People Australia

Francis Flexmore, a glass grinder, was found guilty in June 1788 at the Old Bailey, London, of stealing two plated shoe buckles from a shop window display. Sentenced to seven years transportation, he spent nearly a year at Newgate Gaol before being sent to the Dunkirk hulk at Plymouth in May 1789. He arrived in Sydney in June 1790 aboard the Charlotte as part of the Second Fleet.

In August 1791 Flexmore was sent to Norfolk Island on the Mary Ann. On 30 October he was sentenced to 100 lashes for 'repeatedly going to mount Pit' to catch birds for food. From at least 1801 he was employed as a constable; he also cultivated a farm. Around 1798 he began living with Elizabeth Anderson, whose husband John had either left the island or died.

Flexmore and Elizabeth (and Elizabeth's three children with Anderson as well as their own two children) transferred to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in August 1808 on the City of Edinburgh. Flexmore was granted land in the Queenborough/Sandy Bay area and later moved to Kempton. In 1809 he was recorded as holding 40 acres; the couple and four children were publicly rationed. In 1819, described as a constable of Hobart Town, he held 50 acres. In 1819 two of his sons had land close by. He died at Kempton on 31 May 1835; his burial was registered at St Marks, Kempton.

* information from Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain's Grim Convict Armada of 1790 (1993), p