People Australia

Fidelia Savage Thornton Hill (1794–1854), Australia’s first published female poet, was born in 1794 and baptised on 26 September that year at Pontefract, Yorkshire, England. She was the eldest child of Reverend Richard Munkhouse (1755–1810) and his wife Faith Fidelia Savage (1763–1831).[1] Shortly after Fidelia’s birth her father was installed as first incumbent of St John’s Anglican Church in Wakefield, Yorkshire.[2] The family rapidly increased to include four sons and five daughters; after Fidelia came Thornton Savage (1796–1796), Eliza Mary Thornton (1797–1845), Lucy Savage Sturgis (1799–1889), Richard Savage Thornton (1800–1817), Bird Savage Thornton (1801–1819), Arthur Savage Thornton (1802–1803), Anna Sophia Savage (1802–?), and Jane Eleanor Bird (1806–1863).[3]

In 1805 the writings of Reverend Munkhouse were published in three volumes. They included anti-slavery sermons, such as ‘The Unjustifiableness of the Slave Trade’.[4] Within the annotations Munkhouse praised his wife’s cousin, Bermuda-born merchant John Savage (1715–1804), who had been influential in ‘imposing a restriction on the number of Africans to be taken on board the slave vessels’.[5]  Soon after Munkhouse was promoted to the post of Vicar of Wakefield in 1805, he was struck with an illness which caused paralysis and loss of sight. He died in 1810 aged fifty-three, leaving his ‘elegant and accomplished’ widow in debt and without support for their children.[6] Friends and colleagues of the deceased organised for the publication of a collection of his sermons, with proceeds to support his widow and young family.[7] Later, his eldest daughter would also turn to publication as financial support.[8] Yet her writing talent did not come from her paternal side alone; family history recorded that her mother Faith had been ‘exceptionally well-educated, a delightful letter-writer’ and had ‘displayed some promise as a poet’.[9]

Faith Savage had been born in Boston in colonial Massachusetts in approximately 1763, but as the family were loyalists to the British Crown, they were exiled during the American Revolutionary War.[10] Her younger brother, Arthur Savage (1766–1814), emigrated to Jamaica in the early 1780s, where he established himself as a merchant and owner of a slave-holding plantation called ‘Strawberry Hill’ in Port Royal.[11] When he died unmarried in December 1814 at the age of forty-eight his probate provided for four illegitimate sons as well as his widowed sister Faith Munkhouse and her children.[12] He left £500 sterling to his sister Faith and each of his nieces and nephews. His two acknowledged sons—Arthur (1804–?)  and Richard (1806–?), born of ‘mestee’ woman Jane Bowie (1782–1864)—received £1,000 each as well as annual support to be educated in England. His two ‘mulatto’ sons—Thomas (?–?), born to enslaved servant Coro ‘Nanny’ (c.1781–1841), and Charles (?–?), born to enslaved servant Dido ‘Eleanor’ (c.1774–1844)—were both assigned £100 to be received at the age of twenty-one, along with their freedom.[13] The remainder of Arthur’s estate was to be divided equally between Faith and his two acknowledged sons, with Faith to serve as executor alongside a Jamaican merchant, John Steel.[14]

Despite Reverand Munkhouse’s anti-slavery thinking, members of his family maintained an active interest in the Strawberry Hill plantation. One of Fidelia’s younger brothers, Richard, died at the home of John Steel in Kingston, Jamaica in 1817, aged seventeen years.[15] At that time Strawberry Hill was registered as holding ninety-three enslaved individuals: forty-nine females and forty-four males.[16] Fidelia’s youngest and only remaining brother, Bird, died aged eighteen in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1820.[17] Her mother died in Yorkshire, England in 1831, aged sixty-eight years, and left her interest in the Savage family’s Jamaican property to her five surviving daughters, Fidelia, Eliza, Lucy, Anna, and Jane.[18]

The preceding year Fidelia had married thirty-two-year-old Robert Keate Hill (1798–?) on 24 July at St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street, London.[19] Hill was born on 23 March 1798 in London to William and Elizabeth Hill and baptised at St James’s Church in Westminster.[20] In 1819, when he was twenty-one years old, he received a grant of land in Australia on the recommendation of under-secretary to the colonies Henry Goulburn (1784–1856); he subsequently farmed as a free settler in Van Diemen’s Land during the 1820s.[21] By 1830 he had returned to London as a naval officer and, after their wedding, Robert and Fidelia Hill relocated to the Strawberry Hill plantation in Jamaica, travelling aboard the ship Sir Charles McCarthy.[22]

In November 1835 the estate of Arthur Savage was compensated £2,040 1s 1d for 109 enslaved people on the Strawberry Hill plantation.[23] The substantial sum of £680 0s 4d was allocated to each of his two acknowledged sons, while smaller portions of £136 0s 1d, went to his nieces or, if married, their husbands. It was therefore Hill who received the compensation on Fidelia’s behalf.[24] He later stated that life in Jamaica had been comfortable, but ambition had drawn the couple’s attention towards the new British province of South Australia in early 1836.[25] He had been motivated to travel to Australia by the advertised harbour master position which attracted a salary of £200 per annum, but on arrival in London Robert learned that Captain Thomas Lipson RN (1873–1863) had already been appointed.[26] He believed he would be found other employment and sailed to South Australia as third mate on the Rapid under the captaincy of Colonel William Light, while Fidelia followed with Governor John Hindmarsh aboard the HMS Buffalo in late 1836.[27]

Hill’s career in South Australia was a disappointment. He found employment in the province as deputy storekeeper at only £15 per quarter but was dismissed from this position in October 1837.[28] After brief service as a colonial police constable, by January 1838 he was serving on board John Pire serving under Captain George Martin and then as chief officer on Pestonjee Bomanjee.[29] His Rapid shipmate, William Pullen, recorded in his diary that Hill left the colony not to be seen again, and ascribed his misfortunes ‘to his fondness for drinks of the most potent kind’.[30]

By 1840 Fidelia Hill was in Sydney and promoting her book of verse Poems and Recollections of the Past, the preface of which suggested that she had suffered a ‘severe domestic calamity’.[31] Subscribers to the volume included the Lord Bishop of Australia as well as leading citizens of South Australia, New South Wales, and Van Diemen’s Land.[32] While other women had previously contributed individual poems to Australian newspapers, Poems and Recollections of the Pastis believed to be the first volume of poetry by a woman to be published in Australia, leading Fidelia to announce herself as Sydney’s first authoress.[33] This publication included several poems dedicated to her younger brothers Richard and Bird. The poem ‘My Brother’ was composed during the voyage to South Australia when the HMS Buffalo called into Rio de Janeiro, and in ‘Thornton’, (referring to her brother Richard), Fidelia recalled the ‘Island of Jamaica’ where the enslaved residents were ‘hastening to their huts, their daily labour done’ while her brother was laid upon his ‘dying bed’.[34]

Many of Fidelia Hill’s poems are an invaluable historical record of the early days of colonial South Australia. They include ‘Lines to the Memory of Col. Light etc. etc.’, ‘Adelaide and other poems of South Australia’, and ‘Yes, South Australia! Three years have elapsed’. In the concluding poem ‘Recollections’, she gave credit to her husband for the naming of Holdfast Bay, now the site of Glenelg, and she recalled being hailed ‘as the first white lady that ever yet had enter’d Adelaide’ in the initial days of 1837 when she joined him at Colonel Light’s survey camp on the northwest corner of what would become Adelaide.[35]

Fidelia was listed as a widow when she married ex-convict Henry Howe (1803–1878) in Hobart in 1842, but the place and date of death for Robert Keate Hill is unknown.[36] Howe had been a clerk in Bristol, England, sentenced to fourteen years for embezzlement, but established himself as a respectable citizen and auctioneer of Launceston.[37] When Fidelia died in Launceston of ‘apoplexy’ in 1854 at age sixty-four, she was described not as the first published Australian female poet, but as the beloved wife of auctioneer Mr Henry Howe.[38]

After relocating from London to Jamaica, Robert and Fidelia Hill were drawn to the antipodean colonial endeavour planned for the southern coast of Australia. Soon after receiving a share of compensation for enslaved persons at their family-held Strawberry Hill plantation in Jamaica they sailed for South Australia in 1836. However, in South Australia their fortunes diminished. Robert vanished from the public record and Fidelia was compelled by ‘the singular reverses in fortune’ to resort to publication as financial support. Though not widely renowned, Fidelia was commemorated one hundred years after her death, and her literary work was republished as Adelaide and other poems of South Australia in 1992.[39]

[1] ‘Fidelia Savage Thornton Munkhouse,’ Pontefract, St Giles & St Mary, West Yorkshire, Church of England Baptisms, 1794, via Ancestry; Lawrence Park, Major Thomas Savage of Boston and his descendants (Boston: Clapp & Son, 1914) 28; ‘Reverend Richard Munkhouse,’ Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Burials, 1810, via Ancestry; ‘Fidelia Munkhouse,’ Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, Select Deaths and Burials, 1831, FHL 990775/284, via Ancestry.

[2] James Strong and John McClintock, ‘Munkhouse, Richard, D.D.’, The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. 6 (Harper & Brothers, 1882) 734, https://archive.org/details/cyclopaediaofbib06mccl/page/734.

[3] ‘Thornton Munkhouse,’ Burial, St John the Baptist, Wakefield, Yorkshire, 1796, via Ancestry, ‘Eliza Mary Thornton Monkhouse,’ Burial, St Olave, Yorkshire, 1845, Reference PR Y/OL 16, 49 www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/sources/M52S-RYY; ‘Lucy S S Munkhouse,’ Death, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, 1889, vol. 6A, 258, www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2JB8-HG9 ; ‘Richard Savage Thornton Munkhouse,’ Baptism, St John the Baptist, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, 1800, via Ancestry; ‘Bird Thornton Savage Munkhouse,’ Baptism, St John the Baptist, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, 1801, via Ancestry; ‘Arthur Savage Thornton Munkhouse,’ Burial, St John the Baptist, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, 1802, via Ancestry; ‘Anna Sophia Savage Munkhouse,’ Christening, St John, Wakefield, Yorkshire, 1802, www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NRSZ-44W; ‘Jane Eleanor Bird Robertson,’ Select Deaths and Burials, Hawkhurst, Kent, 1863, FHL Film No. 1786547, No. 458, via Ancestry.

[4] Richard Munkhouse, ‘A Sermon on the Subject of the Slave Trade, Preached in the Parish Church of Pontefract, Sunday the 25^thMarch, 1792: The Unjustifiableness of the Slave Trade’, Occasional Discourses on various subjects, vol. I (London: Longman, 1805) 57-131

[5] ‘Obituary,’ The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 74, no. 1 (1804) 486 https://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435054260773; Munkhouse, Occasional Discourses, 88, 193-199; Park, Major Thomas Savage of Boston, 20.

[6] ‘Hard Case of the Vicar of Wakefield,’ The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol 80 (1810) 104, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112071944620; ‘The Rev Richard Munkhouse, DD Vicar of this Church,’ Wakefield, All Saints, Church of England Burials, 1810, West Yorkshire, England, via Ancestry.

[7] ‘This Day is Published,’ Leeds Intelligencer (Yorkshire), 12 February 1810, 2; ‘Sermons on Various Subjects,’ Morning Post (London), 19 April 1813, 2.

[8] ‘Poetry,’ The Sydney Herald (New South Wales), 31 October 1840, 2; ‘Just Published,’ The Sydney Herald (New South Wales), 16 December 1840, p. 1; Fidelia Hill, Poems and Recollections of the Past, (Sydney: 1840) https://digital.library.sydney.edu.au/nodes/view/12075.

[9] Park, Major Thomas Savage of Boston, 29

[10] Daniel Parker Coke, MP, The Royal Commission on the Losses and Services of American Loyalists, 1783 to 1785, (University Press: 1915) 8-9, https://archive.org/details/royalcommissiono00cokeuoft/page/8; ‘Probate: Fidelia Faith Savage,’ England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, National Archives, Kew, 1831, via Ancestry. 

[11] ‘Died,’ London Courier and Evening Gazette (London), 10 March 1815, 4; Park, Major Thomas Savage of Boston 29.

[12] ‘Arthur Savage,’ Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, PROB 11: Will Register, Piece 1516, 1815, via Ancestry.

[13] ‘Arthur Savage,’ Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, Kingston, Jamaica, FHL Film No. 1291763, 170, via Ancestry; ‘Richard Savage,’ Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, Kingston, Jamaica, FHL Film No. 1291763, p. 170, via Ancestry; Park, Major Thomas Savage of Boston 29; ‘Nanny Savage’, Burial, Saint Thomas in the Vale, Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcriptions,  www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6JHR-1RTW; ‘Eleanor Savage,’ Burial, Saint Thomas in the Vale, Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcriptions, www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DRQF-6DZM.

[14] Arthur Savage,’ Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, PROB 11: Will Register, Piece 1516, 1815, via Ancestry; ‘John Steel: Profile & Legacies Summary,’ Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, UCL www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/20067

[15] ‘Deaths,’ Sun (London), 5 August 1817, 1.

[16] ‘Arthur Savage,’ Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, Port Royal, Jamaica, 1817, via Ancestry.

[17] ‘Died,’ The Leeds Mercury (Yorkshire), 26 February 1820, 3; ‘Bird Savage Thornton Munkhouse,’ British Cemetery Gamboa, Rio de Janeiro, Section 2, Gave #655, Find a Grave Online Database, www.findagrave.com/memorial/125031225/bird-savage_thornton-munkhouse.

[18] ‘Probate: Fidelia Faith Savage,’ England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, National Archives, Kew, 1831, via Ancestry.

[19] ‘Robert Keate Hill and Fidelia Munkhouse, 24 July 1830,’ Saint Dunstan in the West, London, England Select Marriages [Arthur Savage was a witness to the marriage], via Ancestry.

[20] ‘Robert Keate Hill,’ Christening, St James, Westminster, London, England, FHL Film no. 1042309, via Ancestry.

[21] ‘Goulburn to Macquarie, 28 January 1819,’ New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s Papers: Special Bundles, 1794-1825, via Ancestry; ‘Campbell to Sorell, 29 March 1820,’ New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s Papers: Copies of Letters Sent Within the Colony, 1814-1827, via Ancestry; ‘Court of Criminal Jurisdiction’, Hobart Town Gazette & Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tasmania), 9 June 1821, 2; ‘Latest Hobart Town Information,’ The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (New South Wales), 30 June 1821, 4.

[22] ‘Robert Keate Hill and Fidelia Munkhouse,’ Marriage, 24 July 1830, Saint Dunstan in the West Parish Register, Church of England, via Ancestry; ‘Lines on Seeing the ‘Sir Charles M’Carthy’ Laid up as a Store Ship at Port Adelaide,’ in Hill, Poems and Recollections of the Past, 35-36.

[23] ‘Jamaica Port Royal 9 (Strawberry Hill),’ Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, UCL, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/16418.

[24] ‘Robert Keate Hill,’ Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, UCL, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/42645.

[25] Letters and other communications received by the Colonial Secretary, Governor and other Government officials, GRG24/1:1838/235, State Records of South Australia; Philip Butterss, ‘Fidelia Hill and “our New Colony”’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, 1995, 71.

[26] Philip Butterss, ‘Fidelia Hill ‒ Finding a Public Voice’, in Philip Butterss (ed) Southwords: Essays on South Australian Writing, (Wakefield Press, 1995), 17-18.

[27] Heidi Ing, ‘South Australia’s First Expedition: three generations of settler-colonial social mobility’ (PhD Thesis, Flinders University 2020), 84-85, https://theses.flinders.edu.au/view/e06ed5b3-637e-4df4-84c3-b91f9b603f83/1; ‘Index to Passengers arriving at South Australia from overseas ports: Buffalo 1836’, GRG 56/68/5, State Records of South Australia, www.archives.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/830128/GRG56_68_5_index-to-passengers-arriving-in-S-A-from-overseas_1836-on-the-Buffalo.pdf  

[28] ‘Payments made in SA on account of the Colonization Commissioners,’ GRG 48/8, State Records of South Australia, in Butterss, ‘Fidelia Hill,’ Southwords, 20; William Jacob, 'Journal of William Jacob,’ Mortlock Library, V 1513 in Butterss, ‘Fidelia Hill,’ Southwords, 74.

[29] ‘Shipping Intelligence,’ Colonial Times (Hobart), 23 January 1838, 4; Mayo Papers, Series 1, 89, State Library of South Australia in Butterss, ‘Fidelia Hill,’ Southwords, 20.

[30] ‘Reminiscence by W. J .S. Pullen,’ PRG 303/2, item 13, State Library of South Australia in Butterss, ‘Fidelia Hill,’ Southwords,18.

[31] ‘Poetry,’ The Sydney Herald (New South Wales), 31 October 1840, 2; ‘Just Published’, The Sydney Herald (New South Wales), 16 December 1840, 1; Hill, Poems and Recollections of the Past, ii-iii; ‘Fidelia S. T. Hill (1794-1854),’ Australian Poetry Library, https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/hill-fidelia-s-t

[32] Hill, Poems and Recollections of the Past, iv-viii

[33] ‘Fidelia S. T. Hill: Biography,’ AustLit, The University of Queensland, (2014)  www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A18494

[34] Hill, ‘My Brother’ and ‘Thornton’, Poems and Recollections of the Past, 33-34, 38-41

[35] Hill, Poems and Recollections of the Past, 64-65.

[36] ‘Henry Howe & Fidelia Hill,’ 7 June 1842, Marriage Index, Australia, via Ancestry.

[37] ‘Henry Howe: Summary,’ Convict Records, (2011) https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/howe/henry/114908; ‘Death of Mr Henry Howe,’ Tasmanian Evening Herald (Tasmania), 16 February 1878, 2.  

[38] ‘Howe Fidelia A T,’ 21 July 1854, Deaths in the District of Launceston, Aged 64 years, RGD35/1/23, No. 1489; ‘Family Notices,’ Launceston Examiner (Tasmania), 22 July 1854, 2; ‘Family Notices,’ Tasmanian Colonist (Tasmania), 24 July 1854, 2.

[39] ‘Fidelia Hill and Others: some early Australian verse writers,’ The Age, (New South Wales), 14 August 1954, 16; Fidelia T. Hill, Adelaide and other poems of South Australia, (ACT: Mulini Press, 1992).