JAMES FREEMAN
- ALEXANDER
- this story is under review by Membership Team
Sydney
Town, 1 March 1788 :— James Freeman was pouring sweat.
He stood under the gallows tree with a rope around his
neck, beside the ladder that he would soon have to climb
and have kicked from under him. All because he’d been
starving, from doing as much work as three men since
they’d arrived! His twenty-year-old heart pounded as he
shook with the fear of impending pain. He didn’t want to
die.
Just two
nights earlier Thomas Barrett had the dubious honour to
be the first to be hanged here, but the job had been
botched and he’d continued to kick in agony for some
time while they’d all had to watch. James hoped the
convict or Red Coat that was appointed to carry out his
punishment would do so a lot more efficiently, but he
dreaded otherwise.
His partner
in crime William Shearman, supposedly his chum, had said
James had been the one to obtain the flour. James had
said he’d found it in the woods but no-one believed him.
He remembered how his mouth had been salivating for the
large pudding they’d planned to share once William had
boiled it up in the big copper. Now he was too scared to
feel anything as normal as hunger.
The air
suddenly resounded with the beat of the Red Coats’ drum,
making him jump. It was pounding out his final minutes
on earth. Earlier, the battalion had marched him and
William here under arms to receive their punishments,
alongside two other convicts, Daniel Gordon and John
Williams. The others were there for stealing wine and
also condemned to death.
Reverend
Johnson now stood beside them reading from the bible,
entreating them to repent with each verse, but James did
not hear a word as his short life swept through his
mind. He just hoped he’d get to see his Ma and Da in the
after-life, if there really was one.
“Stop!”
All noise
halted and the crowd of convicts and guards looked
around in surprise. Major Ross, head of the Royal
Marines, strode over to them and spoke to some of the
soldiers. A declaration was then read out:
“To
the Judge Advocate, and to the Provost Marshall of the
Territory of New South Wales and to all others whom it
may concern.
By his
Excellency Arthur Phillip Esquire, Captain General and
Governor in Chief in and over His Majesty’s Territory of
New South Wales and its Dependencies &c. &c. &c.
Whereas
James Freeman was at the Criminal Court of Judicature,
held at Sydney in Port Jackson on Friday the twenty
ninth Day of February in the year of Our Lord, One
thousand seven hundred and eighty eight, tried &
convicted of Felony, & received Sentence of Death for
the same.
And whereas
some favourable Circumstances have been represented to
me in his Behalf, enducing me to extend Grace & Mercy
unto him; and to grant him a Pardon for his said Crime:
In
Pursuance of the Power & Authority vested in me, I do
hereby grant him the said James Freeman, a Pardon for
the said Offence, on Condition of his becoming the
public Executioner for & during the Term for which he
was transported to this Country, & of his residing
within the Limits of this Government, for & during the
Term of his natural Life – on pain, that if the said
James Freeman doth return to & appear within any part of
the Kingdom of Great Britain or Ireland during the Term
or Time above specified, the Pardon so to the said James
Freeman, hereby conditionally granted shall in such Case
be wholly null & void.
Given under
my Hand & the Seal of my Arms, at Government House,
Sydney, in the Territory of New South Wales, this first
Day of March, in the year of Our Lord, One thousand
seven hundred & eighty eight.”
It was a
reprieve. James thought for a moment then reluctantly
accepted with a nod. He didn’t have any real choice. Two
marines helped remove James’s halter. William also had
his sentence changed, to 300 lashes, while Gordon and
Williams were sent to bread and water rations on the
tiny island aptly known as Pinchgut, situated in the
harbour. Governor Phillip wasn’t keen to kill off any of
his workers that day.
James would
later realize that he’d only been reprieved because of
his youth, strength and size - his ability for the tough
jobs that were needed so desperately by the new colony.
In fact it was his second reprieve from death, as the
first one had sent him here. He was decidedly free but
at what price? This Freeman could never be truly free
again.
James was
now the first to have his conditional pardon written in
the Pardons Register for the colony of Australia. But he
was also never to leave the colony even if one day he
could afford to. By this time he had already served four
years of his seven year sentence that had originally
been pronounced as the death penalty at the English
Hertfordshire Lent Assizes.
Held at the
St Albans Gaol when first captured, James went on to
other Hertfordshire prisons after his sentencing had
been changed, his age then said to be only 16 years. He
was next conveyed to the Ceres hulk which lay off
Woolwich, on the south bank of the River Thames in South
East London. Finally he embarked on the Alexander
with another 194 male convicts, for their banishment to
the other side of the world. They sailed on board the
largest transport ship of the First Fleet, mastered by
Duncan Sinclair.
James had
been born the youngest of six, in around 1768/1769. His
parents, most likely the John Freeman and Susannah
Tophill that married on 25th October 1756 at
Rickmansworth, appeared to be so poor they were unable
to contribute to the church’s funds, as was the usual
custom, when he’d been baptized. Then the family’s
survival went further downhill — his father died when
young Jim was only 18 months old.
Those times
were tough on the labouring class, particularly because
of the industrial revolution; farming land was taken
back and country folk enticed to the cities, resulting
in a real decline in their quality of life.
The fact
that James joined a gang of males older than himself can
now be more easily understood when you consider his
circumstances. Was he pressured into the acts of highway
robbery he was charged with, knowing well at the time it
was against the law as well as morally wrong, but not
having any other way to keep in with his desperately
needed friends? It was most probably a case of limited
choices, having few other ways to survive or channel his
youthful energy.
James’s
first act that he had been pardoned to carry out, as
official hangman and common executioner, was on 2 May
1788. A John Bennett was the lucky recipient; lucky only
because James did what was required of him in a quick
and capable manner, just as the governor had hoped. In
total he finished the lives, as ‘finisher of the law’,
of fifteen souls. These included six marines and a
woman, Ann Davis. But there is also a record of him
becoming inebriated, abusive and out of his hut after
hours which shows he was not finding his occasional job
easy by any means.
With his
sentence finally completed and the arrival of the Third
Fleet in July 1791, James’s life took a turn for the
better. He met Mary Edwards, from the female convict
ship Mary Ann, who had been sent out in the
period when they were desperate for females. The crime
of stealing shoes valued at 4 shillings and 6 pence,
that she and her husband were accused of having taken
together, resulted in only Mary being committed.
Within 14
months of Mary’s arrival in August 1792, James became
the father of baby Mary. In December two years later,
Bethia was born.
Sadly
James’s lucky time didn’t hold out. Although Mary
Edwards had been attracted and committed to him for some
years, their relationship did not last.
Perhaps it
was because he didn’t receive any land in the land of
plenty, when so many others did. HHHHHhHHHHHHhhhhhhhhe’d
broken the law twice during his colonial punishment and
so paid the price by not being given a grant. Or maybe
he became hard to live with, as his mental state
deteriorated from the deaths he’d caused, into a
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that was nowhere near to
being understood then. But for whatever reason she left.
Mary Edwards was able to pick and choose with a 10:1
ratio of men to women, and by 1800 she’d had another
daughter, Susannah, this time to Abraham Martin.
A further
blow was to be dealt to James in the form of his eldest
daughter’s death on 5 October 1801, aged just eight. The
Freeman family name was placed firmly on her burial
transcription, unlike her birth record which has both of
their last names, giving the appearance that James was
the one that had to carry out that hard business. There
is no cause of death recorded so who can say if or where
blame was laid over it, between them?
James’s
other daughter Bethia, only 2 ⅓ years younger than her
big sister, would have felt her death cruelly too, as
there is no doubt they would have been great friends at
that age. However, when Bethia grew up to have her own
children, she named one of her first born twins for her
half-sister Susannah and the other one for her father
James; her third born child became Mary for her mother
and sister.
James
continued to work physically hard as a labourer, keeping
his slate clean, and doesn’t appear in any more of the
documents until the NSW 1828 census. He was then
reported as a James Thurman, aged 63 years, with an
Absolute Pardon. After a lifetime of not enough food or
oral hygiene, missing teeth would no doubt have forced
him to pronounce his own name incorrectly; this was then
recorded literally by the clerk collecting the data.
Written
under the employment column of the census James was
sadly listed as a pauper. Living with a farmer at
Richmond, Thomas Miles and his family, and after a
lifetime of hard physical toil that caused his body to
break down without the benefit of land and sons to take
care of his old age, he was finally forced to live off
others’ charity.
His end
came only four years later when, after passing away in
Windsor Hospital, he was buried on 28 January 1830
almost exactly forty two years from his arrival here. He
was buried in an unmarked grave in the now truly
historic St. Matthews Anglican Church at Windsor, in the
charming Hawkesbury River district.
James left
behind the legacy of what can so easily result from
poverty and a lack of the proper emotional and family
support. But by his only surviving daughter giving him
ten grandchildren, his descendants grew to be numerous,
though the Freeman surname was unable to be passed down.
Through changing times the family has overcome what was
once the shameful secret of having a convict hangman as
a relative, for some generations, to where we can now
celebrate James and his story.
Copyright
by a descendant, Neridah Kentwell, July 2012
Fellowship
of First Fleeters Membership No. 8111
With thanks
to Frances Bluhdorn and Lois Carrington (1928-2008) for
most of the research.
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