People Australia

James Tomer Vincent was born in 1796 in the small rural village of Dinton, Wiltshire, in southwestern England.[1] A baptismal record has not been located, but anecdotal family evidence suggests his parents were John George Vincent and Elizabeth. In October 1823 the twenty-seven-year-old James was convicted of larceny and sentenced to seven years’ transportation.[2]

 Vincent had been entangled with the law prior to his transportation: once for larceny and once for burglary.[3] In October 1821, when he was almost twenty-six years old, he and four accomplices were charged with stealing ‘lead’, the property of the Bath Turnpike Trust.[4] Likely professional thieves who planned to sell the lead on, they were each given six months’ hard labour, which was served in the notorious Shepton Mallet Gaol.[5] His next offence was for burglary, when he was apprehended in December 1822 for stealing twenty-two shirts and six shifts to the value of £18, all the property of William Cambridge.[6] Vincent was held in Ilchester gaol until his trial on 29 March 1823, when he was found ‘not guilty’.[7]

The crime that sent Vincent to Van Diemen’s Land was his third offence.[8] In October 1823 he was charged and convicted with stealing twenty lard-filled bladders and a pair of ‘trowsers’, for which he was transported.[9] This history reveals that Vincent was actively pursuing an organised life of crime rather than petty theft.

 In November 1823, after he was convicted, Vincent was removed and confined to Woolwich on the prison hulk the Retribution.[10] Conditions were hard and prisoners worked long days, either ashore before being returned to the hulk each night or labouring on-board the ship.[11] He remained on the hulk for thirteen months before being loaded onto the Lady East for the voyage to Van Diemen’s Land, arriving in April 1825.[12] The master of the ship was Andrew Talbert and the ship’s surgeon was William McDowell. The ship carried 210 male convicts and offloaded 208 in Hobart Town, after two died during the voyage.[13] McDowell’s journal, lists the convicts he treated on the voyage – Vincent was not one of them.[14]

Vincent was described in his convict record as five feet four inches tall, with dark brown hair and dark grey eyes. He had a small mole on his left cheek and a tattoo of a mermaid on his right arm.[15] His occupation was described as a farm labourer, ploughman, and charcoal burner.[16] When he arrived in 1825 he was assigned to Mr J. Thomas at a property near Launceston on the North Esk, where he worked as a ploughman and a shepherd.[17] In January 1828 he was found drunk in the street, in charge of his master's bullocks, and was sentenced to a prison gang for a fortnight.[18] After this he was returned to Thomas, with whom he stayed until he was granted a ticket of leave in August 1829, followed by a certificate of freedom on 23 November 1830.[19]

On 8 May 1832 Vincent, who was living at North Esk, married convict woman Sarah Beazeley.[20] The marriage document shows that both James and Sarah were illiterate as they signed with an ‘x’.[21] They had eight children together, of which seven survived.[22] Around this time he committed two more crimes: in 1833 he was charged with stealing a steer, then in 1836 he stole some bark. He was fined and remained free.[23]

The relationship between the couple deteriorated, and in 1840 Vincent placed an advertisement in the local press saying that he would not be responsible for any debts his wife Sarah incurred, as she had left the family home.[24] They separated after 1849, and Sarah’s life spiralled out of control.[25]Vincent continued to care for his children, and he stayed in the North Esk area, farming for the rest of his life. He died aged seventy-five in 1871 after suffering from a severe asthma attack.[26]

Arguably, like so many of the convicts who were transported across the seas, James’ life took a more positive direction than if he had continued his life of crime in England. His descendants have thrived throughout Tasmania and New South Wales, mainly in agricultural industries. Like all the convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land, James’ story reveals familiar patterns that highlight Australia’s Colonial history. The transcribed records share a snapshot of the times and when examined fully, they allow James’ life to be shared.

[1] James Tomer Vincent, Lady East, 1824, Indent Register, Tasmanian Archives, CON 14/1/1, Image 30.

[2] Ibid.; James Tomer Vincent, Lady East, Convict Description Lists, Tasmanian Archives, CON 23/1/3, No. 31.

[3] Entry for James Tomer Vincent, County of Somerset, 1821, England and Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791–1892, Ancestry.com, accessed 11 June 2024; Entry for James Tomer Vincent, County of Somerset, Lent sitting, 1823, England and Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791–1892, Ancestry.com, accessed 13 June 2024

[4] ‘Session Intelligence’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 25 October 1821, 2;

Entry for James Tomer Vincent, County of Somerset, 1821, England and Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791–1892, Ancestry.com, accessed 11 June 2024.

[5] James Tomer Vincent, Lady East, 1824, Conduct Record, Tasmanian Archives, CON 31/1/42, No. 31, Image 184; Francis J. Disney, Shepton Mallet Prison (Shepton Mallet: Whitson, 1992), 26-27; ‘Session Intelligence’; Entry for James Tomer Vincent, County of Somerset, 1821.

[6] Entry for James Tomer Vincent, County of Somerset, 1823, England and Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791–1892, Ancestry.com, accessed 13 June 2024

[7] Ibid.

[8] Entry for James Tomer Vincent, County of Somerset, October 1823, England and Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791–1892, Ancestry.com, accessed 13 June 2024.

[9] James Tomer Vincent, Lady East, 1824, Conduct Record, Tasmanian Archives, CON 31/1/42, No. 31, Image 184; James Tomer Vincent, Indent Register.

[10] James Tomer Vincent, Retribution, Prison Hulk Index, UK, Prison Hulk Registers and Letter Books, 1802-1849.

[11] Disney, Shepton Mallet Prison, 26-27.

[12] James Tomer Vincent, Conduct Record.

[13] Charles Bateson, The Convict Ships, 1787-1868 (Glasgow: Brown, Son and Ferguson, 1969), 358-59.

[14] William McDowell, Lady East, 1824, Surgeons Journal, National Archives, Kew, ADM 101/41/1.

[15] James Tomer Vincent, Convict Description Lists; James Tomer Vincent, Indent Register.

[16] James Tomer Vincent, Convict Description Lists.

[17] James Tomer Vincent, Lady East, 1824, List of convicts (incomplete), New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia Convict Musters, 1806–1849, Image 203, Ancestry.com, accessed 19 June 2024.

[18] James Tomer Vincent, Conduct Record.

[19] James Tomer Vincent, Lady East, 1824, Description List, v 29 to 54, Tasmanian Archives, CON 23/1/3, No. 31.

[20] Disney, Shepton Mallet Prison, 59.

[21] Marriage of James Tomer Vincent and Sarah Beazeley, 8 May 1832, Parish of North Esk, Tasmanian Archives, RGD36/1/2, no. 1934.

[22] Lyn Thickett, ‘Sarah Beazeley; From Poorhouse to Pauper’, in Dianne Snowden and Jane Harrington (eds), Convict Lives: Female Convicts at the New Norfolk Asylum, (Hobart: Convict Women’s Press, 2020), 93-102.

[23] James Tomer Vincent, Lady East, Northern Tasmania, Alphabetical Conduct Registers of Convicts Living in Northern Tasmania, Tasmanian Archives, CON78/1/3, No. 31.

[24] ‘Advertising’, Cornwall Chronicle, (Launceston), 10 October 1840, 3.

[25] Thickett, ‘Sarah Beazeley’.

[26] Death of James Vincent, died 30 May 1871, Registers of Deaths in Hobart, Launceston and Country Districts, Tasmanian Archives, RGD35/1/40, no. 1497.