Rhoda Bailey (1829) and Richard Higgins (1827)

In the late 1820s Rhoda Bailey and her husband Richard Higgins left England forever. The choice, such as it was, can't have been hard. Richard was choosing transportation over a death sentence. With two children and no visible means of support, Rhoda followed her husband as soon as she could.

As a working class woman Rhoda rarely featured in written records. As a convict Richard's life is a little better documented but his time under sentence was disappointingly incident free. Even prior to conviction he had been rather overshadowed by his wife's brother, Samuel Bailey, and her brother-in-law, George Ransley.¹

Rhoda and Richard added six children to the population of Van Diemen's Land, four of whom were born in the colony. While life was hard there, Richard was able to maintain his family by honest means and on the whole the Higgins children went on to enjoy more financially secure lives than those of their parents.

Poor Richard may have eventually achieved a greater degree of comfort for himself and Rhoda had he not died just over a dozen years after arriving in Van Diemen's Land. But it was in dying that Richard Higgins, ex convict and small farmer, had an unexpected impact on the course of the colony's history.

Rhoda Bailey, Mersham, Kent

There are two competing accounts of Rhoda Bailey's parentage. Both agree she was one of several children born to a Samuel Bailey and his wife Mary, but diverge on exactly who Mary was. The two candidates are a Mary Potten (or Patten or Potter) and a Mary Highstead (or Highsted). One reason this point is hard to sort out is that Samuel Bailey was the son of … Samuel Bailey and it seems that the father's (re)marrying and reproductive period overlaps with that of the son.

Neither Mary can be definitively ruled out but I am inclined towards Mary Highstead, in which case Rhoda's father, Samuel Bailey junior, had been married before.² His first wife, Martha Luckhurst, died shortly after their marriage and seems not to have borne children.

Whoever her mother was, Rhoda Higgins was christened on 27 November 1796 in the village of Mersham, Kent, at the Anglican church of St John the Baptist. The nearest market town of Ashford, about 5 kilometres away, is better known today as a departure point for trains across the Channel to continental Europe.

Mersham was a not a big place and the Bailey family were numerous. One source lists Rhoda's siblings as Samuel, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Robert, Edward, William and Mary although there may have been more (or fewer) children, Rhoda fitting somewhere around the middle in terms of age.³ The family, while not rich, must have carried a certain weight in the village through sheer force of numbers.

Essentially farm workers during the day, come nightfall the Bailey boys, like many in that part of Kent, supplemented their income by running contraband. These activities were aided by a network of intermarriage between the families engaged in the 'trade.' This made it easier to source the muscle necessary for smuggling from inside the kin group, and family ties acted as a powerful disincentive to informing.

Richard Higgins, Bonnington, Kent

We also don't have an exact birth date for Richard Foord Higgins, son of John and Martha Higgins, but know that he was baptised on 8 November 1795⁴ in the village of Bonnington.⁵

Bonnington is just down the road from Rhoda's village of Mersham, the two villages being separated by the East Stour River and more recently by a major railway line. A walking path, the Saxon Shore Way, passes close to Bonnington as does the Military Canal built during Richard's childhood as part of English defences against a potential Napoleonic invasion.⁶

Bonnington also lies on the northern edge of Romney Marsh, sheep grazing country. Low lying and coastal, it has little in common with the picturesque gardens, hopfields and apple orchards of the Kent of my imagination. Richard Higgins seems to have been a farmer, or at least he earned his living from the land, very probably as a carter, his later trade in Van Diemen's Land.⁷ His father is supposed to have been the proprietor of land at Bonnington but Richard almost certainly owned no land of his own.⁸ In Van Diemen’s Land he described himself as a farmer, ploughman and groom, not an unusual combination of occupations.⁹

Richard is also said to have been gamekeeper 'for a gentleman' but most importantly he, like Rhoda Bailey's brothers, was an active member of smuggling gang, the Aldington Blues.¹⁰

Rhoda Meets Richard

It is tempting to think of our forebears as god fearing conservatives who would do anything to avoid the scandal of an illegitimate birth. But it appears that in 18th century Romney Marsh 'there was a general laxity about money and morals …. and the marriage of maidens [was] almost unknown.'¹¹ This seems not to have changed by the early 19th century and Rhoda and Richard are a case in point.

The couple could have known each other for most of their lives through the smuggling connection or simply through living within a few kilometres of each other. Even if that was not the case, they had certainly become acquainted by their early 20s and this acquaintance produced very tangible results.

Rhoda Bailey gave birth to a son in 1818 who was made the subject of a bastardy order, a formal procedure that required the child's parents to contribute to the parish for the child's maintenance. It was Richard Higgins who was recognised as the boy's father and ordered to pay 2 shillings and sixpence per week for his upkeep. Rhoda's share was set at a mere ninepence.¹² This child does not appear in colonial records and may have been informally adopted by relatives.¹³

The couple recidivated three years later with the birth of Jane, who was also recognised as Richard's child in a further bastardy order.¹⁴

Wedding Bells, Eventually

Marian Newell in A Devil's Dozen has done such a good job of conjuring up the early, tempestuous days of Richard (Dick in the novel) and Rhoda's relationship that I won't even try to compete.¹⁵ Newell's theory is that Richard was keen to make an honest woman of Rhoda but the Bailey family did not consider he measured up as a husband. This impediment was compounded by Richard's hot temper which (at least in the novel) earned him a severe beating at the hands of Rhoda's brothers after he had hit her in a fit of jealousy. Young Rhoda was a apparently a looker.

This seems as good an explanation as any for the nearly 12 months that passed between the publication of banns for Richard and Rhoda's marriage in October 1823 and the actual ceremony on 14 September of the following year.¹⁶ It is also consistent with the witnesses coming from the Higgins side, Richard's sister Martha and brother Huggins Higgins (whatever possessed his parents?) and a James Flint who was presumably a friend of the bridegroom.¹⁷

It was nearly two years later, in May 1826, when the couple first had a child as married folk, a second daughter, Mary Ann. They were living at the time in Bilsington, another village south of Ashford. Very practically from a smuggling point of view Bilsington has good views over Romney Marsh and although small, the village still boasted a pub, the White Horse, at the time of writing (January 2016).

Armed Tax Evasion

The smuggling trade of coastal Britain has a long history, and the commodities smuggled by Kentish coastal dwellers and others were many and varied. They included escaping French prisoners of war in addition to tobacco, spirits and other luxury goods like tea. Wool was also often shipped across the Channel in dead of night to avoid punitive export duties.

Over the first quarter of the 19th century the measures taken to combat smuggling increased in effectiveness and the trade became more difficult and dangerous. The smugglers' resort to ever more violent means to avoid capture seems to have gradually eroded their support in the local community and the authorities started to gain the upper hand.

In the case of the Aldington Blues the tipping point was the death of a law enforcement officer, Midshipman Richard Morgan, in the course of a skirmish with the Blues on Dover Beach on a night in July 1826.¹⁸ Richard Higgins was one of those arrested and tried the following winter at the county town, Maidstone, following the murder of Morgan, although the actual charges against him related to another incident.

The Kent Chronicle described the principal charges against the 31 year old Higgins thus:

assembling … on the 16^th of March at New Romney, armed with firearms to aid and assist in the landing and running [of] uncustomed goods

Feloniously, wilfully and maliciously shooting at Patrick Doyle and Cluryn McCarthy, persons employed by His Majesty's Customs for the prevention of smuggling ¹⁹

Rhoda sat in court with her sister Elizabeth, the wife of George Ransley, the women staying in the Maidstone pub. The trial shaped up to be quite a circus as the Crown had summoned no less than 73 witnesses, nothing being left to chance.

To cut a long story short Higgins and his twelve co-accused took their lawyer's advice to plead guilty to a lesser charge of going 'feloniously armed to assist smugglers'.²⁰ This was enough to earn him and them a death sentence, but one that was able to be commuted to transportation for life without doing too much violence to local feeling or legal principle.

So it was that Richard Higgins was to cross the seas to Van Diemen's Land.

The Governor Ready

Before leaving England Richard spent nearly two months on the prison hulk York at Gosport.²¹ Converted from naval use at the end of the Napoleonic War, this former warship held up to 500 convicts at a time and in none too salubrious conditions.

Richard struck it luckier with his transport ship: the Governor Ready was by all accounts a well provisioned vessel and the officer responsible for the welfare and management of the convicts, Surgeon Superintendent, Thomas Braidwood Wilson RN, was particularly capable and conscientious.²²

When he set sail on 3 April 1827 Richard was in familiar, if not good, company as seven fellow smugglers were on board the Governor Ready, including brother-in-law and gang leader, George Ransley. Somewhere in the hold were the two boxes of belongings Richard was taking to his place of exile and, in some safer location no doubt, the 3 shillings recorded to his credit. Not much on which to build a new life.

T B Wilson has left a detailed account of the practices he adopted in his time as a Surgeon Superintendent so we have, allowing for a bit of self promotion, a pretty good idea of the daily routine under his management.²³

Once on board the 190 odd prisoners were divided into 6 man 'messes' and the mess cook, usually a man with seagoing experience, selected. It is to be wondered whether any of the Kent smugglers got this job on the strength of their numerous crossings of the English Channel in all weathers! This seems possible as Wilson reports that 'others (I prefer the greatest rogues) are placed in authority, to preserve order and decorum in the prison, which they generally do very effectually'.²⁴

Once at sea the prisoners were freed from their chains and allowed to move around on deck with relative freedom so long as they behaved.

Interestingly the rations allowed to convicts by government regulation were equal to those allowed for adult free passengers, although the Surgeon and military guards were slightly better provided for. Each passenger, adult or child, free or under sentence, was allowed two gallons of wine – about 9 litres - for the voyage. Disappointingly, Surgeon Wilson does not reveal how this allowance was made to last over the months of voyage.

Wilson firmly believed that, in addition to a twice daily dose of lime juice cut with sugar, water and wine (aha!), at least one landfall during the passage was desirable if scurvy was to be avoided.²⁵ His own preference was for Porto Praya in Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa, and indeed the Colonial Times reports that the Governor Ready had 'touched at St Jago, [the island of Santiago, Cape Verde] for refreshment’ on the way to Hobart.²⁶

Hobart Town 1827

The Governor Ready dropped anchor off Hobart Town in the River Derwent on 31 July 1827. Richard Higgins' conduct aboard had been rated as 'Good' by his gaolers, consistent with his record on the hulk, which had also been 'Good', and in gaol where he was found to be 'very orderly and correct'.²⁷ Perhaps the shock of incarceration was having the desired effect.

Like all new arrivals he was quizzed about his personal circumstances by local officials and allocated the Police Number (755) to allow him to be tracked through the convict system. Richard described himself as Protestant and reported that he had a wife and two children back in Bilsington. Officials would also have taken down a physical description but the relevant record has not survived.²⁸ Luckily yet another official years later repeated that task (so very useful in cases of escape) so we know that Richard Higgins had brown hair and blue eyes and was 5’8” tall – slightly above the average for a male convict.²⁹

He would then have been assembled with the other transportees at the Prisoner's Barracks for the usual address from the Governor - none other than Lieutenant Colonel George Arthur – setting out the 'inevitable consequences attending bad conduct, and the good effects resulting from industry and regularity, which, … after a certain period of probation, be the means of restoring them to comparative freedom.'³⁰

Assignment to a free settler probably then followed quite rapidly although Richard's convict record is not clear on this point.

Rhoda Follows On

One very powerful incentive for a married convict to behave was the possibility of reuniting with their family. Despite criticisms that transportation would lose its effectiveness as a deterrent, some penal authorities were in favour of family reunion if only as a way of bringing more women into the colony.

Richard lost no time in making application for Rhoda and children to join him and they arrived in January 1829 aboard the Harmony, less than 18 months after Richard's arrival in Hobart.³¹

This ship, also a convict transport, was a veritable village afloat and included a significant number of children for whom a tutor, Mrs Bromley, was provided.³²

Prisoners, 100 females ; children of prisoners, 18 male and 6 female ; free women, 8 ; children of free women, 15 male and 19 female ; cabin passengers, 2 male and 3 female; children of cabin passengers, 8 male and 8 female ; the ship's crew, 26 ; Surgeon Superintendent, 1.

Total of all denominations, 70 males and 144 females. - Grand total, 214.³³

Like Richard before her, Rhoda and her girls, Jane and Mary Ann, were travelling amongst friends. With them were Rhoda's sister Elizabeth Ransley and her children seeking to be reunited with George, Rhoda and Elizabeth's aunt-in-law Catherine Bailey and her children, following their transported husband and father John, as well as the wives and children of two further transported Aldington Blues, Charles Giles and Thomas Gilham.³⁴

In all 26 children of gang members sailed aboard the Harmony. All but one, the youngest Ransley child, survived the journey. Rhoda herself took ill with a serious stomach complaint during the voyage but a wee drop of opium, amongst other treatments, soon set her right.³⁵

On arrival in Hobart Town there seems to have been a breakdown in communication. With another of the 'Aldington wives', Frances Gilham, Rhoda spent a lengthy period on board the Harmony waiting to be collected by her husband.³⁶ Ten days into this time Clifford, the ship's surgeon, prodded the local authorities into offering to accommodate Rhoda, Frances and their children in the House of Correction until 'the Governor's pleasure as to their disposal can be ascertained' although there is no reason to think they took up this offer.³⁷

After such a long voyage it was not the most promising start but eventually Richard was able to arrange transport for his family, their two boxes of 'wearing apparel' and one box of 'bedding' to his place of assignment, Campbell Town.³⁸ The trip through the midlands by bullock cart in January must have been a striking, and dusty, introduction to the differences between their native Kent and the Tasmanian bush.

Mr and Mrs Higgins Reunited

It seems the couple were able to celebrate their reunion in time honoured manner as a third daughter, Martha Ford Higgins, was soon born to them, probably before the end of 1829, and presumably at Campbell Town.³⁹ Compulsory registration of births did not start in Van Diemen's Land until 1837 and while church baptism records can often be used to establish pre-1837 dates of birth Richard and Rhoda do not seem to have been particularly fussed about having their offspring christened.⁴⁰

Their next child, Richard Daniel, born around 1832, may also have been a Campbell Town baby.

Assignment at Campbell Town

Richard Higgins' master in Campbell Town, Samuel Hill, was an interesting character. A naval officer, he had emigrated to Tasmania in 1823 after retiring from active service. At that time land was still being given away to free settlers hand over fist and Hill was granted 2000 acres south east of present day Campbell Town, a property he named Gaddesden.⁴¹ Hill was a keen amateur artist and inventor, being credited with the invention and manufacture of a machine for 'cutting sward' – a precursor of the modern slasher – in 1827.⁴²

Appointed as a magistrate in 1825 Hill also involved himself in a wide range of local causes during his time in the colony, ranging from the construction of the first house of worship in Campbell Town (Anglican of course) to the establishment of a regular market in Ross to trade in livestock.⁴³

Samuel Hill JP owned stock – sheep in particular – and so was just the sort of man who might have a need for a fellow brought up on Romney Marsh. This was all the more so as Hill had been appointed as Hobart Port Officer and Superintendent of Government Vessels at the start of 1829.⁴⁴ Just how he juggled his commitments at almost opposite ends of the island is a matter for conjecture but it seems likely the Government was picking up the bill: paying a salary for the Hobart post while at the same time furnishing free convict labour for the country spread. This is not specific to Hill of course but simply reflected current practice.

In one of his other capacities Hill was a member of the government-appointed 'Committee on Aborigines' a body which according to historian James Boyce did little to advance the cause of the indigenous population but plenty to provide justifications for Governor Arthur's fatal indigenous policy.⁴⁵

The Committee was tactful enough to avoid accusing social equals of any brutality but appealed to landowners to moderate the violence shown towards the Aborigines by their less enlightened employees and assignees:

The Committee avail themselves of this opportunity of calling on all as Christians and as men to prevent by every possible means, the hostile attacks of their servants, and to compel them to adhere to a system of self-defence and not of wanton aggression, and in all cases of confidence or surrender to treat them with every kindness and preserve towards them the most inviolable good faith. Many instances have occurred, which clearly demonstrate that they can and do discriminate between their friends and their foes ; thus leading to the gratifying hope of future conciliation and, mutual good will.⁴⁶

However ineffectual such appeals may have been Hill was considered to be sympathetic towards 'the natives' as the following letter from 'Dinmont' to the editor of the Launceston Advertiser shows:

Sir, On Thursday last, the shepherds' hut of Samuel Hill, Esq., was robbed of every thing it contained, arms, ammunition, clothing. &c., while the shepherds were absent with their flocks, strongly suspected to be another instance of the friendly disposition of our poor, black, benighted neighbours, as Mr. Hill has on all occasions shewn them the utmost kindness, in food, clothing. &c., - this shews their gratitude, and I have no doubt they would shew the same on all occasions when they can do it with impunity. Feed them indeed ! ! ! — no occasion for it, they will help themselves whenever they can. I have just heard they paid a friendly visit to Mr. Hooper, a settler on Spring Hill, and kindly knocked out his brains withal.⁴⁷

Convict Higgins and his fellow workers, being at times uncomfortably close to the pointy end of this clash of cultures, are very likely to have shared Dinmont's view of the world. 1829-30 saw the high point of Aboriginal attacks against settlers and Hills' shepherds were lucky only to be robbed.⁴⁸ The attack on Hooper described above was by no means an isolated case as the Aborigines had ‘been known to put to death, with the utmost wantonness and inhumanity, stock and hut keepers … who there is every reason to believe, had never given them the slightest provocation’.⁴⁹

Governor Arthur's Black Line got under way only weeks later in October 1830 with three parties comprised of free settlers and ticket of leave holders operating out of Campbell Town.⁵⁰ This attempt to hunt down and herd the remaining aboriginal population onto the Tasman Peninsula was a total failure.

North and South

Richard Higgins’ next assignment after Samuel Hill, some time in 1830, was to his own wife!⁵¹ This probably helps to explain the uneventful convict record as most offences committed by convicts on assignment only came to notice when reported by the convict's master. The Higgins seemed to have lived in both the Northern and Southern Midlands before settling closer to Richmond.

While still at Campbell Town Rhoda was allocated a 10 acre block on the corner of Bridge and Clare Streets at the northern limit of the town.⁵² Von Stieglitz reports that blocks of this size were allocated to military pensioners on the outskirts of the town but goodness knows how Rhoda qualified for such largesse.⁵³ At least now she had someone to help her work it.

A notation on Richard's conduct record suggests he had moved to the Oatlands (Police) district by January 1834.⁵⁴ His licence to work as a 'carrier' or carter under the Hawkers and Carriers Act also gives his address as Oatlands at the end of October 1835.⁵⁵

The Campbell Town block was mortgaged by the Higgins to a John Taylor in April 1836.⁵⁶ That was about the time the sixth and last of the Higgins children, John Henry, arrived so money may have been a bit tight or perhaps capital was needed for the carting business. Taylor was described in the mortgage deed as a 'shepherd' but he was almost undoubtedly the John Taylor from the Northern Midlands dynasty of pastoralists, then proprietor of St Johnstone on the Macquarie River and a 'notable studmaster'.⁵⁷

Tea Tree Brush

From his convict record Richard seems to have arrived in the Richmond police district some time in 1838 and by April 1839 he was living at the Tea Tree Brush (present day Tea Tree) which lies between Richmond and Brighton in the Southern Midlands.⁵⁸

The Higgins’ landlord, emancipist William Cutts, was a Hobart carter and publican when not farming at the Tea Tree Brush.⁵⁹ It seems possible that he and Richard had met through their shared profession then perhaps bonded over a glass or two in Cutts’ pub, The Black Swan in Argyle St, Hobart.⁶⁰ Cutts also owned property in Oatlands so he may have put a bit of work in Richard’s way when obliged to leave Tea Tree on business.⁶¹

Cutts’ land was about half an hour’s ride from Richmond close to Middle Tea Tree Road, running north east from Pages Creek towards the Coal River Tier. With a mere 58 acres Cutts was a minnow by comparison with his land owning neighbours William Wild, Gamaliel Butler and William Parramore.⁶² Nevertheless he had half a dozen or so men to help work the portion which was not let to tenants such as the Higgins, single man William Earle and former convict Isaac Isles and his young family.⁶³

At least some Tea Tree Brush landholders were running sheep so Richard's English experience may have been put to good use there supplementing his work as a carter. Local demand for gamekeepers was presumably not high but the capacity to snare a rabbit or two would not have gone to waste in feeding a family of eight.⁶⁴

'Comparative Freedom'

All other things being equal, as a life prisoner Richard Higgins would have been entitled to a ticket of leave after eight years. His written convict record is frustratingly short on detail and difficult to decipher but it seems he did have his ticket of leave in 1837. On the other hand, muster records indicate he had the ticket as early as 1833.⁶⁵

The date of his Conditional Pardon is more certain: No. 1995 of 15 May 1839!⁶⁶ Under its terms he was also supposed to be sent to live in the Morven district (Evandale) but there is nothing to suggest this ever occurred.⁶⁷

The family was growing up and to add the good news for the year of 1839 Richard and Rhoda's eldest daughter, Jane, married in August to Joseph Wright, the son of a colourful emancipist landowner from York Plains (just northeast of Oatlands).⁶⁸ The marriage took place at St Luke's, Richmond which is further evidence that the Higgins were living in that district at the time as for the bridegroom Oatlands would have been much closer.

'The Lamentable Death of Richard Higgins'⁶⁹

Sadly Richard Higgins did not live long to enjoy his pardon. He died in August 1841 as the result of an accident.

His death is registered not once but twice, an irony of sorts for a man who is otherwise relatively absent from the written record.⁷⁰ The details are almost identical – Richard Ford Higgins, the 'farmer' of the first record, becomes plain Richard Higgins, 'small farmer' in the second and a year is shaved off his age (46 becomes 45). The date of death also moves from the 17th to the 20th - but there seems no doubt the references are to the same man.

The reason for this administrative extravagance is that the later registration took place only once the coroner had completed his inquest. And this is where Richard's life, or rather death, assumes a certain importance in Van Diemen's Land's history.

Put briefly, Richard Higgins fell off a cart on 16 August 1841. A servant was sent into Richmond to seek medical help but for a variety of reasons the District Assistant Surgeon, Dr John Coverdale, did not make the trip out to Tea Tree until two days later.

When Coverdale did not materialise an alternative ‘Surgeon Thomas’ was found to examine the injured man the next night but to no avail. The cart accident proved fatal and Richard Ford Higgins breathed his last on the night of 18 August 1841, after having the pleasure of being bled by a settler neighbour, Valentine Griffiths, armed with a broken lancet.⁷¹

Richmond parson, the Rev. William Aislabie, reported Richard’s death so presumably had the burying of him too in the cemetery overlooking St Lukes Anglican Church.

While there is no way of knowing whether better or earlier medical care could have saved Higgins’ life Dr Coverdale's failure to attend was to have serious consequences for him and ultimately provoke the fall of a Governor.

The Coverdale Affair

Who was John Coverdale? On the face of it the ideal immigrant: professional medical qualifications and from a family accustomed to living outside the United Kingdom – his father, also John, having lived in Bengal, India.⁷²

Arriving in VDL in 1837, Coverdale got off to a flying start: setting up practice in Hobart Town (1837), marrying (1839) and giving public lectures on worthy topics at the local Mechanics' Institute. After a brief stint in Adelaide he was appointed a Justice of the Peace, and hence magistrate, in January 1841 and secured the post of District Assistant Surgeon at Richmond in June of that year.⁷³

The new appointment seemed to suit him and Coverdale threw himself into local affairs such as the Richmond Hunt Ball for which he was a steward less than three months after moving to the district.⁷⁴ An all round Good Chap.

Just at the time Coverdale had taken up his appointment there was another new face in Richmond, Captain Frederick Forth transferred as Police Magistrate from Campbell Town where he had held that same office since 1836.⁷⁵ Forth was no shrinking violet. In a letter to the editor of the Courier from 'An Old Settler' he had been commended for his 'vigorous and and independent exercise of authority' while in Campbell Town.⁷⁶

It fell to Forth to arrange the inquest into Richard Higgins' death. It was held at Tea Tree Brush before a jury of seven. In the course of the inquest Coverdale's failure to attend Richard Higgins after the accident was remarked upon. Encouraged by the jurors Forth formed the view that Coverdale's omission had contributed to Higgins' death. Rather than asking the surgeon for his side of the story Forth followed a course he had apparently taken before and went straight to the top, writing direct to the Colonial Secretary, John Montagu.

It is interesting to speculate on why the jury and Forth himself felt so strongly about the Coverdale's conduct. The doctor was still fairly new to the district and would barely have had time to establish a reputation, good or bad, with local residents.

Perhaps it was symptomatic of an arm wrestle between Forth and Coverdale over who was top dog in the local hierarchy. Perhaps there was a feeling amongst the jurors, the majority of whom seem to have been convicts or had convict connections, that the life of an old lag like Higgins had counted for less than that of a free settler.⁷⁷ There may also have been a feeling that Tea Tree Brush would be better served if attached for administrative purposes to Brighton. The road from Tea Tree to Richmond certainly came in for severe criticism in years to come.

The key may lie with the foreman of the jury, Francis Moira Turnbull. Turnbull had arrived free from Scotland in 1825 with three of his brothers, settling first in the Campbell Town area. It is possible he made the acquaintance of the Higgins family there. More significantly, his eldest brother, Dr Adam Turnbull, had been appointed as Colonial Assistant Surgeon at Richmond in 1828, leaving Francis to run his brother's Campbell Town property, Winton.

Adam Turnbull did not stay long at Richmond, moving on to hold various government posts in Hobart, including that of Colonial Treasurer. Francis in the meantime left Campbell Town and took up land at Tea Tree. It is not hard to imagine the Turnbull brothers discussing the circumstances of Richard Higgins' death over a dram in Hobart or at Francis' property, Torwood. Both would no doubt have had an opinion about the duties of a surgeon in such a case and Adam Turnbull was by then well connected to the Hobart administration, including its most senior public servant, John Montagu.⁷⁸

The events that followed Montagu's receipt of Forth's letter were so succinctly described in the Courier the following year that I can do no better than quote them but caution that their writer was clearly in the anti-Franklin camp:

It appears that, in August or September last. Dr. Coverdale, the District Assistant Surgeon of Richmond, was dismissed from his office by the Lieutenant-Governor, owing to the representation of a coroner's inquest held upon a man who had died in that district, and upon whom Dr. Coverdale had neglected to attend. Against the Lieutenant-Governor's decision. Dr. Coverdale made two or three fruitless appeals.

In the beginning of October, Sir John and Lady Franklin went to the Richmond District, where her Ladyship remained several days, and, during this period, a private petition was got up to Sir John Franklin, to restore Dr. Coverdale ; and, about the end of October, he was restored accordingly, without any reason whatever being assigned for such an act of grace. Captain Montagu, it is understood, submitted to the Lieutenant-Governor that the course pursued upon this occasion was very undesirable, as tending to lower the dignity and character of the Government.

The correspondence which ensued upon this subject of necessity caused the name of Lady Franklin to be introduced, in consequence of which, offence being taken, an apology was demanded by her Ladyship from the Colonial Secretary, and by him, under all the circumstances of the case, absolutely declined.

Upon Dr. Coverdale's removal from his situation at Richmond, Dr. Kilgour was appointed, and, having been there some time, was of course obliged to be removed upon Dr. Coverdale's restoration. Dr. Kilgour applied to be remunerated for the expenses he thus incurred, when it appears the Lieutenant-Governor denied ever having given his authority for the appointment. Sir John Franklin's language, in his communication to Captain Montagu, was not only a denial, but it went further, and stated that Captain Montagu had appointed Dr. Kilgour in spite of his (the Lieutenant-Governor's) refusal to have that gentleman appointed ; but Captain Montagu being able to prove, by the documents in the office, that the Lieutenant-Governor's authority had been obtained in the usual manner for Dr. Kilgour, Sir John Franklin admitted that he had laboured under an erroneous opinion upon that subject.⁷⁹

Oh dear! Richard Higgins' demise was assuming unimaginable proportions. The Courier article neglects to mention that it was on Montagu's advice that Franklin had dismissed Coverdale in the first place. Montagu then made matters worse by (wrongly) accusing Lady Franklin of having instigated the petition for Coverdale's reinstatement.

The Coverdale affair turned out to be one of handful of stoushes between Montagu and Franklin which led to the suspension the former (round 1 to Franklin) and the subsequent recall of the latter (victory to Montagu by KO).

Ironically it was Dr Adam Turnbull 'an intimate friend of Mr Montagu as well as a much esteemed friend of my own (Franklin)' who was called in at one point to broker a truce between Lady Franklin and John Montagu.⁸⁰ With no success.

Francis Turnbull, who as jury foreman had agitated for Coverdale to be investigated, was so shocked by the subsequent turn of events that he signed the petition pleading for the doctor’s reinstatement. But whatever the rights and wrongs of his professional conduct no lasting harm was done to John Coverdale. He went on to be elected Warden of Richmond in 1861 and at his death in 1896 was 'the oldest medical practitioner in Tasmania'.⁸¹

Captain Forth for his part very soon left Richmond, in October 1841, but apparently not in disgrace as it was to take up the post of Director of Roads for the entire colony. While no bed of roses – settlers were inevitably dissatisfied with the state of the roads, or at least those over which they travelled – it was an important post and there had been widespread criticism of the previous incumbent.

As is better known, Sir John Franklin, back in London and nursing a serious grievance, determined to restore his reputation by charting the unexplored stretches of the North West Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via the Arctic Ocean (as you would). The consequences for Franklin and his 1845 expedition were disastrous. All died a terrible death of one sort or another over a period of a few years.⁸²

Widowhood

Back to the Higgins family.

Rhoda's story of course does not end with the death of her husband. Richard Higgins' widow was only in her mid 40s and had five children ranging from 5 to 17 years old to maintain. Her options for doing so cannot have been abundant. It appears from census records that the youngest two, Elizabeth and John Henry, went to live temporarily with their eldest sister Jane, by then Mrs Wright, at the Esplanade, Oatlands.⁸³ Perhaps the Bailey relatives were also able to help out.

One thing is sure, Rhoda fell into arrears on the mortgage on the land in Campbell Town as the following advertisement in the Launceston Examiner shows:

PURSUANT to the proviso for that purpose contained in a certain indenture bearing date the fourth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, and made between Richard Higgins of Campbell Town, in Van Diemen's Land, and Rhoda his wife, of the one part, and John Taylor of Campbell Town, in Van Diemen's Land aforesaid, shepherd, of the other part - Notice is hereby given, that default having been made in payment of the principal and certain of the interest monies secured by the said indenture, the land, hereditaments, and premises by the said indenture conveyed, will be put up for sale by public auction, by MR. J. C. UNDERWOOD, at his auction mart in Charles street, Launceston, on FRIDAY, the 12th day of May, 1843, and the land to be put up for sale is in the said indenture described as follows; viz.-All that allotment or parcel of land situate at Campbell Town, in Van Diemen's Land, containing ten acres (be the same more or less) and bounded on the west by Bridge-street, on the north by Clare-street, on the east by an allotment belonging to William Collis, and on the south by an allotment granted to Thomas Hughes, or howsoever otherwise the same is or may be bounded or distinguished, the same being an original location to the said Rhoda Higgins.-Dated this 8th day of February, 1843. GLEADOW & HENTY, Attornies for the above-named John Taylor.⁸⁴

In the end Rhoda did what many women did in her circumstances. She married again.

John Poole

It seems that Rhoda Higgins moved from Tea Tree to the Derwent Valley to be closer to her sister, Elizabeth Ransley, and that this is where she met her second husband, John Poole (or Pool). Like Richard Higgins, Poole also appears to have arrived in Van Diemen's Land as a guest of the Crown but there are so many convicts of that name that sorting out which is which is rather problematic.⁸⁵

After five years of widowhood Rhoda Higgins married John Poole, farmer, on 12 November 1846 at St Matthews Church in New Norfolk.⁸⁶ The bridegroom was younger than the bride by 6 years – which is all the more fuel for Rhoda's reputation for looks. Rhoda's nephew, Robert Ransley, and Robert's wife Margaret witnessed the marriage.⁸⁷ All made their mark in the marriage register with the exception of Poole who was sufficiently literate to sign his name.

Poole and Robert Ransley were both tenants of Captain Michael Fenton whose

large estate of Fenton Forest has been apportioned into several small farms, which are tenanted by an honest and industrious tenantry, all thriving under the beneficent care and well directed encouragement of this kindhearted patron.⁸⁸

The 1848 census gives John, Rhoda and the four youngest Higgins children as living in a wooden house owned by Captain Fenton 'near Fenton Forest,' the Fenton homestead. Robert Ransley and family were living 'at River Styx', that is, closer to the Glenora end of the Fenton spread.⁸⁹

The newly formed Poole family lived in the Derwent Valley until at least February 1851 when John was signatory to an advertisement calling on his landlord, Captain Fenton, to stand for election to the Legislative Council.⁹⁰

It can only be hoped the Pooles were still on Fenton's estate on 6 December 1851 to reap the reward for John's support. On that day a 'general holiday for the tenantry' was decreed by landlord Fenton. Feasting, cricket and other games were laid on for the children of the estate and one boy had the honour of declaiming an ode to the Captain and his lady.⁹¹

This was unlikely to have been Rhoda's son Richard. The Fentons had gone to the trouble of sponsoring eighteen families of Irish free settlers in the 1830s to minimise the use of convict labour on the estate.⁹² The child and step child of former convicts would hardly have been up to the standard required for such an occasion.

Farewell to Fenton Forest

Around 1855 the Pooles moved from the Derwent Valley to the lower Midlands.⁹³

Rhoda's four youngest children did likewise, including Martha and her husband, Hamilton farmer, George Salter, and Elizabeth, who had married her cousin, Edward Ransley.⁹⁴ Both of these marriages, in 1849 and 1850 respectively, had taken place at the church of St Mary the Virgin in what is now Gretna, and had been witnessed by John Poole.⁹⁵

Why the move? There were some Bailey relatives in that part of the world but it is more likely that Rhoda's two elder daughters, Jane and Mary Ann, married and living in Oatlands were the drawcard. Both had secured relatively prosperous husbands. Jane's spouse, Joseph Wright, was a 'butcher and grazier' while Mary Ann (sometimes written Marianne) had married shopkeeper and property owner, John Robinson.⁹⁶ Widower Robinson, on the occasion of his marriage to Mary Ann, had had the chutzpah to describe his profession as 'gentleman'.⁹⁷ Precious few of those in my family tree!

Mary Ann had since produced three children and was stepmother to five or so others.

Whether motivated by proximity to grandchildren or the prospect of a financial hand up, the first concrete 'sighting' of Rhoda and John Poole in their new location comes in 1856 when John appeared on the Oatlands Valuation Roll as a leaseholder of one James Brock at Wood Bank.

Wood Bank was situated in the district now known as Baden but Brock also had substantial landholdings elsewhere in southern Tasmania.⁹⁸ He was an anti-transportationist, a sentiment shared by Mary Ann Higgins' husband John Robinson, and was active in local affairs and politics.⁹⁹ Some of his Baden land was situated not far from property owned by Jane and Joseph Wright so the Pooles could have been introduced to Brock through either of their Oatlands sons-in-law.

In 1856 both John Poole and Edward Ransley were listed on the electoral roll as Brock's lessees at Wood Bank so Rhoda had at least one of her daughters, Elizabeth, plus husband and children, very close at hand.¹⁰⁰ The birth of Elizabeth and Edward's third child, Joseph, was registered in the Oatlands district in May 1855 which probably also helps date the extended family's relocation.

Had Edward and Elizabeth Ransley been more conscientious about registering the births of their first two children, Jane (around 1851) and Rhoda (around 1852) we would have an even better idea of the family's movements. Some researchers claim, for example, that Rhoda Ransley's birth was registered at New Norfolk while others are equally emphatic that the event took place at Oatlands. As Elizabeth seems to have shared her father's disinclination for paperwork I have not been able to locate a birth registration for either child in either district.

The Pooles & Co

In the valuation rolls 1856-1862 John Poole is listed as Brock's tenant at Wood Banks.¹⁰¹ However from 1858 (until 1885) he is also described as the owner and occupier of a cottage on three acres at Oatlands (it is not clear whether this refers to the valuation district or the town itself).

It is possible that Poole farmed at Baden, perhaps in collaboration with Edward Ransley, while living on his own cottage in, or at least nearer to, Oatlands where Rhoda could see her other daughters more easily. To complicate matters Poole was also the occupant of 5 acres of agricultural land owned by Edward Sanderson, the keeper of an Oatlands store, the Royal Exchange, in 1860 and again in 1867.¹⁰²

So in short, we don't know much about how John Poole provided for himself and his wife in the Lower Midlands other than principally by farming.

The family side is a little clearer.

Mary Ann and Jane were living in Oatlands township, as was John Henry, and Martha was not far away. Martha and her husband George Salter were having a difficult time financially – George was the subject of insolvency proceedings in 1859- but it didn't stop them adding to their family on a regular basis.¹⁰³

Elizabeth was in Baden, then Mt Seymour (at the time often referred to as Blue Hills) which lies between Baden and Oatlands. Mt Seymour was essentially grazing country which had been settled by Scottish Presbyterians in the 1840s. Richard jnr also seems to have taken up residence there around 1858.¹⁰⁴

All of Rhoda's children had now married apart from the youngest, John Henry. Indeed she had had the pleasure of attending Richard jnr's marriage at the house of his Mt Seymour parents-in-law, William and Margaret Byers, in May 1858.¹⁰⁵

But perhaps most gratifying from her point of view was the swag of surviving grandchildren (eight or nine) she had close at hand courtesy of daughters Mary Ann Robinson, Martha Salter and Elizabeth Ransley. By contrast Rhoda's eldest, Jane Wright, had no children and Richard jnr and wife Janet had yet to make a start on their extensive brood.

1858-9 Loss and Grief

By mid 1858 Rhoda and John Poole could be forgiven for thinking that things were going pretty well. The children, close at hand, were settled, the grandchildren growing apace.

Then tragedy struck. Rhoda's three year old grandson, Joseph, only son of Elizabeth and Edward Ransley, was accidentally scalded to death in August 1858.¹⁰⁶ Such events were so common that there was neither an inquest nor any report in the local press. Then Rhoda's sister, Elizabeth Ransley, Joseph's paternal grandmother, died four months later in the Derwent Valley.¹⁰⁷ She and Elizabeth had been through a great deal together from the conviction of their husbands and exile to Van Diemen's Land to widowhood, George Ransley having died in 1856. Rhoda must have felt keenly the loss of this link to her old life.

Worse was to follow. Rhoda's daughter Elizabeth Ransley, only 24 years old, died suddenly on 3 February 1859 of a haemorrhage.¹⁰⁸ She left husband Edward with three young daughters.

But the family was to provide still more business for the Oatlands undertakers. Elizabeth's death was listed no. 654 in the register of deaths in the district [image of page?]. Her older sister Mary Ann, herself only 33, was to be no. 660.¹⁰⁹

Rhoda Poole must have wondered whose black cat she had killed. There is every chance she took on some of the care of her orphaned grandchildren, especially Elizabeth's three (Mary Ann's widower was well able to afford other arrangements) but it must have been scant consolation for so many bereavements in quick succession.

Rhoda's death

The events of 1858-9 took their toll and Rhoda followed her daughters to the grave in October 1862, carried off by bronchitis, leaving John Poole a widower.¹¹⁰ At 66 she was neither young nor old but she had surely packed a lot into her life.

Rhoda left a final mystery: she was buried in the Old Methodist cemetery at Oatlands, as were her eldest daughter Jane, and Jane's husband Joseph Wright. None had exhibited any signs of attachment to the Methodist Church during their lifetimes so far as I am aware so the reason for this choice is a matter for speculation.¹¹¹ Whatever the reason, Rhoda’s older brother Samuel was also buried there, in 1866.¹¹² The Baileys stuck together in death as closely as they had in life.

 

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