People Australia

Patrick McDonald (1811-?) was born in 1811 at Kilkenny, Ireland. He was tried at Kilkenny on 5 August 1830 for stealing clothes, found guilty, and sentenced to transportation for seven years.[1] Some months later he boarded the ship Jane in Cove Harbour, Ireland, on 25 April 1831, bound for New South Wales. He was accompanied by 127 other male prisoners, and they arrived on 5 November that year.[2] McDonald was healthy during the voyage, making no appearance in the medical journal of the surgeon superintendent.[3] Overall the prisoners were reported as arriving in remarkably good health in despite the long journey.[4]

Upon arrival McDonald was indentured as an indoor servant to Augusta Maria Scott at her residence ‘Glendon’. She was a member of one of the earliest free settler families who received land grants in the Hunter River area of New South Wales.[5] The wealthy Scott family had been living in India, where her husband, Dr Helenus Scott, was employed by the East India Company.[6] He was in ill health and on the voyage to Australia in 1821, accompanied by his sons Robert and Helenus, died.[7] Robert wrote to the colonial office, indicating that he was keen to take up the land grant his father was expecting, and was ‘willing to take twenty men permanently off the stores’.[8] One aim of opening up larger grants of land and assignment of larger numbers of convicts to wealthier free settlers was to develop the agricultural capacity of the colony while minimising expenses to the crown. This was largely based on the ideas of John Thomas Bigge, the British government’s commissioner of inquiry in New South Wales from 1819 to 1821. The new policy direction was considered to be a more effective way of developing agriculture and reforming convicts than the previous policy involving small land grants to settlers having fewer resources at their disposal.[9] The two Scott brothers received grants of land on a tributary of the Hunter River and named their joined estate ‘Glendon’.  

McDonald was twenty years old at this time, single, and literate. He was described as having a pale and freckled complexion with hazel eyes and brown hair, and being five foot seven and club footed.[10] He began his assignment at Glendon, then by 1833 moved to the Scott residence at Castlereagh Street.[11] He and another young servant, Mary Ann Cress, wished to marry.[12] Yet there was no official request to marry, since that could only occur if the convict’s assignee first agreed to the marriage.[13] The reason for her refusal is unknown, but it could have been Mary Ann’s youth, or perhaps Mrs Scott was reluctant to countenance the marriage of a convict to a free settler.[14] Even where an employer sanctioned marriage of their convict servants, the official request was sometimes refused due to convict behaviour, or if they were already married.[15]

As domestic servants, the young couple may have been involved in wedding preparations for Scott’s daughter, Augusta Maria, who married James Mitchell, assistant colonial surgeon, in August 1833. Possibly the excitement of a society wedding influenced their own desire to be married. By November, McDonald had absconded.[16] He and Cress were found tied together in the water at the Domain in an attempt to drown themselves. An article in the Sydney Herald reported that ‘constable Tonks having no taste for the romantic passions displayed by these lunatics, bore them off to the watch-house’.[17] There seem to be no punishments meted out, and McDonald returned to service.

Three years later in April 1836, McDonald received a ticket of leave. By then he had served five years of his seven-year sentence. He was described as a labourer, and the condition of his ticket was that he could only remain in the district of Patrick’s Plains, the area where ‘Glendon’ was situated.[18] By 1838 he had completed his sentence and was issued a certificate of freedom, on which it was noted that he had lost a front upper tooth, had a large scar on his left cheek, had lost a leg, and ‘wears a crutch’. He was described on that document as an indoor servant.[19]

It is difficult to know what became of McDonald once freed, since there is insufficient information in many records to determine with any certainty to which individual they belong. He may have been the individual who died in 1860 t Morpeth in the Hunter Region of NSW, or the person who died in 1873 at Cope’s Creek.  

[1] Patrick McDonald, 1831, New South Wales, Australia, Convict Indents, 1788 – 1842, State Archives NSW, NRS 12188/[4/4016]/680.

[2] Patrick McDonald, Jane 1831, Voyages, Convict Records,  https://convictrecords.com.au/ships/jane/voyages/835, Convict Records.com.au, accessed 25 May 2024.

[3] Medical Journal of the Jane, Convict Ship, from 14 March to 14 November 1831 by Oliver Sproule, National Archives UK, ADM/101/37/4,https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4106677#, accessed 20 June 2024.

[4] ‘Advance Australia’, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 15 November 1831, 2.

[5] Baptism record for Augusta Maria Frederick, baptised 22 Nov 1775, London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1538-1812, London Metropolitan Archives, ref P89/MRY1/079, Ancestry.com, accessed 26 May 2024; Baptism record for Edward Frederick, baptised 9 Nov 1748, India, Select Births and Baptisms 1786-1947, Ancestry.com, accessed 26 May 2024; Baptism record for Lenox John Frederick, baptised 19 Jan 1792, British India Office Births and Baptisms, Bombay, India, aboard the Princess Royal, Parish Register Transcripts from the Presidency of Bombay 1709-1948, ref N-3-3/329, FindMyPast.com, accessed 21 June 2024; Marriage record for Augusta Maria Frederick and Helenus Scott, 8 Nov 1796, British India Office Marriages, Bombay, India, Parish Register Transcripts from the Presidency of Bombay 1709-1948, ref N-3-3/392, FindMyPast.com, accessed 21 June 2024.

[6] Dr. Helenus Scott, UK Registers of the East India Company and the India Office, 1746-1939, University of London, England, The East India Register and Directory for 1810 2^nd Edition Mathison, J. and Mason, A.W., Ref b1673605/1810, Ancestry.com, accessed 26 May 2024.

[7] Nancy Gray, ‘Robert Scott (1799-1844)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1967, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/scott-robert-2642/text3673, accessed 19 June 2024.

[8] Letter to the Colonial Secretary for Robert Scott, New South Wales, 1822, New South Wales, Australia, Colonial Secretary’s Papers, 1788-1856, Memorials to the Governor, 1810-1826, 337, Ancestry.com, accessed 1 June 2024.

[9] Clive Lucas, Stapleton and Partners Pty, Ltd, ‘Hunter Estates, A Comparative Heritage Study of pre 1850s Homestead Complexes in the Hunter Region’ Living Histories, 2013, p. 19, https://livinghistories.newcastle.edu.au/nodes/view/83018, accessed 21 June 2024.

[10] Patrick McDonald, Jane 1831, Convict Indents.

[11] ‘Family Notices’, Sydney Herald, 28 January 1833, 4.

[12] ‘Domestic Intelligence – Disappointed Love’, Sydney Herald, 14 November 1833, 2; ‘Criminal Side’, The Sydney Monitor, 14 November 1833, 2.

[13] Michael Flynn, ‘Permission for NSW Convicts to Marry, 1826-1851’, Biographical Database of Australia, 2021, , https://www.bda-online.org.au/files/COR11_Marriage_Permissions.pdf, accessed 25 May 2024.

[14] Merran Williams, ‘Stain or Badge of Honor? Convict Heritage Inspires Mixed Feelings’, The Conversation, 8 June 2015, https://theconversation.com/stain-or-badge-of-honour-convict-heritage-inspires-mixed-feelings-41097, accessed 21 June 2024.

[15] Museums of History New South Wales, ‘Stories General, Colonial marriages and suitable matches’, Museums of History NSW Museum website, https://mhnsw.au/stories/general/colonial-marriages-and-suitable-matches, accessed 20 June 2024.

[16] 'Government Gazette Notices', Issue 89, New South Wales Government Gazette, 13 November 1833, 478.

[17] ‘Domestic Intelligence – Disappointed Love’.

[18] Patrick McDonald, 8 April 1836, Ticket of Leave, ‘New South Wales, Australia, Tickets of Leave, 1810-1869, Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/41782:1781?ssrc=pt&tid=198170048&pid=382586510591, accessed 1 June 2024.

[19] Patrick McDonald, 11 May 1838, Certificate of Freedom, ‘New South Wales, Australia, Certificates of Freedom, 1810-1814, 1827-1867, Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/14307:1689?ssrc=pt&tid=198170048&pid=382586510591, accessed 1 June 2024.