People Australia

Joseph Carver (c.1759-1796), a labourer, was found guilty on 18 March 1785 at Maidstone, Kent, of stealing four pounds of thrown silk and almost one pound of raw silk from the Newark ship. Sentenced to 7 years transportation he was sent to the Ceres hulk in December 1785 and embarked for New South Wales on the Alexander in January 1787, arriving in the colony in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet.

Carver shared a tent with George Whitaker and Edward Jones at Sydney Cove. In January 1789 he was in charge of a gang of convicts. He was granted 30 acres of land at the Northern Boundary Farms in March 1792. On 16 June 1793 he married Mary Bigsby (no further information is known about her) at St Johns Church of England, Parramatta. Joseph Carver's burial was registered at St Philip's Church, Sydney, on 5 June 1796.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 66