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FF WILLIAM DOUGLAS Convict ‘Alexander’(c1762-1838)
and FF Mary Groves Convict 'Prince of
Wales'
(c1757-1810?)
- this story is under review by Membership Team
William
Douglass Convict Alexander and Mary Groves
Convict Prince of Wales arrived in Australia
on the First Fleet in 1788.
They were
both convicted in Lincoln, England and sentenced to
seven years transportation to the new colony; William
for stealing a silver watch and Mary for stealing 13
guineas in gold and 8 shillings and 6 pence in silver.
They faced
some of the most difficult years of the colony in New
South Wales; the threat of starvation and beginning life
anew in a place that couldn’t have been more different
from the cobbled streets of Lincoln.
Mary and
William were married on the first day of June, 1788,
with the permission of the Governor (Arthur Phillip). In
1794 they were chosen to be part of a group of 22
families to be settled on the banks of the Hawkesbury
river, at Pitt Town Bottoms, so must have shown the
authorities that they were prepared to work hard, not
only for their own sakes, but also for the good of the
colony, which was relying on these new farmers to supply
food for the growing town of Sydney.
Perhaps if
William and Mary had known the challenges they would
face in that place, they might have had second thoughts.
For a couple
of pickpockets from the city of Lincoln in England,
growing wheat and corn on 30 acres the banks of a river,
from scratch, must have been a mammoth task. While
Governors, military and naval leaders, and free settlers
fought to feather their own nests and maintain control
of decisions in the growing colony, settlers like Mary
and William Douglass fought for survival.
It was soon
clear to these struggling farmers that they would face
severe flooding of the river year after year. After the
first couple of years the 30 acres they had been
assigned was reduced to 15 acres as the banks of the
river repeatedly claimed their soil, destroyed their
crops and washed away their huts.
When William
and Mary’s daughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1796, they
might have been tempted to surrender their land
altogether and move on, as some did, too despondent and
heart-broken to continue. But the Douglass family fought
on.
The worst
floods were recorded from 1799, when the river rose over
fifteen metres. Twelve months later, in March of 1800 it
rose over 12 meters. For any who have been to Windsor
(then called Green Hills) and seen the markings which
show the height of the flooded river, it isn’t hard to
imagine what it must have been like for those who had to
watch all they had gained and worked for, washed away.
When the
rains came, after the summer heat, the dry land around
the banks of the Hawkesbury would succumb first to the
torrents that rose with shocking speed and began to flow
across the fields. Newly delivered Government stores
were often washed away. Hogs and goats would be seen
swimming for their lives, struggling to stay out of the
swirls that were carrying them downstream. It’s reported
that stacks of wheat covered with poultry could be seen
being swept swiftly away. The water would rise up around
huts and barns until only the roofs of some were
visible. Boats were dragged sideways as men struggled to
steer them, trying to reach the disappearing banks to
rescue women and children. Amid the roar of the
terrifying, swirling waters, shouts and gunshots would
be heard from settlers who were signalling for help,
some trapped on the roofs of their huts or on tree
branches.
Those who
were fortunate may have had time to pack a few basics,
put some tools in their cart, and find an escape route
to the higher ground of Green Hills. When the rain
subsided they would be looking down from the ridge on a
huge lake of muddy water, choked with the remains of
their livelihoods. The most courageous and persistent
would decide to rebuild what had been swallowed by the
waters and replant whatever crops were deluged. Mary and
William were among those who battled on, salvaging what
they could and starting again, hopefully learning as
they went that the river could not be ignored, nor was
it to be tamed.
1806 was a
terrible year for floods, with the river rising nearly
fifteen meters in March, then over fourteen meters in
August and again over nine feet in October.
In the first
twenty-four hours of the flooding in March more than two
hundred men, women and children were rescued from the
tops of houses and trees where they’d hung for hours,
screaming for help, despairing of their lives and
expecting any minute to be swept to their deaths. Such
was the speed of the rising waters, that many had woken
that morning with water lapping to the edge of their
beds. By nightfall, hardly a building below Green Hills
could be seen. The river resembled a sea, spreading
below the high point of Green Hills for as far as anyone
could see. Women and children huddled in dry corners of
the three-storied building which was the school house
and government offices, frantic that their husbands and
fathers might be lost in their attempts to help others.
The story was told of the Chalker family who’d tried to
escape by a boat which had overturned in the torrent.
Only Chalker and his five-year-old boy had survived.
There were also stories of miraculous escapes. One
settler, his wife and two children were carried nearly
seven miles down river from their farm on a barley mower
before being picked up by a farmer.
Samuel
Marsden, the resident clergyman, sent word to Parramatta
about the devastation and four days later over one
hundred labourers from the Public Works at Parramatta
and Castle Hill were sent under an overseer, together
with twenty-seven volunteer soldiers, with orders from
Governor King to give every assistance in saving as much
wheat and maize as possible. Men, women and children
worked for days on the flats around the river banks,
dragging out what of their belongings could be saved and
as the water receded settlers made their way back to
their devastated plots to rebuild. All this, only to be
repeated twice more in that year.
It seems at
that stage even Governor King’s lost hope, as he gave a
directive, saying that the likelihood of further
flooding around Pitt Town Bottoms was such that those
who wanted to continue farming should consider moving to
higher, forested lands, like that around Toongabbie,
Parramatta, Prospect Hill, Castle Hill or Seven Hills.
It seems that there were Officers from the Corp and
their friends ready to take advantage of the settlers’
suffering; offering to buy the farms for next to
nothing. Some farmers were told they could stay on and
work for the Officers if they were prepared to be paid
in liquor. Some farmers were discouraged enough to
accept it these offers. Some were no longer able to keep
the farms up themselves and had nowhere else to go. What
was known about the Rum Corps in those early days,
presents a shameful aspect of the early settlement.
Some hopeful
change to the way things were run in colony came with
Captain William Bligh, who became Governor in late 1806
and tried to put a stop to some of the rogue practices
of the military men. He seemed more able to deal with
men like John Macarthur, men focussed on their own
prospering. Governor Bligh acquired some of the land on
the edge of the ridge above the Hawkesbury, set up a
model farm and put a young man called Andrew Thompson in
as overseer. He prohibited the exchange of spirits for
grain, food, clothes. This encouraged some of the small
farmers to stick at it and learn how to farm more wisely
and plan around the flooding.
Of course
this set Bligh at odds with men like Macarthur and began
a long running battle between the two, in and out of the
Criminal Courts, Macarthur accusing Bligh of breaking
codes of practice and sending letters to England,
complaining about him and saying that the Home Office
needed to investigate. By 1808 the Corps has declared
martial law again, under the direction of John
Macarthur. Governor Bligh was virtually deposed and
under house arrest. No doubt this spelled trouble for
the small farmers. In May and then again in August of
1809, when the river flooded to almost 15 meters, the
farmers were again at its mercy.
The hero of
that year in Pitt Town Bottoms was the young man, Andrew
Thompson, who had been assigned as overseer of Bligh’s
farm. He is reported to have been out night after night
in his small boat rescuing people from tree tops and
roof tops. The water had come up so quickly, about four
feet an hour, that many people had no time to escape.
Women and children were lifted off floating pieces of
roof and stacks of barley, while pigs floundered around
them, Lives were lost when some roofs didn’t hold until
help arrived. But Andrew Thompson went back and forth
through the swirling waters, to the church building on
Green Hills, where survivors were being fed.
The cleanup
after the floods went on for days, with over a hundred
workers arriving from other settlements to help with the
clearing and resowing of the land. It was estimated that
losses from the May and August floods that year were
over two thousand bushels of wheat, a thousand bushels
of maize, four hundred bushels of barley, three hundred
acres of maize, nearly seven hundred pigs and as many
sheep and goats.
But the cost
was even higher for Andrew Thompson, who became ill with
fevers after having been drenched for nearly three days
rescuing people on both occasions. It was an illness he
would not recover from. He continued to have bouts of
fevers thereafter and it seemed his lungs were
permanently damaged. He was a man in his mid-thirties,
who had never had a family of his own, but had given his
life helping others. For his bravery the new Governor,
Lachlan Macquarie appointed him Justice of the Peace and
Chief Magistrate of the District of the Hawkesbury, a
position he held for only a short time.
When he died
in October, 1810 a plague was laid at St Matthew’s
Church in Windsor, in his honour. The words give him
appropriate recognition. …. a native of Scotland. Sent
at the age of seventeen. From the time of his arrival he
distinguished himself by the most persevering industry
and diligence, having raised himself to a state of
respectability and affluence which enabled him to
indulge the generosity of his nature in assisting his
fellow creatures in distress, particularly in the
calamitous floods around the Hawkesbury in the years
1806 and 1809 when at the risk of his life and health he
exerted himself over three successive days and nights in
saving the lives and properties of numbers who but for
him must have perished. In consequence of Andrew
Thompson’s good conduct Governor Macquarie appointed him
a Justice of the Peace. This most useful and valuable
man closed his earthly career on the twenty second of
October in this year of 1810.
As I look
back on my ancestors, William and Mary Douglass, I am in
awe of what they made of themselves, in spite of their
beginnings.
Sadly, Mary
disappeared from the records after 1810, perhaps lost in
the floods which continued to ravage the small farms
around Pitt Town Bottoms, (which now seems to me to have
been aptly named).
Their
daughter, Elizabeth, married Daniel Jurd in 1812 at St
Matthews, Windsor. Daniel was a convict who had arrived
in the colony in 1802. He was about 20 years Elizabeth’s
senior, and after working hard and raising a family of 9
children with Elizabeth, he died in 1833 in Pitt Town,
aged 55.
Elizabeth
and her father, William, moved further north, to St
Albans, where they were very involved in the small
community there.
William died
in 1838, aged 83. His life had gone from a pickpocket on
the cobbled streets of Lincoln, to struggling farmer, to
a well-respected member of a growing community in New
South Wales. He had survived much. His story is one of
many hundreds of such stories in Australia’s early
history.
The life of
Mary and William Douglass and their family is told more
fully in my novel, Mary’s Guardian, the first in my
Turning the Tide series. Information about my
novels can be found on my website.
Written By Carol Preston 2018.
www.carolpreston.com.au
The Fellowship of First Fleeters
installed a FFF Plaque on William Douglas’s gave on 5th
May 1985
Refer FFF Web Site:http://www.fellowshipfirstfleeters.org.au/graves.html
Under
 see
FFF Plaque 37 – Installed 5th May 1985for
FF WILLIAM DOUGLAS Convict‘Alexander’(c1762-1838)
Source:
https://greataustralianstory.com.au/story/pitt-town-bottoms
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