A Spitfire Pilot's Story: Pat Hughes: Battle of Britain Top Gun

by Dennis Newton

  Ruse was one of the few in the colony who had some farming experience. As a twenty-two-year-old, he had been convicted of stealing in the Cornwall Assizes at Bodmin on 29 July 1782 and sentenced to death, but this was changed to transportation to Africa, like John, for seven years. He actually spent almost all of the next five years aboard the hulk Dunkirk in Plymouth harbour before being put aboard the Scarborough. In July 1789, he claimed his sentence had expired and requested a grant of land for farming. This placed Governor Phillip in an awkward position. He had no paperwork detailing the length of the convicts’ sentences, or the dates of their convictions. The masters of the transport ships had left the papers with the agents in England! The situation was still unresolved two years later.

  Ruse was given one and a half acres at Rose Hill on 21 November 1789, and the area of this ‘Experimental Farm’ was increased to thirty acres a few months later because of his good behaviour. Early in 1791 he seemed to be succeeding and actually declined assistance from the public stores. He did not need it, he said, he could live on the produce of his holding.

  Phillip noted that, of those convicts who claimed their sentences were up, very few wanted to become settlers. John was one of the few expiries who took up the offer of a grant of land. His was the twentieth grant given in the colony.

  For clearing and cultivating the land, each person, whether man or woman, was supplied with a set of tools: a hatchet, a tomahawk, two hoes, a spade and a shovel. A number of cross-cut saws were distributed for sharing between them. To stock their farms, they all received grain to sow and plant for the first year and two sow pigs were promised.

  On 18 July 1791, at Prospect Hill west of the Rose Hill settlement, by now renamed Parramatta, John and twelve others took possession of their allotments. By the end of August they were working their properties, but there was trouble.

  When Watkin Tench arrived in the area the following December to conduct his final survey, he found that:

  To give protection to this settlement, a corporal and two soldiers are encamped in the centre of the farms; as the natives once attacked the settlers, and burnt one of their houses. These guards are, however, inevitably at such a distance from some of the farms, as to be unable to afford them any assistance in case of another attack.7

  The original land grants had been spaced apart, which gave the aborigines cover for any attack. To counter this, Governor Phillip decided the vacant land between should be settled too by extending the existing boundaries. This gave John an extra thirty acres on top of his original forty. Tench noted John down as a ‘Gardiner’ who had two acres under cultivation, but neither he nor the others had so far received their promised pigs.

  The hardships the settlers were living under were obvious. ‘Most of them were obliged to build their own houses; and wretched hovels three-fourths of them are.’

  And Tench continued: ‘Of the 13 farms 10 are unprovided with water; and at some of them they are obliged to fetch this necessary article from the distance of a mile and a half. All the settlers complain sadly of being frequently robbed by the runaway convicts, who plunder them incessantly.’

  John’s property was bounded by those of Thomas Martin to the north and William Butler to the south. He happened to be one of those enviable settlers having a creek flowing through his land. This gave him an easily accessible, continuous supply of water. Today, the site of his grant is intersected by the Great Western Highway, and is portion of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) land and Fox Hill Golf Course.

  Tench also noted there were five married couples on the thirteen properties at Prospect Hill, two of the pairs having children, but John and Mary were not among them. Mary was not there at all.

  Mary Nichols (née Carroll, nee Randall) was not even in the colony.

  *

  Situated some 940 miles out to sea to the north-east of Port Jackson and with a coastline of approximately twenty-two miles, Norfolk Island was also discovered and named by James Cook. When he visited there on 10 and 11 October 1774, he noted that flax plants and pine trees were growing plentifully on the island.

  When the First Fleet sailed from England in 1787, the British Government, still smarting over the loss of its American colonies, gave instructions to Arthur Phillip that, as the first governor of New South Wales, he should also establish a settlement on Norfolk Island. Inspired by Cook’s report, the pines were of particular interest to the Admiralty because there was a shortage of shipbuilding materials. It was hoped too that cultivation of the flax would provide a staple product for any future settlers (wrongly as it turned out because of the inferior quality of the plants that were found).

  Phillip formally assigned Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, who had been second lieutenant in HMS Sirius, as Superintendent and Commandant of Norfolk Island and gave him written instructions outlining his task. King was to travel there in the Supply, the brig-rigged sloop of only 170 tons that had been a naval escort of the First Fleet. The vessel was under the command of Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball. King departed at 7 a.m. on 14 February with probably the smallest band to ever establish a British colony. His group of twenty-three included a surgeon, a carpenter, a weaver, two marines, eight male convicts, and six female convicts. Apart from the convicts, all of whom had been transported for minor offences, most of the settlers were volunteers.

  They took two weeks to reach their destination and on the way they passed another island where they saw giant turtles. Its position was about 1,000 km east of Sydney and roughly the same distance south of Norfolk Island. Ball afterwards named it Lord Howe Island, after one of the lords of the Admiralty.

  For the next two years on Norfolk Island, King explored, built and organised the clearing of land, all the time struggling against crop-destroying grubs, rats and heavy weather. Unfortunately, at times he had to deal with troublesome convicts. The sound of the lash was heard in this paradise for the first time. One of the marines, John Batchelor, stole rum from a cask in King’s residence. All of the supplies were limited and precious. Careful rationing was needed for survival. King made the punishment for this theft especially harsh in the vain hope that it would be a deterrent for the future. He sentenced Batchelor to be led around in a halter and then given three dozen lashes.

  Tragedy struck the island for the first time on 15 June when Batchelor was on an early morning fishing expedition in the only row boat on the island. It was swamped by the heavy sea and he was washed overboard and drowned. The boat was damaged on the reef and nobody had the necessary skill to repair it.

  Among the convict women who had been taken to Norfolk Island was Ann Inett, who became Philip King’s housekeeper and lover. She had been convicted in 1786 in the Worcester Court of stealing clothing, with a total value of a little under £1. Initially condemned to be hanged, her sentence was commuted to transportation for seven years. Ann would have two children with King, both boys, who would be named Norfolk and Sydney.

  Meanwhile, Governor Phillip was optimistic about the Norfolk Island settlement. He decided to send the store-ship Golden Grove there in October with more settlers and provisions for another eighteen months. The Golden Grove arrived at the island on the 13th. Forty-two settlers were aboard including a sergeant, a corporal, five marines, two gardeners, twenty-one male convicts and eleven female convicts; a carpenter from the ship volunteered to stay. One of the female convicts on board was Mary Carroll.

  It was a common practice for the men to take de facto wives. Although Mary had married John Nichols at Sydney Cove just the previous March, she lived with the convict William Thompson on Norfolk Island. Thompson had, in fact, been transported with John on the Scarborough. His trial for stealing clothing to the value of 5s had been held at the Old Bailey on 26 May 1784. Sentenced to transportation for seven years, he was aged about thirty-one at the time Scarborough left England.

  Back in Sydney Cove, Governor Phillip was faced with desperate food shortages and an unruly convict pop
ulation. He decided again to offload many of his convicts to Norfolk Island. He was also hopeful that the island would be able to provide food for the mainland colony.

  Unaware of the governor’s plans, King continued with his assigned duties. His convict population already far outnumbered the free inhabitants, including military personnel, but with a total of sixty-two people on the island he was able to make good progress.

  Although he treated the convicts with a certain respect and looked after their welfare, on 24 January 1789 King learned from an informant that there was a plot to seize the island. King, the free settlers and the military were to be captured and imprisoned. There might even be loss of life. Then, when the Supply returned, the convicts intended to possess the ship and sail to Tahiti. Acting quickly, King was able to thwart the scheme. Two of the ringleaders were put in irons. The others were cautioned to appreciate their privileges, and at the same time he introduced severe new restrictions on their movements and gatherings. Because of the plot, the fragile trust and goodwill that had been nurtured and grown between the authorities and the convicts evaporated. Instead of becoming valuable members of a pioneer settlement, the convicts turned into a troublesome, resentful burden.

  On 26 January 1789, just when the mutiny scare was over, Mary Carroll’s partner, William Thompson, was discovered stealing corn. The penalty was fifty lashes but this did not deter others. It was the start of a spate of similar incidents and punishments.

  King’s first tenure on Norfolk Island ended suddenly. On 13 March 1790, the Sirius and Supply appeared in bad weather which obliged them to anchor off shore. The excited settlers thought that the two ships had brought fresh supplies and news from Britain, but they were wrong. The two ships were to land 186 convicts, an army detachment including Captain Johnson, five lieutenants and several non-commissioned officers, a meagre supply of food, and Lieutenant-Governor Robert Ross who had been Governor Phillip’s deputy at Port Jackson. Ross carried Phillip’s orders to King, instructing him to turn over his command. Phillip wanted King to be his emissary to the home government.

  The procedures of the command transfer, including the checking of the island’s stores, were begun immediately while the convicts and soldiers were landing. As usual, the weather imposed great difficulties. The ships were buffeted by strong north-east winds. The Sirius under Captain John Hunter hove into the bay on 19 March to lower her boats and help with the unloading, but a strong tide pushed her towards the reef’s outer rocks. As Hunter put her about on another tack the wind suddenly switched direction and Sirius was swept stern first onto the rocks and wrecked.

  On this extraordinary note, the regime of the first commandant of Norfolk Island, Philip Gidley King, came to an end. With some survivors from the Sirius he sailed for Port Jackson aboard the Supply on 24 March 1790. Accompanying him were his convict concubine and their two sons, Norfolk and Sydney.8

  Mary Carroll’s seven-year sentence was not due to finish until October 1793 – but King was back on Norfolk Island well before then!

  From 21 December 1790 until 15 March 1791, King was in London where he was granted interviews with the Secretary of State, Lord Grenville, and the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks. His frank discussions on the problems confronting New South Wales and Norfolk Island impressed them and contributed to his promotion to commander on 2 March 1791.

  Despite his convict-born family, King married his cousin Anna Josepha Coombe on 11 March. They boarded the Gorgon together four days later to sail back to New South Wales.

  In November 1791, after spending five weeks in Port Jackson, King left again for Norfolk Island with his wife. Also with them was a detachment of the New South Wales Corps, a formation specially raised to relieve the Royal Marines and to take over guard and garrison duties in the colony. It was commanded by Captain William Paterson, who had arrived at Port Jackson recently. King quickly resumed control of the island and by March 1793 he could report that a year’s rations had been accumulated in the store. Extensive clearing had been under way that led to successful crops of wheat and maize (corn). He especially praised settlers who had stayed from the Sirius shipwreck, reporting they were good workers. As crime had decreased, it was a good period all round.

  Life was changing on the island. Ships began to appear at more regular intervals with a variety of supplies and, of course, more convicts. Many of these were being transferred to the island as punishment for crimes they had committed on the mainland. The same ships also took away the freed convicts who did not wish to settle on the island, among them Mary Carroll. On 26 July 1794, she boarded the Francis for the journey to Port Jackson.

  After returning to New South Wales, Mary faced the expiree’s choice of trying to return to the life she had left behind in England or remaining in the colony. Free but without money, working a passage back to England was far from easy for a woman. A report by a Select Committee on Transportation published in the British Parliament described the dilemma women faced:

  No difficulty appears to exist amongst the major part of the men who do not wish to remain in the colony, of finding means of return to this Country. All but the aged and infirm easily find employment on board the ships visiting New South Wales, and are allowed to work their passage home; but such facility is not afforded to the women: they have no possible method of leaving the Colony but by prostituting themselves on board the ships whose masters may chuse [sic] to receive them. They who are sent to New South Wales, that their former habits may be relinquished, cannot obtain a return to this Country, but by relapsing into that mode of life.9

  Another alternative for Mary would have been to try and renew her relationship with John Nichols, but it is not known if she made an effort to do so. If she did, she may have discovered that John was already living with someone else, a convict hutkeeper, apparently a woman who was not chosen to be a wife.

  Mary was probably fortunate that at this time the colony was being administered by the commander of the New South Wales Corps, Major Francis Grose, in his capacity of Lieutenant-Governor. Governor Arthur Phillip had returned to England earlier because of ill health. It was during Grose’s tenure that private enterprise became established in the colony. Several officers of the New South Wales Corps were able to occupy influential positions. They and others were given grants of land. Under Grose’s encouragement, the Hawkesbury area to the north and north-west of Sydney town began to be settled, and several former convicts took up land for cultivation.

  Mary received a grant of land at Mulgrave Place near Richmond. This was some distance away from John’s property at Prospect Hill. There was no established method of direct transportation connecting the two, although Grose had a good road made from Sydney to the banks of the Hawkesbury which went through Parramatta to Windsor, Richmond being a few more miles further on to the west.

  Mary died on 3 April 1803, a year of serious drought throughout New South Wales. For some reason her burial was not registered until two months later on 8 June at St Philip’s Church of England in Sydney. Her passing meant that John was legally free to marry again – if that happened to be his wish.

  The colony’s first chaplain, the Reverend Richard Johnson, travelled regularly to Parramatta where he held services in the open air and later, appropriately enough, in a carpenter’s shop there. Johnson was joined in 1794 by the Reverend Samuel Marsden who became assistant-chaplain with his residence at Parramatta.

  As a Church of England clergyman, Marsden adhered to a narrow interpretation of the scriptures and preached the ‘suffering road’ to salvation. Shortly after his arrival he became a magistrate and, following a line similar to his clerical teachings, he built a reputation for severity, earning the epithet the ‘Flogging Parson’. As a landowner and farmer he was a success. Initially granted land in the Parramatta region, he later purchased more and by 1805 he had over 1,000 sheep on pasture. His skill in this regard established him as one of the founders of the Australian wool industry. Marsden had been two y
ears in spiritual charge of Parramatta when, in 1796, two wooden huts were formed into a temporary church, and so St John’s Church began its long, proud history.

  At first when the church opened there were no pews, and in those days it was not feasible for the congregation to supply permanent chairs. The congregation had to bring their own rough and ready forms or seats of any kind. As time wore on, pews were furnished, and the townspeople assembled here together with the officers from the barracks when they were on duty. The soldiers and convicts were housed in the galleries and later, too, the children of the Protestant Orphan School. When The King’s School was established, the boys trooped to the church every Sunday. At first the building was of brick, stuccoed. In time, two towers were added – when the church itself was removed and rebuilt of stone, these towers were left standing.

  It was in St John’s at Parramatta that John Nichols and Ann Pugh were joined in matrimony on 25 August 1803. The ceremony was performed by the Reverend Samuel Marsden.

  John Nichols had prospered at Prospect Hill between 1791 and 1803, but the going had been far from easy. By the end of 1792 there were government farms at Sydney Cove, Parramatta and Toongabbie (an aboriginal word meaning ‘meeting of the waters’), and the colony traded with England, Ireland, Calcutta and Batavia, as well as ports in China and the USA. The colonial population of New South Wales had increased to 3,108 and there were 1,115 on Norfolk Island.

  Governor Phillip relinquished his command of the colony for reasons of ill-health and, on the evening of Monday, 10 December 1792, he boarded the Atlantic to return to England. He left behind a well-established colony that had overcome almost overwhelming odds to survive. 5,000 acres of land had been granted to 112 ex-convicts and fifty-five former Royal Marines, and 1,516 acres were under cultivation. As the population of the colony grew and land became a source of wealth the two original social classes of officers and prisoners were expanded to include free immigrants, the native-born who would eventually be called Currency lads and lasses, and expiree convicts, including John Nichols, who were frequently referred to as emancipists.