had a fair amount of sea service before being commissioned with the First Fleet as 2nd lieutenant of marines. He had married Martha Escott Johnson on 18 November 1784 and their children were born before he sailed aboard the Friendship. In 1790 William was sent to Norfolk Island and remained there until December 1791 when he returned to Port Jackson and then to England aboard Gorgon. On 18 April 1793 he was commission 1st lieutenant 76th Company and served on Royal Sovereign. He was promoted Continue Reading »
Thomas Arndell : Elizabeth Dalton
Thomas Arndell was appointed as an assistant surgeon to the settlement of NSW on 25 October 1786 and made the voyage aboard Friendship. Through an apprenticeship at a young age, Thomas would late practice apothecary in St Martin’s Le Grand. He had five legitimate child with his wife Susanna but neglected her for Isabella Francesca Foscari, a Jewish Italian singer. By this time he had qualified at the Royal College of Surgeons on 6 September 1781 he abandoned both women and signed on the East Continue Reading »
Thomas Chipp : Jane Langley
Thomas Chipp was a Private Marine 42nd (Plymouth) Company. He arrived into Sydney Cove aboard the convict ship Friendship and served there in the detachment of Watkin Tench. At the end of his marine service Thomas decided to become a settler and left Port Jackson on 26 October 1791 by Atlantic for Norfolk Island. He settled on 60 acres at Cascade Stream, Phillipsburg. He was selling grain to stores in 1794, when he was listed as married to Jane Langley with three children.Jane Langley Continue Reading »
Daniel Stanfield : Alice Harmsworth : Edward Kimberley
Daniel Stanfield was a Private Marine, 55th (Portsmouth) Company. He served at Port Jackson in the company of Captain James Campbell and was to have a well-documented history in the colony.Alice Harmsworth accompanied her husband Thomas, a Private Marine and their two children, arriving aboard the Prince of Wales. On the 25 February 1788, a few weeks after arriving in Sydney Cove, Alice lost her son Thomas who had been born on the voyage followed by Thomas in the April. Two years later Continue Reading »
William Nash : Maria Haynes
William Nash was a Private Marine in the 58TH (Plymouth Company). He had served in 1784-86 on the Plymouth guard ship Bombay Castle, before embarking aboard Prince of Wales. William served at Port Jackson in the company of John Shea, Captain of the Marines. Maria Haynes / Nash accompanied William as his ‘common law wife, despite not being legally married to him at that time. As the baptismal record for their son William on 25 May 1788 indicate that she fell pregnant to William during the Continue Reading »
Philip Gidley King
was born at Launceston Cornwall on 23 April 1758. He was commissioned lieutenant in the navy on 25 November 1778, having served in the East Indies and in American waters since 1770. In October 1786 he went on Sirius as 2nd lieutenant for the voyage to NSW. On arrival at Port Jackson King was appointed commandant of a group going to settle Norfolk Island. On the Island he formed an association with Ann Inett by whom he had two sons, Norfolk and Sydney. Both boys received a good education in Continue Reading »
Thomas Lucas : Zachary Clark
On the First Fleet was Zachary Clark (sometimes Zacharia and sometimes Clarke). He embarked on the Scarborough and transferred to the Alexander during the voyage. He was engaged by the agent who provisioned the First Fleet to represent that agent’s interests. At Port Jackson he was made responsible for the weekly issue of provisions. Later he went to Norfolk Island. Clark had a daughter named Ann who married Thomas Hibbins on Norfolk Island on 9 October 1803. The previous wife of Hibbins Continue Reading »
John : Hannah Beresford
The Berefords and Undine In December 2004, my husband Peter and I were very fortunate to be able to travel to Tasmania and stay in a bed and breakfast accommodation called Undine Colonial Accommodation. This is just out of Hobart in the suburb of Glenorchy. The right side of Undine, which appears to be the single storey, had been built about 1817 by my ancestors John and Hannah Beresford. The Continue Reading »
Marines
The First Fleet Marines Marines were first raised in England in 1664 as the Lord Admiral’s Regiment. In 1703 three Marine regiments were raised, becoming the 30th, 31st and 32nd Regiments of Foot.Between 1740 and 1748, ten regiments of the line were detailed for marine service as the 1st and 10th Regiments of Marines. From 1755 and 1802, there were fifty independent companies of marines permanently in service. In 1802, the Marines became a Royal Corps and tradition has it that this honour Continue Reading »
John Palmer
The Colony’s First Principal CommissaryJohn Palmer (1760 – 1833) the first Commissary-General of New South Wales, was born in England. Entering the navy, he had experience in the War of American Independence, during which he was for some time a prisoner, and while in New York in 1783 he married an American. In October 1786 he joined HMS Sirius as purser, voyaged in her to New South Wales with the First Fleet, and continued to serve in her until she was wrecked on Norfolk Island in 1790. Continue Reading »