Richard's birth date

Richard was arrested and charged in Bristol in 1803 but it appears that he was born elsewhere in England. However, there are a few things that we know about Richard from official records, which may help to unravel the mystery of his birth date:

• When he was tried and sentenced at the Bristol Quarter Sessions on 24 October 1803 he lived in Current Lane in the heart of Bristol and he was listed as aged 26. Even though he probably wasn’t born in Bristol, it is likely that he was born somewhere nearby, as people of his time rarely had the opportunity to travel far from their birthplace, unless they went to sea.  

• At the time that he was moved on to the prison hulk “Laurel” at Portsmouth, on 4 August 1804, he was listed as aged 27.  

• His father’s name was Jeremiah. This was confirmed when Richard's son George registered his father’s death in New South Wales in 1867. This information could only have been passed on to Richard’s children as part of the family’s oral history.

If we assume the date Richard was put onboard Laurel is accurate (perhaps confirmed by Richard on admission) then this puts Richard’s birthdate somewhere in the period before 4 August 1777. On this basis, our search is for the birth (or baptism) of a boy named Richard, born somewhere in southwest England in about 1777, with a father named Jeremiah Woodbury. There are three possibilities for Richard’s birth in the time period in south-west England, each of them boys born less than 60 miles from Bristol (all sons of Jeremiah and Elizabeth Woodbury – with various spellings):

1. Richard, son of Jeremiah and Elizabeth Woodbery, baptised on 31 May 1773 at Holcombe Rogus, Devon. Sadly, this boy died in infancy and was buried in June 1774.

2. Richard, son of Jeremiah and Elizabeth Woodberry, baptised on 27 May 1776 at Burlescombe, Devon. This child grew to adulthood in England and died in Devon at the age of 65, shortly after the 1841 UK Census [i]

3. Richard, son of Jeremiah and Elizabeth Woodbury, baptised on 18 October 1777 at Holcombe Rogus, Devon.  

The baptism on 18 October 1777 at Holcombe Rogus seems the most likely possibility. It fits with the time period for both Richard's sentencing in October 1803 and Richard’s imprisonment on the prison hulk "Laurel" on 4 August 1804 (note that the 18 October 1777 date is the date of his baptism, and not his birth.)

Some inaccuracies with recorded age

Although the above suggests that Richard was born in 1777, his age seems to have been given inaccurately later in his life – understated in middle age and then overstated in his final years.

At the 1828 Census in New South Wales, Richard is listed as age 47 when his real age was 51 - and Sarah is listed as age 30, when we know she was 35 at the time.  The reason for this inaccuracy is not known. The 1828 Census was the first real attempt in NSW to record the people living in the colony accurately following on from regular “musters” of settlers, convicts, crops and livestock which were a regular feature of colonial life since the days of Governor Hunter in 1795. The 1828 Census was taken by specially appointed collectors using printed forms for each household in areas allocated to them; a forerunner of methods used today. The collectors were generally responsible to a Commissioner or a Bench of Magistrates. Under these conditions, the inaccuracy in Richard and Sarah’s reported ages is hard to explain.

It may have been a clerical mistake by the collectors or a deliberate attempt by Richard to maximise their chances to apply for land grants and other government benefits, which were an important element of survival for their large family. However, a deliberate deception seems unlikely given that Richard was a well-known District Constable on the lower Hawkesbury River at the time. Whatever the reason, Sarah was probably not involved in recording their ages as she could not read or write.

When Richard died in June 1867 his youngest child, George, registered his father’s passing. He was listed as aged 98 and “about 98 years in the colony”. In fact, he was 90 years of age and about 61 of these were in the colony. George, aged 33 at the time, was not able to read or write but the information he provided probably reflects a young man’s wish to paint a more heroic picture of his father and it also reflects a time when there was far less emphasis generally on official civil records of births, deaths and marriages.

REFERENCE NOTES

[i] This Richard (born in 1776) had a son, Thomas, born in 1798 in Somerset. This adds weight to the claim that this Richard was not the one convicted in 1803, and that he didn't go to Australia as a convict. If the situation described above holds true, Richard born in Burlescombe in 1776 was a second cousin to Richard who was transported to Australia. The grandfathers of both Richards were brothers; two of 11 children born to Johannes (John) and Gratia Woodbury, married in 1693 (see Richard's family in England on this site).

Acknowledgement  This page was made possible by research conducted for me by John Campbell from West Country Ancestors (www. westcountryancestors.co.uk).

Page created on 15 July 2012.