on 26-01-2020 01:27 PM
Richard Partridge (aka Rice) the Left Handed Flogger.
A snippet of history for Australia Day.
One of Mr Elephant's ancestors, Richard Partridge, (aka Rice) has the distinction of having been transported twice – well sort of. In April 1783 at the age of 24 he was found guilty at the Old Bailey of stealing clothes off a washing line and was sentenced to transportation for life.
There was however just one teensy problem with actually carrying out this sentence. Following the War Of Independence, America was no longer willing to be a dumping ground for British convicts – and Australia of course was still simply the 'Unknown Southland.
But where there's a will there's a way, and American landowners were still not averse to obtaining a bit of cheap labour, so a little skulduggery was employed to resolve the situation. The ship Swift on which Partidge was embarked with 142 other convicts in August 1783 declared on her manifest that she was bound for Nova Scotia and her 'passengers' were all free indentured servants.
The plan was to attempt to offload them in America, but before the ship was even out of the English Channel a rumour filtered down to the human cargo that and if this failed the Swift would sail on to Africa and dump them there.The response of the convicts was swift and decisive. They revolted, took over the ship, ran it aground on the Sussex coast and scarpered in all directions.
Freedom did not last long for Richard Partridge. By September of the same year he was back in court charged with returning from transportation – a crime punishable by death. This sentence was duly passed on him, but a few days later he was called back to court and given the following good news; The King…has thought fit to extend his mercy to you…upon condition of your being…transported to…some of his Majesty’s Colonies in America for the term of your natural life; and it is necessary, peculiarly necessary in your cases, who have endeavoured to elude, so daringly to elude the sentence of the law, to inform you, that if you are found at large within this kingdom of Great Britain, you will shut out every expectation of receiving any more his Majesty’s mercy. He was then sent to a prison hulk to await his fate.
Richard spent over three years on that hulk and given the conditions prevailing in those floating prisons was lucky to survive. By 1787 however, Captain Cook had come to his rescue by 'discovering' Australia, and in February of that year he was embarked on the Scarborough as part of the First Fleet, arriving in Port Jackson on 26th January, 1788.
And the rest, as they say, is history. It is not clear exactly when or how Richard became the 'left-handed flogger.' It has been suggested it might have been imposed on him as a punishment, but by 1800 when he assisted at the flogging of one Maurice Fitzgerald he had already obtained his free pardon. In light of this - and the following account of that flogging of given by a witness - ‘One man, named Maurice Fitzgerald, was sentenced to receive three hundred lashes, and the method of punishment was such as to make it most effectual. The unfortunate man had his arms extended round a tree, his two wrists tied with cords, and his breast pressed closely to the tree, so that flinching from the blow was out of the question, for it was impossible for him to stir….two men were appointed to flog, namely, Richard Rice a left-handed man, and John Johnson, the hangman from Sydney,who was right-handed. They stood on each side of Fitzgerald; and I never saw two threshers in a barn move their flails with more regularity than these two man-killers did, unmoved by pity, and rather enjoying their horrid employment than otherwise. I rather suspect our Richard was simply a man with an eye to the main chance.
You can find further information and links to other aspects of his life here: https://stjohnscemeteryproject.org/bio/richard-partridge/
on 26-01-2020 02:05 PM
26-01-2020 03:54 PM - edited 26-01-2020 03:56 PM
I don't know Kopes - I do know several of his descendents are left-handed.
Richard was illiterate - as were most people in that age - he signed his marriage certificate with a cross. He was married in 1810 by Samuel Marsden (the flogging parson) to Mary Greenwood, another First Fleeter. Their daughter, Mary Ann,who is Mr Elephant's ancestor was born well before their mariage in 1797. She married a convict named George Bowerman in 1814 and had two sons to him.
In 1820 George and his two brothers were hanged for highway robbery. George went to the gallows protesting his innocence and a few months later a man named Geary, about to be hanged for another crime, confessed on the scaffold that he had been the third man involved and George was innocent. Whether this was true or not is debatable as many of the stolen goods were found at his house, but family legend says he was given a posthumus pardon (which must have been a great comfort to im lol) and Mary Ann was given a grant of land as compensation.
It is certainly true that she did have land and was allocated two convicts to help her run it. She went on to have several children to one of them - a William Thomas - but as she never married him, these children all took the name Bowerman. A few geenrations further down the track the two sides intermarried - which made tracing the line quite challenging.
on 26-01-2020 03:58 PM
None of us ' pretend ' to be left handed - upside down scissors are difficult.
To say nothing of getting the zip on the jeans done up.
I think most Italians are left handed/minded - taps - Caldo e Freddo - left is hot.
Go figure. lol
on 26-01-2020 03:59 PM
Sorry She - a very good read.
26-01-2020 07:25 PM - edited 26-01-2020 07:28 PM
You couldn't invent Mr Elephant's family tree - no-one would believe it.
One of his ancestors was a prize fighter, one was married off (to a Bowerman) when 13 and pregnant, one was convicted in New South Wales in 1830 of 'gross misconduct as a servant' and sentenced to 6 months in the Factory (presumably the Female Factory in Parramatta) and 2 hours in the stocks!
The records don't say what this 'gross misconduct' actually was, but it's quite on the cards tat she was being sexually abused by the master of the house and his wife found out. 'Gentlemen' were, of course above suspicion in cases like this, so she would have got the blame.
One of the most interesting married a granddaughter of James Underwood - a convict family who later made a fortune in shipping andeyrned to england to die a wealthy 'gentleman,' in his London mansion.. After his marriage this ancestor must have decided that a Cockney/convict background was unfitting for his new moneyed status so he invented a French aristocratic ancestry and took his family off to Noumea and later Italy. His wife died quite young and he then became embroiled in the longest legal stoush over a will in Australian History.
Old man Underwood obviously (and probably with good reason) didn't trust his offspring's marriage partners and his wil was so convoluted and entailed that it took an act of Parliament in 1873 and an amendment in 1874 to untangle the estate. By wich time I suspect most of the money had been swallowed up in legal fees.
https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/acts/1874-uea.pdf
https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/acts/1873-uea.pdf
There is a family legend that Charles Dickens, wo certainly took a lively interest in all things australian came to hear about the long running lawsuit that preceded that act and used it as the basis for the Jarndyce v Jarndyce case in Bleak House. I have no idea whether this is true, but it makes a good story. Bleak House was published in 1856, 12 years after the death of James Underwood
on 26-01-2020 07:31 PM
You (or Mr Elephant) are so lucky - I would love to have so much interesting information about my ancestors
26-01-2020 07:43 PM - edited 26-01-2020 07:44 PM
I'm green with eny. My lot are all positively boring by comapsrison - one poor bugga even died in the Workhouse.
on 26-01-2020 07:58 PM
I must admit - never really interested.
Friend - right into hers - asked for mine.
G'Parents - both sides - came up with Lucy.
Lucy nicked bedding - was seen passing it out the window - then taking it to the local ' Op Shop '.
My friend & I had too many laughs picturing Lucy with a single bed + 1000 tread count linen - out the window - with nobody noticing - bound for the Op Shop.
I have one medal of honour.
on 26-01-2020 08:12 PM
You never know what you're going to find. One of mine married an Irishman and went off to Canada with him - I think he was a railway navvy, She gave birh t oa daughter - my geat grandmother- over there in 1857, but but by 1861 she was back in England living with her parents and describedin the 1861 census as a widow,
I can't find any record of her husband's death, either in Canada or England, between those years, so I suspect he may not really have died at all - he may either have abandoned her or she dumped him and the 'widow' was a polite fiction.
I remember my Mum saiying that her Gran (my great grandmother) was the sweetest lady imaginable but had a passionate hatred of Catholicism - which would make sense if her Irish father had illtreated her mother.