17 minute read
Norfolk Island is a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean that draws tourists in, with its laid-back lifestyle and stunning scenery. Visitors are aware of its dark past, indeed much of its tourism is built upon the history of this former convict penal settlement. I first discovered my own connection with Norfolk Island about 20 years ago; via an ancestor who had been incarcerated there. In October 2023, my mother and I took a trip to Norfolk Island, this place we had both longed to see for years. We booked a house on a hilltop, hired a car and chose the month of October, when the weather would be warm but not hot, and the gardens would be starting to bloom. It was an idyllic week on one of the most beautiful islands in the world. Two hundred years ago though, when my ancestor William Snook lived on the island, the brutality that existed there was hard to reconcile with the present-day serenity.
So how did a working class man from a busy city like London end up on a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean? To know how William Snook came to be incarcerated on Norfolk Island we need to understand his early life. William Thomas Joseph Snook, my paternal grandmother Irene’s 2 x great grandfather, was born in June 1804 in London, to John Snook and Eleanor Sandys. They had married at St James’ Piccadilly Church on the 5th October 1794. This church was designed by Christopher Wren, the famous architect and opened in 1684. William had a sister, also called Eleanor, born in 1796. There may have been other children but the Snook family left few records and tracing their origins has been difficult. The story I have pieced together is the most likely one.
John and Eleanor moved to Lambeth, on the southern side of the Thames River, shortly after their marriage. John’s occupation was not listed on either of his children’s baptisms so the family circumstances are not known. John may have been a gentleman, a tradesman or a labourer. This has made it difficult to trace him or his origins although there are strong DNA connections to the Dorset region. William was 17 months old before he was baptized, in St Mary’s Church, Lambeth. Nothing is known of William’s childhood. It is likely however, that William had no immediate family left by the time he was 18. His sister Eleanor died in 1823 and his mother and father likely just before this.
William had been apprenticed around the usual age of 14 as a brass turner. As an apprenticeship usually lasted about seven years, William would not have been fully qualified by the time he was orphaned. He may have been desperate and looking to supplement his wage however he could, even if that meant taking risks. Shoreditch, East London, where it is likely William’s mother died in a workhouse, was an area with a rapidly expanding population in the 1820s. It was in Shoreditch in December 1824 that William was arrested. It is unfortunate that court records of the Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court, do not record the circumstances of William’s existence at the time of his arrest. However, they do paint a clear picture of the crime itself.
According to these records, William Snook entered the shop of Mr James Buxton and stole 26 yards (24 metres) of Irish linen, worth 36 shillings. A haul this large put William in danger of being hanged, if found guilty.
Mr Buxton’s employee, Mr Lewis, testified that he had seen William take the linen;
‘I was in the shop, and placed this piece of Irish (linen) in the window, about half-past six or seven o’clock, and about a quarter past seven I stood near the window, heard the glass break, and saw the person put his hand through the window and take the Irish out. I saw him cut his hand in taking it out, and saw his face – it was the prisoner. I ran round the counter and went in pursuit – ours is the corner house but one – he turned the corner and I after him for some distance, and then lost sight of him. I did not see him again till he was stopped by Hazard; my master was also with him; it was dark – we have gas lights in the shop – I saw him take the cloth and cut his hand in drawing it out. There was light enough in the shop to enable me to swear to him.’
The prosecution then brought out another witness, Mr Thomas Hazard, a smith, who was on the street at the time.
‘I was coming down the street about half-past seven o’clock, and met the prisoner running very fast; he passed me on the other side of the way; he was a hundred yards from the prosecutor’s house; I heard a cry of Stop thief! and turned round and followed him; I lost sight of him twice in turning the corners, but caught sight of him directly again. Just as I got up to him he stopped, seeing that I was close to him; I took hold of him. Mr. Buxton, who was in pursuit, came up directly; I said “Come back with me;” he said, “What are you going at?” he was very much out of breath; he was taken back to Mr. Buxton’s; the cloth was picked up two or three yards from where I stopped him. I had not been ten minutes following him, I am sure. He is the man I first saw – there was nobody else in sight. When I stopped him he had passed the spot where the cloth lay; I had not seen him with it. He had no knife in his hand when I overtook him, nor did he desire me to look for a stick.’
Prisoners were allowed to provide a statement in their own defense, which William gave to the court;
‘I came at about half-past seven o’clock quietly by Britannia-walk, when one of the witnesses seized me – he came one way and I the other. An accident had occurred which I feel convinced, must be the cause of my being committed for trial: I happened to have a stick in my hand, which I made two notches in, just as I heard someone call out Stop Thief! this caused me to cut my hand slightly – I threw the stick away, and as the witness came up, stood still, to make way for him; for a few moments before, just as I first heard the cry of Stop Thief! a young man came running at a great pace, and the witness almost immediately after him. The witness stopped short, challenged me, and said I was the person he had pursued. I informed him that I knew nothing of what he was speaking, and probably no notice would have been taken of me, only for the unfortunate and very suspicious circumstance that some little blood was seen on my hand, from the cut of the knife, and, as I was afterwards told, some blood was found on the piece of linen picked up in the street. I told the witness that would they only go a few paces back, they would find the notched stick, but this they refused. My prosecutor stated, at the office, that he would swear to my face, because about ten minutes before the robbery had been committed, he heard a sort of knocking at the window, like that of an umbrella coming against it, which induced him to move the things from the window, and he was thereby enabled to see my face clearly: after I was apprehended I was taken back to the shop – it was well lighted up, and the night was very dark, so it must have been difficult to have seen distinctly anyone outside. My prosecutor seemed much offended with me, because he had, several nights before, lost a shawl from the window, and said that, no doubt, I was the rascal who stole it – he would, therefore, do all in his power to punish me. I am sure that the witness who first seized me, cannot, in justice say, that I am the person whom he saw running – I am certain that some other man came by me at full speed, just before he came up, and had he pursued a little further, he must have heard the man run; but as the piece of linen was found, as he said, about a dozen yards from where he took me, he said he was sure that I must be the thief. Could I have persuaded the parties to have gone a little further back, the stick must have been found; and would anyone examine the cut in my hand, it would easily be seen that it is so very slight that it must have been done in the way I say, with a knife. The knife was blooded when taken from me, and I held it in my hand when the witness came up.’
Police Officer John King statement confirmed William’s story that he had a knife on him:
‘I am an officer. I took the prisoner in charge in the prosecutor’s shop – I saw a knife taken from his pocket – his apron was bloody and so was the cloth.’
The witness who apprehended William did not see any knife, however the police officer did find a knife in William’s pocket. William’s story of cutting himself with the knife whilst putting notches in a stick may seem plausible, however the witness’ testimony that he saw no other person in the vicinity once he heard ‘Stop thief’ and the shop-keeper’s assistant’s recognition of William’s face as the person he saw pulling the linen out of the shop window, sealed William’s fate.
William Snook, aged 19, was found guilty of the theft. It was noted he had been ‘in Newgate before’ and this being his second conviction, he was sentenced to death. A month later the Prosecutor recommended mercy be shown to William, believing that he had been led by others to commit the offence. There is no record of who these ‘others’ may have been. As a strong fit young man, hanging would have been a dreadful waste, hence the court reprieved his death sentence and condemned him to spend the rest of his life in the penal colony of New South Wales instead.
In March 1825 William was taken from Newgate Prison and put on the hulk ship ‘York’ in Gosport Harbour, at Portsmouth. Five months later he was transferred to the ship, Marquis of Hastings. William’s details were recorded at the time of his imprisonment, as a way identifying him and to distinguish him from fellow prisoners. His height was noted as 5ft 6 inches, with a stoutish build, a dark complexion, brown hair and hazel eyes.
The Marquis of Hastings left Portsmouth on the 19th August 1825. The voyage took 134 days, stopping at Rio De Janeiro on the way. Not a single man from the 152 convicts on board died during the voyage, a remarkable achievement at the time. The Sydney Gazette announced, on the 5th January 1826, the arrival of the Marquis of Hastings, under the command of Captain Ostler. Having arrived at the hottest time of the year in Sydney, mid-summer, it no doubt took time for William to adjust to the new environment. All newly landed convicts were taken to the Barracks at Hyde Park (now a museum) to be assessed and await assignment. William was sent to Appin (in south-west Sydney), where he may have been in government employ (building or road works) or assigned to a settler. This was close to the Camden area (Cowpastures) where the Macarthur family settled, a family which would come to mean a great deal to William in later years.
William was next recorded in the 1828 census, the first one ever conducted in New South Wales. It lists ‘William Snook’ as being ‘in gaol’, this being the Phoenix, a hulk moored at Lavendar Bay in Sydney Harbour. This time William had been caught receiving stolen goods, in company with Robert Rice, a man a few years older. Whilst awaiting his trial on board the Phoenix, William and his fellow prisoners were kept busy ‘teasing oakum’, a material that was used to make ropes. They were fed beef, maize (corn meal), bread and given an additional allowance for salt, sugar and soap. William and Robert’s trial was held in December 1828 in Sydney and both men were found guilty. A colonial sentence was set at 14 years each, to be served in the penal settlement of Norfolk Island, a place reserved for the worst type of criminal.
And so it came to be that William Snook took another ocean voyage, to a place so remote he had probably never heard of it before he left England. William sailed on the schooner Isabella from Sydney on the 5th February 1829, arriving on Norfolk Island a week or two later. William was about to encounter a man whose reputation would forever be connected with harsh brutality. James Morisset, a strict disciplinarian, arrived on Norfolk Island in May 1829, just weeks after William, to take up the role of Commandant. Much of what is known of the period of Morisset’s command comes from the stories written by a convict called Laurence Frayne. Frayne was a serial absconder who was banished to Norfolk Island in 1830. Never one to give in to authoritarian rule, Frayne was called ‘Steel Man’ by the floggers for his ability to withstand whatever punishment was meted out to him. Morisset’s orders were that a man could be flogged up to 300 lashes at a time, with a cat-o-nine tails. This inflicted acute pain on a man, creating multiple open wounds on his back, which took weeks or months to heal.
Other punishments included reducing rations to bread and water or adding up to 3 years to sentences. The convicts on Norfolk Island had no freedom to roam or swim in the enticing crystal clear waters of the bay. They slept on hammocks, packed into the stone barracks with barely 50cms between them. ‘Old hands’ would initiate ‘new hands’ in barbaric rituals including sodomy. Many men wished for death rather than endure any more time on this island hell.
William would spend the first five years of his incarceration on Norfolk Island under Morisset. It is not known how he fared, whether he was ever punished or if he towed the line. During this period, there were many attempted mutinies by the convicts including the infamous insurrection of January 1834 which saw 130 convicts involved, a few of whom were killed. A further 55 convicts would stand trial for mutiny with 13 hanged in front of their fellow convicts, sending a clear message to anyone else plotting escape. William’s name is not included among the 55 mutineers.
Morisset eventually resigned his post in March 1834, much to the relief of the convicts on the island. Commandant Joseph Anderson took over from 1834 to 1839 and whilst treatment was still strict and punishment harsh, he also established a school to teach convicts to read. He used the skills any convict had to his advantage and its possible William’s brass skills came in handy for the ongoing building works on the island. The pier was built during this period, as well as many of the houses on Quality Row, which still stand today.
By 1840 William had spent 11 years on Norfolk Island. Commandant Anderson was replaced that year by Commandant Alexander Maconochie, who would later become known as the ‘Father of Parole.’ When Maconochie arrived on Norfolk Island with his family on the 6th March 1840, he set about implementing a marks system whereby convicts could earn points for good behaviour. The earned marks could be spent on ‘luxury’ goods such as tobacco or clothing or put towards a remittance of their sentence. He also allowed the convicts to roam the settlement on Sundays, an extraordinary freedom none of them had ever experienced.
Maconochie then set about addressing the ‘old hands’, around 1000 prisoners who had been on the island for many years. In his memoir Maconochie wrote, ‘A more demoniacal looking assemblage could not be imagined. The most formidable sight I ever beheld was the sea of faces upturned to me when I first addressed them.’ They had become so degraded by their treatment, which included eating slops without utensils and continually forced to bow their heads in servitude, that their will to live had been extinguished. William was one of those thousand men who had endured incredible hardship for over a decade.
It would be just a few weeks after being installed as the new Commandant of the settlement, that Maconochie wrote a letter to the Colonial Secretary’s Office in Sydney, on William’s behalf.
7th April 1840.
Sir, I am directed by His Excellency the Governor to request that the Prisoner named in the margin (William Snooks per Marquis Hastings) may be sent to Sydney by the first opportunity, his colonial sentence having sometime since expired under a commutation ordered at the time of his conviction.
It would appear that prior to his transportation to Norfolk Island in 1829, William’s 14-year sentence had been reduced, but not communicated to the authorities. William had spent far longer than he needed to, on the island prison. But he was now free, and able to move about the island whilst preparations were made to transport him back to Sydney. There are no records of the exact date of his departure, however he may have still been on the island, on the 24th May when Maconochie declared a public holiday in honour of Queen Victoria’s 21st birthday. That day the guns fired, signalling the opening of the prison gates. All convicts were free for the day and were invited to a special meal to celebrate the monarch’s birthday. This was followed by a fireworks display in the evening. The convicts could hardly believe they were to be the recipients of such a celebration, and rejoiced by swimming at beautiful Emily Bay, and toasting their Queen at the lunch.
Maconochie’s governorship brought much needed hope to the convicts on Norfolk Island. Three months into his tenure, the Sydney Morning Herald, published news from the formerly troubled island;
The Mangles (Ship) brings no particular news from Norfolk Island; everything had been going on peaceably under the social system up to the time of her leaving, but doubts were entertained as to how long it would last.
For William Snook however, it would not matter what happened on Norfolk Island next, for he was finally free from its torturous grip. William’s new life back in Sydney was about to begin. But would the lessons he learned whilst incarcerated stay with him? And would he now take, with both hands, the opportunity for a better life?
William Snook’s story will continue in part 2 (coming soon).