LiveTheirStory

When my 3x great-grandfather John Knott got married in 1840, his older brother Isaac acted as one of the witnesses. I was curious to find out more about him and about the family’s life in Norfolk before John moved to East London in the 1850s. It’s fair to say I got a bit more than I bargained for: Isaac was transported to Tasmania for 10 years in 1842 (and as far as I can find out, did not come back), leaving his wife Charlotte and daughter. So what was their story?

Isaac married Charlotte Green in Crownthorpe 1830. They had three children, Elijah, Charles and Harriett, the last born in 1841. In the census of that year Charlotte is listed as living at Rattlerow Cottages, Wicklewood with the children and her younger sister Mary, but there is no sign of Isaac. Tragically, the two eldest children died in the same year, and were buried within two weeks of each other in August.

Isaac had already been in trouble by this time, accused by Joseph Lambert, of Kimberley, gamekeeper, and another, ‘with having on the 19th day of January 1841, stolen from out of a shed in the parish of Wymondham, about 100 weight of hay, the property of the Right Hon. John Lord Wodehouse’, and this may explain his absence from the house, as we know that by 1842 he had served a 6-month sentence for assault.

Things got worse in January 1842, however. Initially, he accused a certain Robert Wright (nicknamed ‘Black Bob’ in the newspaper report of the case) of stealing £1 from his purse while he was out drinking at a local brothel. In fact, it then came to light that Wright had previously accused Isaac and a younger man of stealing the £8 contents of a box belonging to a friendly society, held at an ale-house in nearby Caston. This case came to trial, the hay theft was also mentioned, and Isaac and his accomplice were found guilty. Isaac was sentenced to 10 years, his accomplice to 12 months’ hard labour.

Isaac was sent to the prison hulk ship ‘York’, moored in Portsmouth Harbour, where his entry record gives a fascinating description of the man: ‘convicted twice before, hair black, eyes dark hazel, complexion swarthy, height 5’ 7½”, mole on right shoulder, scar on left hand’. He stayed there for five months before he was sent aboard the Moffatt in August for the voyage to Tasmania, arriving in November of that year. His Convict Records entry gives more details of his court appearance and reveals that he had been caught trespassing as well as the two thefts we know about.

What about Charlotte? Already mourning her children, she now lost her home as the court record refers to her living in the workhouse. Without Isaac working as a farm labourer, their cottage would have been forfeit too, and indeed was sold off in 1843. Forehoe Union workhouse lay just outside Wicklewood, was later used as a hospital and is now in private hands. I have not been able to find Charlotte’s (or Harriett’s) entry record. Charlotte’s death is registered in 1843, and it is likely that Harriett (if she had survived the illness that killed her brothers) would have been put up for adoption by the local Guardians.

Reading this back, I feel conflicted. Isaac’s story is, on the face of it, an exciting one in terms of how well-documented he is, but the impact of his criminality (acts of desperation?) on his wife, magnified by the transportation into a complete rupture of family life, is a story as old as time. By 1842 there was already a growing public opinion against the practice of transportation, but it would not end until 1868.