Henry Humphreys (c. 1765–?)
Henry Humphreys (c.1765- ) and Richard Widdicombe were found guilty on 20 March 1786 at Exeter, Devon, of stealing a wooden winch valued at 2 shillings and other goods valued at £4 4 shillings. Sentenced to 7 years transportation, the men were sent to the Dunkirk hulk and were discharged to the Charlotte in March 1787. They arrived at Sydney in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet.
Humphreys and Widdicombe were sent to Norfolk Island on the Golden Grove in October 1788. By July 1791 Humphreys was maintaining himself on a Sydney Town lot and shared a nine-month-old sow with Widdicombe and James Nowland. He was employed as a sawyer on jobbing work in May 1794. He left Norfolk Island for Port Jackson on the Daedalus in November 1794.
Humphreys worked as a sawyer at Windsor in 1814. He was still working as a sawyer but was living in Sydney in 1825. In 1828 he was lodging with Samuel Taylor at North Richmond; his age was given as 70 but was probably less. No later record has been traced.
* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 184
Related Entries in NCB Sites
- Widdicombe, Richard (criminal associate)
Citation details
'Humphreys, Henry (c. 1765–?)', People Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/humphreys-henry-31329/text38724, accessed 20 April 2024.