William Hughes was a marine drummer in the 2nd (Portsmouth) Company when he arrived at Sydney aboard the Friendship in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet. He was attached to Captain Watkin Tench's Company at Port Jackson.
Hughes was sent to Norfolk Island on the Sirius in March 1790. Deciding to settle he returned to the island in January 1792 after being discharged from the marines at Port Jackson in December 1791. He returned to Port Jackson on the Atlantic in September 1792.
A William Hughes, a private in the New South Wales Corps, was sent to Norfolk Island on the Daedalus in September 1794 and shared a grant of 425 acres with 15 other soldiers at the Field of Mars in NSW in 1796. This was probably the same man who was serving in William Paterson's Company in 1799. Whether it is the First Fleeter is not certain.
* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 183
'Hughes, William (?–?)', People Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/hughes-william-31323/text38717, accessed 12 October 2024.
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