Under the surname ‘Millard’ he was convicted on the 9th January 1827 at the Winchester Quarter Sessions of ‘stealing a quantity of fowls, the property of Rev. T.S. Rashleigh of Wickham’. He was sentenced to be transported for seven years. He stated on his conduct record that he was ‘out of work’ when he took them. Sentenced with him was a William Millard. The record also states that his mother and father were living in Wickham, surname ‘Miller’.
James is sent to Van Diemen’s Land aboard the ‘Layton’ departing from Plymouth on the 17th June 1827. The ‘Layton’ arrived in Hobart on the 9th October 1827.
James is assigned to work with William Barnes Esq J.P. in Launceston.
He is generally a well behaved convict getting into trouble on three occasions:
1) 28th Dec. 1829 – Disobedience of orders – Reprimanded.
2) 15th Feb. 1830 – Absenting himself from his masters service and being drunk – 50 lashes.
3) 10th Mar. 1831 – Drunkeness – One month imprisonment & hard labour.
He receives a ticket of leave in 1833 and is declared to be Free by Servitude on 9th Jan. 1834.
After being declared ‘free’, James continued to live in Launceston, Tasmania. He worked as a bricklayer, plasterer & mason.
James married the convict, Catherine Barnes (maiden name Bond) on 6th October 1836 in Launceston. However it is quite obvious that their relationship started well before this date. James fathered at least one child and possibly two prior to the marriage.
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Catherine Bond was born in Armagh, Ireland c1810. She worked as a dress & bonnet maker. She married Roger Barnes, (born c1806, Blackley, Manchester). Roger was a gamekeeper and lived in Birmingham. They had one child.
Catherine spent time in prison in England for stealing (12 months) and smuggling brandy (7 months). She appears in the Liverpool Mercury on 13th April 1832; ‘To be imprisoned for six calendar months – Catherine Barnes, 21’. It appears she was not out of trouble for long. At the age of 22 she is in court again. Tried in Lancaster on 22-10-1832 she is convicted of stealing two handkerchiefs and 2 yards of linen from the Lady of the House. Being her third offence, she is transported to Van Diemen’s Land for 14 years.
For women sentences of 7 years or more were rare. Women convicts were basically transported as breeding stock and sexual convenience. They were encouraged to marry and produce offspring.
Roger spent some time in gaol also. He was charged on 4th June 1830 with committing manslaughter and sentenced in August to two years hard labour in the Lancaster Castle. At the time he was working as a gamekeeper for a local MP, John Wilson Patten Esq.
Catherine Barnes departed on the 'Jane' from Liverpool on the 22nd February 1833 with 115 female convicts. After a 128-day journey she arrived on the 30th July 1833.
After serving his sentence in the Lancaster, and having his wife transported to Van Diemen’s Land, Roger gets on with his life. We find him in 1841 living in Ardwick, Manchester with Ann Fordham, a woman 15 years his junior. He is now working as an agricultural labourer (maybe still as a gamekeeper). There are two children living with them as well. Roger Fordham (aged 4) & Betsy Fordham (aged 3 weeks).
By 1851 Ann is recorded as his wife (though no record of their marriage can be found) and she has given birth to four more children, Ralph (1844), Samuel (1846), James (1848) & Ann (1849). By this time all six children have taken on Roger’s name, Barnes.
Roger Barnes died in 1860 in Manchester, England.
Catherine Barnes is frequently in trouble as a convict. She had further convictions for drunkenness, absconding, fighting and general bad conduct over a 7-year period. On one occasion in March 1837, it was her husband, James Miller, who brought charges against her.
Women convicts did not work in gangs but were either locked up in the Female Factories or entered into general society. The Female Factories were terrible places of evil. They held three types of women; those who could not be assigned, those returning from assignment for punishment and those who had fallen pregnant. Illegitimate children were sent to the Queens Orphan School in Hobart and were treated very poorly.
Generally speaking, women were difficult to assign. No respectable citizen or free settler wanted them, and ex-convicts tended to treat them poorly, subjecting them to criminal solicitation and personal violence.
Ladies could be better looked after by giving themselves to men for protection. These often became pseudo wives. Some of these women were actually still legally married with husbands' back in England. Authorities turned a blind eye to this. There was little or no chance that they would be returned to their husbands anyway, and it was in the colony's interest to have them re-married. This not only removed them from the public purse, but also out of the Female Factories and assignment system. This certainly appears to describe Catherine’s life in her early years in Van Diemen’s Land.
Catherine receives her Ticket of Leave on the 7th February 1840, her Conditional Pardon on 27th September 1843 and again in March 1845 (the first CP must have been revoked) and her Free Certificate 1st July 1847.
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There are up to eight children attributed to James & Catherine Miller:
1)Mary Ann BARNES. *Born 8-10-1834 in Launceston. Baptised 19-11-1834 at Female House of
Correction.
2)Sarah Jane MILLER. *Born c1834 in Launceston.
*Married 1859 to John LAMONT in Sandhurst.
*Died 1916 in Castlemaine.
3)Adelaide MILLER. *Born c1836 in Launceston.
*Married in 1882 to Howard Alfred Caston in Melbourne.
*Died 1900 in Victoria. (Mother’s surname was Bond)
Adelaide seems to be frequently in trouble with the law, not only under her own name but also under her alias, Eliza Moore. Between 1860 & 1865 she is arrested numerous times for larceny, robbery, stealing, disorderly conduct and idleness. She spends time in gaol. At one time doing time with Howard Caston whom she later married.
4)Charlotte MILLER *Born 4-12-1839 in Launceston (Tamar).
*Died 6-12-1897 in Melbourne.
*Relationship c1860 to John Archibald in Melbourne.
Issue:
a)Charles James Archibald. b.1861-Melbourne.
b)Maria Archibald. b.1863-Melbourne.
d.1902.
c)Charlotte Archibald. b.1866-Melbourne.
d.1926-Melbourne.
m.1887-Charles Frederick Matthews-Melbourne with issue.
i)Norman Alfred Matthews.b.1888-Melbourne.
d.1947-Melbourne.
ii)John Thomas Matthews.b.1890-Melbourne.
d.1929-Melbourne.
iii)William Leslie Matthews.b.1891-Melbourne.
iv)Adelaide Matthews.b.1896-Melbourne.
d.1963-Melbourne.
m.1914-Henry Charleston-Melbourne with issue x5.
v)Frederick Matthews.
d)Sarah Elizabeth Archibald. b.1872-Melbourne.
d.1938-Melbourne.
e)Thomas Archibald. b.1873-Melbourne.
*Married 1880 to William Weedow in Melbourne.
Issue:
a)Adelaide Harriet Weedow. b.1877-Melbourne.
d.1958-Melbourne.
m.1st 1896-John Froude-Melbourne.
Issue:
i)John William Howard Froude.b.1897-Melbourne.
d.1921-Melbourne.
ii)William Albert George Froude.b.1900-Melbourne.
d.1960-Melbourne.
m.2nd 1941-Charles Amos Dorey-Melbourne.
Charlotte appears in the newspapers numerous times as well. In April 1863 she is charged with breaking windows and assault. It was reported that she struck Jane Brock, beating her, pulling her hair our, using bad language and breaking windows in her house.
In April 1863 she is charged with fighting in the street with a lady named Jane Ralph.
In July 1863, under an alias of Isabella Smith, she is charged with stealing 8 sovereigns from Thomas Henderson, a commercial traveller returned from NZ. The robbery took place at a local brothel. She was acquitted. The court having believed that she was promised the money.
Finally in September 1869 she is in court sueing G.B. Turner for unpaid board. When the case goes against her, she loses control and punches Mr. Turner in the court. She is charged with contempt.
5)Catharine MILLER *Born 21-1-1843 in Launceston. (Mother’s surname was Bond)
6)James MILLER. *Born c1844 in Tasmania.
*Died 26-11-1855 in Kilmore, Victoria. Buried in Melbourne.
7)William MILLER. *Born c1848 in Launceston. William was a mining engine driver in Ballarat
*Died 24-3-1912 at Ballarat East
*Married 28-4-1871 to Mary Ann Fisk in Buninyong.
Issue:
a)William Thomas Miller. b.c1875 in Ballarat.
b)Susan Sylvia Miller. b.c1879 in Ballarat.
d.1951 in Ballarat.
c)Charles Fisk Miller. Dead by 1912.
8)Thomas MILLER. *Born c1851 in Launceston.
The Millers had addresses in Patterson Street and Tamar Street, Launceston.
We do find Catherine in the Launceston Examiner on the 30th June 1847.
She is claiming that three men, Joseph Swain, Thomas Thompson & William Beesing (probationers) had stolen from her £5 17s in money, and a bonnet & shawl, value £2 10s. At the time James was away at Port Phillip. She stated that on Saturday afternoon she had occasion to go a short distance into the country to pay some debts. She took with her a handkercheif containing some cakes & apples, besides the money. She returned to Launceston at about 9pm still with the money as the person she owed it to was not home. As she was nearing her home she claimed Beesing snatched the money from her hand and ran away with it. She followed and found Beesing on a boat with the other men, who then took her bonnet & shawl also. They made threats to her and refused to give her property back. The money was part of a £10 order sent to her from her husband via the Union Bank. After hearing the statements from many witnesses it was unclear if Catherine was telling the truth and whether she was actually ‘tipsy’ and went to the boat voluntarily to be with Beesing. The case was dismissed.
The family moved to Victoria after 1848 and settled in Buninyong near Ballarat.
James Miller was hospitalised on 27-7-1866 in Ballarat. The record states he was aged 63 years from Hampshire and lived at Scotchmans.
James MILLER died on 4-9-1870 in Scotchman’s Lead, near Ballarat.
Catherine MILLER died in Scotchman’s Lead on 26-8-1874.
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Sarah Jane MILLER was born c1835 probably in Launceston, Tasmania. We assume her middle name bears the name of the convict ship that her mother arrived on just the year before.
Sarah was born to James MILLER, a bricklayer and free settler in Van Diemens Land, and Catherine Barnes, a previously married convict originally from Armagh in Ireland. James MILLER married Catherine Barnes on 6th October 1836, some two years after Sarah was born.
A trade depression began in Van Diemen's Land in 1841 and caused economic hardship for many years. In Launceston houses stood empty, abandoned by their owners who had moved to the mainland. Thousands moved out of Van Diemen’s Land. The colony was going bankrupt.
Sarah moved to Melbourne about 1848. Her first relationship, though no marriage record has ever been found, was with James PURDY, a convict, born in Lambeth, London, who also spent some time in Launceston. It is known that Sarah had two children by James PURDY.