60-637: Foster Fyans (September 1790 – 23 May 1870) was an Irish military officer, penal colony administrator and public servant. He was acting commandant of the second convict settlement at Norfolk Island , the commandant of the Moreton Bay penal settlement at Brisbane , the first police magistrate at Geelong , and commissioner of crown lands for the Portland Bay pastoral district in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales . He
120-403: A Norfolk Island expiree, who held a ticket of leave , had gone into the shop of a poor widow, named Ellen Jamieson, and asked for some trifling article. While Mrs. Jamieson was serving him, the ruffian raised a tomahawk, which he held in his hand, and clove the unfortunate woman's head in a savage manner. She lingered for a few days, and died, leaving two orphan children. The murderer, whose name
180-460: A cheque on the Bank of Australia; he was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1832. This sentence was commuted to transportation for seven years to Norfolk Island . While on Norfolk Island, he took part in two mutinies . En route to Norfolk Island in 1832 Knatchbull conspired with other convicts on board ship to poison the crews' and guards' food with arsenic. The mutineers were informed on and
240-480: A cholera epidemic and spent much of his time hunting, eating and drinking while being served upon by local army attendants. In 1826, he was briefly sent to Rangoon at the conclusion of the First Anglo-Burmese War , but his regiment was returned to Calcutta within weeks. Fyans was also promoted to the rank of captain during this year. Fyans then returned to England, but in 1827 he transferred to
300-515: A depressed man with a disfigured face and a reputation for brutal discipline. The harsh treatment of the convicts under Morisset's reign coincided with a turbulent period on the island with several violent episodes and prisoner mutinies occurring. In September 1833, Fyans witnessed the hanging of three convicts for murder while another six were sentenced to death for stealing a boat. Morisset's mental and physical health declined and on 7 January 1834, he gave full authority to Fyans to act as Commandant on
360-473: A high hand”, Fyans' word as commissioner was law in the district, his decisions often at odds with the interests of high-profile squatters . While he considered himself a "friend to the natives", when referring to the investigation and capture of Aborigines for trial he wrote to Charles La trobe : Its a difficult thing to apprehend natives, with great risk of life on both sides. On the Grange, and many parts of
420-671: A larger force in early 1842, capturing two leaders and killing two other prominent Aboriginal men during a battle with thirty warriors. Alkapurata was captured by Fyans in April and later executed in Melbourne for the murder of Codd. However, vigorous Aboriginal resistance continued at Eumeralla into August with Fyans involved in close combat with Aboriginal men and James Hunter conducting three punitive expeditions of his own which resulted in severe skirmishes and dispersal of Aboriginal camps. In September 1842, following pressure from squatters of
480-400: A remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory . Although the term can be used to refer to a correctional facility located in a remote location, it is more commonly used to refer to communities of prisoners overseen by wardens or governors having absolute authority. Historically, penal colonies have often been used for penal labour in an economically underdeveloped part of
540-500: A second chance at life, learning trades and working off their debts. The success of Oglethorpe's vision is debated. When routes to the Americas closed after the outbreak of American Revolutionary War in 1776, British prisons started to become overcrowded . Since immediate stopgap measures proved themselves ineffective, in 1785 Britain decided to use parts of what is now known as Australia as de jure penal settlements , becoming
600-442: A shotgun, ordered his constables to load their firearms. William Buckley was able to defuse the situation and no blood was shed. A short-lived Aboriginal protectorate was soon established at Fyansford under Charles Sievwright . The arrival of Fyans and his constables failed to curb frontier conflict in the area. William Yuille and other colonists dispersed a camp of local Aboriginal people with gunfire after his Murgheboluc property
660-531: A son, one of the daughters was intellectually disabled and died after setting herself on fire. Fyans built a family home on his 'Balyang' estate (named after Balliang, a Barrabool man who served Fyans) adjacent to the Barwon River in 1846. Fyans' wife died in March 1858, aged 42. The actor, Sam Neill , is descended from Fyans' eldest daughter Gertrude. Fyans died at his Geelong home ‘Balyang’ on 23 May 1870. He
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#1732772471730720-601: A state's (usually colonial) territories, and on a far larger scale than a prison farm . With the passage of the Transportation Act 1717 , the British government initiated the penal transportation of indentured servants to Britain's colonies in the Americas , although none of the North American colonies were solely penal colonies. British merchants would be in charge of transporting the convicts across
780-652: A well-armed militia of ten Barrabool men to be sent to the Otways to deal with the Gadubanud. Fyans and Smythe led the group into the region, where the Barrabool troopers killed all the known members of the Otway tribe, male and female, except for one girl who was taken back to Geelong. This girl was later found dead near a fence at Drysdale . In 1849, Fyans was re-appointed to the position of police magistrate at Geelong and
840-600: Is the great-great-grandfather of actor Sam Neill . Fyans was born and baptised as an Anglican at Clontarf, Dublin in 1790, his father being a carpenter and a coach-maker in that city. He was educated at Drogheda Grammar School and at the Prospect School in Blackrock, Dublin . Fyans joined the British Army in 1811, being assigned the junior rank of ensign in the 67th Regiment of Foot . His battalion
900-483: The 20th Regiment of Foot in order to obtain another posting to India. He was mostly stationed at Belgaum and in 1832 he again transferred, this time to the 4th Regiment of Foot so that he could secure passage to New South Wales . While in India, Fyans looted or purchased precious jewels which he later hid in secret compartments built into his furniture. A desk constructed by Fyans yielded diamonds worth £7,000 when it
960-711: The Cape Colony a penal colony was deeply unpopular with local residents, sparking the Convict crisis of 1849. Bermuda , off the North American continent, was also used during the Victorian period. Convicts housed in hulks were used to build the Royal Naval Dockyard there, and during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), Boer prisoners-of-war were sent to the archipelago and imprisoned on one of
1020-534: The Port Fairy area, the superintendent at Melbourne, Charles La Trobe sent Fyans back into the region with his Border Police augmented with a contingent of Native Police to quell decisively the conflict known as the Eumeralla wars . In 1846, a workman employed by the surveyor George Smythe was killed by a Gadubanud man at Cape Otway . Smythe returned to Geelong and reported the case to Fyans, who organised
1080-571: The Aborigines proved extremely useful to Fyans when in 1836 it was discovered that a group of survivors from the wreck of the Stirling Castle were living rough with the local clans to the north. Fyans was able to quickly send Graham with a relief crew to recover some of the castaways including Eliza Fraser , who became famous from the incident and whom Fraser Island is named after. Fyans was also instrumental in documenting and reporting
1140-489: The Atlantic to the colonies where they would be auctioned off to planters. Many of the indentured servants were sentenced to seven year terms, which gave rise to the colloquial term "His Majesty's Seven-Year Passengers". It is estimated that between 1718 and 1776 about 30,000 convicts were transported to at least nine of the continental colonies, whereas between 1700 and 1775 about 250,000 to 300,000 white immigrants came to
1200-515: The Australian colonies. Without the allocation of the available convict labour to farmers, to pastoral squatters , and to government projects such as roadbuilding, colonisation of Australia may not have been possible, especially considering the considerable drain on non-convict labor caused by several gold rushes that took place in the second half of the 19th century after the flow of convicts had dwindled and (in 1868) ceased. A proposal to make
1260-497: The Derwent Company had established his hut as the best place and in 1838 this site was proclaimed as the township of Geelong . With convict labour Fyans also organised the construction of a breakwater across the Barwon River in 1838, which gave name to the area now known as Breakwater , an eastern industrial and residential suburb of Geelong. The ford stopped the inflow of salt water to the fresh water river, thus supplying
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#17327724717301320-562: The air. In May 1840, Fyans was appointed as Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Portland Bay district, an area half the size of England. With the support of sixteen Border Police troopers, his duties included making government returns for the licensed runs and their occupants, receiving their annual £10 licence fee and maintaining law and order between the squatters and the Aboriginal people. Described as “a man of hasty temper and
1380-436: The arsenic was found, but it was seen as too much trouble to return the prisoners to the mainland for trial and they became known among their fellow convicts as "Tea-Sweeteners". In the second mutiny of 1834 planned against the governor of the convict settlement and his deputy, Knatchbull escaped punishment by informing on his fellow mutineers. While Knatchbull was on Norfolk Island, Thomas Atkins, an Independent clergyman who
1440-427: The convicts at Moreton Bay very docile compared to those at Norfolk Island and had little need to order severe punishments upon them. The most trouble he had was trying to prevent the male soldiers and free-men in the colony from accessing the female convict barracks, known as the female factory . He had to move these barracks to Eagle Farm and construct a 17 foot high stockade around it. Some prisoners absconded into
1500-462: The country, it would be impossible to take them; and in my opinion, the only plan to bring them to a fit and proper state is to insist on the gentlemen in the country to protect their property, and to deal with such useless savages on the spot. By 1840, white settlers in the Portland Bay district had perpetrated multiple massacres of Aboriginal people during their colonisation of the region. A few settlers had also been killed including Patrick Codd, who
1560-657: The early 18th century. Devil's Island in French Guiana, 1852–1939, received forgers and other criminals. New Caledonia and its Isle of Pines in Melanesia (in the South Sea ) received transported dissidents like the Communards , Kabyles rebels and convicted criminals between the 1860s and 1897. John Knatchbull (Royal Navy captain) John Graham Knatchbull (bapt. 24 January 1793 – 13 February 1844)
1620-521: The establishment of a police station in the region. No report into the specific accusations of rape and murder against the Hentys and their employees appears to exist, and Edward Henty was later appointed magistrate in the district. Fyans toured the fine pastoral land north of Portland and returned to Geelong via the "magnificent country" around Mount Rouse . Along the way, they dispersed a group of Aboriginal people near Mount Elephant by firing their guns in
1680-582: The factual details of the shipwreck and the ordeal of the survivors. In July 1837, the 4th Regiment were ordered to India and Fyans was replaced as commandant at Moreton Bay by Lieutenant-General Sydney Cotton . Fyans decided to stay in Australia and sold out of his army commission. His patron, Governor Bourke, gave Fyans the civilian post of police magistrate at the newly colonised Corio Bay area near Melbourne in September 1837, settler pastoralists in
1740-857: The first colonies in the British Empire founded solely to house convicts. Leaving Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787, the First Fleet transported the first ~800 convicts and ~250 marines to Botany Bay. Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 convicts were transported from Great Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia . Australian penal colonies in late 18th century included Norfolk Island and New South Wales , and in early 19th century also Van Diemen's Land ( Tasmania ) and Moreton Bay (Queensland). Advocates of Irish Home Rule or trade unionism (the Tolpuddle Martyrs ) sometimes received sentences of deportation to
1800-457: The island. Eight days later, a large convict rebellion led by John Knatchbull occurred. Around 150 prisoners initially overwhelmed guards stationed at the convict hospital and elsewhere, but Fyans quickly organised his soldiers to counter the outbreak, allowing them to fire freely upon the rebels. This resulted in around fifteen convicts being killed and many others wounded. Two soldiers also accidentally shot each other dead while trying to round up
1860-553: The mainland of North America as a whole. More than two-thirds of these felons were transported to the Chesapeake to work for Southern landowners ; in Maryland, during the thirty years before 1776, convicts composed more than one-quarter of all immigrants. However, it is commonly maintained that the vast majority of felons taken to America were political criminals , not those guilty of social crimes such as theft; for example, it
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1920-510: The manager of this giant sheep station , ordered Fyans to move on. Taylor had been advised by his employers to keep people, both black and white, from residing on the property, and had already been associated with the killing of a local Aboriginal man and later perpetrated a large massacre of native people. Fyans subsequently made camp at the junction of the Moorabool and Barwon Rivers , a place he named Fyansford . One of Fyans' first duties
1980-558: The murder of Ellen Jamieson: The execution to be held outside the gates of the three-year-old [Darlinghurst] gaol , was scheduled for 9a.m. At the crack of dawn scores of people, children included, were swarming across the racecourse ( Hyde Park ) towards Darlinghurst Hill. The Australian newspaper judged the throng to be 10,000 strong. The paper was disdainful of the ghoulish mob yet, at the same time, congratulated them on their good behavior. Captain John Knatchbull aged 56 years,
2040-480: The murdered woman's two young children, Bobby and Polly Jamieson. Knatchbull's brother provided money for the children's education. Knatchbull appealed unsuccessfully on the grounds that the judge had not directed that his body be dissected and anatomized, as required by law. His hanging on 13 February 1844 occurred in Taylor Square and was witnessed by 10,000. John Knatchbull sentenced to hang for
2100-554: The mutineers. The surviving convicts were captured and under Fyans' authority they were treated sadistically. Many were severely beaten to such an extent that Fyans broke his sword hitting them with the flat surface of it. Fyans ordered special sturdier cat o'nine tails to be used to flog the prisoners and heavier leg-irons with roughened surfaces were manacled to them. Fyans kept the rebels locked-up, naked in overcrowded jails for many months in irons, inflicting mass floggings with thousands of lashes being meted out. These actions earned him
2160-529: The name of John Fitch. Knatchbull was given a 14-year sentence and transported to New South Wales on the Asia . In New South Wales he was assigned to Bathurst . He was given a ticket of leave in 1829 after apprehending eight runaways. His ticket was altered to Liverpool when he became an overseer on the Parramatta Road. On 31 December 1831 he was charged with forging Judge Dowling 's signature to
2220-461: The navy in 1804 serving until 1818 and rising to the rank of Captain. He served aboard the Ardent , Revenge , Zealand , Sybille , Téméraire , Leonidas , Cumberland , Ocean and Ajax . In November 1810 he passed his lieutenant's examination, then served aboard Sheerwater until August 1812 when he was invalided home; then aboard HMS Benbow and HMS Queen . In December 1813 he
2280-470: The nickname of ‘Flogger’ Fyans. The penal settlement was described as "hell upon earth" by one convict. After the mutiny, Morisset officially resigned and Governor Bourke offered the commandant position at Norfolk Island to Fyans on a permanent basis. Fyans declined the offer and was relieved as acting commandant by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Anderson in April 1834. Fyans remained on the island until October 1834. While there, he obtained testimonies involved in
2340-454: The orphans of Mrs. Jamieson. Knatchbull's defence was conducted by Robert Lowe , later Viscount Sherbrooke . Lowe argued on Knatchbull's behalf that insanity of the will could exist apart from insanity of the intellect. He argued that Knatchbull had yielded to an irresistible impulse and could not be held responsible for his crime. This was a novel defence for the time. The court, however, found Knatchbull guilty. The Lowes subsequently adopted
2400-573: The pioneer squatters in that region. Fyans decided to travel overland to Portland Bay and trail-blaze a road from Geelong to that settlement. Surveyor H.W.H. Smythe and several mounted troopers accompanied him. They travelled through stony and swampy country which was occupied by a large number of Aboriginal people who caught fish and eels through the use of a system of weirs. At times, they dispersed these people with their horses and swords. Arriving at Portland Bay, Fyans found that "no doubt numerous bad and improper acts have been committed" and recommended
2460-470: The region having requested the colonial government for protection against Aboriginal raids . Guided by William Buckley , an ex-convict who had lived with the local Barrabool people for thirty years, Fyans arrived at Corio Bay in October and attempted to locate a suitable site for his police huts. The Derwent Company of Charles Swanston had already laid claim to much of the region and Frederick Taylor ,
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2520-466: The remainder of his original sentence (the 14 years for stealing with force and arms). In January 1844 Knatchbull murdered shopkeeper Ellen Jamieson with a tomahawk while stealing money for his upcoming marriage. He was tried on 24 January and found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged. During the early part of 1844, two murders of a very horrible character were committed in Sydney . In one case,
2580-529: The siege of Asirgarh Fort , where around 1,200 defenders held out against constant bombardment from British forces for weeks. Fyans praised the bravery of the Arab soldiers employed by the Maratha to hold the fort, and described their final surrender to the British. After the battle of Asirgarh, Fyans remained garrisoned in India, being posted with the 67th at Malegaon , Solapur and Pune . He avoided sickness in
2640-483: The smaller islands. In British India , the colonial government established various penal colonies. Two of the largest ones were on the Andaman Islands and Hijli . In the early days of settlement, Singapore Island was the recipient of Indian convicts, who were tasked with clearing the jungles for settlement and early public works. France sent criminals to tropical penal colonies including Louisiana in
2700-477: The town with fresh river water. Fyans also established for himself a cattle property on the west bank of Lake Colac which he sold in 1842. In 1839, Fyans was ordered to Portland Bay to investigate official reports of deliberate massacring of Aboriginal men and women by raiding parties led by Edward Henty , as well as the "interference with native women" by the employees of the Henty Brothers , who were
2760-423: The trial of the ring-leaders of the mutiny which resulted in thirteen being executed by hanging in late September. Fyans was accused by the judge of obtaining improper evidence that caused Knatchbull to escape conviction. After returning from Norfolk Island, Fyans again used his friendly relationship with Governor Bourke to obtain the position of commandant of the Moreton Bay convict settlement in 1835. Fyans found
2820-443: The uncolonised regions surrounding Moreton Bay and a few managed to survive by living with the various Aboriginal clans. Fyans got along well with these Aboriginal groups and gave them food and other items in exchange for information and sometimes the return of these fugitives. One of these absconding convicts who returned after living several years with Aboriginal people was John Graham. Graham's knowledge and ability to communicate with
2880-409: Was John Knatchbull, was proved to have been a wretch of the most abominable description; and though an attempt was made to set up a plea of insanity, a barrister being employed by the agent for the suppression of capital punishment, so foul a villain could not be saved from the gallows. It is gratifying to add, that Sir Edward Knatchbull , the brother of the criminal, has sent out a handsome donation for
2940-494: Was an English naval captain and convict found guilty of murder in 1844. He was one of the earliest to raise in a British court the plea of moral insanity (unsuccessfully). Knatchbull was born in Mersham , Kent , England , likely the son of Sir Edward Knatchbull, 8th Baronet of Mersham Hatch, and his second wife, Frances Graham. His father had 20 children by three wives. He attended Winchester College and volunteered for
3000-613: Was buried at the Eastern Cemetery in Geelong. Places such as Fyansford and Mount Fyans are named after him, while Foster, Fyans and West Fyans streets in Geelong are also named in his honour. His estate home of Balyang is now the Balyang Sanctuary . Convict settlement A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in
3060-480: Was caught and chained up by the local colonists but was drowned before Fyans could start a murder investigation. Fyans was of the opinion that "intimacy" between the settlers and the Aboriginal women and the spread of venereal disease was the basis of much of the conflict. In late 1837, Fyans received instructions to select a site for a major township in the Corio region. He concluded that the spot where David Fisher of
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#17327724717303120-689: Was commissioned to command HMS Doterell , but missed the ship and was reappointed in September 1814. After the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, the navy was reduced and Knatchbull retired on full pay until March 1818, when his pay was stopped by the Admiralty because of a debt he had incurred in the Azores. In August 1824 he was found guilty of stealing with force and arms at the Surrey Assizes under
3180-562: Was employed by John Cox at the Mount Rouse property. It was assumed that an Aboriginal man named Figara Alkapurata (also known as Rodger) was the killer. Codd's death resulted in the colonial authorities taking formal action with Fyans and his troopers sent in to capture the ringleaders of Aboriginal resistance. In late 1841, two of Fyans' Border Police troopers were severely wounded in a skirmish with Aboriginal fighters at James Hunter's Eumeralla property. Fyans returned to Eumeralla with
3240-608: Was nominated as the inaugural mayor of the Geelong Town Council. He became a Justice of the Peace and a judicial magistrate the following year, later being appointed as deputy sheriff for the Geelong region. He retired from public life in 1855. A favourite punishment meted out by Fyans in his judgements was to order the accused to be locked into the public stocks outside the court at Geelong. In January 1843 Fyans married Elizabeth Alice Cane and they had three daughters and
3300-432: Was noted of Virginia that "the crimes of which they were convicted were chiefly political, and the number transported for social crimes was never considerable." The colony of Georgia , by contrast, was planned by James Oglethorpe specifically to take in debtors and other social criminals. Oglethorpe referred to them as "the worthy poor" in a philanthropic effort to create a rehabilitative colony where prisoners could earn
3360-488: Was ransacked of supplies. While in December 1837, George Russell's Clyde Company property at Inverleigh was attacked by a large group of Aborigines with Russell's employees shooting dead two native men. These incidents were reported to Fyans but he did little about it. In April 1838, a shepherd named Teddy McManus who was employed by the pastoralist Thomas Learmonth was killed by an Aboriginal man near Buninyong . This man
3420-539: Was sent to Norfolk Island as a chaplain in November 1836 on the recommendation of the London Missionary Society , said of Knatchbull from his personal appearance and conversation, as all traces of a gentleman had long disappeared, he exhibited no evidence that he had been in a higher social position; indeed he appeared to be in his natural place. Knatchbull returned to Sydney in 1839 to serve out
3480-413: Was sold at an auction in the 1940s. In early 1833 Fyans arrived with the 4th Regiment of Foot at Sydney , New South Wales . He quickly manoeuvred himself into being on good terms with Governor Richard Bourke and was soon posted to the penal colony of Norfolk Island as captain of the guard. He arrived at Norfolk Island in March 1833 which was then under the command of Colonel James Thomas Morisset ,
3540-600: Was soon deployed to assist in the Peninsula War . Fyans was present at both Cádiz and Cartagena while these cities were under siege from Napoleonic forces . He was stationed for most of the war period at Gibraltar where he saw little action, but was promoted to lieutenant . In 1818 Fyans was deployed with the 67th Regiment to India , where he served in the latter stages of the Third Anglo-Maratha War . He wrote an important first-hand account of
3600-421: Was to muster together the members of the local Barrabool (or Wathaurong) people. Around 275 were gathered, to which the government had assigned Fyans to distribute tomahawks, clothes and blankets. Fyans refused to give the Aboriginal people the tomahawks, and instead had thrown them into the nearby river. There was also a shortage of blankets. The Barrabool people became agitated at this and Fyans arming himself with
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