Mad or Bad?: The Life and Exploits of Amy Bock, 1859-1943

By Jenny Coleman

Amy Bock's life has been the inspiration for plays, books, a TV program, music, poems, an exhibition and more, but Mad or Bad? is the first comprehensive biography. And while Amy gained notoriety as a daring, duplicitous and talked-about con artist who impersonated a man and married an unsuspecting woman, in this book the author shows how her story was not a straightforward case of fraud and misrepresentation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Otago University Press
• Release date: May 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9780947522193

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Published by Otago University Press

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First published 2010

ISBN 978-1-877372-71-1 Print

ISBN 978-0-947522-18-6 Kindle Mobi

ISBN 978-0-947522-19-3 EPUB

ISBN 978-0-947522-20-9 ePDF

Copyright © Jenny Coleman 2010

Publisher: Wendy Harrex

Design: Fiona Moffat

Editor: Georgina McWhirter

Copy-editor: Rebecca Lal

Maps: Allan Kynaston

Indexer: Andrew Parsloe

Typeset by Book Design Ltd, Christchurch

eBook conversion 2017 by meBooks, Wellington, New Zealand

Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Maps

Amy Bock’s Family

Prologue Telling Tales: The Con Artist And The Biographer

Chapter 1 Convicts, Criminals and Artists: ‘It is in my blood’

Chapter 2 Inherited ‘Peculiarities’ From Her Mother

Chapter 3 ‘So I beg of you to excuse all errors this time’

Chapter 4 A Perfect Mania For What She Calls ‘Shopping’

Chapter 5 There Was A Great Deal Of Method In Her Madness

Chapter 6 Unique In Colonial Criminology

Chapter 7 The Case Of The Female Bridegroom

Chapter 8 A Startling Denouement

Chapter 9 Declared An Habitual Criminal

Epilogue Mad or Bad?

Appendix

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Photos

Index

Acknowledgements

This research has taken me to many institutions where I have consistently met with helpful and professional assistance. I would like to acknowledge the support I have received from: Archives Office of Tasmania, Hobart; Bothwell Public Library, Tasmania; Convict Research Centre, Port Arthur, Tasmania; Swansea Historical Society and Swansea Museum, Tasmania; Local History Room, Wynyard, Tasmania; State Library of Tasmania, Hobart; Queen Victoria Art Gallery and Museum, Launceston, Tasmania; Gippsland Maritime Museum, Port Albert, Victoria; Hazelwood North School, Gippsland, Victoria; Morwell Public Library, Gippsland, Victoria; Sale Historical Society and Sale Historical Museum, Sale, Victoria; Sale Public Library, Sale, Victoria; Public Records Office of Victoria, Melbourne; Port Albert Historical Museum, Port Albert, Victoria; State Library of Victoria, Melbourne; Research Centre, Auckland Public Library, Auckland; Auckland Branch, National Archives; Tainui Historical Society and Museum, Mokau; Waitara Genealogy Branch and Waitara History Project Group – The Memory Bank, Waitara; Taranaki Research Centre, Puke Ariki, New Plymouth; Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; Newspaper Collection, National Library, Wellington; Salvation Army Archives, Wellington; Wellington Branch, National Archives; Documentary Research Centre, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch; Christchurch Branch, National Archives; Balclutha Historical Society and Museum, Balclutha; Geraldine Historical Society Museum, Geraldine; Reference Library, South Canterbury Museum, Timaru; Waimate Historical Museum, Waimate; Waimate District and Historical Society Archives, Waimate; Reference Library, North Otago Museum, Oamaru; Hocken Library, Dunedin; Dunedin Branch, National Archives; Catlins Historical Museum/Owaka Museum, Owaka; Clutha Information Office, Balclutha.

I am grateful for financial assistance provided through the Massey University Research Fund and the Massey University Women’s Award. I have also received assistance from the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, and from the School of People, Environment and Planning during the course of this research.

I would like to thank the following individuals for their generous assistance: Alice Arthur, Gary Blackman, Major Peter Bradley, Roma Buchanon, John Catley, Paul Christoffel, Fiona Clark, Bessie Cunningham, Marilyn Dunn, Chris Fraser, Julian Halls, Sorrel Hoskin, Margaret Jackson, Lynne Johnson, Marion Mackay, Valmai McKay, Noeline McLaren, Garry Mellsop, Keith Mitchell, Rosemary Mowat, Louise Pearman, Liz Parkinson, Ian Powell, Margaret Powell, Dolcie Richards, Jim Rowley, Anne Scott, Irene Sutton, Peter Synan, Ann Synan, Marion Wellington, Ian Whittaker, Kath Widdowson, and Robert J. Williams. Thanks also to Robyn Andrews and Tighe Instone for their encouragement and comments on drafts.

Particular thanks go to Wendy Harrex whose enthusiastic responses to publishing Amy’s story have helped me through the challenges of my first book. Special thanks also to my brother Peter Coleman for all those long and engaging conversations on his porch discussing the discoveries of the day on the many research trips to Melbourne. Lastly, my heartfelt thanks go to my research assistant and partner Mary Nettle for supporting me in every possible way through this work. Your total belief in me is so precious.

JENNY COLEMAN

March 2010

Amy Bock’s Family

• Amy’s Immediate Family

Alfred Bock (9 April 1835–19 February 1920)

Married 1: Mary Ann Parkinson (1836–4 January 1875)

Date of marriage: 24 July 1858

Place of marriage: Hobart, Tasmania

Children:

1. Amy Maud Bock (18 May 1859–29 August 1943)

2. Ada Jane Bock (22 October 1860–24 March 1861)

3. Alfred Parkinson Bock (8 April 1862–21 July 1885)

4. Edwin Robert Bock (6 December 1863–15 March 1864)

5. Ethel Sophia Bock (14 May 1865–3 April 1917)

6. George Ernest Bock (1866–7 October 1897)

Married 2: Eleanor Rachel (Dolly) Blackburn (20 July 1858–26 July 1930)

Date of marriage: 25 March 1882

Place of marriage: Fitzroy, Melbourne, Victoria

Children:

1. James Blackburn Bock (1883–1 April 1878)

2. Harry Spencer Bock (1884–1948)

3. Walter Alfred Bock (1886–1962)

4. Sidney Herbert Bock (1889–1971)

5. Arthur Leslie Bock (1891–1979)

6. Jessie Eleanor Mary Bock (1894–1979)

7. Victor Albert (Dick) Bock (1897–1984)

• Amy’s Maternal Family

Robert Parkinson (30 January 1801–14 September 1875)

Married: Jane Jones (1796–24 September 1864)

Date of marriage: 26 September 1832

Place of marriage: Green Ponds, Tasmania

Children:

1. Caroline Roberts Parkinson (adopted niece) (1831–?)

Married: William Merry (1827–1898)

Children:

1. William Robert Merry (1855–1855)

2. Jane Euphemia Merry (1856–?)

3. Margaret Sophia Merry (1858–1858)

4. John William Robert Merry (1856–?)

5. Margaret Maria Merry (1862–?)

6. Mary Amelia Merry (1864–?)

7. James Merry (1866–?)

8. William Hugh Merry (1868–?)

9. Caroline Grace Merry (1872–?)

2. Robert Parkinson (1834–1875)

Married: Hannah Brodribb (1833–1927)

Children:

1. Robert William Henry (Harry) Parkinson (1855–1914)

2. Laura Jane Parkinson (1856–?)

3. Alice Sophia (Sophie) Parkinson (1858–1938)

4. Arthur Brodribb Parkinson (1860–?)

5. Lillias Helena Parkinson (1863–1953)

6. John James Parkinson (1865–?)

7. unnamed daughter (1866–1866)

8. James Merry Parkinson (1867–?)

9. Walter (Walt) Valentine Parkinson (1868–1939)

10. Frank Nicholl Parkinson (1871–1936)

11. Maud Alberta Parkinson (1873–1950)

12. William Robert (?Thornton) Parkinson (1875–1969)

3. Maria Jane Parkinson (1839–1926)

Married: William Benjamin Crisp (1833–1910)

Children:

1. William Henry Crisp (1856–1856)

2. Elizabeth Jane Crisp (1857–?)

3. Robert John Samuel Crisp (1859–?)

4. Unnamed daughter (1864–?)

5. Laura Priscilla Crisp (1867–?)

6. Minnie Maria Crisp (1868–?)

7. Florence Mary Crisp (1871–?)

8. Jessie Parkinson Crisp (1873–?)

9. Constance Maud Crisp (1876–?)

10. Lillian Mary Crisp (1878–?)

11. Elsie Irene Crisp (1881–?)

12. George Alfred Crisp (1883–?)

4. Mary Ann Parkinson (1836–1875)

Married: Alfred Bock

5. Sophia Parkinson (1839–1926)

• Amy’s Paternal Family

Mary (Annie) Spencer (1813–8 September 1898)

Married 1: Alexander Cameron (?–before 1840)

Date of marriage: 23 July 1832

Place of marriage: Hobart, Tasmania

Children

1. Henry George Cameron (1832– ?)

2. Alfred Cameron (later Bock) (1835–1920)

Married 2: Thomas Bock (1793–18 March 1855)

Date of marriage: July 1850

Place of marriage: Hobart, Tasmania

Children:

1. Edwin Morland Bock (1843–1853)

2. William Rose Bock (1847–1932)

3. Frederick Spencer Bock (1849–?)

4. Walter Bock (1851–?)

5. Arthur Bock (1853–?)

6. Thomas Bock (1853–?)

Married 3: James Ion Wilshire (?–9 July 1883)

Date of marriage: 23 October 1856

Place of marriage: Hobart, Tasmania

Children:

1. Annie Louise Wilshire

2. Amy Madeline Wilshire

3. Julia Wilshire

Prologue

Telling Tales:

The Con Artist and the Biographer

Hailed as New Zealand’s most notorious female criminal confidence artist, the life and exploits of Amy Bock have entered into folklore. Following her infamous trial in Dunedin in 1909, Amy Bock became a household name from North Cape to the Bluff. Adventuress, accomplished actor, a clever swindler and male impersonator extraordinaire, she has been the inspiration for poems and doggerel, plays, a novel, photographic and art exhibitions, television documentaries, and a musical composition. There have been race horses and prize cattle named after her, as well as a limited liabilities company registered in her name, and, if you visit The Point Café at Kaka Point, you may even find Amy Bock on the menu! As well as cropping up in compilations of curious crime stories, notable women and biographical collections, every few years a version of her story is retold in newspapers, keeping her memory alive in the public consciousness. For the most part, it is her impersonation as the suave and debonair Percy Redwood that has continued to capture public attention over the years and that has come to epitomise her whole life. I wanted to go past the media sensationalism of the Percy Redwood episode and ask who was the real Amy Bock and what was the story behind her life of fraud and false pretences?¹

Researching Amy Bock’s life has involved forays into her convict heritage as well as searching the archives of mental asylums, education departments and court records along with newspaper accounts. There is no doubt that her deeds are legendary, but one of the ways in which legends are made is through the perpetuation of exaggerated and often factually incorrect biographical detail, and this has certainly been the case for Amy Bock. Navigating a minefield of fragmented and often unreliable sources, all biographers have to deal with the perennial issues of gaps and silences in historical sources. But writing the biography of a confidence artist has more particular challenges. In keeping with her ability to fabricate convenient fictions, there are conflicting versions of some of the facts of Amy’s life. These are most obvious in sources such as the Police Gazettes, sources usually thought of as official and therefore deemed to be authoritative. But some of the details are based on self report which, in the case of a confidence trickster, will always be problematic. For the historical biographer, letters and personal correspondence are usually prized sources offering insights into the character and personality of one’s subject. In Amy’s case, there is much correspondence between her and education department officials during the years she was a teacher in Victorian schools. But while these provide a wealth of detail about day-to-day aspects of her life, they are also problematic because, over time, her letters came to be the signature tool of her scams.

As a con artist, Amy’s craft was to tell convincing stories and versions of her life. She repeatedly recreated her autobiography in ways that would work to her advantage, selling images of herself to manipulate others to achieve an end goal. While there were always elements of truth in her stories, a great deal of her life is based on convenient fictions. As I have been researching and writing her life I have, at times, felt conflicted: on the one hand, as a historian, I am seeking out reliable factual documented ‘truths’, but I am also a feminist who understands how the daily realities of women’s lives are often lost, inaccessible and misinterpreted. So for me, constructing Amy’s life story has been more than simply narrating her life history. As a historian I am committed to scholarly criteria of evidence but as a feminist biographer my attention shifts to how that evidence is interpreted. In practice I have had to make judgements about my sources. Regardless of whether those sources are self report, institutional records, oral accounts and memoirs, or family stories, I have had to question their relative authority and integrity in the context of other evidence about Amy’s life. There have been conflicting accounts of some events and episodes in her life; at other times the sources have been quite problematic, contentious, or purely speculative and I have addressed these issues as they have arisen in the notes for each chapter. In attempting to present her life story in a manner that lets readers make their own judgements about the real Amy Bock, I have offered some more considered reflections on her character and motivations in the Epilogue. It has been noted by other biographers that where a life contains fractures, silences, secrets, elisions and deliberate excisions, as Amy Bock’s life certainly has, these will become part of the writing of that life. It is in negotiating these that the confidence artist and the feminist biographer share a common challenge, and that is to tell a convincing tale.²

1

Convicts, Criminals and Artists ‘It is in my blood’

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, English society was such that the lives of complete strangers could be intertwined on the other side of the world. Such was the case for Amy Bock’s grandparents: Mary Spencer, a nurse and housemaid from Little Stanmore in Middlesex; Thomas Bock, an engraver and painter from Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands; Robert Parkinson, a coal-heaver from Quorndon, New Loughborough in the Midlands; and Jane Jones from Birmingham, Warwickshire.

Their story begins on an early winter’s day in London. It is 9 December 1830. For Mary Spencer it was a particularly bleak day. Annie, as she was known, was only sixteen. Diminutive in stature, standing only five foot one inch, she had a small round head, light-brown hair and a pale complexion. Her features were small but her hands were large with long fingers. Caught wearing two stolen gowns, she had been arrested and was on trial at London’s Old Bailey.¹

Six weeks earlier, Annie Spencer had gained employment as a servant to Mrs Ann Hirsch, who, with her husband, an officer of the Court of Chancery, lodged on the first floor of a house belonging to John Sherwin at number 19 Millbank Street, Westminster. The Hirsches must have believed Annie to be of good character because they paid her weekly on Mondays for work in advance to the following Saturday. At about noon on Monday 8 November, John Sherwin’s niece Mary Ann Holman, who also resided at the house in Millbank Street, left for a trip to Clapham. The following evening, having been in the Hirsch’s employ for only two weeks, Annie left without notice. Two evenings later, Mary Ann Foster who also lived at her uncle’s house at Millbank Street, went upstairs to discover her scarcely worn claret cloth cloak and a black silk bonnet were missing from her wardrobe. Checking more thoroughly she found a silk dress, a buff cotton dress, a black gauze scarf and a white apron all missing from her drawers. Although she had been unwell at the time Annie had left, Miss Foster was certain all of the items had been in her room three or four days before Miss Spencer’s disappearance.

When Miss Holman returned from her visit to Clapham the following Saturday, she was informed by her cousin of what had taken place while she had been away. Miss Holman decided to search her room and discovered that a bombazeen dress and a white petticoat that had been left in her unlocked bedroom cupboard were also missing. She informed David Phillips, a policeman on duty in Queen Square, of the missing items and gave a full description of Annie Spencer. Unfortunately for Annie, Constable Phillips saw her walking with a friend in Tothill Street just a quarter of a mile from Millbank Street at quarter past ten the following evening. When he stopped her to ask her name, she refused to answer. On being told that she would be locked up until he went to Millbank Street, she lost her resolve and pleaded, ‘What will they do with me?’ Ascertaining where she lived, Constable Phillips then proceeded with her to 23 Great Almonry, where he found all of the clothing items, except the cotton dress, wrapped in a bundle under her bed.²

Such were the circumstances that had led to Annie’s incarceration in Newgate Prison and subsequent appearance at the Old Bailey, the central criminal court in London. Between them, these two institutions ran the entire length of the ancient boundary of the City of London. The gaol was connected to the high court by an underground passageway known as Dead Man’s Walk. Like thousands before her, young Annie would have walked along this dank, dark corridor in fear of what the future might bring. Appearing before Mr Baron Vaughan and the First Middlesex Jury, Annie’s case was clear-cut. With the exception of the cotton gown, all of the missing items of clothing had been found in her possession. Mrs Hirsch, Miss Holman and Miss Foster each appeared in turn to testify in support of the case outlined by Constable Phillips. Miss Holman had seen Annie wearing some of her clothing in the watch-house at 10.30 p.m. on the evening of 17 November, and Miss Foster had seen all of the missing items of clothing at the police station in the prisoner’s presence.

While she waited to hear her sentence, a shiver would most certainly have run down Annie’s spine, as she was facing the almost inevitable prospect of being transported. The inhospitable physical conditions of the courtroom would only have heightened her sense of helplessness; with the doors and windows fully open to the cold and rain for fear of infection from prisoners, the floors washed down with vinegar, and the stench of tobacco and human excrement permeating the air, all of her senses would have been assaulted.

Annie’s was the fourteenth case to be heard at the Old Bailey that day. All except one of the previous cases, which were all for theft, had received the death penalty. Compared with those who had stood in the dock before her, Annie was lucky. Found guilty of stealing to the value of ninety-nine shillings, she received a sentence of seven years’ transportation to Van Diemen’s Land. Had she been found guilty of such a crime only a few years earlier, she, too, could have faced the death penalty.³

There is nothing on the historical record to provide any clues to the individual circumstances that may have led Annie to steal the clothing. That she was single, English and a first-time offender of a small-scale property crime committed without violence made her typical of the majority of convict women. Theft of apparel was the most common offence among female convicts, and, like many of her counterparts, Annie had been wearing some of the clothing she had stolen when she was caught.⁴

The transportation of convicts was organised by the Home Office. When the required number of female transportees was reached, the Admiralty would call for tenders for a suitable charter vessel. In the meantime, Annie would have a six-month confinement in prison. Newgate Prison had the unenviable distinction of being the largest and most notorious of London’s 150 prisons. It was a dismal and unhealthy place, and inmates often died due to the unsanitary conditions. Some physicians refused to enter its walls, and passers-by would hold their noses to avoid the stench that emanated from it. Rebuilt in 1782, the prison building was laid out in a central courtyard divided into two sections, with a common area for poor prisoners and a state area for those who could afford to pay for comfortable accommodation. Debtors and felons were kept separated, and the women’s section, where Annie was imprisoned, usually contained around 300 women and children. Although it was a local prison under the control of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, Newgate’s notoriety was as the main holding pen for those awaiting execution. Every Monday morning, large crowds would assemble outside, jostling for an uninterrupted view of the gallows. For those who could afford it, ten pounds would secure them a seat at one of the windows directly overlooking the gallows.

Like all prisoners, Annie was not supplied with bedding or clothing. These ‘comforts’ had to be purchased from the keepers, who would supplement their meagre incomes with proceeds from selling candles, soap and other basic items. Overcrowding and the lack of fresh air and clean water meant the environment was extremely unhealthy, and lice, fleas, epidemics and infectious diseases were rife. It was not unknown for rotting corpses to be left in the cells of those whose relatives either had not been informed of their death or who could not pay the fee required at the end of an inmate’s sentence. Food was supplied by the authorities and by charities for those prisoners who could not pay but, with no cooking facilities, it usually had to be eaten raw.

Annie Spencer’s behaviour during the period she was incarcerated in Newgate Prison was recorded as ‘orderly and quiet’. It was early summer before she would leave the prison confines and board the convict ship Mary. The ship’s master was Alex Jamieson and the Mary departed from Woolwich on 12 June 1831. As the ship’s master and senior officers would be paid on successful completion of the voyage, it was in their best interests to ensure that conditions on board were of a reasonable standard. On embarking, Annie was subjected to a medical examination to ascertain her fitness to survive the voyage. Allotted to a mess of six or eight women, she was assigned a numbered berth, bedding and a bag, and issued with standard prison clothing. Any personal items, such as clothing and money, were itemised, packed in a box and stored in the hold for the duration of the voyage. All convicts were given a small numbered tin ticket to wear around their necks. Although this practice was dehumanising, it was done with the convict women’s interests in mind, as an attempt to prevent the officers and crew calling the women by name and becoming too familiar with them.⁵

As was required under the official instructions for personnel for all female convict transports, a Royal Navy surgeon was appointed to the Mary. With authority over and above the ship’s master, surgeon-superintendent Samuel Sinclair was responsible for the day-to-day administration, supervision, discipline and regulation of the lives and health of the 151 female convicts on the Mary during her voyage. Following the distribution of messes and berths, Annie and the other prisoners were assembled and addressed by Sinclair, who explained the rules to be followed during the voyage.

Up until the time of departure, visits from family were allowed, and, while it is not known if Annie had any family, she would likely have been visited by one of the ladies from the Ladies Committee of Mrs Elizabeth Fry’s British Ladies Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners. As well as checking that the transports were fitted to the required standards, these philanthropic-minded ladies supplied the women convicts with books and small bags containing patchwork, needles and thread with which to amuse and occupy themselves during the voyage.⁶

The prison, located on the lower deck, resembled the typical emigrant ship with two rows of sleeping berths. Each berth was six feet square and accommodated either four or six convicts. Tables and bench seats were provided. A typical day consisted of waking shortly after sunrise, rolling up beds and stowing the bedding on deck if the weather permitted. Floors, bunks, tables and seats were then scrubbed. Ventilation and hygiene were the highest priorities. Rations were generally more than adequate. Breakfast, served at eight o’clock, consisted of gruel with sugar or butter. Lunch was usually beef, pork or plum pudding and preserved potatoes, with the addition of pea soup served about four times a week. Supper, eaten at about four or five o’clock, was usually similar to breakfast. After being at sea for three to four weeks, each woman also received a daily ration of an ounce of lime or lemon juice with an ounce of sugar mixed with water to prevent against scurvy, as well as being allocated a pint of wine each week. Served on the deck under strict supervision, this provided an opportunity for the prisoners to be checked for any signs of infectious diseases. With scabies and lice common problems, the women were required to wash themselves and launder their clothing once a week. All daily routines were subject to the weather conditions, and in cases of bad weather the women would be completely confined below decks. By the end of the voyage, the food was often stale and inedible, and the drinking water, filtered from the Thames, was barely drinkable.

On 11 July 1831, one month into the voyage, Sinclair checked Annie and two other women, who had presented with behaviours of concern. The first woman, aged twenty-nine, was known to be of irregular health and violent temper, having suffered from ‘addiction to intoxication’. She was frequently subject to hysteria and violent convulsions, and when in a paroxysm, it would usually take five or six men to hold her down so that she was not a danger to herself. The other woman, named Ann Baxter, was aged thirty-nine and, like Annie, was described as being ‘of the nervous temperament’. Dr Sinclair’s notes about Annie stated that she was ‘delicate in health’ and ‘very susceptible from any slight cause of irritation and liable to Hysteria and Convulsions’. In his view, all three women appeared to be influenced by the tropical heat and the high change in atmospheric temperature. He had recorded the thermometer reading at seventy-eight degrees and the barometer reading at 29.60 on that day. His entry in the medical journal also noted that Annie and Ann Baxter ‘being young and sanguine the Circulating System is much excited [the nervous and sensorial power] more susceptible to slight causes’. Dr Sinclair’s diagnosis was that all three women were suffering from a form of neurosis known as ‘spasmic hysteria’.⁷

In the absence of any other detail, it is impossible to determine the accuracy of the surgeon-superintendent’s diagnosis of Annie, except to say that it clearly reflected the commonly held belief at the time that women were, by nature, prone to hysterical outbursts and ruled by their passions. Such beliefs are clearly evident in the 1835 lectures on the origins and nature of hysteria written for the London Medical Gazette by John Roberton, surgeon of the Manchester Lying-In Hospital. Roberton wrote that the distinguishing and essential feature of the constitution liable to hysteria ‘is a particular irritability of the nervous system, existing throughout the duration of life, and often manifesting itself in a degree greater than the power to resist particular hurtful impressions’. In all cases, this ‘irritability’ originated in a congenital defect in the nervous structure, although it could also be aggravated by a variety of circumstances, ‘the chief of which are derangement of the menstrual function – an idle, sedentary, luxurious manner of living – and the cultivation of the emotions and passions to the neglect of the understanding’. He added that ‘although, in many cases, the hysteric patient is robust and vigorous, much more generally she is of slender, delicate make, capricious appetite, feeble digestion, and exceedingly variable bowels’. Spasmic, or spasmodic, hysteria was believed to present in a number of forms, including hysterical coughs and hiccups, exclamations and sighs, lockjaw and rigidity of other muscles, and palpitations.⁸

Whether there was any organic cause to Annie’s behaviour cannot be known. But there could be any number of ordinary reasons for her behaviour, not least the trauma associated with the reality that she was being transported to the other side of the world and not knowing what she might face there, or if she would ever return to her familiar life in England. This inevitability, along with the excessive heat and high humidity of the tropics, motion sickness and the weaknesses commonly brought about by long sea voyages could all be explanations for her behaviour. She may even have suffered some additional traumatic experience on board the ship. But as time would tell, she would defy her delicate build and put paid to any suggestions that she suffered a weak or nervous constitution.

After 131 days at sea, the Mary arrived in Hobart on 19 October 1831 and anchored at Sullivans Cove. But before Annie Spencer could step foot on this new soil, many formalities had to be completed. Various officials and the colonial surgeon boarded the ship to conduct a full examination, before giving a health clearance. A complete new set of clothing was issued to every female convict. The surgeon-superintendent would then hand over all of his records to the colonial secretary and indents were completed, listing all of the details of individual convicts, including their offences and sentences, and physical descriptions. The lieutenant-governor would then visit the ship and address the convicts, exhorting them to good behaviour. Each convict was allocated a police number which, along with the name of the ship, became as fixed as the convict’s surname for the whole of their sentence. Annie’s convict number was 212. Finally, any personal effects and money belonging to the convicts was handed over to the commissariat officer, for return to the convicts at a suitable time. It often took several days before these procedures were completed, and the first convicts to go ashore were those who were sick and needed to be taken to the colonial hospital or those who had committed offences on board serious enough to warrant further punishment.⁹

Annie Spencer’s first steps in this new land, which was to become her home for the remainder of her life, would have taken her to the Female Factory to await assignment. In many respects, the assignment system of transportation represented an organised and increasingly disciplined system of forced domestic labour. It differed in important ways from the transportation experiences of the earliest female convicts, who were exiled primarily to New South Wales, and, in lesser numbers, to Tasmania. These women were destined to become either the wives of officers and soldiers or, more commonly, to work in clothing and agricultural pursuits. Although their social realities were varied and unpredictable, many of these early female convicts had opportunities to improve their social and economic situation through marriage and by obtaining land after completing their sentences. In 1814, there had been a significant shift in policy around female transportation. The Colonial Office increasingly promoted the migration and settlement of retired defence-force officers and their families, as a means of encouraging the growth of a gentry class in both Tasmania and New South Wales. Convict women were transported in greater numbers to become the assigned servants of this emerging elite. On arrival in the colony, most were assigned to free settlers who provided accommodation, food and clothing in return for work; the rest were kept at the Female Factory until their labour was required.

The assignment system, which provided settlers with a cheap form of labour, was popular with the landed class in Tasmania. It was a condition of their assignment that convicts did not receive wages, although they were often rewarded for good conduct with extra rations, tobacco, tea and beer, particularly if their skills were in high demand. If, for any reason, they incurred the wrath of their master or mistress they could appear before a magistrate. If female convicts transgressed, they could be confined for periods in a female factory.

Annie Spencer was assigned to Lieutenant Davies, but within six months applied for an indulgence to marry Alexander Cameron, a mariner. By this time Annie was obviously pregnant, having conceived within the last two weeks of her voyage on the convict ship, some time in early October 1831. Marriage, particularly for convict women, although considered a privilege, was officially encouraged among the convicts. Like every other aspect of a convict’s life, however, it was strictly controlled. Proof was required that the husband was not already married and was in a position to provide for a family. In Annie and Alexander’s case, the application was granted, and they were married by banns by the senior chaplain at St David’s Church in Hobart on 23 July 1832. Ten days earlier, Annie had given birth to her first child, a son, whom they named Henry George Cameron.¹⁰

Upon marriage, Annie was reassigned to her husband. As Alexander Cameron was a sailor and frequently away at sea, Annie may have more or less lived the life of a free woman. A second son, Alfred, was born three years later on 9 April 1835, and both sons were baptised at the Holy Trinity Church in Hobart on 23 March the following year, with Alexander Cameron recorded as their father. On 6 September 1836, having served just over six years of her sentence, Annie Cameron received her conditional pardon. Although she was not allowed to return to England, the pardon, granted by the Crown on the recommendation of the lieutenant-governor, stipulated where she was permitted to reside.¹¹

At some stage during this period, Annie met Thomas Bock who, like Annie, had been transported to Van Diemen’s Land as a convict. Thomas had been granted an absolute pardon in August 1835. Five foot six and a half inches in height, with brown hair and brown eyes, Thomas Bock was an artist, specialising in engraving and portraiture work. Apprenticed in Birmingham, he had received a silver medal awarded by the Royal Society of Arts when aged in his mid-twenties. On 5 April 1823, he was tried at the Lent Assizes in Warwickshire, and found guilty of administering a drug to a young woman named Ann Yates, in order to procure a miscarriage. Ann Yates had met Thomas Bock around two years earlier and, according to her testimony at the trial, ‘she was prevailed upon by him’ and a woman by the name of Mary Day Underhill, and persuaded to leave her parent’s home and board for lodgings they had found for her. Within a short time, Thomas Bock is reputed to have seduced her and she became pregnant by him. At the insistence of both Thomas Bock and Mary Day Underhill, Ann Yates took several strong doses of herbs obtained by Thomas Bock, but they were not successful in stimulating a miscarriage. The child was born in October 1822 and was still alive.¹²

In sentencing Thomas Bock, the judge remarked that he had never tried a more wicked and malignant case. Efforts by Bock’s counsel to defame the victim by insinuating that she was a common streetwalker, along with the fact that Thomas Bock was a married man and two of his children were daughters, aggravated the severity of the crime committed in the opinion of the presiding judge. At the time of his trial, Thomas had been married for nine years to Charity Broome and they had four children. Their fifth child was born three days after Thomas was found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation to Van Diemen’s Land. Mary Day Underhill was also charged with the same offence and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation to New South Wales.¹³

After seven weeks on the prison hulk Justitia, berthed at Woolwich, during which time his conduct was recorded as ‘orderly’, Thomas departed with 150 other male convicts on the transport Asia at Deptford. The journey, via the Cape of Good Hope, took 163 days, arriving in Hobart on 19 January 1824. Thomas’s conduct records noted that he was ‘respectably connected’, that his former character was good, and that he had served an apprenticeship to the engraving business with Thomas Brandard, a trade engraver in Birmingham. As such, Thomas Bock’s skills would prove highly prized within the new colony. His respectable connections may well have paved the way for him in Tasmania. On arrival, he was assigned to Edward Foord Bromley, a naval surgeon and civil servant, who had worked as a surgeon-superintendent on a number of convict ships, before taking up an appointment as naval officer at Hobart in 1820. It was not uncommon for wives and families to follow convict men to the colonies, but, probably due to the scandalous nature of Thomas’s crime, this was not the case for Charity and the five children.¹⁴

Immediately on his arrival, Thomas Bock was employed in engraving tasks for the newly constituted Bank of Van Diemen’s Land, and the quality of his work was applauded publicly in the Hobart Town Gazette. His reputation soon extended beyond Tasmania, and, by August, he was hailed as ‘a man of sober and industrious genius’ in the Sydney Gazette. During 1824, it was discovered that Thomas Bock’s master, Naval Officer Bromley, had misappropriated colonial funds to the tune of seven thousand and ninety-six pounds. Thomas was reassigned to George William Evans, the government’s deputy surveyor, and, along with engraving bank notes, he engraved many invitations for official functions, as well as visiting cards, invitations and calling cards for commercial businesses. From 1825, he advertised in Bent’s Almanack as a portrait painter, historical and writing engraver, and was listed as the engraver for the Bank of Van Diemen’s Land.¹⁵

Thomas Bock’s career and reputation thrived in Tasmania, although he was never wealthy. He opened a studio at 1 Liverpool Street, Hobart Town, in 1831, and became the first portrait painter to practise professionally in the colony. Offering painting lessons, he soon became well known and the most sought-after painter for the colonial elite. In June 1832, nine years into his fourteen-year sentence, he was granted a conditional pardon. A year later he was granted a free pardon, and, in 1835, the same year as Alfred Cameron was born, Thomas Bock was granted an absolute pardon. During these years, Thomas Bock’s work consisted largely of fulfilling tasks set him by the colonial administration, along with some commissioned engraving and miniature portrait work. One of his more interesting early commissions was a series of pencil sketches of infamous Tasmanian bushrangers, taken while the subjects were being tried for cattle theft and murder, with some drawn after their executions. Presumably done at the request of the colonial surgeon, as part of the process of recording the physiognomy of notorious criminals, Bock’s drawings included face portraits and even a skull of one of the criminals.¹⁶

It is unclear precisely when Annie Cameron (née Spencer) and Thomas Bock met, or when they formed a relationship, but by 1843 they were living together with Annie’s two sons at 22 Campbell Street in Hobart. With her husband away at sea, Annie would have needed to earn an income and it has been suggested that she may have gained employment as Thomas Bock’s housekeeper. Family sources also state that Alexander Cameron was lost at sea, possibly near Bluff, on the southern coast of New Zealand. There is also a belief that Annie’s son Alfred was fathered by Thomas Bock, and that the recording of Alexander’s name as Alfred’s father when he was baptised was ‘a polite domestic fiction’. Whatever the truth of Alfred’s parentage, he was to take on the Bock surname and considered Thomas to be his natural father.¹⁷

The census for Van Diemen’s Land for 1843, taken on the night of 2 January, records Thomas Bock as head of a four-member household, residing in a rented brick dwelling at 22 Campbell Street, Hobart, where Thomas had been living since 1832. The census lists the household as comprised of two single males aged between seven and fourteen years, both born in the colony (Henry was then aged ten and Alfred was seven), one married male and one married female aged between twenty-one and forty-five, each listed as free persons not born in the colony and not listed as ‘Arrived Free’ (Thomas and Annie). Thomas’s occupation was recorded in the ‘Land Proprietors, Merchants, Bankers and Professional Persons’ category, and the other three were recorded as having no occupation. The religion for all four was listed as ‘Protestant Dissenters’.¹⁸

Later that same year, Annie and Thomas had a son, Edwin Morland Bock. In June the following year, Thomas’s wife Charity, aged forty-nine, died of consumption in Birmingham. Although this left Thomas free to remarry, there is nothing on the record to suggest that Annie was still officially married to Cameron. Legislation allowed for a remarriage if one spouse was continually absent for a period of seven years and was not known to be living during that time. The last known record relating to Alexander Cameron was on Alfred’s baptismal record, which was dated 23 March 1836. However, whether or not Cameron was ‘lost at sea’, another six years passed before Annie and Thomas formalised their relationship through a legal marriage ceremony in Hobart on 22 July 1850. The marriage license listed Annie under her full maiden name, Mary Ann Spencer, and recorded her marital status as spinster. In the meantime, two more sons had been born: William Rose Bock on 6 January 1847 and Frederick Spencer Bock on 31 May 1849.¹⁹

During the years Annie and Thomas had been living together in the home at Campbell Street, Thomas had established his reputation as an artist and was acknowledged as one of the most able portrait painters in the colony. Specialising in chalk drawings, he also painted in watercolours and oils, as well as being a skilled engraver. A significant turning point had been a commission to draw Lady Franklin, the wife of the governor, in 1838. She had been very impressed with the portraits of Tasmanian Aborigines he had painted in the early 1830s at Flinders Island Aboriginal Settlement and Port Phillip. The year after Thomas painted Lady Franklin’s portrait, a young Aboriginal girl named Mathinna was sent from the Flinders Island settlement to live with Lady Franklin, who then commissioned a study of her by Thomas. Several other important commissions followed, and this patronage from Lady Franklin greatly fostered and enhanced Thomas’s reputation.

Thomas exhibited portraits of five well-known citizens and their families in the 1845 Hobart Town Exhibition, the first exhibition of fine arts ever held in Australia. The following year his landscapes received acclaim. But Thomas’s health was failing. In September 1846, in response to rumours about whether or not he was still in practice, he advertised in the Hobart Town Courier that he had recovered from his late illness and was again practising his profession.²⁰

While Annie’s life invariably focused on her household of sons, Thomas continued to teach drawing, and after Frederick’s birth he began teaching evening classes. Fascinated by the possibilities emerging through the new invention of photography, Thomas purchased a camera and accessories. Unlike many portrait painters, who viewed this new technology as a threat to their craft, he announced his intention, in 1843, to extend his artistic services to taking daguerreotypes – small photographic images on silver-coated copper plates, individually mounted under glass. The complexities of the process discouraged all but the most patient and exacting of practitioners, and the considerable effort and expense inevitably meant that only the wealthiest of clientele afforded themselves of this new fashion.

But Thomas’s forays into photography were to be met with the threat of legal action. The photographic process for daguerreotypes was under patent in Australia to George Barron Goodman, notable for being the first professional photographer in Tasmania. Goodman had set up a studio in Sydney but moved to Hobart in August 1843. Despite his claim of ‘the decided superiority of these wonderful reflections of nature over any thing that can be produced by art’, Goodman’s daguerreotypes were small, plain, ill-defined images, roughly sealed with featureless grey backgrounds. On seeing Thomas’s advertisement he wrote to the Hobart Town Courier: ‘I cannot think that Mr Bock (even should he, by long study in chemistry and art, eventually be able to produce a portrait) seriously intends rendering himself liable to an action at law for infringement of a patent’. Several weeks later, the newspaper defended Goodman’s legitimate right to produce daguerreotypes with the following: ‘We regret to see that, after incurring an expense of upwards of a thousand pounds, and proceeding to Paris, there to obtain instructions from the inventor [Daguerre] himself, any impediment should have been thrown in his way in the shape of a competition which, in reality, cannot exist’. It was not until 1848 that Thomas ventured into commercial photography, by which time portrait work was becoming less fashionable. In doing so, he was reputedly the first artist of standing to pursue professional photography in Australia.²¹

The Bock household also expressed creativity through music. From an early age, Thomas had shown great promise in music and had been a chorister at Lichfield Cathedral. In Hobart, he imported a square-framed Broadwood piano, which he lent for use at important public concerts.

On 15 December 1851, Walter, Annie’s sixth son and fourth child by Thomas, was born. But, a few years later, tragedy was to strike the family. In August 1853, when Annie was six months pregnant, ten-year-old Edwin suddenly took ill of a prevailing epidemic. He died only fourteen hours after his first symptom. The birth of a new son, Arthur, on 30 November 1853 must have been bittersweet for Annie.²²

Thomas’s health was also in decline and, increasingly, he left the business in the capable hands of his stepson Alfred who, by this time, had adopted the Bock surname. Thomas died on 18 March 1855, aged sixty-five years. He was buried in the Holy Trinity Cemetery, but his tombstone was later removed to Cornelian Bay. The obituary in the Hobart Town Courier reflected the high esteem in which he was held:

Our obituary of to-day contains the name of one who should not be allowed to pass away without notice: we allude to Mr. Thomas Bock, an artist of a very high order. His portraits, painted over a long series of years, comprise several beautiful works of Art, and