Alfred Bowen Alias Tom Blankenship

By Hal Payne

After serving time in prison, Alfred Bowden, decides to go by the name of Tom Blankenship and is condemned to be transported to the New South Wales penal colony, never to return to the country of his birth, Wales. Tom Blankenship now has to make a home and name for himself in this mysterious, foreign and strange land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Aug 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669889144

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Copyright © 2022 by Hal Payne.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 06/28/2022

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CONTENTS

Preface

Notes

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

Epilogue

Appendix

To Maureen

With thanks to

Jan Smith

for her assistance.

PREFACE

I present this novel as just that, a novel.

The concept came in the way of a dream, a product of a night’s slumber.

From the initial acorn, the idea grew into a full-blown novel.

I was told that it was too verbose. I disagree. I feel that the style suits the period in which the story is set.

Enjoy!

NOTES

T he following story is not mine but is the tale of Alfred Bowen, alias Tom Blankenship. It was conveyed to me over years in bits and drabs. I visited him as Tom Blankenship, a neighbour, listened to his story and recorded them on return to my abode. I have assembled them, I believe, in something like chronological order after his passing.

I cannot vouch for the validity of the story as I only can tell the story as it was conveyed to me.

The archaic literary style of the storyteller made me doubt whether the book would be acceptable to modern readers, but I put it forward as it was told. In my opinion, one should read the manuscript and make up their own mind.

I only knew Tom in his later years. Although I only knew him for a few years, I believe I got the measure of the man.

Alfred Bowen, or Tom Blankenship, as I knew him, was a mild-natured man, with no worse of a criminal than those necessary to become a thief and burglar that he had been.

However, burglary was considered a capital offence in the early eighteen hundreds when he was known by his real name and the offence occurred.

A convenient fire destroyed some of the records, and hundreds of Australians sighed with relief and consigned their sheep stealing, larceny, robbery, and murders to the oblivion of short-term memories.

Australians have a reputation to have a soft spot for notorious criminals, Ned Kelly, Captain Moonlite (Andrew George Scott), etc.

T he manuscript was rewritten, but with fidelity to the original story as it was told to me. Only the sequence of the events lies in doubt. The events recorded have been verified as much as possible and there are points which prove the narrative to be authentic.

The tale conveyed in the following pages, was compiled by me as it fell from the lips of the person. Alfred Bowen was at once the author, and subject. The adventures are therein related with a view to dissolve the tedium, and change the repetitiveness, at times inseparable from the circumstances of a life in the rural population.

As, however, many of the incidents is known to me personally, and that others have been vouched for by persons of undoubted integrity, it is now offered to the public, who, it is hoped, will receive it with the indulgence due to it.

It has been impossible to identify Tom Blankenship as the hero of this tale, although the narrative to be authentic.

Also, the story is written in the third person because I was not there, and the tale is best told in that style.

Fredric Townsand, 1883

I

A lfred Bowen was raised in Cardiff, Wales. He was apprenticed to his father, a baker of some repute, who was well respected in the community. Alfred was a quick learner and seemed happy in his apprenticeship.

He was baptised in 1798, christened in St John the Baptist Church, the church his family attended. At an early age he sang in the choir at that church until his voice broke, at which point he was resigned from the choir. He still liked to sing but usually over a few drinks at the tavern. He played Rugby in school and enjoyed playing the game and he took pride in being Welsh.

He knew the Welsh folk tales and stories he had learned from the old folks. He knew why cenhinen¹ was the national symbol of Wales. He spoke both English and Welsh.

He had no objection to his country, Wales, being ruled by another country, England. This was something which irked a few of the older folk in Wales.

The ruling country, England, was not oppressive, provided national protection and Wales was allowed their own parliament.

He had a sister who married a slate miner at the ripe age of seventeen years. Had she not married by eighteen she would have been considered a spinster, a classification not considered complimentary. People would have conjectured what was wrong with her because no young man wanted to marry her.

There was no evidence of him being illtreated in his youth. He had received a sound education, on which his parents had insisted.

He had been subject to the normal amount of discipline and surveillance until this freedom came to him, but there is no great evidence that he was harshly treated, or that he was greatly annoyed by his treatment. Indeed, little is known of his early youth, and nothing officially at all about accomplishments as a youth, only by spoken words. Records are scanty of the years prior to his assuming the alias of Tom Blankenship. There is no record of any scandal or trouble with the law concerning him.

He had lived with his mother and father until he had become a competent baker of bread himself.

He was an unshakable, relaxed fellow, not particularly violent, but he, however, had a weakness for the finer things in life which he could not afford and adapted a reasonably safe lifestyle which would add to his means of living flashily as a fashionable young man.

At the end of the second year of his training, by virtue of a provision in his retirement², he was entitled to a