JAMES BRYAN CULLEN - SCARBOROUGH
- this story is under review by Membership Team
Little is known about the early life of James Bryan
Cullen. The fact that at his trial, at the Old Bailey,
(q.v. Proceedings, Wednesday 6th April
1785 JAMES BRYAN CULLIEN) he gave as his occupation,
‘jockey and land owner’, suggests he may have had rural
and equestrian connections at some stage.
All
the records referring to his age point to a birth year
about 1742, making him one of the older convicts leaving
for New South Wales on 13t May 1787. The
court indictment was for ‘feloniously stealing’ clothing
to a total value of 130 shillings, the property of John
Crandell, coachman and John Shingler, servant, both in
the employ of Mr Milbank.
It
seems from one witness at the trial that Cullen often
travelled between London and Northampton. Some of the
stolen property was found by the foot patrols at William
Barry’s next door to the White Swan, King Street,
Wapping. Others had been sent by Eleanor Welch, also on
trial as a receiver of stolen property and known as Mrs.
Briant, Cullen’s wife, to a nearby pawn broker.
At
the trial Cullen said that he and John Crandell had
arranged to board a ‘Greenland’ Ship, the William and
Ann, which was moored at Wapping. A literate man,
suggesting he had an educated background, Cullen had
written a note, tendered in court, with the travel
arrangements. However, at the trial, Crandell denied
all knowledge. Cullen’s final statement was : “I have
nothing further to say, I have lived with Captain
Frederick and Lady Harris at the King’s Palace.”
The
jury confirmed the guilt of Jacob Briant Cullien and he
was sentenced to transportation for seven years to
Africa and placed immediately on the Ceres hulk
at Plymouth. His wife, Eleanor ‘Lizzy’ Welch was found
not guilty. From the Ceres hulk James Bryan Cullen was
moved to the Censor hulk on the Thames, but in
the meantime, the African convict colony had failed.
Many so directed were reassigned to Botany Bay and
Cullen found himself on Scarborough when the
fleet sailed.
The
next record we have of him was of an altercation in May
1788 between him and the supervisor of a timber-getting
work gang at the Sydney Cove settlement. He was charged
with insolence to Sergeant Thomas Smith and sentenced to
25 lashes for using ‘improper words’. Other than that,
his activities during the rest of his two years at Port
Jackson remain unrecorded.
James Cullen was selected as one of the 183 convicts to
go to Norfolk Island on the Sirius in March 1790,
possibly due to his background as a land owner with
farming experience.
The
arrival of the Sirius at Cascade Bay under the
command of Captain Hunter is well documented elsewhere,
where we read of the difficulty of getting everyone,
including the newly appointed Lieutenant Governor, Major
Ross, safely ashore. Those who did reach land had then
to walk overland to the settlement Sydney Town on the
south side and these included all the women and
children. Sirius eventually sailed round to the
south side of the island and in attempting to land at
Sydney Bay, was wrecked on the reef and she eventually
broke up. Those convicts listed in the manifest as
going ashore that day, 19th March 1790, James
Bryan Cullen among them, did so without loss of life.
Altogether, Cullen spent nearly seventeen years on
Norfolk Island and the various records show that his
farming endeavours were quite successful. His first two
years were spent in the Arthur’s Vale area, but once he
was emancipated, on 7th December 1791, he was
given a lease on lot 76 of 12 acres, one of one hundred
such lots first allocated to the now free settlers.
Later, for a time, he also had a lease on neighbouring
lot 77.
Within two years he had three quarters of his lot
cleared and under cultivation and assistance in that
farming could have come initially from his de-facto
partner, the widow Ann Bryant, nee Coombes. There is no
mention in surviving records of any marriage to Ann and
the partnership lasting about four years, produced no
children. These two elongated lots where Cullen built
two two-storeyed timber houses, were in the district
know as Queenborough Path, Grenville Vale and can be
located today about halfway along the lesser airport
runway on the south-eastern side and stretching down
into the gully below.
By
the late 1790s, Ann Bryant was no longer living with
James Cullen and a new partner, Elizabeth Bartlett, a
native of Dublin and later to become his wife, was on
the scene. She was 32 years his junior and she was
already pregnant on her arrival on the island. This
child, William Bartlett, was born on 16 July 1796 but
died in infancy some time after October 1796. The next
year a son Stephen was born to James and Elizabeth
Cullen but he too did not survive. Three daughters
followed, Sophia in 1798, Catherine in 1800 and
Elizabeth in 1805.
The
Cullen family, based on their now granted land at
Grenville Vale, continued to farm successfully for
several years, with grain regularly sold to the
government and with a number of animals pastured and
producing milk, wool and meat (goats, sheep and pigs).
Records exist of several Cullen land trading deals
during those years, perhaps in keeping with his
originally stated profession back in 1875 as a land
owner! James was appointed as a constable and overseer
both at Creswell Bay and at Cascade, where he also had
land on lot 111, so by this time he had obviously become
a worthy free citizen.
When
the decision was made in England to close down the first
Norfolk Island settlement, many of the older settlers
complained that they were ‘too old’ to relocate and
start again. Aged 65 when the first orders were given
to move to the new settlement in Van Diemen’s Land,
James Cullen may well have been one who voiced such a
concern. However, the Cullen family were on board
HMS Porpoise for the twenty-two day journey
to the Derwent when it left on 26 December 1807, the
second of the five major voyages to clear the island of
most of its inhabitants at the time.
The
family were compensated for their stock lost at the move
and also for the value of the cleared land and houses
and outbuildings left behind. Like many others from
Norfolk Island, the Cullens re-established themselves at
New Norfolk on the Derwent where they were granted land
on both sides of the river, their main farm being on the
north bank, found today beside the highway and to the
left of the main road bridge.
Details of life in New Norfolk for the Cullens can be
gleaned from the chief secretary’s records, including
written submissions to and from Governor Macquarie and
from other farm returns and musters. Movement between
the new settlement and Hobart Town seemed to occur
regularly, at first by river until roads improved. Rev
Robert Knopwood officiate at the marriage ceremony of
James and Elizabeth on 25th September 1809 at
St David’s church in Hobart and the records show that
the parson became a friend of the family and on
retirement, lived for a time on the Cullen estate at New
Norfolk.
A
stone cottage was built initially with the help of their
convict servant Robert Bishop and it was later replaced
by the construction of a magnificent Georgian mansion
which still stands today. It is heritage listed as
‘Glen Derwent’ and over the years has variously served
as a hotel, a hops farmhouse, a dairy farmhouse and as
quality accommodation for travellers.
At
the time of his death in 1821, after fourteen years in
Van Diemen’s Land, Cullen’s new mansion was heavily in
debt and eventually had to be sold off by his daughters
and their spouses. It passed out of the family’s hands
by 1836.
An
account of the coroner’s inquest into the passing of
James Bryan Cullen, aged 79, can be seen in the
Hobart Town Gazette of Saturday 14 April, 1821. The
previous Thursday afternoon he had been comfortably at
home, sitting in the parlour reading a play. Apparently
he rose from his seat, went alone into the bedroom and
shortly after the family heard the report of a pistol!
His daughter Elizabeth rushed in but found her father
“breathing his last. The room was full of smoke and the
blood was running off the bed profusely. Upon this
awful sight the young woman fainted and fell down on the
floor senseless and upon the family examining the
unfortunate object of their anxiety, they found that the
deceased had received the fatal wound close to his
heart.”
The
jury and coroner found that the death was by accident,
concluding that the deceased was ‘much respected
throughout his neighbourhood’. He was buried at St
David’s graveyard, Hobart, but there is no headstone.
Cullen’s widow Elizabeth, lived on in the house for some
years and eventually died, aged 62, at the New Norfolk
hospital on 5th March, 1836. As the
certifying Dr Officer said, she was ‘in a state of
absolute dotage”. She is buried at the New Norfolk
pioneer cemetery.
Many
descendants trace their ancestry back to James Bryan
Cullen and his wife Elizabeth Cullen. Sophia, who died
young, but with ten children, married William Rayner who
had also been born on Norfolk Island. Catherine married
the convict James Tedder and later as a widow married
James Blay. She had five daughters from the two
marriages. Elizabeth married a ship’s captain, John
Pierce and they had two children.
Footnote:
A full account of the life of James Bryan Cullen can be
found in the 2007 booklet : James Bryan Cullen
1742-1821 A Jockey’s Journey, compiled and edited by
Jon Fearon and Stan Keough. Now out of print it can be
accessed through libraries and/or inter library loan.
There is also a copy in the library at First Fleet
House.
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