Escapees from the Hulks at Woolwich

Escapees from the Hulks at Woolwich

For almost 80 years, a number of old, decommissioned Royal Navy ships were moored at various places round the coast and used as prison ships, known as “The Hulks”: Dickens opens Great Expectations with the escape of convicts from one such hulk in the Medway.

A number of these hulks lay in the Thames off Woolwich and the convicts on board these vessels provided a labour force for two Government departments in the town – Woolwich Dockyard and the Royal Arsenal.

Escapes from the working parties on shore were fairly frequent and one, in the autumn of 1851, has become of special interest to Pea-Bee and forms the basis of this blog.

Three local newspapers reported on the escape of three convicts. Each paper gave its own version of the tale which, basically, was that while the guard was distracted, the men jumped into a boat and rowed off! However, there are discrepancies in the various newspaper accounts, not least whether they rowed the boat across the Thames to the Essex side, or just across a canal on Plumstead Marshes – which were part of the Royal Arsenal site – and stayed on the Kent side of the river.

Either way, one of the convicts was recaptured within four days but it was nearly 18 months before another was caught. The fate of the third man is not clear.

First, The Kentish Independent of 20 September 1851:

ESCAPE OF CONVICTS – Three convicts of the Hebe and Wye, for work at the Royal Arsenal, while employed in the mud on the banks of the river on Friday, took the opportunity of a boat being near to escape to the opposite side of the river, and landing on the Essex side, eluded the vigilance of their pursuers. One of these convicts was recaptured on Wednesday at Chiselhurst, and will probably be immediately sent out of the country in consequence of his attempt to escape the sentence he was undergoing of ten years’ transportation.

Then, The Kentish Mercury, published the same day:

ESCAPE OF THREE CONVICTS – On Friday last a number of convicts were employed working at the Canal in the Royal Arsenal, when the guard sent the sentry with a convict to procure some clean water; during the interval three convicts got into the boat, and wishing the guard “good day” they crossed the canal, and then made off for Bostal woods and got clear off; the alarm was raised, and Sergeants Hill 42, Bathe 45, and King, 56 R, Arsenal Police, went in search. The convict guard has been suspended. On Tuesday last one was re-captured by means of a countryman, who met him going along the road at Sidcup, Kent, he invited him into a public house, to partake of refreshments, and in the interval, he gave information at the police station, the convict suspecting from his long absence something wrong, made off, but was overtaken and conveyed back to the hulks, where the man, who caused his apprehension, received the reward of £3. The other have as yet avoided detection.

Finally, The Kentish Gazette of 23 September

ESCAPE OF THREE CONVICTS – On Monday information was received that three convicts had succeeded in effecting their escape from the Justitia hulk, at Woolwich, by seizing a boat and rowing to the opposite bank, on the Essex shore. There were all under sentence of ten years’ transportation, and were dressed in grey convict suit. Their names are John Clark, convicted at Beverly 2d July 1850; James Carr, at Kingston-upon-Hull, 4th April 1850; and George Hobbs, at Portsmouth 22d July 1850.

A brief note in the official files relating to the man who was recapture within days states:

Sept 12 Effecting his escape from the Works by jumping into a Boat in the canal, and with two other prisoners, pulling across and running away, and not returning until brought back by an escort on the 16^th Instant.

The official note does not clear up the question of where the convicts rowed to, although as only the canal is mentioned, it is reasonable to assume that they did not cross the river. Also, it was in the Sidcup/Chiselhurst area, on the Kent side of the river, that the convict was recaptured.

A week after its initial story, The Kentish Mercury reported: “The convict guard, for allowing three convicts to escape (one since captured,) has been dismissed the service – a harsh sentence, as the guards lead a life worse than even the convicts under their command, and to add to their misery a reduction has taken place in their hard-earned pay.”

But who were the three men who escaped, and why were they under sentence of ten years’ transportation? First the ones that got away – at least, for a time…

JOHN CLARK

John, the son of labourer Richard Clark and his wife Mary, was baptised on 22 April 1823 at Cherry Burton, a small village near Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

On 6 July 1850, The Yorkshire Gazette reported:

John Clark, 27, was charged with having on the 17^th of May last, at Beverley Parks, killed a lamb and stolen the carcase, the property of Richard Bell.

Mr Burton prosecuted; Mr Dearsley defended the prisoner.

The prosecutor had a number of sheep and lambs in a field near to the railway from Beverley to Hull. They were seen safe on the evening of the 17^th May last, but on the following morning one of the lambs was missing. During the night a watchman named Dunn, who was on his beat, saw the prisoner coming into Beverley in the direction from the prosecutor’s field. His pockets were bulky, and Dunn asked him what they contained, but he refused to tell him. Dunn took the prisoner into custody, and on his way to prison he acknowledged that his pockets were filled with a portion of the carcase of a lamb belonging to the prosecutor. On the meat being compared with tat which had been left behind in the field and exact correspondence was the result.

Mr Dearsley, in defence, turned his attention to the weak points of the case, dwelling more particularly upon the fact the prisoner was a mile from the prosecutor’s field when he was seen by Dunn. From this circumstance he argued that there was no proof that the prisoner was the man who had killed the lamb, and the jury ought to be quite certain that he had slaughtered the animal before they could justly convict.

The jury retired, and after being locked up until between twelve and one o’clock on the following morning, they returned a verdict of Guilty. – To be transported for ten years.

It was noted that he had been before convicted of a felony, hence the decision to transport him. However, no record of a previous conviction has been found – although there were plenty of John Clarks around the country with criminal records!

After conviction he spent time in Wakefield House of Correction – he was there on census night 1851 (30 March) – before being transferred to Justitia at Woolwich.

Nothing more can be found on him after his escape on 12 September 1851.

GEORGE HOBBS

Thomas Hobbs and Fanny Nicholas were married at Downton, on the Wiltshire/Hampshire borders, on Christmas Day 1826. The couple had three sons: Samuel, baptised 13 September 1829; George, baptised 29 January 1832; and William, baptised on Christmas Day 1834.

When his children were still quite young, Thomas was killed in an accident described in detail in a number of newspapers. This account is extracted from The Morning Chronicle of 25 April 1844:

Melancholy Accident. – Downton, Wilts, April 22. – For some years past a family named Hobbs, who originally came from the Somersetshire collieries, have obtained precarious subsistence in this neighbourhood by the dangerous employment of well-sinking – and had proceeded with a job of this description to the extent of about eighty feet, on Wednesday morning last, when the superincumbent soil, consisting of very loose gravel and pebbles, gave way, and buried one of them, Thomas, his brother and son being both engaged at the mouth of the shaft at the time, and assisting him. The scene which ensued was most distressing and painful; no other person being on the spot at all qualified to undertake the rescue of the unfortunate suffered. At length his father, a decrepit old man, almost a cripple, with a strength of nerve and parental feeling, deserving of the highest admiration, descended and worked without intermission for three-and-twenty hours, in the attempt to render the place safe for further operations; and having on Thursday afternoon come up to report progress, and take some necessary refreshment, gain went down and continued his exertions throughout another night, until Friday, with an encouraging prospect of success; but in the course of the day a considerable portion of the sides again foundered, and very nearly carried two other men with it. Since then the work has been suspended, and this morning a meeting of the leading authorities and office-bearers of the parish took place, for the purpose of adopting some further means to excavate the body – no doubt long since a corpse.

Despite this somewhat flowery reporting, the newspapers went on to explain that, so the coroner could hold an inquest, the committee of local bigwigs decided to bring in an experienced digger from a neighbouring parish and they raised a sum of money to pay the man. The vicar’s main concern, it seems, was that “the body may rot in its present self-dug grave, without any form of Christian burial”.

However, the news report commented: “The poor man … has left a wife and three sons in destitute circumstances. It is hoped that the hand of charity may be extended to them, rather than to the mitigation of public damages.”

In the end it took more than three weeks to recover the body, and the verdict at the inquest was “accidental death”.

The loss of his father when he was only 12 years ago may have contributed to George’s later conduct. Certainly he got involved in various illegal activities.

The first for which he was brought to book was when he was 17, as reported in The Hampshire Advertiser of 20 October 1849:

George Hobbs, 17, was indicted for having feloniously stolen 2lbs of eels, the property of Joseph Goff.

It appeared that the prosecutor, who lives at the parish of Hale, has a fishpond, in a field, but enclosed by a fence. On the 2^nd of May last, James Sturgess, in the prosecutor’s employ, placed some eels in a box, which he put into the pond, and on leaving, he locked the door of the fence. James Nutbeam, who lived near, saw the prisoner and another man on the following morning coming from the direction of the pond, and he described their dress. Another witness stated that he saw two men, dressed in the same manner, break open the fence and enter the pond. The prosecutor’s keeper, James Sturgess, found the eels were missing next morning, and on receiving the statement of the two men, he and Police-constable Oram went in pursuit. The prisoner was taken, and his boots taken off, and compared with footmarks found in the soil if the pond, and found to correspond exactly. On the way to prison, the prisoner escaped from the custody of a policeman who received him from Oram’s care, and he was not again found until last month, when he was delivered into the county police custody by a constable of the Wiltshire force.

The jury found the prisoner Guilty, and the Court sentenced him to be imprisoned for six weeks, with hard labour.

Then, nearly a year later, on 27 July 1850, The Hampshire Telegraph reported on two cases:

William Hinton, George Hobbs, and Charles Lyons, were charged with stealing a cash bag, containing various monies, amounting to about 4l., from William Tupper, a general dealer, on the 19th of June last, on Southsea Common – Not Guilty.

George Hobbs was further charged with stealing, at Southsea, on the 18th June, a silk handkerchief, from the person of Thomas Terry, of Crown-street, Portsmouth. He was found guilty, and a former conviction being proved against the prisoner, he was sentenced to ten years’ transportation.

George was in Millbank prison at the time of the 1851 census (30 March) before being moved to the Wye hulk at Woolwich (although for administrative reasons, this was counted as part of the Justitia establishment).

His mother pleaded for mercy, on the basis that another person had admitted the crime. She played on the fact that her husband had been killed seven years earlier and even Thomas Terry was prepared to drop his accusation, but all to no avail.

Fanny Hobbs’s petition to the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, was received on 10 September 1851. This was two days before George made his escape, scuppering any chance the petition would be considered. In fact, any decision by the Home Secretary would have been coloured by a letter from the Recorder of Portsmouth, Thomas Phinn:

I think the verdict of the Jury was well warranted by the Evidence, & that other circumstances besides those disclosed in the Evidence convinced me that the Jury had arrived at a right conclusion. The day in question was the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo & in consequence of her Majesty’s presence at the inauguration of the Duke of Wellington’s Statue a very great number of people were assembled on Southsea Common. In the crowd the prosecutor had his handkerchief taken, & the next day it was found on the prisoner under the circumstances detailed in the Evidence. It is possible that the prisoner’s hand did not take the handkerchief though doubtless acting in the matter with others but the prisoner was on the Common & had been tried on another indictment for having on the same evening whilst then passing the night on the Common committed another robbery under very aggravated circumstances in company with two persons named Hinton & Lyons known to the police as regular thieves. He was acquitted owing to the Jury not liking to act on the testimony of the prosecutor who was the worse for liquor, & on the Evidence of another person who proved to be a bad character. But I had no doubt that the prisoner & his companions had committed the offence … Excluding the circumstances of that case from my consideration in passing sentence. I found that the prisoner had been convicted at the Winchester Sessions in January, that he had only just finished his term in the Winchester prison, that he was known to the police as a companion of convicted thieves & that he had no occupation except of living by plunder. After making every inquiry I deemed it right to sentence him to transportation as the best thing for him as well as for society, & on consideration feel no grounds to alter my opinion.

Included with the Recorder’s letter was a statement by the arresting officer, William Alfred Knight:

I am one of the constables of the Borough. The prisoner and others having been charged with a felony on Wednesday morning last at Southsea Common I went to apprehend him and I apprehended Hobbs in Jacobs Row, Landport – he was upstairs in a Bed room – he was sitting on the Bed with the Handkerchief I now produce in his right hand endeavouring to put it under the bed. I took it from him and said ‘where did you get this?’ He said ‘It’s not mine it belongs to the Woman of the House’. I called the Woman of the House and in his presence asked her if it was her Handkerchief – she said no and it was never hers or any one’s belonging to her – he said ‘It belongs to Titt’ meaning one of her children – she said it did not.

After his escape at Woolwich, George managed to stay on the run for about 18 months, but on 14 January 1853, Edward Floor, clerk to the magistrates at Keynsham, near Bath, wrote asking for a description of the escaped convict. Clearly George had been spotted and on 26 March 1853 at the County Sessions in Taunton, he had his sentence increased to 20 years “for being at large when under the sentence of transportation”.

This time there was no messing about. First, he was held in the prison at Portland, and then he sailed on a ship called Adelaide for Western Australia on 16 April 1855 with 259 other convicts, arriving on 24 May. He was described as being “middling stout”, 5 feet 9¾ inches tall, with dark brown hair, hazel eyes, an oval face, and a dark complexion. Distinguishing features included being freckled; with an anchor on his right arm, a cut on his upper lip, and another on the third finger of the left hand.

In Australia, he generally behaved himself. He was entitled to his ticket of leave in the autumn of 1858 but his good conduct meant that it was granted nearly a year earlier on 21 December 1857.

Tickets of leave were awarded to prisoners who had served a period of probation and shown by their good behaviour that they could be allowed certain freedom. Once granted, a convict was permitted to seek employment within a specified district, but could not leave the district without the permission of the government or the district's resident magistrate. Each change of employer or district was recorded on the ticket. The convicts had to do jobs to get money to get a ticket of leave.

Ticket-of-leave men were permitted to marry, or to bring their families from Britain, and to acquire property, but they were not permitted to carry firearms or board a ship, and they were often restricted to a specific district stipulated on the ticket. They were often required to repay the cost of their passage to the colony.

A convict who observed the conditions of his ticket-of-leave until the completion of one half of his sentence was entitled to a conditional pardon, which removed all restrictions except the right to leave the colony. Convicts who did not observe the conditions of their ticket could be arrested without warrant, tried without recourse to the Supreme Court, and would forfeit their property.

The ticket of leave had to be renewed annually, and those with one had to attend muster and church services.

George was granted his conditional pardon on 4 March 1862 and on 1 August 1868 was transferred to New South Wales, after which date, nothing more has been found about him.

JAMES CARR

James Carr’s origins are a mystery. According to the 1851 census, when James Carr was in Millbank Prison, it was stated that he was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, in about 1818, and his trade was that of cooper. Later the same year, his widowed mother Harriett Carr petitioned for his release and stated that the family was well respected in Hull, and enclosed several testimonials to the fact.

When Harriett petitioned for James’s release, or at least for him not to be transported, she implied that she had been widowed for some while saying she had “brought up a large family consisting of five sons and a daughter with the help of the eldest children and help occasionally received from some respectable friends, she was enabled to do in a decent and creditable manner.”

No one of that description has been found in the 1851 census.

When James married in 1856, he gave his father’s name as George, a carpenter.

James’s first brush with the law was at Hull Borough Sessions on 7 July 1849, when he was found guilty of larceny and was imprisoned for three months. The Hull Advertiser of 13 July 1849 reported on the case:

James Carr (33), John Smith (27), and John Wilson (30), were charged with stealing a stone jug and hamper, containing two gallons of gin, the property of Henry Foster. Mr Archbold stated the case. Mr Foster is a wine and spirit merchant in this town, and on Friday, the 22nd ult. sent the jug to a carrier, whose cart was standing in Mytongate. The jug was sealed up, and proper directions put on the hamper. The carrier had occasion to go from his cart, and when he returned, in about five minutes after, the jug was gone. The prisoners were seen, two of them carrying the jug, and the other walking behind keeping a look-out. They were also seen going into a passage in Posterngate, on the way to which, through Fish-street, they tore off the directions from the hamper. While in the passage in Posterngate they changed dresses; then all three came out together, and a witness overheard one of them saying – “Didn’t we do that nicely!” They next proceed to the house where they lodged in Mill-street, and there drank so much that they got tipsy and began to fight. A policeman was called in, who saw the jug lying on the floor, which led to their apprehension. Guilty. Three months’ imprisonment.

James Carr next appeared at Hull General Quarter Sessions before Thomas Colpitts Granger, Recorder. The Hull Packet & East Riding Times of 11 January 1850 described this case:

ANN ROBSON (26) was charged with stealing a half-crown and one penny, the property of Edward Wallis and JAMES CARR was charged with receiving the same, knowing it to be stolen.

Mr Archbold stated the case. – On the 20^th November the prosecutor, who is a labourer, went in company with two other men to a house of ill fame, where the prisoner resided. While he was there he missed half-a-crown and penny from his pocket, and it was afterwards found that the female prisoner had the penny piece, and the male prisoner had a half-crown, a shilling, and a fourpenny piece.

The Recorder said, he thought there was not a sufficient case made out against the male prisoner, and a verdict of “Not guilty” was returned, not only against him but also against the female prisoner. The Recorder also ordered that the money found on the male prisoner should be returned to him.

Finally, a few months later, he was back in court, and The Hull Packet reported on 12 April 1850:

JOHN HICKNALL (35) and JAMES CARR (33) were charged with stealing a cask of lard, the property of Charles Adams, grocer, Lowgate.

Mr Foster prosecuted and Mr Dearsley defended the prisoners.

On Tuesday, the 12^th of March last, about five minutes past six o’clock, a young woman named Tennyson saw the prisoner Carr take a cask of lard from the door of the prosecutor’s shop. Immediately she heard some one cry out, “Hook it – It’s all right;” and she said to the prisoner Carr, who had it on his shoulder, “You are stealing that lard.” The prisoner said “Hold your tongue – It’s all right.” The witness then went into Bowlby’s dram-shop, and, shortly afterwards, Carr looked in at the door, and, as soon as she saw him, she told the men in the room that he had stolen a cask of lard. The men then went out, and had the prisoner taken into custody. The lard was subsequently found to be in the possession of Hicknall. Hicknall, at the direction of the Recorder, was acquitted, but Carr was found guilty, and sentenced to ten years’ transportation.

His progress though the penal system after that can be charted. He was received into Millbank prison from Kingston-upon-Hull on 21 August 1850 and then transferred to the Justitia Hulk at Woolwich on 3 May 1851.

After his escape on 12 September and recapture four days later, he remained on Justitia until 18 October when he was returned to Millbank. He was not transported overseas until the very end of 1852 when he was transferred to Boaz Island Prison, Bermuda, sailing there on the Ascendant.

He was described as stoutish, with a sallow complexion. He was 5ft 7 ½ inches tall and had dark brown hair and brown eyes. Distinguishing marks were a scar on the left of his neck, blue spots on the back of his right hand, and two scares on his left arm.

His behaviour in Bermuda was such that he was recommended for discharge and so he was sent back to Millbank, sailing on 22 February and arriving on 23 March 1855, before being released on licence on 20 April 1855. To help he re-establish himself in society, he was paid a gratuity of £9 8s 8d – less £2 to pay for his passage home!

He returned to Yorkshire and married almost a year later, on 30 March 1856, at St Stephen’s, Kingston-upon-Hull. His bride was Sarah Jane Larder, the daughter of a grocer and 18 years his junior. The marriage was witnessed by Thomas and William Carr, possibly his brothers, but nothing has been found to identify them further.

And there is another mystery – the marriage certificate described him as a widower although he was a bachelor when he was sent to Bermuda.

James went back to his trade of cooper and was living Sculcoates, Yorkshire, with his wife in 1861. He died at the end of 1866 and, some 33 years later when she was 63, Sarah Jane remarried. This marriage took place on 1 October 1899 in Holy Trinity, Hull. Her new husband was a 67-year-old widower, John Hart, a confectioner, and she lived until 1903.