People Australia

Henry Maxwell, errand boy and convict, was born about 1814 in Dublin, Ireland. Possessing a ruddy complexion marked with smallpox, he was sentenced to transportation for stealing a chair on 25 February 1830.[1] A repeat offender, he had taken a hall chair belonging to a Mr Clarke at night, taking advantage of his absence. Unbeknown to Maxwell, Clarke’s coachman witnessed the theft and seized him before he could escape. The jury delivered their verdict of seven years of transportation. His destination: New South Wales.[2] He was subsequently sent to the hulk Essex to await departure for Australia.[3]

Time spent on the Irish hulks was short compared to the English hulks, and Maxwell spent no more than six months onboard.[4] An earlier attempt to burn down the Essex resulted in him boarding a ship for the colony earlier than scheduled. He was one of 200 visibly healthy convicts to embark on the Hercules on 14 June in preparation for being transported.[5] They sailed on 3 July. The ship’s surgeon, Edward Trevor, described Maxwell’s behaviour on the voyage as ‘generally good’. [6]

Despite arriving in Sydney in October, Maxwell didn’t disembark the Hercules until 15 November.[7] His subsequent movements are uncertain, but from one document it appears that he was employed by John Palmer in Wallis Plains.[8] From 1826 the assignment of convicts to settlers meant the former could find themselves, on ‘condition of exemplary good behaviour,’ employed as farmhands or servants as they were considered cheap labour.[9] As Palmer was a landholder, Maxwell may have been employed to complete farm duties.[10] He obtained a ticket-of-leave on 29 November 1834, four years after his trial in Ireland.[11] Nothing further is known of him.

 [1] Henry Maxwell, Hercules, 1830, Printed Convict Indent, Office Copies of Printed Indents 1831–1842, State Records Authority of New South Wales, NRS 12189, Reel 905, p. 9, in New South Wales, Australia, Australia Convict Ships 1786–1849, Findmypast.com, accessed 15 May 2024.

[2] ‘Recorders Court – Saturday’, Freeman’s Journal (Dublin), 26 February 1830, p. 4, Findmypast.com, accessed 15 May 2024; Henry Maxwell, Hercules, 1830, Annotated Convict Indent, Indents 1788–1842, State Records Authority of New South Wales, NRS 12188, Reel 906, in New South Wales, Australia, Australia Convict Ships 1786–1849, Findmypast.com, accessed 15 May 2024.

[3] Henry Maxwell, Hercules II, 1830, Prisoners Conduct List, State Records Authority of New South Wales, Series CGS 1155, Reels 2417–2428, Images 1 and 3, in New South Wales, Australia, Convict Ship Muster Rolls and Related Records, 1790–1849, Ancestry.com, accessed 8 July 2024.

[4]  House of Commons, ‘Prisons of Ireland; Sixth Report of the Inspectors General’, in Reports from Commissioners: Seven Volumes, Vol. 12 (1828), p. 35, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reports_from_the_Commissioners/dTZbAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1, accessed 9 June 2024.

[5]  ‘Attempt to burn the hulk at Kingstown’, Cork Advertiser, 17 June 1830, 3; Katherine Foxhall, ‘From Convicts to Colonists: The Health of Prisoners and the Voyage to Australia, 1823–1853’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 39, no. 1 (2011): 3,

[6]  Conduct Report for Henry Maxwell.

[7] ‘Highway Robberies’, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 13 November 1830, 3.

[8] Henry Maxwell, Hercules, 1830, Convict Employer Status, New South Wales And Tasmania: Settlers and Convicts 1787–1859, The National Archives, London, H0 10/29, via Findmypast.com, accessed 15 May 2024.

[9] Gary Crockett, ‘Convict Sydney’, Museums of History NSW, 5 December 2022, https://mhnsw.au/stories/convict-sydney/world-of-pain/, accessed 15 July 2024; ‘THE POLICE’, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 12 January 1826, 3.

[10] ‘Supreme Criminal Court’, Sydney Monitor, 25 February 1832, 4.

[11] Henry Maxwell, Hercules, 1830, Certificate of Freedom, New South Wales, Australia, Tickets of Leave, 1810–1869, State Archives NSW, NRS 12202, Item 4/4419, in Ticket of leave butts, Nov 1834–Dec 1834, Ancestry.com, accessed 2 May 2024.