Edward Johnson
| First name | Edward |
|---|---|
| Last name | Johnson |
| Country of Origin | England |
| Date of Birth | 1/16/1811 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1830 |
| Submitted by | Leonard Johnson |
Story
Born in Salford, Lancashire the son of John & Hannah Johnson, he grew up in Salford\’s unwholesome world of squalid slums & industrial pollution where half of the children died before the age of five & many poor starved in an economy pressed by the rapid expansion of the industrial revolution. By 1829 one-third of Salford\’s population was under the age of 20, the streets overflowed with troublesome unemployed youths, the crime rate was high & parents worked long hours in cotton mills for low wages. Many were reduced to drunkenness, misbehaviour, & crime.
Children were neglected & at some stage most committed petty theft, among them Edward. At 2 am on Monday 1 June 1829 with three accomplices he broke through the back window of the Railroad Tavern in Cross Lane, Salford, & stole a large quantity of bottled wine & spirits, & a caddy spoon. Their noise disturbed the tavern\’s dog whose barking roused the tavern\’s lodgers; the thieves were caught after a chase across across open fields & a violent struggle.
He was imprisoned in the New Bailey House of Correction until 20/07/1829 when he was sentenced to 7 years transportation. In 1830 with 140 other convicts he was marched across the Swale to Sheerness to the convict ship, David Lyon.
They sailed from Sheerness on 2 May & arrived in Hobart Town on 18 August 1830. Edward was assigned to James Easton, a carpenter, until 1831 when he was re-assigned to John Earle, an ex-convict, wealthy business man & landowner. Earle sent Edward to be a shepherd & stock keeper on his run at Eastern Marshes near Oatlands in central Van Diemen\’s Land. Earle\’s convict servants lived in isolated cabins in bushland – they became ill-disciplined, careless & troublesome. Between 1833 & 1835 Edward was charged with four offences: driving away & falsely impounding cattle for which he was remanded for trial; threatening to kill a neighbouring stock keeper for which he was sentenced to pay two sureties to enter into a ‘recognisance to keep the peace\’; being absent without leave – fifty lashes; committing gross misconduct – 25 lashes; & neglect of duty & gross insolence to Earle – six months hard labour on the Spring Hill Road Party.
On 9 August 1836 he was ‘free by servitude\’ & employed as a shepherd by Archibald McDowall. In 1836 Edward met Mary Ann Massey, daughter of William Massey a convict from Buckinghamshire. Mary Ann came to Van Diemen\’s Land in 1833 with her mother & 5 siblings on the ‘Sir Charles Forbes\’. Mary Ann & Edward lived together as man & wife, had 6 children, and in 1852 married at Christ Church, Geelong.
By 1845 Van Diemen\’s Land was economically lifeless & unemployment was high. In 1846 Edward, Mary Ann & their children sailed to Melbourne & made their way westward where Edward found work as a shepherd at Wormbete Station in 1846, at Waurn Ponds Station in 1849 & in Colac in 1850. Eventually he started his own business as a carter & was so successful that he was able to purchase land in Colac. The ownership of freehold land entitled him to vote in elections in the newly created State of Victoria.
Edward Johnson had made extraordinary progress in his life Ð he had raised himself from convict to free citizen, landholder, voter & independent citizen in his new homeland, something he could never have achieved in England.
Carting goods between Geelong & Ballarat, he drowned crossing a flooded creek at Rokewood on 5 November 1858 and was buried in Rokewood Cemetery.