People Australia

John Carruthers, n.d.

Carruthers, John (also known as Cruthers) (about 1806-1891) convict, painter, plumber, glazier, and tradesmens’ leader

Birth: 1808 in Lanarkshire, Scotland. Marriages: (1) October 1829 in Waterford, Ireland, to Mary Anne (surname unknown) (1810-?). (2) 2 April 1838 in St Philips Church, Sydney, to Charlotte Elizabeth Prince (1816-1884), who had been born in Clapham, England. They had seven sons and four daughters. Death: 25 May 1891 at Glebe, Sydney. Religion: a Presbyterian baptism and Anglican marriage may have been opportunistic, Methodism seems to have been the tradition the family chose to espouse. 

• He enlisted in the 92nd Regiment of Foot, possibly at the age of 17, and was posted to Ireland.
• As John Crothers, was tried at King’s County [Offaly], Ireland, on 27 July 1830 for stealing his master’s coat and money, and was sentenced to seven years hard labour. He was held in the hulk Essex. His wife petitioned unsuccessfully for his sentence to be commuted and served in Ireland.
• Convict indent described him as a married man aged 23, able to read and write, religion Protestant, 5 feet 4¾ inches tall, with a dark, ruddy freckled complexion, black hair and dark hazel eyes and a wen in the centre of his forehead.
• Embarked on the Waterloo in Cork, Ireland, on 18 December 1830 and arrived in Sydney on 30 April 1831. Assigned to Dr John Harris at South Creek.
• Although he was apprehended for absconding from Dr Andrew Gibson in June 1834, he received his ticket of leave on 11 March 1836 for the Parramatta district, and his certificate of freedom on 25 September 1837.
• His second wife, Charlotte Prince, had arrived in Sydney aboard the David Scott on 18 October 1834 on an assisted passage as a bounty immigrant.
• John worked as a painter. The 1837 muster lists him as residing in Goulburn.
• From the 1840s he was prominent in numerous public meetings of working-class “operatives”.
• On Mutual Protection Association committee 24 August 1844.
• Carruthers convened and chaired the working-class meeting in 1846 that triggered an organised Anti Transportation Movement. Owing his transportation to having gone on a bender, he became a leading speaker in the cause of total abstinence events soon after the end of his sentence.
• In October 1850 he was a member of “Popular Committee” for City Council election.
• In 1852 he left Sydney for his country property in Kiama, returning to Sydney in 1857 but continued to hold property in the Illawarra. He was clerk (i.e. manager) of the George Street Market in 1851-1852 (the only market at the time) and clerk of the Sydney Markets 1864-1877.
• In the late 1880s he lived with his daughter at Glenburn, Jamberoo.
• A well-read man, for several years he contributed under various noms de plumes to the columns of the Kiama Independent, which he had helped to found.
• He seems to be the only convict to father a colonial or State premier: his son Joseph Hector Carruthers (1857-1932) was premier of New South Wales from 29 August 1904 to 1 October 1907. There is an eye-catching family burial plot in the historic Camperdown cemetery in inner Sydney.

Sources
Terry Irving, The Southern Tree of Liberty: the Democratic Movement in New South Wales before 1856 (Sydney, 2006), pp 46, 100, 110 112, 200, 206, 256 & 265.