THE TRANSCRIPTION : of Report of the Assize held in Nottingham on 14th March 1793. Taken from the "Nottingham Journal" of 16th march 1793 Saturday.

The Nottingham Journal is (was) a weekly publication. Papers for week before and a week after carefully checked, for any reference to the crime being committed , or the sentence being commuted, as commuted it must have been. One could spend weeks searching for these facts, and find nothing. (Who would we be if John Gray's sentence had not been commuted?????)

The film which this transcript was taken was Nottingham Journal 1793 onward - Jan 5th 1793 - Dec 26th 1795. This is only paper on file for the time. There may have been others in existence.

Finding this record was a particular thrill to me as we visited the Local Studies Library of the Nottingham Library on 12th June 1986, with no real hope of finding any clues. We had previously visited the P.R.O. in Chancery Lane on two occasions, 26th March, when the staff went on strike because the building was so cold, and again on 1st April 1986. We were advised that only records of a financial nature were available for Nottingham, as very few records survive from that area. If John appeared it would be because of payment to someone for flogging him. Searched four folios of well preserved records, but nothing about John. Records so sad. People found guilty of housebreaking or highway robbery were either hanged or transported, depending on whether the value of goods taken was under or over forty shillings. As a sort of afterthought, it was suggested to us that we try for a newspaper record of the trail out at the Newspaper Museum at Colindale, to the north of London.

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE : On Thursday in the forenoon arrived here Sir Alexander Thomson, one of the Barons of His Majesty's Court of Exchequer, accompanied by the Hon. Richard Lumley Savile, High Sheriff , Who made a very handsome appearance. His Lordship opened the Commission for the County in the usual forms, and then proceeded to the Town Hall, where following prisoners in the town gaol, were severally put to the Bar, and arraigned, viz:

"John Gray found guilty of feloniously receiving a quantity of goods the property of Mr Samuel Doubleday in the Market place knowing the same to be feloniously stolen was made a Capital Offence for which he received Sentence of Death.

Ann Gray wife of the said John Gray and James Price charged as his accomplices were acquitted."

"A number of other prisoners were tried and sentenced on the same day. John Gray just happened to be first. Towards the end of the report was this one :Richard Crop, convicted of manslaughter, in killing and flaying John Naylor, of the above city was fined one shilling and discharged." Interesting Priorities!


ELIZABETH KILLETT born in 1781 or there abouts. Many believe that Elizabeth Killett was the daughter of Robert and Mary Killett (nee Lighten) of Norwich, England and believe her to have been born on the 17th February 1775 and Baptised 18th February, 1775 at St. Andrews Church, Norwich.

However, in a letter written by Elizabeth on the 2nd May, 1867 she gives her date of birth as 28th April, and says it is her 89th birthday (1778). She makes reference to her age in three other letters, but as she is old and confused by this time the year of her birth is variously 1779, 1775 and two references which calculate out to 1778. Her daughter Jane who supplied the information on Elizabeth's death certificate believed her mother to have been born in 1779.

The first record which connects Elizabeth to Australia is in the Assize Records, South Eastern Circuit, Suffolk. Indictments Assi 31/39.B

It is recorded at South Western Circuit, Suffolk that Elizabeth Killett of the Parish of Bradwell, single woman in the dwelling of John Crow, on the 27th day of April in the fourtieth year of the Reign of the Soverign did steal and take and carry away Seven Norfolk General Bank Notes and Three Pound Notes. Sentence, Seven Years... 31st July 1800 at Suffolk. She was nineteeen (19) years of age. She arrived in Australia on 14th December 1801 on the ship "Nile".

The Barwell, having embarked 296 prisoners, sailed from Portsmouth on November 7, 1797, and although detained for a fortnight by calms and adverse winds, ran out to the Cape in 74 days. She was detained there until March 19 because her officers, fearing they would not find a profitable market at Port Jackson, desired to dispose of their European trade goods, and she did not reach Sydney until May 18, 1798, 192 days out from England and 60 from the Cape.

Soon after leaving the Cape a plot was allegedly hatched between the convicts and the soldiers to combine to seize the ship. Ensign George Bond, of the New South Wales Corps, was named as one of the ringleaders, and the Barwell's master, John Cameron, having consulted the ship's officers and Ensign Bayly, Bond's superior officer, ordered Bond to be confined in irons. Several of the soldiers of the detachment were also thrown into irons, and at least one received three dozen lashes. Many of the convicts were flogged, one or two being given eight dozen lashes as principal ringleaders, but the majority being given three dozen. In all, about a score were punished for having their irons off or as being implicated in the alleged mutiny. This was, apparently, the second conspiracy in the Barwell. Although the ship's log is silent on the matter, a private letter written from the Cape by Richard Dore, who was proceeding to Sydney to take up his appointment as judge-advocate, states that on the passage to the Cape 25 prisoners had planned to seize the cuddy arms while the sailors were aloft and murder the officers. The plot was disclosed by an informer the night before the attempt was to be made, and next morning, as the convicts reached the deck, the conspirators were seized, double-ironed and chained together.

When the Barwell reached Sydney, Ensign Bayly charged Bond with drunkenness and other offences, but the commanding officer of the New South Wales Corps, Major Foveaux, supported, apparently by his officers, represented to Governor Hunter that Bond should be permitted to resign his commission rather than face a court-martial, and to this course Hunter agreed. On reflection, however, he regretted his too ready acquiescence to this request. "Coming here thus degraded (i.e. under arrest) and charged with offences of so serious a description," wrote the governor in a despatch of September 12, 1798, "I may have reason to regret that I listened to Major Foveaux's interposition in behalf of a mail whom I am sorry to say has not answered my expectations." In acknowledging this despatch, the Duke of Portland bluntly declared that Bond's resignation "should not have been accepted, as it was evidently given in with a view to defeat his being tried by a court- martial."

THE VOYAGES 1789-1800

While the authorities were prepared to hush up Bond's actions, Captain Cameron was not. The court-martial for the ensign's trial had been summoned to meet on June 7, but this order was cancelled when Bond resigned. Cameron soon learnt that he had been liberated, and on the 11th swore an information before Judge Advocate Richard Dore in which he stated that "he hath good and sufficient grounds from the testimony of various persons to believe that the said George Bond was not only an accessory to but the principal ringleader and projector of the dreadful conspiracy" to seize the Barwell and, having murdered her officers, to carry her to Mauritius. He, therefore, prayed the governor to bring Bond to justice.

As a result of Cameron's insistence a Vice-Admiralty Court was assembled for the first time in the colony's history. Its members were drawn, of course, from the naval and military officers at the settlement, and there is little doubt that they had determined in advance to acquit the prisoners. Five privates were first arraigned, but one was promptly discharged on a legal technicality, the indictment being found defective because it wrongly recorded his christian name. The case against the remaining four was weak, since it rested principally on the testimony of convicts, and they were acquitted.

Bond's trial followed, apparently on a private prosecution launched by Cameron. The Barwell's master, however, expected an acquittal, as he made clear in his address to the court. Bond was charged that "with force and arms upon the high seas . . . he piratically and feloniously did endeavour to stir up, excite and make . . . a revolt and mutiny" in the Barwell. The principal witness was the ship's surgeon, John Thomas Sharpe, but, as in the earlier cases, the evidence was weak and unconvincing and Bond was acquitted without being called upon for his defence. He later announced his intention of bringing a civil suit against Cameron for false imprisonment, and estimated the damage he had suffered at £10,000, but did not proceed with the action.

The full story of what transpired in the Barwell was never told, but whether or not Bond was implicated in a plot to take the ship, his conduct was in some way reprehensible. This seems evident, but the military coterie at the infant settlement succeeded in hushing up the affair.

The issuing of detailed instructions to the masters and surgeons was instituted by the Transport Commissioners prior to the sailing of the transports Canada, Minorca and Nile in 1801. The need of cleanliness and proper ventilation, was emphasised, and the surgeon was directed to see that the 'tween-decks, sleeping quarters and the hospital were swept and scraped daily, that at least twice weekly the bottom boards of the berths were carried on deck, washed with salt water, and thoroughly dried before being replaced, and that all bedding was aired on deck daily. He was enjoined, also to properly trim the windsails, to keep open the air scuttles and to have the air machines working. He was to see that the sick were given free access to the deck, and was to report to the master when prisoners, because of illness or debility, should have their irons removed. He was to issue medicines and comforts to the sick, to see that the hospital was kept neat and clean, and on no account to return a discharged patient to the prison without first having thoroughly, fumigated his clothes "with the vapour of burning brimstone and the oxygenec gas". The surgeon was also directed to see that each prisoner was admitted, to the deck at least twice in every 24 hours, that no washing and drying of clothes took place in the 'tween-decks, and that this part of the ship was regularly fumigated in the manner specifically detailed in his instructions. Lastly, the surgeon was advised to issue lemon-juice, sugar, sago, rice, oatmeal, peas and bread, with a proportion of wine and tea, to any persons showing signs of scurvy or other disease.

But on the vexed questions of the respective spheres of responsibility of the various officers, the instructions, were silent. Nothing was said as to who was to exercise the decisive authority when a conflict of opinion arose. Their instructions merely informed the surgeon that "in all and every of which matters" the master and his officers are hereby required and obliged to assist and support you.

THE NILE IS THE SHIP THAT ELIZABETH KILLETT ARRIVED IN AUSTRALIA ON
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