart Town. Though a Scotsman himself, he could not be charmed by a familiar brogue.

  Over the next three years, the incorrigible Scot stayed in contact with William, twice absconding for the comfort of his arms. Surrendering any opportunity for early release with a Ticket of Leave, Agnes served her entire sentence. Seven years to the day of being found guilty by Ayr’s Court of Judiciary, she held Certificate of Freedom #388, dated May 3, 1843. True-blue mate Janet Houston was freed the same day, which was the last time they would see each other.

  Head held high, Agnes left Cascades behind her and headed north. Hitching a ride on an Oatlands-bound cart and humming her favorite tunes once again, she felt as though she were looking at the world for the first time. Traveling as a free woman, Agnes breathed in the island’s mysterious beauty. Gum trees, their bark stripped stark-white bare in the annual molt, danced over the hills like human skeletons. Decaying eucalyptus appeared like gnarled and twisted fingers trying to scratch their way out of a grave. The wildness of the landscape only excited the wildness of her heart. As she traveled through the interior and approached the outpost, Agnes passed huge groves of bushy honeysuckle shrub, their gigantic yellow cones in full autumn bloom and a welcoming sight that marked the entrance to Oatlands.

  William had diverted himself with hard work while he waited for the woman he intended to marry. Convict #253 had finally reclaimed her name and now willingly added William’s to hers, though no records indicate an official union. For the next several months, the Robertses saved every penny and plotted their future together. Anxious to make a fresh start and put the past behind them, the determined couple headed south to the Hobart Town docks in the spring of 1843. William’s work on Mr. Calder’s chain gang ten years earlier had introduced him to the prosperous possibilities for settlement along the Huon River.

  These same prospects had not gone unnoticed by the ambitious and entrepreneurial Lady Jane Franklin. Seeing potential in attracting free immigrants with an interest in farming, the governor’s wife made an investment she thought wise for the colony’s future and her own. In 1838, she purchased 640 acres of fertile land in the Huon Valley, twenty-eight miles southwest of Hobart Town.15 She subdivided the large tract and sold parcels to God-fearing immigrants who denounced liquor and sin, passed her interview, and met with her approval. Eager tenants, many of the Methodist faith, agreed to her lease-to-buy arrangement, requiring full payment within seven years. In 1843, Her Ladyship left Van Diemen’s Land with a tidy profit for land sold at fair value and returned to England following her husband’s removal as the colony’s governor.

  The governor’s wife had conducted her business more honestly than certain wealthy landowners who employed a lease-to-buy scheme as a way to avoid the backbreaking work of clearing swamps and felling giant trees. Setting rents that few could afford, these greedy land barons held back eviction notices until after the land was cleared.16 Instead of paying to have the forests leveled, they collected rent money from hopeful settlers until it ran out. When the owners reclaimed the land, it was more valuable and often resold or used as pasture for sheep or cattle.

  During his sixteen years on the island, William Roberts had grown wise to corruption and graft. Carrying coveted skills as a pit-sawyer and carpenter, he’d find honest work crafting durable, seaworm-proof Huon pine into fine sailing vessels for the colony’s trade. The water-resistant wood was used on the decks of the empire’s finest sailing vessels and was in huge demand. Bringing only what was essential, William and Agnes left Oatlands and headed for the Huon Valley. They may have walked to Hobart Town, then boarded a cart. The former city lad wrapped his ax and sharpening file in canvas sail that would double as a tent. He had a rifle to hunt for food, ammunition, and everything he needed to make a good living. Seated by his side, his smiling common-law bride wore a wool hat and scarf, and a blanket layered over her shawl. Two small possum rugs rested over her lap. They used the fur sides for cool seasons and the reverse for summer.17

  A cloudless sky looked clearer than ever on this windy September morning. They’d need the lengthening daylight to set up camp and build a permanent shelter before summer’s end. Agnes held tight to a tin cup and a cooking pot with some spoons jingling inside. William confidently fingered the coins he’d stashed away for rent and passage up the river. Waterways offered easier travel than overland routes where no roads existed. To reach the Huon River settlement, the freed couple probably took a lighter, a barge headed upriver for a load of timber. Or they might have boarded the forty-ton vessel Lady Franklin had commissioned to service the community now named in her honor.18 The growing town of Franklin lay twenty-eight miles southwest of Hobart Town, and traveling overland was reserved for only the heartiest of explorers willing to navigate on foot the slippery mountain slopes and confusingly dangerous tangle of forests.

  Only the sorrowful ghosts of Aborigines knew the secret paths through sacred ground now on the edge of modern civilization. Once part of Australia’s continent, Van Diemen’s Land separated from the mainland when sea levels rose during the last major ice age and formed the Bass Strait. Starting in 1803, British rule set in motion a systematic eradication of those deemed to be “savages,” the earliest settlers who had inhabited the island for some forty thousand years. Fifty indigenous tribes with a total population estimated between five thousand and ten thousand were scattered across Van Diemen’s Land when the English first landed. By the time Agnes arrived, that number had been reduced to less than two hundred, who lived in exile on Flinders Island off the northeast coast. Isolated from the rest of the world for about ten thousand years—the longest known isolation in human history—the Aboriginal people of Van Diemen’s Land were completely exterminated in
less than seventy-five years.

  The dense forests of the Huon Valley, first inhabited by the indigenous Nuenonne tribe, was where Agnes and William began to erase their shared history in Van Diemen’s Land. Immigrants who arrived of their own free will voiced an ominously rising prejudice against an expanding population they needed and despised at the same time. Comparing the island’s beauty to the hideousness of those transported to its shores against their will, a male settler wrote that “the inhabitants are like a set of vultures . . . defacing one of the finest countries in the world.”19 And a female settler similarly observed that the convict, “like an ugly nose, spoils the face of the country.”20

  As he began to write On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin visited Van Diemen’s Land and termed the colony “a festival amongst the lowest barbarians,” writing: “. . . I was disappointed in the state of society. . . . There are many serious drawbacks to the comforts of a family, the chief of which perhaps is being surrounded by convict servants. How thoroughly odious to every feeling, to be waited on by a man who the day before, perhaps, was flogged, from your representation. The female servants are, of course, much worse: hence children learn the vilest expressions, and it is fortunate, if not equally vile ideas.”21 Offering less understanding still for Aborigines, he echoed a sentiment shared by many: that “Van Diemen’s Land enjoys the great advantage of being free from a native population.”22

  An attempt to gloss over the penal colony’s past was yet another cause adopted by Lady Jane Franklin. About the time she purchased the Huon Valley land, she spearheaded a campaign to change the island’s name to Tasmania, a name first printed in an 1808 atlas and then bandied about in newspapers beginning in 1823.23