John Weeks has the unusual distinction of being convicted
twice in a Dorchester Courtroom to be transported to Australia.
Born in Handley in 1775, John by trade was a poacher as at
the time it was said were many of the Handley villagers. By 1815, the
authorities had had enough of John Weeks. So, following an altercation with a
gamekeeper, he was found guilty and sentenced in the Dorchester Courtroom to be
transported to Australia for seven years.
Prisoners at the time had to walk from Dorchester to
Portsmouth or Gosport under armed guard to await transportation. First day’s
walk from Dorchester was about 14 miles and it is said brought the prisoners to
a red post between Bere Regis and Wimborne. It is reckoned the post was red so
that it could be identified because most of the guards were illiterate. Close
by was a brick barn where the prisoners spent the night chained to a large
post.
John Weeks never left these shores and spent the entire seven
years in the convict prison ship Laurel
in Portsmouth Harbour. Life in the convict hulks has been described as a ‘hell on earth’. Conditions below deck
were insanitary, rat infested and discipline was savagely cruel. There were
many deaths and the convict and French prisoner of war bodies were
unceremoniously buried on Rat Island which
faced the large naval abattoir at Gosport.
Every kind of graft could be found in the hulks. The captain
might have a deal with an old clothes dealer who would buy the convicts’ old
clothes. Even the ship’s doctor might be on the take selling the occasional
convict corpse for five pounds. Convicts were used as cheap labour and put to
work on the most strenuous and dangerous work in nearby Portsmouth Dockyard. As
John Weeks was a versatile character, maybe he proved too versatile in the
Dockyard to be sent to Australia. Alternatively, he might have known the right
naval clerk to bribe!
After serving his seven years, John Weeks was released and
returned back to Handley to find out that his wife Diana had died. So the
ex-convict was left to bring up his three young children Benjamin, John and
Jane by himself.
(Illustration: Old Handley
courtesy of Sixpenny Handley Village Website)
To be continued.
Comments
Post a Comment