Teensy weensy bit of blue blood

 

My maternal Granma used to say that “a teensy weensy bit of blue blood” coursed through her veins. Previously I had successfully traced all but two of her ancestors back to England and found no trace of royalty. I ran into many brick walls trying to find her paternal great grandparents who settled in South Australia. This year I found they died in Victoria - the death certificates stated that James Barnes was born in Lincolnshire, England and Martha Johnson in Dublin Ireland. My goal was to find out who was James Barnes and was he the missing link to royalty?

James Barnes was baptised on 22 April 1823 in Holbeach, Lincolnshire and his parents were William Barnes, a farmer, and Hannah Nicols. With a rare genetic colour combination of striking red hair and piercing blue eyes James was possibly teased as a youngster. He was still a boy when he drifted away from his small rural hometown and roamed the streets of industrial Birmingham. Not long after his 16^th birthday James faced the Birmingham Boro’ Sessions charged with stealing two scarfs, belonging to Mr J Fiddian. James was deemed to be a ‘bad character’ as he had previously spent 14 days in goal for cheese ? (illegible) and 4 months on suspicion of robbery. His luck ran out on 5 July 1839 when he was found guilty of ‘larceny before convicted of felony.’ James faced an unknown future of 7 years and transportation.  

After spending six weeks in the Warwick Goal, James was transferred onto the prison hulk Euryalus. Launched in 1803, the HMS Euryalus was a fifth-rate frigate that served in battles in the Mediterranean and North America. In 1825 the ship was demasted and repurposed as a prison hulk. From 1825 to 1843 the Euryalus was moored at Chatham and housed juvenile male offenders. The regime was especially severe – the boys were kept below deck for 23 hours a day and forced to do manual labour. It is said that the boys “lived in constant fear of physical abuse from the guards and a culture of gang violence was embedded.”

Within three months James Barnes was among the 200 prisoners on the Runneymede, bound for Van Diemen’s Land. James must have remained healthy on the voyage as he was not one of the 71 cases reported in the surgeon’s medical journal. Surgeon P Fisher was pleased to write that the prisoners, 190 boys and 10 men, arrived in “good health and better condition than they were received on board. …I kept them all up on deck while the weather and duty of the ship permitted except occasionally keeping them below for punishment.”

The barque Runnymede arrived into Hobart-Town on 28 March 1840 after almost 20 weeks at sea. Captain Foreman, Ensign Harris and 29 men of the 51^st Regiment were responsible for the prisoners. The one cabin passenger aboard the Runnymede, Mr JP Gell, had come to take up the position of the Headmaster of the Public School in Hobart-Town.

Within days of the ship’s arrival the local newspaper reported:

The boy prisoners, recently arrived by the Runnymede, have been all sent to Port Arthur, where, we trust, that their reformation, education, and initiation into trades, suitable to their several capacities, will be faithfully attended to, upon other principles, than those of the present penal science system.

This suggests that the boys may have been sent to Point Puer, not far from Port Arthur. Operating from 1834 to 1849, Point Puer was the only juvenile penal station outside Britain and during those 15 years it received 3,500 lads, mostly 15 to 17 years olds. The boys were reformed in four main areas: 1) education, 2) moral and religious training, 3) labour and trade training, and 4) discipline. Maybe James was lucky enough to receive some education as it was previously noted that he could neither read nor write.

James arrived in Van Diemen’s Land at the time the convict administration was changing from one where prisoners were assigned to private settlers to the probation system where convicts had to serve a period on probation on arrival. Convicts were imprisoned at a penal settlement, worked in road gangs or were sent to one of the 80 probation stations that were constructed during this period.

James Barnes (Police No 3116) worked on the road gangs mostly with the Picton Party and he was lucky to receive a ticket-of-leave after serving almost five of his seven-year sentence. I say lucky because indulgences such as ticket-of-leave where usually reserved for well-behaved prisoners. James’ conduct record indicates that he frequently challenged the authorities and he was punished for seven separate offences between 1841 and 1843. The offences included misconduct, disobedience of orders, idleness and neglect of work. The punishments James received were 25 lashes, 14 months of hard labour on the roads (2 offences) and a total of 27 days of solitary confinement (3 offences).

In 1848, after his full seven-year sentence, James was given his Free Certificate No 708. James left Tasmania for Adelaide possibly in July 1848. James was still young, about 25 years of age, and he was keen to start a new life as a free man. Within two years he had 80 acres of land in the Willunga area. He met Martha Johnson, an Irish born servant, and they married in 1852 and had nine children in the Willunga farming district. In their later years James and Martha moved to Victoria and farmed with a son. After a very tough life James, aged 69, died of emphysema and cardiac debility. He is buried in the Rosebery Cemetery in rural Victoria, as is his wife who died 16 years after him.

Sorry to tell you Granma but you come from convict stock, not royalty.