William Kentwell

Story

William was born on 23 March 1761 and baptised on 12 April 1761 at St. Mary’s St. Marylebone London. At this time there was increasing poverty across London because of changes in land ownership in the countryside causing people to flood to the cities. This poverty caused increases in petty theft.

On 27 June 1788 William Kentwell late of the Parish of St. Giles was found guilty of stealing, on 18 June 1788, one Linen handkerchief of the value of ten pence, the property of John Jones. He was sentenced to transportation to New South Wales for 7 years. He spent the next two years waiting either on a hulk or in prison to be transported.

William was transported to New South Wales in the 3rd fleet of ships on the “Admiral Barrington”. The ship departed Portsmouth on 27 March 1791 with 300 male convicts along with 3 bulls, 25 cows, 62 ewes, 4 rams, 1 boar, 8 pairs of rabbits, 10 pairs of pigeons, 2 coops, 15 tons of hay, 450 bushels of barley, 80 bags of barley and bran, 40 bushels of meal and bran for stock feed, 135 strong canvas bags, 15 bushels of wheat seed, 3 bushels of peas and bean seeds, 200 fruit trees and other useful plants in 22 boxes. Two weeks later the ship was struck by a storm which separated it from the fleet. The “Admiral Barrington” was scarcely seaworthy, was very leaky and had a crippled mainmast. She was the last ship of the fleet to reach New South Wales and ran into another storm off Port Jackson. She finally landed on 16 October 1791. There had been 36 deaths among the prisoners mainly due to gross overcrowding, the un-seaworthy state of the ship, and the length of the passage.

Governor Philip later reported concerning the 3rd fleet convicts, that “the greatest part of them are so emaciated, so worn away by long confinement, or want of food, or from both of these causes, that it will be long before they will recover their strength, and which many of them never will recover”. On 5 November 1791, 626 convicts were under medical treatment in the colony, of whom 576 had arrived in the 3rd fleet!

There were about 1700 people living in the colony when William arrived in 1791. There were chronic food shortages in these early years of the colony and the colonists would have appreciated the animals and plants brought by the 3rd fleet ships but probably not the extra mouths to feed.

Along with most of the 3rd fleet convicts, William would have been sent to the new settlement at Toongabbie. Here he would have faced working from 5 till 11 am and from 2 until sunset. There was no breakfast as there was often nothing to eat. The labour he faced was felling trees, digging up stumps, rooting up shrubs and grass, turning the ground with spades or hoes, and carrying timber. William would have lived in a group of about 14 to 18 prisoners in a hut, sometimes with no bed or blankets, and with no crockery or cutlery, and with very limited rations of food. Each hut was allowed 1 iron pot to cook in.

Before 1795 when bullocks began to be used for hauling timber, convicts were yoked together and used to haul large logs at Toongabbie. Some convicts died in the harness from illness or weakness caused by lack of food. William would have also faced very strict discipline with floggings carried out nightly for sometimes trifling reasons.

All in all William’s life in the new colony would have consisted of harsh discipline, hard work, and a minimum of food.

William finished his sentence in 1795 and married Elizabeth Morris on 4 January 1796 at St John’s Parramatta. He was then granted a 60 acre block of land at Toongabbie to raise crops and grow animals on, in order to get his family off the government stores.

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