ZACHARIAH CLARK  -CONTRACTOR’S AGENT - SCARBOROUGH & ALEXANDER

- this story is under review by Membership Team

Zachariah Clark was a First Fleeter. He was not a convict, nor a marine, nor a sailor. He was the agent of the Fleet contractor, whose job was to see that the convicts were well provisioned. He stayed on in New South Wales as Assistant Commissary, and was then transferred to Norfolk Island as Deputy Commissary. A dissenter, a member of a London livery company, a family man, he did his job well.

And yet, while on Norfolk Island, a charge was laid against him for a crime that he did not commit. He was banished to a remote part of the island where he died. Later writers, when they mentioned him – if they mentioned him at all – did so in terms like these:

Zachariah Clark, of whom the less said the better.¹

Mr Zachariah Clark, who, at Norfolk Island … drank himself to death at the place. Zach. Clark had every opportunity of doing so, as he was the Commissary General there in 1804.²

Thomas Hibbins, the alcoholic Deputy Judge-Advocate … his promiscuous bride, Ann Clark, daughter of the incestuous Deputy Commissary, Zachariah Clark.³

The recent steady flood of historically important source material onto the internet has allowed a long-overdue re-evaluation of his life and fate.

Zachariah Clark was born at Bermondsey on the south bank of the Thames, just opposite the busy heart of London. At that time births were not registered by any government body, so church records of baptisms are used to estimate when births took place. But Zachariah and his four sisters⁴ (Elizabeth, Lydia, Mary and Sarah) were born into a family of Particular Baptists, part of the flock of the Reverend Doctor John Gill,⁵who held that infant baptism was “part and pillar of popery”. So, not surprisingly, no such records exist. In the case of Zachariah⁶ we can estimate that his birth occurred in about 1743, because in 1803 he described himself as “an old man … aged 60 years”. His sisters were probably born during the following decade.

Zachariah’s father, also called Zachariah, was an important member of this community. There is some touching evidence of this in the 1746 will of Abigail Stockwell:

To Zach Clark five pound … Pleas to let Mr Clark bury me … idiser Mr Gill to spak from them words in Job wich I havofenspak of … to the poor of Mr Gill five pound belong to the meeting house in horselidon …

I hope you will excuse my trubleing of you becas I no the valle you have to Mr Gill and my frinds.⁷

   Gill, whose meeting house was in nearby Horsleydown, was a prolific writer. Earlier in 1746 he had published the first volume of An Exposition of the New Testament. Zachariah’s father was one of the subscribers.⁸

   In 1765 Zachariah began an apprenticeship⁹ with Joshua Warne,¹⁰a weaver in London. It was probably never intended that he should eventually follow that trade, but this was a path to becoming a member of a Livery Company and hence a citizen of London. (Zachariah’s father was a member of the Worshipful Company of Patten-makers, insignia pictured this page, although he worked as a tidesman – a customs official who boarded merchant vessels to assess their cargo and secure payment of duties.) It would also have been a way of learning the basics of book-keeping, stock-taking and the other skills useful in any trade. And in any case, Joshua Warne was also a deacon at Dr Gill’s Baptist meeting house.                                                                                           

From 1766 Zachariah’s sisters started to get married and in 1773 Zachariah married Hannah Tolley, the daughter of Benjamin Tolley and Hannah Everingham. The paperwork associated with these weddings shows that Zachariah’s father died somewhere in this period, so the ‘Zachariah Clark’ who subscribed to Dr Gill’s A Body of Doctrinal Divinity published in 1769 might have been either.¹¹

Zachariah and Hannah married at the church of St George Hanover Square, a very fashionable venue for weddings.¹² The baptism records of their children show that they were living at Grange Walk, Bermondsey, and that Zachariah was a coal merchant. Their daughter Ann, who appears later on in this story, was born on 11 March 1778.¹³

In 1776 Zachariah completed his apprenticeship. In the following year he was admitted to the Worshipful Company of Drapers and became entitled to wear their livery.¹⁴

In about 1781 Zachariah joined His Majesty’s Cutter Rambler as a clerk. He later wrote that he ‘was absolutely on board at the time she upset at the Nore, by which the Captain, Pilot, Master’s Mate and about half the Crew were drowned and had a very narrow escape that fate myself.’ A contemporary account dates this event to Monday, 10 October 1785. The vessel was on patrol at the mouth of the Thames and ‘were preparing for anchoring, when, in jibbing, a sudden squall came on, and the main sheet fast, the vessel overset in an instant, and soon sunk to the bottom. A Yarmouth herring-boat seeing the cutter overset, made sail towards her, and arrived time enough to pick up thirty-two men and a lad …’¹⁵

In the following year Zachariah subscribed to another publication – the poem The Fallen Cottage by Thomas Clio Rickman. (Rickman had been raised as a Quaker, and was a bookseller, reformer, and publisher of political pamphlets. On his death in 1834 he was buried at Bunhill Fields, the final resting place of dissenters including John Gill, William Blake, John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe and Zachariah’s mother-in-law, Hannah Tolley née Everingham, who had died in 1777.¹⁶ Zachariah was listed as a subscriber among ‘Names received too late for Alphabetical Arrangement’ but he redeemed his tardiness by subscribing to four copies.

In the poem a cottage represents a supposedly lost age of simplicity and sincerity, with the fall brought on by the fashion and luxury based on foreign travel and commerce. Over the next few years these lines may have taken on a personal significance:

Thus heaven directs its ways, and throws o’er dark

Futurity a veil, kind to conceal

What to foreknow would cause us endless pain,

Would extinguish the gay gleams of hope

That, with alluring prospect, draw us on,

To bear from day to day life’s pressive burthen.¹⁷

Around this time plans were being made for the First Fleet to transport convicts to Botany Bay in New South Wales. The contractor chosen for the Fleet was William Richards junior. Since Richards could not make the journey himself, Zachariah Clark was chosen to be his agent on the voyage. More than that, in a letter in February 1787 to the Navy Board, Richards proposed that

Mr Zachariah Clark, who goes out as my Agent to superintend the Victualling etc of the Marines and Convicts on shore there … remain there to transact and fulfill every part of my Contract, agreeable to my Agreement with your Honourable Board.¹⁸

The Navy Board approved this ‘reasonable’ request. It is said that Richards was an evangelical Christian as was his friend, Sir Charles Middleton, the Comptroller of the Navy, and that their views ensured that the First Fleet was relatively humane and well provisioned.  Richards was from Walworth, and would no doubt have known Zachariah Clark, the non-conformist from nearby Bermondsey.¹⁹

Knowing that he would be staying in the new settlement, Zachariah obtained a letter of introduction from a London firm of wine merchants to their affiliate company in Tenerife, the Fleet’s first port of call.

Permit us to introduce to you the Bearer Mr Zachariah Clark who goes by one of the ships destined for Botany Bay. We request you will be pleased to furnish him with whatever supplies of wine etc that he may want, taking his bill on Mr Will. Richards of this City for the amount.²⁰

When the fleet reached the Cape of Good Hope, Zachariah was kept busy ensuring the provisions for the last leg of the journey. The log of the Prince of Wales noted on 30 October 1787:

At 10 am the agent [Lieutenant John Shortland] and Mr Clark came on Board to survey the provisions; condemned 5 casks oatmeal and 191 neat pounds cheese.²¹

 Zachariah now transferred from the Scarborough to the Alexander, which was to be part of a small advance party to prepare a site at Botany Bay for the arrival of the main fleet. The log of the Alexander noted on 20 November 1787:

Clear pleasant weather. Employed in shifting the Marine Officers, it being the intention of dividing the fleet. Came on board us Lieutenant Shortland and Mr. Clark Agent for Mr. Richards. A signal for the ships to make more sail.²²

Thus Zachariah Clark, in his role as the contractor’s agent, was one of the first to arrive in New South Wales.

Zachariah acted as the agent for William Richards in the new settlement until late February 1788, when the contract ran out. He was then appointed assistant to the commissary. Governor Phillip explained in a letter to Lord Sydney:

As it is, my Lord, impossible for the Commissary to attend to the issuing of provisions without some person of confidence to assist and to be charged with the details, I have appointed the person who was charged with the victualling the convicts from England.²³

While in this position he fell under suspicion. David Collins, in his account of the colony in NSW, tells us that, in December 1789

… among the various business which came before the magistrates at their weekly meetings, was one which occupied much of their time and attention. The convicts who were employed about the provision store informed the commissary, by letter, that from certain circumstances, they had reason to accuse Mr. Zachariah Clark, his assistant, of embezzling the public provisions. A complaint of such a nature, as well on account of its importance to the settlement, as of its consequence to the person accused, called for an immediate enquiry; and the judge-advocate and Captain Hunter lost no time in bringing forward the necessary investigation. The convicts charged Mr. Clark with having made at different times, and applied to his own use, a considerable over-draught of every species of provisions, and of the liquor which was in store. A dread of these circumstances being one day discovered by others, when the blame of concealment might involve them in a suspicion of participation, induced them to step forward with the charge.

The suspicious appearances, however, were accounted for by Mr. Clark much to the satisfaction of the magistrates under whose consideration they came. He stated, that expecting to be employed in this country, he had brought out with him large quantities of provisions, wine, rum, draught and bottled porter, all of which he generally kept at the store; that when parties have applied to him for provisions or spirits at an hour when the store was shut, he had frequently supplied them from his own case, or stock which he had for present use in his tent or in his house, and afterwards repaid himself from the store; and that being ill with the scurvy for several months after his arrival, he did not use any salt provisions, which gave him a considerable credit for such articles at the store: from all which circumstances the convicts who accused him might, as they were unknown to them, be induced to imagine that he was taking up more than his ration from time to time.

With Mr. Clark's ample and public acquittal from this accusation, a commendation equally public was given to the convicts, who, noticing the apparent over-draught of spirits and provisions, and ignorant at the same time of the causes which occasioned it, had taken measures to have it explained.

From the peculiarity of our situation, there was a sort of sacredness about our store; and its preservation pure and undefiled was deemed as necessary as the chastity of Caesar's wife. With us, it would not bear even suspicion.²⁴

Collins also related a story about Zachariah and a dog. In June 1790

… an instance of sagacity in a dog occurred on the arrival of the Scarborough, too remarkable to pass unnoticed; Mr. Marshall, the master of the ship, on quitting Port Jackson in May 1788, left a Newfoundland dog with Mr. Clark …  which he had brought from England. On the return of his old master, Hector swam off to the ship, and getting on board, recognised him, and manifested, in every manner suitable to his nature, his Joy at seeing him; nor could the animal be persuaded to quit him again, accompanying him always when he went on shore, and returning with him on board.

There is another circumstance worth noting. Soon after taking on his duties as assistant at the commissary, Zachariah took on an assistant of his own, Matthew James Everingham, who had been transported in the First Fleet for trying to sell two stolen books.²⁵ We know that Zachariah’s mother-in-law had been Hannah Tolley née Everingham.²⁶ It is also interesting that in 1790, at the church of St George Hanover Square in London, Zachariah’s eldest daughter, Harriett Clark, married John Highfield, with one of the witnesses being a Thomas Everingham.²⁷This raises the possibility, which does not seem to have been yet established, that when Zachariah took on Matthew Everingham as an assistant, he was actually taking one of his wife’s relatives under his wing.                                                        

In 1793 Zachariah was sent to Norfolk Island as its Deputy Commissary. He later outlined his duties.

I am not only accountable for the whole charge of stores, provisions and grain on Norfolk Island, but have to victual the people three times a week with fresh pork purchased, and my attendance is also daily required during the working hours of the different artificers to give out or exchange their tools, there being no other person can open the store door having no free man … In making out my different vouchers, I have four sets to compleat – the Lieut Governor sends one to the Governor in Chief, besides one set he keeps, I also send one set to the Commissary, besides mine to the Auditors having been made for the last eight years a Publick Accountant.²⁸

In 1799 Zachariah returned to England for a few years on leave. While there he wrote to the authorities²⁹ successfully seeking an increase in pay, and expressing his willingness to return to Norfolk Island “by one of the ships now under sailing orders.”³⁰

Also in 1799 Zachariah’s father-in-law Benjamin Tolley died, aged 92. He was living over the river in Avery Farm Row, Pimlico, and in his will left the property to his granddaughter, Ann Clark:

I give and bequeath unto … Ann Clark, spinster the sum of fifty pounds of … Bank Annuities, and also all my estate and interest of and in my leasehold house No 3 in Avery Farm Row aforesaid, to be paid, transferred and assigned to her on her attaining the age of twenty one years …³¹

    In 1802 Zachariah returned to Norfolk Island. He travelled on the Coromandel which left England in February 1802.³² Other passengers included a party of non-conformist free settlers from the Scottish borders, as well as his daughter Ann. They arrived at Port Jackson in June and Zachariah and Ann set off for Norfolk Island in August. He resumed his duties in October, but only lived another two years. As reported by the Sydney Gazette:

Mr Zachariah Clark, Deputy Commissary, departed this life on the 5th of December [1804] after a short illness.³³

His daughter Ann had meanwhile married the Deputy Judge-Advocate of Norfolk Island, Thomas Hibbins,³⁴ and when the Norfolk Island settlement was disbanded a few years later, they were moved to Hobart, eventually settling in New Norfolk. Thomas Hibbins in turn did not live long, dying in 1816.³⁵

Zachariah’s widow Hannah Clark died in 1819. Her will³⁶ shows that she was living at 3 Avery Farm Row, and left that property in trust for her other daughter, Hannah Highfield. Records show that the property passed from Benjamin Tolley to Ann Clark about 1800 but after a few years it was Ann’s mother who was paying the rates and the insurance. There were at times an “Everingham” in residence and a “Miss Tolley” living next door, both names connected with Hannah’s family.³⁷

Did Ann get anything in return? Thomas Hibbins’s will (1816) contains this bequest:

I give devise and bequeath unto Ann Hibbins my wife her own mother’s lawful property claim I have before in charge in the district of New Norfolk … that is a farm containing thirty acres or more or less and the grant thereof when it can be procured …³⁸

It seems then that Ann, knowing that she would not be returning to England, transferred the Pimlico property she had inherited to her mother Hannah, who in turn was able to organise some property for her daughter in far off Van Diemen’s Land.

Hannah’s will also distributed gifts to friends and family. They included “my three volumes of Dr John Gill’s Doctrinal Divinity” and “all my Evangelical Magazines”. A friend received “my stuffed birds and cases that came from New South Wales” and a young relative received “my two drawings of Norfolk Island.”

Other members of this family also died in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Their wills consistently include relatives as executors, witnesses and beneficiaries. A few decades earlier they had all turned up as witnesses to each others’ weddings.³⁹

All of this leaves the strong impression that Zachariah Clark was a member of an extended but close-knit family with deep non-conformist roots and values, that he was a hard-working man, a member of an important London livery company, and someone to whom others would happily entrust responsibilities, including the care of a favourite pet dog.

Which makes those slurs quoted at the beginning of this article all the more uncharacteristic:

Zachariah Clark, of whom the less said the better.

These sorts of comments are based solely on the events precipitated by Zachariah’s return to Norfolk Island in 1802. He found a new man in charge, Joseph Foveaux, who did not welcome his return. As Zachariah later wrote:

Upon my arrival here I re-entered upon that duty on the 1st October 1802 but found on delivering Government Dispatches which I received from Governor King for the Lieutenant Governor here Major Joseph Foveaux that my arrival was by no means agreeable to him …

The first experience I had of the Lieutenant Governor's antipathy toward me was his refusing me a participation in some trifling indulgences by him as well as his predecessors in office allowed to the officers here and which at that time and at this day is enjoyed by that storekeeper (now supplying my place), such as a little milk for tea from Government cows, firewood etc which he peremptorily refused to me and which as not being strictly matter of right I tacitly submitted to, but the most marked exclusion of me from every privilege annexed to my station as a Civil Officer was the Lieutenant Governor’s refusal to me of my proportion of a pipe of wine sent here from Port Jackson to be distributed rateably amongst the Officers, Civil and Military, to be paid for at a certain price consigned to me by the Commissary General, but which I was denied the smallest share of by special orders from Major Foveaux withal desiring in much anger that in future I would not presume the Liberty of asking any favours (for such it seems he deemed my equitable participation in this wine). And upon my presenting to him the Commissary General’s orders to me – respecting the distribution thereof – he replied that he was not to be dictated to and that the Commissary’s orders were nothing to him at the same time observing in a vehement angry manner that he had no acquaintance with me …⁴⁰

 Zachariah took this treatment to be Foveaux’s way of ensuring that William Broughton, who had stood in for Zachariah during his period of leave, should remain in the position.

When Zachariah stubbornly continued in his role, Foveaux dropped his bombshell. He had Zachariah charged with incest with his own daughter. Zachariah was suspended from duty, depositions from witnesses were taken, a trial was held, he was found guilty of a misdemeanour and sentence was pronounced – a fine of 40 pounds, and imprisonment for one year. Foveaux decreed that the imprisonment should not be in the main settlement, but take the form of confinement at Cascades, a remote location on the island.

The quality of the evidence produced to substantiate this charge can be judged from these excerpts from the depositions taken:

Robert Jones, Head Constable, Gaoler and Superintendent: “In consequence of an order from the Lieutenant Governor soon after Mr Clark’s arrival to see if I could discover any thing that was going on amiss between him and his daughter; last Thursday night about half after eight o’clock I ordered Kimberley to go to Mr Clark’s window to look thro’ a crack which is in the shutter. While he was there I ordered Marsh to go to the other window that looks into the bedroom and endeavour to force the top of it open so that I could see thro’ it which he did …”

Henry Marsh, Constable: “On Thursday night last by an order from Robert Jones I was sent to the outside of Mr Zachariah Clark’s House to try if I could discover the actions between Mr Clark and his Daughter, or see anything of it – by straining the Shutter back a little and putting something between to keep it a little way open I could see clearly into Mr Clark’s bedroom …”

Edward Kimberley, Head Constable of the Night Watch: “About a month or five weeks ago Robert Jones came to me and desired me to go with him with a pair of steps for the purpose of getting up to the hole in Mr Clark’s window in the first house he went to reside in after his arrival to see what passed between Mr Clark and his daughter …”

Francis Flaxmore, Constable: “Last Saturday night near the hour of ten Edward Kimberley … told me to go to Mr Clark’s front door and there to try if I could hear any kind of whispering or talking …”⁴¹

Foveaux laid the charge, Foveaux was present at the taking of depositions, those presenting the evidence laid the ultimate responsibility for their actions with Foveaux, Foveaux conducted the trial and Foveaux determined the place of imprisonment. Even in those days, this process did not pass the pub test. Captain Ralph Wilson, a member of the Court, declared “that he would not convict a dog upon such evidence, much less a fellow creature and a gentleman”. He “considered the prosecution as originating in malice and the evidences mere tools, selected by intimidation or promise of reward for the purpose …”⁴² and he later wrote: “On the whole … I look on the entire prosecution against Clark, a total stranger to me, the work of corruption and not justice.”⁴³

Even after Zachariah had served his year’s exile, he was not re-instated. After he died, it was put about that death had been caused by heavy drinking.

So why did Foveaux behave in this manner? Had incest actually taken place in such an overt manner that Foveaux felt compelled to act? The outrageous nature of the depositions and the apparent incentives to let ribald imaginations run riot strongly suggest otherwise, as does Zachariah’s protest:

to bring such an accusation unnatural in itself, exciting horror in the human Breast, against a Man of my unimpeached Character, 60 years old, when even in ordinary connections of this nature the mere Man feels a frozen debility, must be something more than credulity will sanction, yet so it is ..⁴⁴

Were Foveaux’s actions aimed merely at keeping William Broughton in the job, as Zachariah thought? If so, then Foveaux certainly used excessive measures. Any headmaster dealing with  teachers returning from leave has ways of convincing them that their inspirational teaching will change the lives of the Remedial Woodwork class, rather than the Senior Mathematics class they were expecting, but a charge of incest is not generally one of them.

The reason for Foveaux’s actions may more plausibly lie in the political climate of the time. It was a time of revolution – the American Revolution, which had indirectly brought about the need to transport convicts to Botany Bay and, more recently, the French Revolution. Foveaux himself had recently had to take decisive action to discourage a planned uprising by Irish political prisoners on Norfolk Island, by hanging the two ringleaders without trial. He reported this to the Duke of Portland in 1801, adding “nor do I see, considering circumstances, how I could have acted otherwise and have laid the foundation of future peace and tranquillity.” He then pointed out that the situation of Norfolk Island was exceptional and that sometimes measures needed to be taken which were not strictly legal:

 the nature of this place is so widely different from any other part of the World … Your Grace will, I am persuaded, allow that different examples, however vigorous, if not exactly conformable to Law, are in some occasions indispensably necessary; At all events you will I trust give me the credit of acting for the best.⁴⁵

A prominent figure in this climate was Thomas Paine, an American political activist who had been born in England to a Quaker family. His pamphlet “Common Sense” had encouraged popular support for American independence from Britain. In the early 1790s while living in England he wrote “The Rights of Man” which supported the French Revolution and the right of people to overthrow their government. The British government suppressed the work, and Paine, who had meanwhile fled to France, was tried in absentia and found guilty of seditious libel. A Scotsman, Thomas Muir, was found guilty of charges which included circulating a copy of “The Rights of Man” and was sentenced to 14 years transportation to New South Wales. Publishers of the work were arrested and imprisoned.

One of Paine’s strongest supporters was Thomas Clio Rickman.^46. Paine was lodging in Rickman’s house in 1791 and 1792 while he wrote the second part of “The Rights of Man”. Rickman shared Paine’s liberal ideas, wrote Paine’s biography, and named his own children Paine, Washington, Franklin, Rousseau, and so on. When “The Rights of Man” was banned he dashed off the following “Impromptu”:

Hail, Briton’s land! Hail, freedom’s shore!

Far happier than of old;

For in thy blessed realms no more

The Rights of Man are sold!^47. 

Rickman had earlier written the poem “The Fallen Cottage” to which Zachariah Clark had subscribed. For four copies!

Perhaps that was all it took. Perhaps Foveaux received some gossip from England warning him that he was about to see the return of the Deputy Commissary, a known dissenter and who was part of the Rickman-Paine circle. Perhaps Foveaux considered Zachariah a potential threat to the tenuous “peace and tranquillity” of Norfolk Island. Perhaps he viewed him, as he later viewed Samuel Marsden, as one of those “deep designing men, whose delight it is to sow the seeds of discord and insubordination.”⁴⁸ A new arrival from revolutionary Europe, potentially with dangerous ideas, would need to be discredited or removed. In the case of Zachariah Clark, Foveaux achieved both.

Let Zachariah have the last word:

The station of my persecutor puts it out of my power to arraign him in legal form for his Conspiracy against me, but I arraign him at the Bar of Eternal Justice!⁴⁹

John Martin  kallangur@gmail.com  June 2020

SOURCES

The following abbreviations have been used:

AJCP                      Australian Joint Copying Project (available online at NLA)

HRA                      Historical Records of Australia    (available online at NLA)

NLA                      National Library of Australia

TNA                      The (UK) National Archives

Sources have not been given for material that can be considered common knowledge.

END NOTES

1. Reeve, G.G. “Windsor and Richmond Gazette”, 26 May 1922

2. Reeve, G.G. “Windsor and Richmond Gazette”, 14 May 1926(Both available online at NLADigitisedNewspapersOnline)

3.Dalkin, R.N. “Norfolk Island – the first settlement”. JRAHS, Vol 57, 1971, page 204

4.Zachariah’s sisters can be deduced from their wills and the wills of their husbands. See endnote 39, below.

5.In 1766 Gill published a tract titled “Infant-Baptism a part and pillar of Popery”

6.TNA CO 201/29/338 (AJCP Reel 14)

7.Surrey Archdeaconry Court WillsDW/PA/5/1747/74 available online at ancestry.co.uk

8.“UK and US Directories” collection at ancestry.co.uk

9.“Records of London’s Livery Companies Online”, available online at www.londonroll.org

10.Whelan, Timothy D. “Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands Library of Manchester”, Macon, Georgia, 2009, page 465

11. Gill, John. “A body of doctrinal divinity …”, Volume 1, London, 1769. Available online at “Eighteenth Century Collections Online”, Gale Primary Sources, NLAeResources

12.Marriage Register of St George Hanover Square, available online at findmypast.co.uk

13.The known children of Zachariah and Hannah Clark are:Harriet, no birth or baptism record found, but possibly born around 1774. Mentioned in her mother’s will.Zachariah Benjamin, born 13 March 1776, baptised 11 April, St John Horsleydown, Bermondsey. Ann, born 11 March 1778, baptised 1 April, St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey George Augustus, born 4 June 1779, baptised 7 August, St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey. Benjamin, born 26 May 1780, baptised 15 June, St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey.

14.“A List of the Court of Assistants and livery of the Worshipful Company of Drapers.” 1783 and other years. Available online at “Eighteenth Century Collections Online”, Gale Primary Sources, NLAeResources

15.TNA HO/42/62/160 (AJCP Reel 7206)“The New Annual Register … for the Year 1785”, page 74. Available online at Google Books

16.Bunhill Field BurialsTNA RG 4/3984Available online at Find My Past and The Genealogist

17.Rickman, T.C. “The Fallen Cottage”, London, 1787. Available online at “Eighteenth Century Collections Online”, Gale Primary Sources, NLAeResources

18.TNA T 1/671/360 (AJCP Reel 3551-3552)

19.  Sturgess, Gary L. “A Government Affair? Reassessing the Contractual Arrangements for Australia's First Fleet: The First of a Two Part Analysis”, The Great Circle, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2016), pp. 1-25. Available online at www.jstor.org/stable/26381252; Piggin, Stuart. “The First Fleet: Maritime Triumph and a Triumph of Humanity”, 2015. Available online at diduno.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-First-Fleet.pdf

20.ArchivoHistórico Provincial de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, ArchivoZárateCólogan, 922/60. Copy courtesy of Cathy Dunn

21. TNA ADM 51/4376/Part 8 (25) (AJCP Reel 5777)

22. TNA ADM 51/4375/Part 6 (21) (AJCP Reel 5777)

23. TNA CO 201/3/29-30 (AJCP Reel 2)

24. Collins, David. “An Account of the English Colony of NSW Vol 1”. London, 1798. Available online atgutenberg.net.au

25.Gray, A.J. “Everingham, Matthew James”. Australian Dictionary of Biography. Available online at adb.anu.edu.au
26.Marriage Register of St Benet Pauls Wharf, London. 27 May 1746.Available online at ancestry.co.uk

27.Marriage Register of St George Hanover Square, London. Available online at findmypast.co.uk

28.  TNA HO 42/62/160 (AJCP Reel 7206)

29.  TNA HO 42/62/162-163 (AJCP Reel 7206); TNA CO 201/29/304-307 (AJCP Reel 14)                    

30.  Letters from John Sullivan to Governor King. 2 February 1802: TNA CO 202/6/29 (AJCP Reel 56); 1 May 1802: TNA CO 202/6/48 (AJCP Reel 56)

31.  TNA PROB 11/1321/236

32.  HRA Series 1, vol. 3 (1801-1802), page 383.

33.  Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 March 1805.Available online at NLADigitised Newspapers Online

34.  Marriage Register of Rev. Henry Fulton, Norfolk Island. Copy on microfilm (Reel 5002) included in the Genealogical Research Kit issued by the Archives Office of NSW

35.  Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter, 16 November 1816. Available online at NLADigitised Newspapers Online

36.  TNA PROB 11/1617/70

37.  Material that traces the ownership of this property includes:The will of Benjamin Tolley (1799);
Insurance records, London Metropolitan Archives; Westminster Rate Books (available on findmypast.co.uk); The will of Hannah Clark (1819)

38.  Quoted in: Sims, Peter. “The Norfolk Settlers of Norfolk Island and Van Diemen’s Land”. Quoiba, Tasmania, 1987, page 43
39.  The close-knit nature of this family can be deduced from the witnesses at weddings, and the executors, beneficiaries and witnesses of wills. The following selection is available online at the major genealogical subscription websites:Marriages:Mary Clark and John Young (1766); Elizabeth Clark and Richard Woodyer (1768);
Lydia Clark and John Berry (1772); Sarah Clark and John Needham (1773); Harriet Clark and John Highfield (1790); Sarah Needham and Valentine Rutter (1796); Lydia Berry and John Austin (1799); Wills:Richard Woodyer (1798); Benjamin Tolley (1799); Elizabeth Woodyer (1810); John Needham (1812); Hannah Clark (1819)

40.  TNA CO 201/29/338-342 (AJCP Reel 14)

41.  TNA CO 201/29/280-288 (AJCP Reel 14)

42.  TNA CO 201/29/338-342 (AJCP Reel 14)

43.  TNA CO 201/29/344-346 (AJCP Reel 14)

44.  TNA CO 201/29/338-342 (AJCP Reel 14)

45.  TNA CO 201/29/20-23 (AJCP Reel 14)

46.  There is much information about Rickman and Paine online. A good starting point is the article on Rickman in the Dictionary of National Biography.

47. “Impromptu” is included in Rickman, T.C. “Poetical Scraps” Vol. 2, London, 1803. Available online at the Internet Archive.

48. “The only man to whom I feel obliged for the assistance and candid information I received in taking charge of this Government is Major General Foveaux. – He told me what I had to expect from the RevdMr Marsden and many other deep designing men, whose delight it is to sow the seeds of discord and insubordination.” This is contained in a private and confidential letter from Governor Macquarie to Lord Bathurst dated 1 December 1817. See TNA CO 201/85/148 (AJCP Reel 40)

49.  TNA CO 201/29/338-342 (AJCP Reel 14)