The Life and Times of Six Australian Pioneers: (1760–1880)

By James Arthur Loftus

This true life adventure story is the saga of four ordinary Englishmen—a pair of banished, first-time petty thieves and a couple chosen to be settlers—who charted a course that led them to help build and mould an infant country on the remotest continent in the known world. Two of their offspring united to continue the adventure.
Vivid first-hand accounts have been pried from the daily, hand-written journals and writings of first-class passengers, crew, and one of the convicts aboard the small wooden sailing ships, as they battled winter storms on the treacherous North Atlantic and Southern Oceans and endured scorching doldrums in the equatorial region. Mutinies, inventions, discoveries, and wars have been chronicled to provide a backdrop of the prevailing international, societal, and interpersonal relationships of the period.
Characters from history’s stage weave their way through these pages—figures including James Cook, Horatio Nelson, Robert Emmet, Jonathan Swift, William Bligh, Lachlan Macquarie, Samuel Marsden, Walter Lawry, Alfred Howitt, and some long-forgotten souls like the tragic Margaret Sullivan. Artwork of the period is included to help stimulate the imagination and help place the reader beside the characters as they toiled to eke out an existence.
The primary objective of this biography is a quest to achieve a broader, deeper understanding and appreciation of the typical person—including their struggles, challenges, and contributions—in early colonial New South Wales, Victoria, and New Zealand. The goal is to further the development of a robust comprehension of the Life and Times that these Six Australian Pioneers experienced, as well, the millions of other pioneers just like them. This book will also appeal to those with an interest in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Australian, European, and New Zealand history; late eighteenth-century ocean voyages; and those with an interest in artwork of the period.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Nov 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664101562

James Arthur Loftus

James Arthur Loftus became a student of history at an early age, winning a prize for a piece on the Industrial Revolution during his formative years. His Australian grandfather earned his captain’s papers sailing the seven seas; he proudly boasted that his family’s coat of arms contained the image of a ball and chain. It was his grandfather’s stories, spirit of adventure, and gentle kindness that ultimately sparked an avid interest in sailing, nineteenth-century Australia, and family history, pursuits well over two decades in the making. His grandfather’s sextant is one of his most prized possessions; it has been a constant companion during his extensive explorations of the British Columbia coast on the SV Wand’rin Star, together with his faithful admiral.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

England (1760–1808)

Ireland (1600–1803)

The Marquis Cornwallis (1795–1796)

The Hillsborough (1798–1799)

The Speedy (1799–1800)

The Speke (1808)

New South Wales (1788–1835)

Van Diemen’s Land (1803–1837)

Port Phillip District (1835–1842)

New Zealand (1842–1852)

Victoria (1852–1883)

Epilogue

Afterword

Ancestors Of Captain Arthur George Lilly

Ancestors Of Francis Thomas Van Hemert, M.D.

Ancestors Of William Wood (1792–1867)

Notes To The Family Trees

References

Illustration Credits

PREFACE

WHERE DO I COME FROM? This is a question that presents itself to many of us at some point in our lives. In the case of my Canadian children, the most straightforward answer might be: mostly from Ireland as well as England, Wales, Scotland, Holland, and probably France. Their Irish ancestry has been traced back to the early 1800s and a few into the late 1700s where the trail turns quite cold.ii On the other hand, several English families have been followed back to the early 1600s, to the days of Queen Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare, with at least one root penetrating back to the mid-1500s, during the reign of Henry VIII—almost to the time of the Protestant Reformation and the end of the Middle Ages or medieval period.iii Their Dutch ancestry has also been traced back to the mid-1500s. Two well-travelled ancestors in that family line moved to opposite sides of the globe. Then they returned to England only to move back to the southern hemisphere; one lady repeated the moves yet again. A couple of my children’s ancestors reportedly lived in mid-sixteenth-century France.¹ iv

MOST OF MY CHILDREN’S IRISH CLANS emigrated to the British Crown Colonies of Lower and Upper Canada between about 1806 and 1842 (before the Great Famine), although several arrived a decade or two later. One branch left Ireland in the early to mid-1700s, probably fished for a time out of Jersey in the Channel Islands, and then followed the fishing and settled in the British Crown Colony of Newfoundland sometime around 1790. A few Irish folks emigrated to the United States of America in the mid-1800s before some of their children relocated to Canada more than a century ago. Of the many Irish families, there is one Irish lass whose husband may have been Welsh or of Welsh ancestry, and there is one other lass blessed with an Irish birthv whose father, husband, and descendants were strictly English—two and three centuries ago.

William Forbes Adams’ 1932 treatise, Ireland and Irish Emigration to the New World from 1815 to the Famine,² provides a brief initial insight into why so many of our Irish ancestors emigrated when they did—for the most part, well before the Great Famine (1845-1852):

First among motives leading Irishmen to emigrate we must put desire to escape from Ireland. The conviction that the country had no future existed as early as 1815 among some of the more prosperous farmers; after the Munster famine of 1822 it was much more widespread, and by the middle of the thirties had become fairly general among the lower classes except in Connaught. Steadily and inexorably the pressure of population, extended unemployment, reduced wages, and raised rentals to a ruinous figure. Famine and disease swept over the country periodically, further endangering lives already precariously insecure. Civil war, coupled with political and religious dissensions and agrarian friction, completed the forces of expulsion.vi

While this may be news to many today, it was rather well understood not too many generations ago. I remember a conversation with my father over half a century ago regarding why our ancestors left Ireland before the Great Famine. He simply said: In Ireland, there was always a famine of some sort—just not as severe and widespread as the great one.

ONE DUTCH ANCESTOR, a businessman, crossed the English Channel and became a naturalised Englishman in 1719. Joan Van Hemertvii emigrated only a generation after Dutch-born William of Orange invaded Britain in 1688, defeated King James II (the last Roman Catholic English monarch), and was crowned William III (King of England and King of Ireland) and William II (King of Scotland). The known ancestors of Joan Van Hemert (1694–1758) all resided in Amsterdam, where a strictly maternal path has been traced back to Pietergen Ariaens. Pietergen was born about 1550, about the time of the expansion of Calvinism to this remote corner of the Holy Roman Empire and approximately twenty years before the establishment of the Dutch Reformed Church.

One English and Scottish couple emigrated to Canada with their family sometime before 1840. This exclusively British ancestral line slowly melded through three successive generational marriages into Irish Canadian families.

Four English (the father of the English lass was a Scot), one Welsh, and one Irish ancestor—including the prime subjects of this tome—emigrated to Australia in the years 1798, 1799, 1808, and 1852. They and their descendants moved around a great deal before my children’s second most recently naturalised Canadian ancestor, a fourth-generation Australian (although his father, a third-generation Aussie, was born in New Zealand) chose Vancouver, Canada as his official residence. This seaman chose Vancouver as his future home soon after he arrived on the Empress of Russia on Christmas Eve 1921, five years before he met his bride one day in the Dominion of Newfoundland. That coupleviii promptly sailed off to Antwerp on the Chris Moller where they enjoyed an extended honeymoon; he was captain of that tall ship, recently loaded with Newfoundland’s lumber. He had spent most of his early life sailing the seven seas in the tall ships.

THE FIRST OF MY CHILDREN’S ANCESTORS known to have been born in any of Britain’s crown colonies are two of the primary subjects of this tome: George Lilly and Mary Grace Osburne. George was born in 1803, probably in Parramatta, just a generation after James Cook discovered the land in 1770 and a mere fifteen years after the first Europeans had landed on the continent with the mission to establish and build a British colony. Grace was born six years later in Sydney. Although Charles Furey was born about 1790, either in the British Crown Colony of Newfoundland or on the Island of Jersey, a British Crown Dependency in the Channel Islands—there is convincing speculation he descends from a fishing community in County Galway, possibly Claddagh. Robert Haney was next; he was born in 1811 in Québec City, Lower Canada—the son of an Ulsterman and soldier in King George III’s army.

THE RICHNESS OF MY CHILDREN’S MOSTLY IRISH HERITAGE has endured almost two centuries after their ancestors emigrated. This demonstrates how, over preceding generations, many people were attracted to each other, perhaps by chance, but also in no small part by familiar cultural or community bonds.

While usually overlooked, religion can also provide some valuable insight into a person’s past. In stark contrast to the attitudes of today’s western society, one’s religion was an essential factor in choosing a life partner. Religious prejudice is often deeply ingrained. Not long ago, religious discrimination was practised openly in British and Irish societies; intermarriage between Protestants and Papists was not condoned by either side. Indeed, intermarriage often resulted in a lonely ostracisation from one’s family and friends. Politics, culture, and religion followed along similar and deep divides. While there may be more, only four intermarriages between Roman Catholic and Protestant families have been documented thus far among my children’s 168 identified ancestors.

The Protestant traditions practised by their ancestors include the Church of England, Church of Ireland, Wesleyan Methodist Church, Salvation Army, Presbyterian Church, Dutch Reformed Church, and, reportedly, the Protestant Reformed Church of France whose members are better known as Huguenots.ix Some families practised multiple Protestant traditions. One Irish Canadian family had children baptised in Church of England, Wesleyan Methodist, and Presbyterian faiths. Family mobility, church proximity, and availability of travelling or circuit preachers in rural Lower and Upper Canada during the 1830s and 1840s were likely the primary causal motivators.

In summary, my children’s ancestors are mostly of Irish ancestry and the Catholic tradition. Other ancestors held Dutch, Scottish, or Welsh nationalities and were of Protestant traditions. Many more held English or Irish nationalities and belonged to Protestant traditions. This mix influences our culture, values, beliefs, and even lingering prejudices—whether conscious or not.

FROM OUR EARLIEST DAYS, we have been strongly influenced by our ancestor’s history and cultural genealogy—stories, customs, expressions, and attitudes that our parents, grandparents, teachers, and others have imbued us with since birth. Author Christine Kenneally, in The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures, reviewed various scientific studies. She then observed:

The implication of these studies is that the way we see the world and act in it … is significantly shaped by internal beliefs and norms that have been passed down in families and small communities. It seems that these norms are even taken with an individual when he moves to another country.³

Our ancestors have shaped our history, culture, and heritage, just as they too were strongly influenced by their forebears and persuasive leaders. Our ancestry is so much more than our genetic makeup or DNA. Knowledge of our genetic background is useful for achieving a greater understanding of health risks, personal traits, and even quirks. However, it is our familial (whether of biological or surrogate parentage) and community backgrounds, especially in those early formative years, that play a large part in helping to define us. We have a collective heritage. This work is an effort to flesh some of that out.

MOST OF US ARE KNOWN by a single-family name, usually passed down through a single male line (at least for the most part). However, we are all the product of untold individuals and families. My children’s ancestral heritage includes seventy-six known family surnames. Armed with the knowledge of one’s ancestral family, one could wonder how many of our friends, associates, and acquaintances are distant relations. Indeed, according to the book of Genesis (if not science), going back to the time of Adam and Eve and then later to Noah, we all must be related!

THE FUNDAMENTAL DETAILS of the six principal individuals in this tome have been pieced together from various church and government records; newspaper reports have also been instrumental in fleshing out the story. A few unconfirmed details have been included that were reported by persons well after the fact—by two grandchildren and a third-great-grandchild. However, except where challenged within this tome, the veracity of those reports is expected to be proved factual, eventually. A few newspaper reports, certain events found summarised on government indexes, and especially the few unconfirmed reports deserve further exploration. I am confident there are compelling documents yet to be uncovered that would further flesh out the story.

Care has been taken to ensure the events reported herein actually pertain to the Six Australian Pioneers who are the ancestors of Captain Arthur George Lilly. There are cases of multiple persons sharing the same name that have required close scrutiny and evaluation. Indeed, multiple spellings of an individual’s surname were common in years gone by. Family history is a somewhat fluid affair, evolving as new documents, details, and individuals become known. Any errors or misinterpretations are strictly my responsibility.

A great deal of source material has been referenced in the endnotes to aid the reader who may wish to explore various events further; indeed, the reader is encouraged to do so. Much of it is captivating and offers a much broader historical context and perhaps an appreciation of the times. This story blends family events with other historical events happening outside the family sphere and elsewhere in the world. The reader may find the reference section useful when evaluating conflicting information that may become known from time to time; indeed, conflicts exist among many references consulted. I have done my best to discern and weed out ‘alternative facts.’

Since this is a British Australian story, I have employed chiefly British Australian spellings throughout.

I have not used the term sic to identify spelling variations in quoted material, primarily because its use would be far too frequent and thus too distracting. Variations are due, in part, to an evolution of the English language; but most frequently, the variations reflect a more or less advanced level of literary culture possessed by the original writers. Rather than simply retell their personal stories with my interpretation, I have chosen to employ a great deal of quoted material in some sections. This methodology is intended to better enable the reader to enter the realm of the original writers and their intended readers. By taking the time to listen to the spelling of the words in one’s mind’s ear, one can almost hear the accent of the storyteller. The use of original text adds an essential dimension to the charm of the overall story, in my view.

William Noah’s journal is particularly riveting, especially insofar as his observations, thoughts, and experiences likely reflect, for the most part, those of the two hundred survivors of the transport ship Hillsborough, including those of George Boyden. While Noah was influenced by his internal temperament and psychology, he was also dependent on his literary proficiency and personal vocabulary. He was subject to inexactitudes of language and errors in spelling due either to inattention or insufficient grammatical knowledge. Where Noah has created a confusing error in vocabulary, I have added the intended word, for example, hole [hold], but [put], Loosey [lousy], Wiltshire [Wiltshaw].

Few likely paid any attention to Noah scratching away in his journal down in their dimly lit accommodations. The absence of conventional sentence structure suggests his primary education was interrupted at a very early age, as was likely the situation with most of his peers.

To assist clarity, I have added some punctuation and associated capitalisation in passages quoted from Noah’s mostly punctuation-less, handwritten journal. Otherwise, with one notable exception, Noah’s spelling, grammar, and vocabulary have been transcribed as originally presented in his rather neat penmanship; although it has been hard to decipher at times due to his unique calligraphy style and the physical effects on his priceless document by the passage of two centuries.

Noah’s archaic use of the grapheme ſ (the medial or long s; not to be confused with the letter f) has been replaced with the modern round or short s on most occasions. This also applies to most (but not all) other passages quoted from the period. Both printed texts and handwritten documents of the day usually employed a medial or long ſ in place of a round or short s when appearing as a single letter or the first of a double s. For example, the words Provissions (sic), Distress, and assure appear in Noah’s handwriting as Proviſsions, Diſtreſs, and aſsure. Also, note the two samples of William Osburne’s handwriting on page ix. The long s (or grapheme ſ) fell out of use by English publishers in about the early nineteenth century due to its similarity and confusion with the letter f.

Similarly, punctuation and associated capitalisation in passages quoted from Anna King’s handwritten journal have also been modified somewhat to assist clarity. Otherwise, her spelling and grammar appear as originally written. Interestingly though, Mrs King did not employ the grapheme ſ.

I have researched most other branches of our family primarily by visiting various libraries and scrolling through countless rolls of microfilm and sheets of microfiche. However, the immense and rapidly expanding internet is almost the exclusive source of research for these Australian branches of our Family Tree. Technology and access to information are advancing rapidly!

A considerable debt is owed to the many people who have contributed to this evolving research, especially those kind genealogical strangers who found and forwarded copies of records that are not readily available to me here on the other side of the world. Others have been very helpful in suggesting directions and places to search. The published and printed works of three cousins have been especially instrumental in assisting me in confirming my relationship to these captivating Australian Pioneers: Harry Herson Lilly (1875-1945), Frances Eileen Osburne Lilly (1881-1958), and Noel Mann.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the many members of the Nanaimo Family History Society who, over the past two decades, were my generous and patient tutors and mentors in this pursuit of the art and science of genealogical research. Grateful acknowledgement is also due to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members have been copying, collecting, preserving, and cataloguing vital historical records for decades. They have made non-confidential records readily available to its members and the public.

I am tremendously indebted to the love of my life who graciously accepted the arduous task of proofreading countless drafts; but especially valuable were her ideas to amplify and clarify the storyline. Subsequent discoveries were frequently surprising.

My Australian Ancestors are particularly interesting insofar as they left a substantial legacy documented in print, primarily via their business ventures and misadventures. This is in stark contrast to my family’s many other pioneering ancestors in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere who, by their profession as farmers, fishermen, and railroaders, led a no less important, but merely a more inconspicuous existence. We owe an immense debt of gratitude for the perseverance of all our ancestors. We are their legacy.

James Arthur Loftus

5 April 2020

Nanaimo, Canada

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iiNearly a thousand years of invaluable records were destroyed on 30 June 1922 during the Battle of Dublin—the start of the Irish Civil War. A section of the IRA, opposed to particular terms of the recently won Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, occupied Dublin’s Four Courts complex, the seat of the new, historic Irish government on 14 April 1922. After two months of intense British pressure on the new Irish government to end the siege and intimidating threats to re-take the country, the new Irish National Army, aided by British artillery and possibly even British forces, attacked the rebels on June 27. Three days later, the west wing, which housed the Records Office and also the militant’s munitions, was obliterated in a massive explosion. While what caused the munitions to detonate has been a matter of conjecture and firm denial by all involved, the priceless genealogical and historical losses are undeniable.

The IRA especially opposed the provision that split up the island nation and created the Irish Free State and the United Kingdom’s province of Northern Ireland. The IRA was also fiercely opposed to the requirement of all members of the Irish Free State’s parliament to declare an Oath of Allegiance to the King in Ireland, George V, his heirs and successors.

iiiWilliam Wood (1671–1730) likely descends from Thomas Granger, believed to be his mother’s great-grandfather who was born 1534 in Staffordshire, the very year Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy and declared Henry VIII head of the Church of England. Refer to page 331 for a pedigree chart positioning these family connections.

ivWilliam Wood (b. 1757) recounted that his grandfather William Wood (1671–1730) was fourth in descent from the refugee François Dubois—a Huguenot who fled France, with his wife and only son, after the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572—a time when Roman Catholic mobs murdered tens of thousands of Huguenots. Dubois settled in Shrewsbury and founded a ribbon manufactory. Dubois’ descendants moved to Wolverhampton where they purchased coal mines and built iron forges. The family name was anglicised by 1609. This report appears in multiple books by Rev. David Agnew and also by Mary Howitt (née Botham), a picturesque poetical authoress. While this author has not independently traced Wood’s connection to François Dubois, the published assertions probably originated from Mary Howitt’s uncle William Wood (b. 1757), whom Howitt observed: was well versed in family descent and traditions.

vMary Brownrigg (1690–1770) married her English cousin George Brownrigg (1677–1760) in 1705. (ref. page 331)

Laws pertaining to marriage between cousins have varied by jurisdiction and over the years.

In the Roman Catholic Church, first and second-cousin marriages were banned at the Council of Agde in 506, though dispensations were sometimes granted. By the eleventh century, with the adoption of the Canon Law method of computing consanguinity, these proscriptions had been extended to sixth cousins. However, due to the many difficulties in reckoning who was related to whom, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 relaxed the proscriptions and barred third-cousin marriages. Pope Benedict XV reduced this to second cousins in 1917, and in 1983, Pope John Paul II relaxed this further when he permitted marriage between those whose relationship was more distant than first cousins.

The Church of England has allowed first-cousin marriage since its inception when King Henry VIII severed the English Church from Rome in 1534. According to both Martin Luther and John Calvin, the Catholic bans on cousin marriage were an expression of church rather than divine law and so ought to be abolished. While there is no state proscription to first-cousin marriage in the United Kingdom, Canada, or Australia, this official union is prohibited by the majority of states in the USA.

Children of first-cousin marriages may have an increased risk of genetic disorders, especially if their parents both carry a harmful recessive mutation.

viEmphasis is mine.

viiJoan (John) Van Hemert (1694–1758). Refer to page 330 for a pedigree chart positioning this family connection.

viiiCaptain Arthur George Lilly (1894–1978) and Teresa Margaret Furey (1907–1987).

ixKing Henry VIII (1491–1547) founded the Churches of England and Ireland. The Wesleyan Methodist Church, based on the teachings of Rev. John Wesley (1703–1791), was an offshoot of the Church of England and founded in England after Wesley’s death. The Presbyterian Church (also known as the Church of Scotland), the Dutch Reformed Church, and the Protestant Reformed Church of France were founded and based on the teachings of the French reformer John Calvin (1509–1564). The Salvation Army, derived from Methodism, was founded in England by Methodist lay circuit-preacher William Booth (1829–1912). My children’s fourth-great-grandfather The Reverend John Van Hemert was a curate for the Church of England in the parish of Hinderwell when he married Caroline Richardson in 1820. Refer to page 330 for a pedigree chart positioning this family connection.

INTRODUCTION

THIS BIOGRAPHY BEGINS IN ENGLAND during the last half of the eighteenth-century, a period of tremendous technical, social, and political change. It strives to capture a glimpse of four individuals—William Osburne, George Boyden, Elizabeth Lilly, and Mary MLeod—who, around the turn of the century, emigrated from family and home and travelled to the opposite corner of the world. They departed England’s shores to encounter an uncertain future in a remote, new, and untamed British colony—New South Wales. Together, we will also explore the footsteps of two of their offspring—George Lilly and Mary Grace Osburne—as they build a life together and contribute to the early development of four fledgeling British Crown Colonies: New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land, New Zealand, and Victoria.x

To understand the times in which these pioneers lived—economically, politically, culturally, and morally—is to understand the person a bit better. Accordingly, snippets of the world’s affairs are recalled throughout this tome to help present a broader context of those times. Characters from history’s stage weave their way through these pages—characters such as James Cook, Horatio Nelson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Marie Antoinette, Robert Emmet, Jonathan Swift, William Bligh, Samuel Marsden, Walter Lawry, James Watt, Queen Victoria, and many others including some long-forgotten souls like Margaret Sullivan. Inaugural inventions of the Industrial Revolution, discoveries made by intrepid explorers, wars, revolutions, and acts of parliament are briefly recalled. Numerous drawings and paintings from the period are included to help stimulate the reader’s visual senses, imaginations, and perspective. The goal is to assist in the development of a robust comprehension of the Life and Times that these Six Australian Pioneers experienced. As well—millions of other people just like them. This modus operandi is intended to help the reader better position and connect these individuals within the context of generally familiar historical events and fix the place where they belong in history’s grand timeline.

The narrative begins about the time of the birth of William Osburne, searches for hints of the paths followed by each of our subjects before they departed for the southern hemisphere, and then follows their journeys over King Neptune’s domain. We explore the lives they led as early pioneers on the known world’s most remote continent. The account ends with the passing of Mary Grace Lilly, about 120 years after the birth of her father, William Osburne.

The vast majority of published biographical sketches seem to be devoted to powerful, influential, and noteworthy people; some are famous, others infamous. The primary objective of this biography is a simple quest to achieve a broader, deeper understanding and appreciation of the typical person—including their struggles, challenges, and contributions—in early colonial Australia. For the author, the objective has been the pursuit of a broader appreciation and a more in-depth understanding of some of his family roots.

Historical research is an interesting process. Conflicting information abounds. This may be the result of assumptions made or a desire to withhold the truth and present an alternative story. Conflicts may be introduced at the point of origin or at any time since. Try as he might, the researcher does not uncover all the relevant information in a linear path. A hidden or missing piece of information can have a dramatic impact on the direction of the storyline.

The reader is cautioned against forming any judgment; it is impossible to be aware of all the circumstances faced by any individual or group. While it may be easy to judge past events set against today’s conditions and mores, it may not be just. The Mormons, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believe it is essential to know our ancestral family when we meet them in heaven. It is prudent to be mindful that heaven is the proper place for judgment.

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xRefer to page 329, Ancestors of Captain Arthur George Lilly, for a pedigree chart positioning these family connections.

LIFE & TIMES PRIOR TO THEIR DEPARTURES FROM

ENGLAND

(1760–1808)

THE LAST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY witnessed a period of change of epic proportions. It saw the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and attendant societal shifts from sparsely settled agrarian communities to densely populated urban centres. Abject poverty, filth, and pollution had now become rampant. Britain, as well as other European nations, sought to expand her influence and commercial interests. Britain, Spain, and France sent expeditions out into the Pacific Ocean commissioned to discover and claim new lands and, importantly, establish new trade links, especially with China. Britain was at war—almost continuously. Allies and adversaries changed partners frequently, except Britain and France who were always foes—apart from a few brief periods of nervous peace.

Furthermore, people were demanding inalienable rights. Rebellion was in the air—in the Thirteen British Crown Colonies in North America and in France, a mere twenty-one miles across the English Channel (Calais to Dover). Citizens demanded freedom from the ruling classes and unsympathetic, aristocratic monarchies.

George III reigned over the burgeoning British Empire. The Archbishop of Canterbury had crowned him King of Great Britain and King of Ireland in a ceremony replete with pomp and circumstance in Westminster Abbey on 25 October 1760. King George had also inherited, from his grandfather King George II, the prestigious titles of Duke and Prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover)—the ninth electorate of the Holy Roman Empire.

The signing of the Treaty of Paris, 10 February 1763, marked the end of the Seven Years’ War; colonial North Americans knew the conflict as the French and Indian War. In one of the war’s significant battles three and a half years earlier, thirty-two-year-old General James Wolfe defeated Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec City. Both Montcalm and Wolfe suffered mortal wounds on those distant plains. Under the terms of the treaty, France ceded most of New France to Britain; exceptions were the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, that part of the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi, and the port of New Orleans. France’s ally Spain ceded Florida.

W ILLIAM OSBURNE WAS BORN in Lincolnshire, probably in October 1761; he was probably the son of a miller. While he disclosed he was born in the Parish of Market Rasen, there is no baptismal record for any Osburne, or variant, in the surviving church records of that town for that general period. A letter William wrote in 1823 professed he was born in October 1764, and records from 1828–1834, all generated after he retired, support the claim. However, his 1799 military discharge records suggest he was born in September or October 1761. Then two military records prepared in 1809 suggest a 1760 birth, a year that would fit if he were eighteen when he joined the Marine Forces in June 1779. While William consistently penned Osburne, others employed four variants of his family name: Osborn, Osborne, Osburn, and Osbourne. ¹ xi

James Wolfe

INVENTIONS OVER THE NEXT DECADE drastically transformed society, especially Woods’ smelting of pig iron with coke in iron founding, Hargreaves’ spinning jenny, Arkwright’s water frame, and Watt’s steam engine. These inventions heralded a different kind of revolution. Fundamental shifts in employment patterns and health issues were about to engulf the population. As is the reality with all revolutions, some people would fare better than others in adapting to the radical and tumultuous changes looming over the horizon. A brief investigation into the backgrounds of four of these inventors has furnished unexpected relationships and coincidences.

Charles Wood (1702–1774) and his brother John invented and patented iron-making processes in 1763, which refined pig iron into wrought iron—a process usually described as potting and stamping. (John had filed an earlier patent in 1761.) Charles moved to Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, Wales, three years later, where he built a forge for Anthony Bacon and his brother-in-law William Brownrigg. Charles remained there as manager until he died in 1774; his widow, Jemima Wood née Brownrigg, continued to dwell there until she died in 1799. Both Charles and John followed in the footsteps of their father, ironmonger and mintmaster William Wood (1671–1730).

William Wood’s Hibernia Halfpence – 1722 & 1723xii

William obtained a patent in 1722 from the government of King George I to mint copper coinage for Ireland. While the attractive coinage, including an image of Hibernia and her harp, portrayed no face value, at the time, everyone readily determined a coin’s value by its size and type of metal. The British government intended the coinage to replace the use of odd bits of signed cardboard and counterfeit coins called raps. However, William Wood and his halfpence became the merciless targets of Jonathan Swift and his Drapier’s Letters.xiii The new Irish copper coinage subsequently evolved into one of the most significant Anglo-Irish disputes of the century.²

William Wood (1793–1867) was the grandson of the inventor and iron-master Charles Wood and his wife Jemima. He too was a manager of various ironworks companies including one at Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. He is undoubtedly the son of William Wood (b.1757) and Harriet Holbrook, even though the record of his christening on 20 February 1793 at Saint Catwg’s Church of England in Cadoxton-juxta-Neath does not record his mother’s name. (The register does not contain the names of any mothers.) There is plenty of evidence of the lineage: residence and birth in the proper corner of Wales; at least fourth generation in the family profession; and the use of his mother and grandmother’s maiden names in his children’s forenames—Sarah Holbrook, and Edwin Brownrigg. In 1853, William moved his family to Australia for a time. A pivotal introduction on the ocean voyage would ultimately lead to the marriage of his future granddaughter Marian Van Hemert to William Osburne’s grandson George Brian Lilly.xiv

Mary Howitt née Botham (1799–1888) was a ‘picturesque’ granddaughter of Charles and Jemima. A distinguished English poet and author, she wrote the acclaimed children’s cautionary poem The Spider and the Fly.xv She is also reputed to have written the nursery rhyme Hush a Bye Baby. The excitement of Australia’s Victorian gold rush lured Mary’s husband William and two of their sons to hop onto an ocean liner to explore the remote, ebullient territory on the other side of the globe. Their son Alfred remained in the country and became an esteemed explorer, geologist, naturalist, and anthropologist. After two years in the diggings, the other son, Herbert, travelled to New Zealand to pursue a career as a surveyor.

James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1764; his idea would help inspire other local inventors. Sir Richard Arkwright has been credited with the invention of the spinning frame in 1768; the following year he renamed and patented it as the water frame. Arkwright was born in Preston in 1733 and lived there and in Bolton, where he developed an interest in spinning machinery. Arkwright moved with his ideas to the textile centre of Nottingham in 1768. Three years later, he built the first water-powered cotton mill, based on the principle of his water frame, in Cromford Village, Derbyshire. Then Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule in Bolton in 1779. These inventions triggered the radical transformation in textile production from a cottage industry to an industrial process. Thus began the migration of large segments of the population from rural to urban industrial centres.

Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton lived and introduced their inventions not far from the homes of other ancestors of Captain Arthur George Lilly. Jane Walshman was baptised in Lancaster on 22 May 1750; her father Roger was born in 1710 in Preston where he lived perhaps until about 1740; Jane’s mother, Elizabeth Casson (1712–1795), lived her life in Lancaster. Thomas Richardson lived in Manchester from about 1750 to at least 1793. Jane, Roger, Elizabeth, Thomas, and Thomas’ wife Elizabeth Saunderson probably knew, or at least knew of, these inventors.xvi In any event, the captain’s five ancestors were affected, either directly or indirectly, by their neighbours’ inventions. Indeed, their children certainly were.

Incidentally, The Reverend John Van Hemert (the son of Jane Walshman and who was also born in Lancaster) married Thomas Richardson’s daughter Caroline. Their son Dr Francis Thomas Van Hemert emigrated to the British Crown Colony of Victoria in 1853 where he married Emma Wood, the great-granddaughter of Charles Wood, the following year.xvii

It was James Watt’s redesign of the steam engine, which revolutionised mechanical power, that stoked the Industrial Revolution. Aldous Huxley wrote, To us, the moment 8:17 AM means something. … To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant … did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stephenson were part inventors of time.³

New and Most Accurate World Map – 1648

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER JAMES COOK, captain of HMS Endeavour (a 369-ton, 10-gun, three-masted, full-rigged bark—length 98 feet, beam 29 feet),xviii made the first recorded landfall by a European on the east coast of Australia on 29 April 1770. He named the place Botany Bay, owing to the vast number of plants the expedition’s botanist, Joseph Banks, had documented.

Cook joined the Royal Navy during the Seven Years’ War. He had developed a talent for surveying and cartography; and as master of HMS Pembroke (a 1,222-ton, 60-gun, full-rigged, fourth-rate ship of the line), he was assigned the task of charting the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River. His work helped to enable General James Wolfe to navigate up the river safely to the Plains of Abraham, where his British troops vanquished the forces controlling the French Colony of Canada. Master Cook was subsequently assigned the task of charting more than two thousand miles of the fog-shrouded, jagged coasts of the British Crown Colony of Newfoundland and southern Labrador. He combined trigonometrical surveys based on triangulation from shore positions, astronomical observations, and running surveys. His effort produced the first and most thorough, scientific, large scale, hydrographic survey ever attempted overseas. Printed copies of his charts would remain in use for a century after his death; his observations, a century longer. His early accomplishments, often achieved under adverse conditions, had brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society.⁴

During his third voyage of discovery to the Pacific—a search for the Northwest Passage—Captain Cook anchored HMS Resolution and the expedition’s consort HMS Discovery,xix on 29 March 1778, at the place he named Ship Cove. This cove was a slight, open bight on Bligh Island,xx in George’s Sound, on the west coast of North America. Later renamed Resolution Cove, Nootka Sound, this anchorage was four miles east across the sound from the village of Yuquot (where the winds blow from many directions) situated on the isthmus between Friendly Cove and the Pacific. Cook remained here for a month, met chief Maquinna—their relationship was cordial—and traded with the Mowachaht people who were quite discriminating. The locals wanted metal, especially iron products. Sea otter pelts were the most valuable items acquired by Cook. That procurement began what would develop into an extremely lucrative trade with China. However, it ultimately ended with the near extinction of the highly-prized, densely-furred mammal.

This area was on the west coast of what would become, seventy-one years later, the British Crown Colony of Vancouver Island. Cook thought he was the first European to visit the region, so he claimed this part of the west coast of North America for Britain. However, the Spanish laid a subsequent claim on the basis that Juan José Pérez Hernández traded at Nootka four years earlier. The Spaniards had kept this contact secret in an attempt to conceal the region’s economic potential. The Spanish claim eventually led to the Nootka Sound Incident—a series of Spanish hostilities—eleven years later; the same month the French citizenry stormed the Bastille. The Nootka Sound Incident nearly resulted in another war between Britain and Spain. The dispute was ultimately resolved in Britain’s favour, mainly because Pérez did not go ashore—an essential step in claiming sovereignty. Captain Cook documented his expeditions ashore.

Cook’s brilliant career ended eleven months later at the hands of local villagers at Kealakekua Bay, on the Big Island of Hawai’i, in the Sandwich Islands.xxi Captain Cook and four marines were killed on 14 February 1779 while attempting to recover a small boat that the Hawai’ians had skillfully acquired.⁵

James Cook

HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery Anchored in Ship Cove – 1778

View of the Habitations in Nootka Sound – 1778

Inside of a House in Nootka Sound – 1778

Tereoboo, King of Owyhee, Bringing Presents to Captain Cook at Kealakekua Bay – 1779

View of Karakakooa, in Owyhee (Kealakekua Bay) – 1779

Murder of Captain James Cook – 14 February 1779

G EORGE BOYDEN, NAMED IN HONOUR OF THE KING by his parents Allen Boyden and Ann Bedson, was born on Friday, 20 August 1773 in Cripplegate, London. The Church of England’s register books for the Parish of Saint Giles’ without Cripplegate reveal George was the youngest of nine children. Three of his brothers had already died as infants including the eighth child, also named George, who died of smallpox eleven months earlier. George’s father was a cordwainer (shoemaker) who worked cordovan—a smooth, pliable, equine leather. He belonged to the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers, one of the 108 livery companies or trade associations based in London. ⁶

Cripplegate was one of seven gates in the city’s ancient wall and was the name for the region of the city of London outside the gate. The term comes from the Anglo-Saxon cruplegate, a covered way or tunnel. One such tunnel ran from the gate to the Barbican, a fortified watchtower on the wall. Romans built the two-mile-long, semicircular wall in the late second or early third century to help protect 330 acres of their city from attack by land; they later extended the defensive wall along the riverfront. Romans founded Londinium circa A.D. 43 and continued to occupy Britannia until c. 410.

Roman Catholics built Saint Giles’ Church without Cripplegate in 1394 outside the walled city of London—hence the term ‘without.’ Initially, a Saxon temple occupied the site. Then the Normans built a church in the eleventh century after their conquest of England, which began with the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Ownership fell to the Church of England in the early sixteenth century, during the English (Protestant) Reformation under the reign of Henry VIII. St Giles’ Church without Cripplegate sustained significant fire damage in 1545, 1897, and 1940. However, St Giles’ was one of the few medieval churches that survived the Great Fire of London in 1666.⁷ xxii

E LIZABETH LILLY WAS BORN about 1768 or 1773 and christened in a Roman Catholic Church—perhaps in or near London, but most likely in County Roscommon, Province of Connacht, Ireland. ⁸ xxiii

BRITISH PARLIAMENT PASSED THE STAMP ACT, 1765—a tax imposed on the colonies in North America—to pay for troops stationed in North America after the Seven Years’ War. This new edict heightened tensions with citizens of the Thirteen Colonies who were already unhappy with British colonial policies, which included protection of native Indians from destructive contact with settlers. One of the Redcoats’ roles was to restrain colonists from settling on Indian lands.⁹ Then in 1773, Britain imposed a Tea Tax on the colonists, which in turn prompted the Boston Tea Party. Ultimately, in 1775, seven hundred British troops were sent to Concord, twenty miles west of Boston, with orders to seize arms from the Massachusetts militia. The ensuing Battles of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill in Boston engendered the British Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition. In turn, the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. The three earlier battles mark the beginning of the eight-year American Revolutionary War. France secretly supported the American side and then openly joined the war in 1778. Spain and a reluctant Republic of the Seven United Netherlands also joined the fray as French allies.

W ILLIAM OSBURNE BEGAN A LONG MILITARY CAREER during the American Revolutionary War. He joined His Majesty’s Marine Forces on 10 June 1779, four months after Captain Cook’s death.

Even though William gave his occupation as a miller, he could not have completed his apprenticeship. Apprenticeships typically ended at age twenty-four, and until then, there were no wages. If his father was not a miller, then either his family or his parish would have had to pay for his apprenticeship. Abuses abounded. Some masters maltreated their apprentices. Others drove the youths off due to a failing business or simply because the master no longer wanted to provide for the youth’s needs, even though he had been paid to do so. In any event, since recently graduated pauper apprentices swamped the trades markets, subsequent employment opportunities were meagre.

William claimed he had attained the age of eighteen—the minimum age requirement to get credit for service—and an 1809 military record confirms this. However, while his 1799 discharge certificates suggest he may have been three or four months short of the all-important eighteenth birthday, the weight of evidence provided later in life suggests he was only fourteen.

Should the former be the situation: Perhaps it was later in life, in his desire to attract a bride, when William began to understate his age by a few years to lessen the quite apparent and significant age difference with his rather young bride. On the other hand, and strange as it may seem in today’s Information Age, he simply may not have known either the day or year of his birth. Perhaps it was not an occasion his family celebrated during his formative years.

However, should the latter be the case, the reader is left with an enigma. How was he able to convince the authorities he was much older, and why would such a young boy overstate his age to gain entry into this branch of Britain’s navy? If this was the case, William must have been tall for his age.

The height of most fourteen-year-old boys, at the time, averaged only four feet, six inches—about seven or eight inches shorter than an upper-class boy of the same age. Sixteen-year-olds were four feet, nine inches tall. Eighteen-year-olds averaged four feet, eleven inches. This was wartime; there was a strong demand for personnel, and perhaps William’s recruiter did not press too firmly or even question his stated age. In any event, it was common for children as young as thirteen, and sometimes eleven, to go to sea as servants. Also, deep-sea sailing crews were young, most around twenty-five and younger.¹⁰

To a restless youth, life at sea in the military was preferable to one surely destined to be stuck in poverty for years in a landlocked, dull, arduous apprenticeship. William was anxious to get out and see the world, and going to sea as a marine was the epitome of adventure. In his autobiography, mariner John Nicol recollected: My youthful mind could not separate the life of a sailor from dangers and storms, and I looked upon them as an interesting part of the adventures I panted after.¹¹

Britain’s Board of Admiralty established fifty Marine Forces companies and three divisions, in 1755, headquartered at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth. The number of companies varied over the years, depending upon the state of international relations. For example, the Admiralty expanded the force to 157 companies during the American Revolutionary War and then shrunk the Forces by more than half to 70 companies after the war ended in 1783. William joined one of the companies based at Chatham on the River Medway: 188 miles south of his home in Market Rasen, thirty-two miles east of London.

Young William and his fellow marines acted as the police force on Royal Navy ships; their most important duty was the prevention of mutiny. To better defend against mutiny and other crimes, the Marines’ quarters were located in an area of the ship that established a buffer zone between seamen and officers. The Marines provided guard and sentry duties at several critical areas of the ship, including the captain’s quarters, the weapons locker, and the alcohol store. Marines were also responsible for maintenance of discipline on the ship, including enforcement of regulations and the captain’s orders. When a member of the crew received punishment for some transgression, marines stood guard. While hangings were rare, floggings were rather frequent in Britain’s Royal Navy when Cook, Nelson, and William Osburne roamed the seas. When one of His Majesty’s ships came into port, the captain deployed the Marines to guard against desertion.

However, the Marines were much more than a police force. They provided the navy with an expert fighting unit, equally effective in both seaborne and land operations. They were trained to act as sharpshooters and gunners, to board and seize enemy ships, and to fight on land when the occasion demanded it. They guided captured ships to allied or homeports and garrisoned captured forts until the regular infantry arrived to relieve them.¹²

William served in His Majesty’s Marine Forcesxxiv until 1793, at the rank of Private.

G EORGE BOYDEN, SON OF ALLEN BOYDEN—a cordwainer from Shoreditch, Middlesex, London, entered an apprenticeship with Thomas Toynbee, a member of the Worshipful Company of Innholders, on 6 June 1786. George was two and a half months shy of his thirteenth birthday. The usually anticipated cobbler apprenticeship with his father did not materialise, perhaps because it had already been decided that his eighteen-year-old brother, Allen, would follow in his father’s footsteps and join the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers. However, a career in hospitality would not appeal to George either; in a decade, he would claim to be a cabinetmaker by trade. ¹³

M ARY MLEOD, DAUGHTER OF MURDOCH MLEOD, was born about 1787. While a record of her christening has yet to be found, she was probably born in Budock, Cornwall—the place where widower Murdoch MLeod married ‘spinster’ Anne Davison on 17 September 1787. Neither a c nor an apostrophe is evident in either of their signatures. Perhaps they did not pronounce the c and knew of no reason to include it. Both Mary and Murdoch signed their family name MLeod with a similar style of penmanship. ¹⁴ xxv

ELEVEN SHIPS SAILED FROM ENGLAND on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 souls on board including 778 convicts and 247 overseers. These people were destined to establish the most isolated European settlement on the face of the earth; they were headed for the country Cook discovered seventeen years earlier—Botany Bay, New South Wales. Establishment of this new penal colony was Britain’s latest plan to deal with her overflowing prisons.