ROBERT WILLIAMS - SCARBOROUGH

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Robert Williams was sentenced to death at Launceston, Cornwall on 25 March 1786 for horse theft. He was reprieved to seven years transportation on 13 April and sent to Dunkirk hulk at Portsmouth, aged 23, where he was “tolerably decent and orderly.” On 11 March 1787 he was discharged to Charlotte, and transferred to Scarborough. 

Robert may have worked as a carpenter in Port Jackson, as he assisted as sawyer on Sirius from 26 July to 3 November 1789. On 11 September 1791 he married Elizabeth Young (Mary Ann, 1791) and  they had two children, Elizabeth in 1792 and Robert in 1795. Baby Elizabeth died in 1794. On 19 September 1796 wife Elizabeth was found bludgeoned to death at the Ponds, with the infant Robert, unharmed by her side. 

Robert Williams stated that he rented an allotment at Richmond between 1803 and 1890 with a wife and a son. He married Elizabeth Curtan (Nile 1801) at Parramatta on 11 May 1807, both bride and groom being in the employ of Second Fleeter, settler John Griffith, at Richmond. On 6 September 1809 he received a grant of 60 acres in the district of Evan on the Nepean River near Cranebrook. 

Further misfortune followed him, marital problems being indicated by a notice in the Sydney Gazette of 2 February 1811 cautioning  traders from giving credit to his wife. The marriage failed, his wife leaving him and his surviving child. Robert was was buried on 8 July 1811 in an unmarked grave, his age given as 53. Son Robert Junior, survived him, his date of birth being recorded incorrectly on his headstone in St Peter’s, Richmond,NSW where he was buried in November 1839.