Australia Day: David Moore, convict sentenced to transportation

Jonathan Smyth

I am certain that nobody yearns for the old days of the 19th century when transportation was all the rage for crimes committed. I am thinking of a piece I read about a couple of young domestic servants sentenced and sent by convict ship to Tasmania after stealing their Lord and master’s bathroom flannels.

But historians were sharply reminded of those awful days when the previous British government moved to introduce the Rwandan deportation scheme.

Australia Day takes place on January 26 each year to celebrate Australia’s first European settlement in 1788 when Arthur Phillip’s ship, along with 10 other vessels laden with convicts, pulled into what is now modern day Sydney Cove. Upon their arrival, they raised their flag to claim territory for England that once belonged to the Gadigal tribes who were native to the region.

Recently, Melanie Ward informed me about David Moore’s story, and I thought that the account was deserving of a Times Past column. Melanie’s interest in Moore culminated in an article for Ireland’s Own and an article in the Clogher Record.

Fermanagh

After making a silly mistake, David Moore found himself sentenced and marked for exportation as a convict.

This traumatic experience wrenched him from his family; his loved ones were left in virtual poverty soon after the law had found him out.

The story that follows is as gripping as anything you will see in the cinema.

Moore was born in 1796 in Co Fermanagh. In 1818, he married Hannah Hall whom it is said originated from Kildallon, Co Cavan.

The Moores had five children while living in Ireland and they resided at Rosslea, Co Fermanagh. David gained work on the with Alexander Saunderson who owned a neat 12,000 acre estate that straddled Cavan and Monaghan. Moore served his employer as a boatswain on Lough Erne.

Timber

However, the good times at Saunderson’s ended abruptly when, in 1829, Moore was accused of stealing timber from his employer. For this misdemeanour, he received seven years’ transportation. In her Clogher Record paper, Melanie Ward pointed out that a report in the Impartial Reporter on the Cavan Assizes of 1829 lists Moore as being guilty of larceny.

Another account printed in the Freemans Journal on January 1, 1830, stated that: ‘The unfortunate man had been under rule of transportation for stealing timber from Alexander Saunderson, sq, MP, from whom, as boatman, he enjoyed a handsome salary and a neat residence.’

The historic Cavan Assizes ledger in Johnston Central Library, Cavan, contains David Moore’s name and, while this does not provide the final verdict, it does show tell us he had a case to answer for, and names the crime.

Upon sentencing Moore was placed in Cavan jail to await transportation to Australia. A paper written about Cavan jail for the Breifne Journal in 1999 stated that the prison had 74 cells, with 23 additional rooms holding three beds each and added that, in 1829, the building was vastly overcrowded with some 453 people incarcerated there in that year alone.

Jail break

His conviction for stealing wood did not hold Moore in his jail cell for too long and a breakout by Moore and some fellow inmates took the prison guards by surprise when they scaled over the walls to freedom. Mr Gallogly, the governor of the jail, feeling red-faced, put up a reward of £20 for information that would lead to the recapture of his prisoners.

The Freemans Journal later announced that Moore’s accomplices were recaptured and only he escaped. David’s lucky streak continued and a boat from Dublin, bound for the United States, allowed him board and being a merchant vessel, they even let him work his passage.

But Moore’s brief spell in America was accompanied by a keen sense of loneliness and, in less than a year, he foolishly returned to Ireland in January 1830, determined to catch-up with his wife, his daughter and four sons. Moore’s children were Thomas Andrew, Mary Anne, William, James, and David junior.

The decision to come home was reckless and his luck suddenly ended when someone recognised him as a ‘wanted man’. The authorities swiftly arrived and rearrested Moore. This time, they succeeded in transporting Moore aboard a ship called the Hercules, which sailed to Sydney, Australia. This ship, for those who are interested, dated back to 1801 when it was built at South Shields, England.

Journey

Like his voyage to America, Moore worked on the Hercules as a boatswain during a three-month journey across the ocean to the continent that became his new home. It must have seemed a strange unknown world to a man punished for stealing firewood.

Ironically, they ‘assigned’ the prisoner as a timber cutter, to William Longford at Wollombi. The Clogher Record article pointed out that the wood he was required to saw was cedar, a tough wood to cut, while the hot Australian climate made work difficult.

Good behaviour and a clean record no doubt helped him when he made a plea to have his wife and children join him in Australia. The request was eventually granted after a period of years passed before Mrs Moore and the family legally arrived in May 1837 on another convict ship called the Margaret. Two years later, the Moore family’s sixth child, John Augustus was born.

Moore died in the mid-1840s at Maitland, Hunter, New South Wales. His widow, Hannah then remarried, this time to James Pryor. She lived until the age of 71 and died in 1871 at Wollombi, New South Wales.

In today’s world it is hard to believe that once upon a time a person could be packed off to a distant land for such minor crimes. But in certain cases, those sentenced to sail for the Southern hemisphere often did very well and became model citizens who found success in many lines of work.

For further research into the world of Australian-based convicts it is worthwhile consulting the database of convict transportation registers from 1787-1867 on the website: https://www.digitalpanopticon.org