William Eccleston(e)

From Hardscrabble Wolverhampton to Marvellous Melbourne

Early Days

William was seemingly their first born and as no records of his baptism exist it is most likely that he had been born in Ireland before their return. The couple then had several other children.

Trial & Transportation

Looking to the Calendar of the Staffordshire Assizes, and here we found the following : —

ASSI .5/155, Pt. I. Clerks of Assize, Oxford Circuit, Staffordshire .

Lent Assizes, 1835

Calendar. William Eccleston. Fely. assaulting Isaac Smith and robbing him of four sovereigns and other monies his property .

Po. se. Guilty.

To be hanged.

As can be seen, the sentence of death has been commuted from death by hanging to transportation .

However, having identified the Calendar entry this has enabled us to identify and abstract the actual original indictment which reads as

follows : —

The Jurors for our Lord the King upon their oath present that William Eccleston late of the Parish of Wolverhampton in the County of Stafford, Labourer, and Thomas Leather late of the same , Labourer, on the eleventh day of February in the Year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty five with force and arms at the Parish aforesaid in the county aforesaid in and upon one Isaac Smith in the peace of God and our said Lord the King then and there being feloniously did make an assault and the said Isaac Smith in corporal fear and danger of his life then and there feloniously did put and from the person and against the will of the said Isaac Smith then and there violently and feloniously did steal take and carry away four pieces of the current Gold Coin of this real.m called Sovereigns, Eight pieces of the current silver coin of this Realm called Half Crowns, Ten other pieces of the current Silver Coin of this realm called Shillings, and One key of the value of six pence of the monies goods and chattels of the said Isaac Smith and One Bank note for the payment of Five Pounds of the value of five pounds the said note at the time of committing the felony aforesaid being the property of the said Isaac Smith and the said sum of money payable and secured thereby being then due and unsatisfied to the said Isaac Smith the proprietor thereof against the form of the statute in such case made and provided and against the peace of our said Lord the King his Crown and dignity.

Witnesses

Isaac Smith, David Bate, John Fletcher Wardle, Richard Diggory, William Mortiboy.

Transportation on the Asia

Asia was a merchant ship built by A. Hall & Company at Aberdeen in 1818. She made eight voyages between 1820 and 1836 transporting convicts from Britain to Australia. She made one voyage for the British East India Company (EIC) between 1826 and 1827. At the same time she served in private trade to India as a licensed ship. She also carried assisted emigrants to Australia.

It, like many others of its type, found later service as a transport for convicts to the new penal colonies of Australasia. The first Ecclestone, William (the great, great grandfather of the author of this site), to arrive in Australia sailed on the Asia in its 8th (and last) convict voyage sailing on 8th of November 1835 from Sheerness. The ship embarked 290 male prisoners under the ship's master, Thomas F. Stead and the surgeon Peter Leonard. The vessel arrived in Van Diemen’s Land on the 21st of February 1836, after a voyage of 105 days. Two convicts died during the voyage.

She was last listed at Lloyds Register in 1845.

Life in the Colonies

As noted William arrived in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) on the 21st of February 1836. This was one of the harshest convict assignments.

He served out his sentence there and then was pardoned and he relocated to Melbourne in 1845. Melbourne, in the Port Phillip Colony, was only founded in 1836 so it was a new city in all aspects. It wasn't until the 1850s that growth really took off when the Victorian gold rush took off at places like Bendigo and Ballarat.

William took up a career as a brickmaker and developed clay pits in the inner suburb of Richmond. On the 26 July 1852 he married Mary Ann Stephens (a native of Cornwall) at St Peter's in East Melbourne and they lived in various places, including Swan Street in Richmond.

A Farming Life

Between 1854 and 1856 the family moved to Carlsruhe to the northwest of Melbourne, on the route to the goldfields, where they built a large family and operated a farm. He died in 1875 of "ulceration of the stomach" and was buried at nearby Kyneton.