Ellen GURNEY

(Hector, 1835)

By Helen Ménard

Introduction

While we know nothing about Ellen’s early years or her family life, as an adult in the colony of Van Diemen’s Land (VDL) it appears she was, at the very least, a feisty and independent woman. Whereas many women dissolved into society once they set foot on the shores of VDL or after their sentences had been served, Ellen was not one of them! In spite of a tumultuous ten years at the start of her marriage, she was still married to her husband John after 36 years when he died leaving his entire estate to her. Evidence suggests they may have been kindred spirits, both demonstrating volatile and provocative personalities that apparently fuelled varying levels of conflict in their community.

But Ellen’s life was not without significant trauma which almost certainly contributed to her lifelong battle with the ‘demon drink’ and doubtless was both her relief and ruin at different times. Facing a sentence of transportation for life she knew she could never return to her homeland – yet did she ever want to? The fifty years she spent in a foreign country was peppered with suffering, alcohol dependence, incarceration, personal loss and conflict. Was Ellen ever really happy?

From Ireland to London

Records suggest that Ellen was born in County Kerry, Ireland about 1812.[1] There are no records of Ellen’s birth[2] which is unsurprising given that many Irish records were lost when, two days into the Irish Civil War in 1922, a massive explosion destroyed the Public Records Office attached to Dublin’s Four Courts and with it hundreds of years of documented history.[3] Nor do we know when Ellen moved to London or with whom. County Kerry is in the remote southwest of Ireland and, in the 17th and 18th centuries, was an agricultural area populated by poor tenant farmers.[4] Ellen’s transportation records note her as a ‘dairy maid or farm servant’[5] but when or why she left home is a matter of speculation.

When Ellen appeared before the Central Criminal Court in London on 6 April 1835 she was 22 years old and had no previous criminal convictions. She was charged with stealing a £10 and a £5 bank note from James Redfern, a servant in the dwelling house of William Greayer at the Barley Mow public house in Grosvenor Square - where Ellen was also working as a servant.[6] She was alleged to have bought a shawl for 18 shillings from a shopkeeper on the same evening using the £5 note. Ellen alleged that Redfern had given her the money and, in a long written defence, stated ‘the prosecutor [Redfern] had taken certain indecent liberties with her without her consent, and that he had given her the notes in question as an inducement not to complain’, all of which Redfern denied.[7]

Greayer, the owner of the Barley Mow, stated that Ellen was there ‘on liking … I paid the prisoner nothing.’[8] Does this mean that Ellen was not paid for her duties as a servant and was expected to make her own living from the clientele of the public house? Records also suggest that prior to transportation she had been ‘on the town’ for two months.[9] Did this possibly relate to her work at the Barley Mow?

Nonetheless, Ellen was found guilty and Justice Gaselee sentenced her to transportation for life.[10]

The Bloody Code

So how does a 22 year old first time offender end up with a life sentence of transportation for theft of £15?  Answer - given the law at the time, she was probably lucky to escape the hangman’s noose.

The English Penal Code in the period from 1723 to 1820 became increasingly severe, mandating the death penalty for an ever increasing number of offences. This became known as ‘The Bloody Code’.  The first of the (Waltham) Black Acts[11] was introduced in 1723 and their expansion continually increased the scope of capital punishment over the next ninety years.  In 1688 there were fifty crimes for which a person could be put to death.  By 1765 this had risen to about 160 and by 1810 to 222[12] - including pickpocketing goods worth one shilling and stealing a rabbit![13] In practice only twenty or so crimes normally resulted in execution and in the vast majority of cases the death sentence was commuted.[14]

At this time Britain was run by the property owning middle classes who were keen to protect their property from the large underclass who were seen as feckless and whose lives were considered to be of little value.  During this period 169 women and girls were executed for crimes against property alone.  Most of these women were convicted on circumstantial evidence or on the strength of their confessions, after very short hearings, often without any real defence and in trials that would be considered wholly inadequate by today’s standards.[15]  The law was also designed to act as a deterrent which is why executions were public spectacles until the 1860s. The authorities believed that hanging criminals in public would frighten people into obeying the law and refrain from committing crime.[16]

Shoplifting ceased to carry the death penalty in 1823 and theft from a dwelling house in 1837.[17] After much campaigning, social reformer Sir Samuel Romilly succeeded in repealing the death penalty for some minor crimes and transportation became a more popular mode of punishment.[18] In the 1800s crime courts were looking for a punishment which was not as extreme as hanging, but tougher than a fine. With many prisons in Britain full, transporting criminals to Australia became a popular option.[19]

Transportation and beyond

Ellen was held in Newgate Prison, London until she was discharged to board the Hector at Woolwich on 6 June 1835.[20] The Hector arrived in VDL on 20 October 1835 with 134 female passengers.[21] By February 1836, it seems Ellen would have been pregnant and that same month, while under assignment to a Mr Lord, was charged with indecent language and sentenced to 3 months in crime class at the Cascades Female Factory.[22] Her first son Alfred was born on 1 November 1836[23] and for a couple of years Ellen stayed under the radar.

However, in May 1838, while under assignment to a Mr Willis, she was reprimanded for being absent without leave.[24] This was to be the start of a downward spiral for Ellen. Over the next four months she faced four charges of being absent without leave resulting in sentences of between 3 and 7 days in a cell on bread and water.[25] In September 1838 she was again sentenced to crime class for 4 months after being found guilty of misconduct in being drunk and exposing herself in public.[26] One month later an application for permission to marry John Ponds was refused on the grounds that a period of six months was required to elapse after the expiration of her sentence.[27] So, clearly, Ellen had met John by this time but who was caring for toddler Alfred while she was serving her sentence? There is no record of Alfred accompanying her to the Cascades.

By March 1839, having been out of prison for two months, Ellen was again pregnant. In April 1839 she was charged with being drunk and absent without leave earning her 14 days in a cell on bread and water.[28] Several weeks later, on 26 April, Alfred was admitted to the Queen’s Orphan School aged 2 years and 3 months.[29]

Ellen and John

Having waited the required time, another application for permission to marry was lodged on 20 May 1839[30] and their patience paid off. Ellen Gurney (26, spinster) and John Ponds (39, blacksmith, bachelor, free) were married in the Holy Trinity Church of England, Hobart on 10 June 1839.[31]

John Ponds was born in England around 1800 and how he ended up in VDL is unknown but he was not a convict.[32] In the 1841 census he declared himself as an ‘other free person’[33] and in 1848 as having ‘arrived free’.[34] On marriage he cited his occupation as blacksmith[35] and in both censuses as a ‘mechanic or artificer’.[36] It seems he owned a shop in Elizabeth Street in 1866[37] and on his death certificate was noted as a ginger beer maker.[38]

The troubles continue

Ellen served another term of 7 days in a cell on bread and water in October 1839 for being drunk and out after hours - this time while in the service of her husband and in an advanced state of pregnancy.[39] A couple of months later, on 14 December 1839, her second son Edwin (Pond) was born.[40] Again, there was a quiet period for about a year.

By January 1841 Ellen was pregnant again; Alfred was still in the Queen’s Orphan School; and, according to the 1841 census, Ellen, John and son Edwin were living at Melville Street, Hobart.[41] But a month later, on 1 February 1841, baby Edwin died aged 14 months from teething.[42] Two months later, in April 1841, Ellen was back in the house of correction serving a term of 6 weeks’ hard labour for being drunk and out after hours – again under the care of her husband and again pregnant.[43] On 2 September 1841 her third son Thomas Edwin (Ponds) was born[44] and, only 6 months later, died on 21 March 1842 also from teething.[45] Kippen describes infant deaths from ‘teething’ as follows:

Infant death was a familiar and frequent occurrence in the nineteenth century. Despite this, the causes of many infant deaths remained a mystery. Often deaths were ascribed to prominent symptoms such as convulsions or debility, or to coincident conditions such as teething, rather than to actual causes of death.[46] In the early to mid-nineteenth century, the ‘physiological process of dentition [was] regarded as a veritable cause of severe and fatal intestinal disorders of infants’. As it was believed that teething caused intestinal disorders, deaths that should properly have been registered as from diarrhoeal disease were often attributed to ‘Teething’.[47]

At this point, having lost two sons within a year, surely both Ellen and John must have been devastated.

Possibly, in an attempt to recreate a family Alfred, now 6 and a half, was released from the orphanage into his parents’ care on 24 January 1843.[48]  But, sadly, from here on Ellen’s downward spiral took off at breakneck speed. Over the next three years she faced no less than fifteen charges for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, being out after hours and indecent language; and while she was reprimanded or admonished on four occasions, she served multiple periods of detention including hard labour adding up to almost sixteen months.[49] After a little more than a year at home, young Alfred was returned to the orphanage in March 1844.[50]

Perhaps Ellen’s struggles were abating. When her last sentence expired in January 1846 there was a reprieve until October 1847 when she received a 5 day sentence in solitary confinement for drunkenness. However, a month later for the same offence she received her longest sentence yet – 6 months’ hard labour at the Cascades![51] The severity of this sentence attracted the following comments from the local press:

Caution to Female Passholders.

Yesterday, (Friday) at the police office, Ellen Guerney, [sic] was sentenced to six months imprisonment for getting drunk! We hope this will be a caution to these women, as too many of them indulge in intemperate habits.[52]

On 17 December 1847, Alfred, now 11, was discharged again from the orphanage and ‘delivered to his mother, married to John Ponds, free’.[53] As Ellen was only one month in to her 6 month sentence at this time, Alfred’s care must surely have fallen to John. Why was he discharged at this time? Did John take him on as an apprentice? Or was he apprenticed out by the orphanage? Purtscher asserts that:

By the time children were 14 and not returned to their parents, they were apprenticed out until they were 18. Their masters were supposed to feed and clothe them in return for training. Many of these children were badly abused by their masters.[54]

Maybe the severity of her last sentence did cause Ellen to consider her life options as this was her final term of incarceration. While it was not to be her last appearance before the courts, perhaps the worst of her suffering and grief was over. Ellen received a ticket of leave in March 1849 and a conditional pardon in July 1852. She was now as free as she was ever going to be. And yet, after all her transgressions and time away from home, obviously, John was still a part of her life.

Alfred

Alfred surely must have been a troubled young soul buffeted between institutional care and a volatile and disordered family life. The orphan schools had a controversial history and life within was described as follows:

… conditions within the school were harsh: the buildings were sparsely furnished and cold; food was often in short supply; and many of those responsible for caring for the children treated them harshly. Epidemics of scarlet fever in the 1840s, measles in the 1860s, whooping cough and scarletina in the 1870s exacted a heavy toll among the children in the Orphan School … In 1859 an inquiry was established … Although the management of the school was exonerated from blame, conditions at the school, particularly in terms of dietary requirements, improved … further inquiries were held in 1867 and 1871, both of which further undermined the viability of the school, which finally closed its doors in 1879.[55]

It appears that young Alfred was constantly absconding from his parents’ care as, over time, several notices were placed in the local press offering rewards for his return, for example:

Caution.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD, of Macquarie-street, milkman, is hereby warned to give up a boy named ALFRED GURNEY to his mother, Ellen Gurney, of Patrick-street; he having decoyed the said boy away from his master's service, and having sent him to a person named Tucker, at the Old Beach. One Pound Reward will be given to any person who may bring the boy to CHARLES ALLENSDALE, Green Grocer, Elizabeth-street, opposite Dr. Crooke's.          March 22, 1850.[56]

Was life at home simply too challenging for Alfred? In 1858, when he would have been about 22, again, his mother advertised as follows:

NOTICE

IF this should meet the eye of ALFRED GURNEY PONDS his mother is anxious to hear from him. Any person knowing of his whereabouts, and addressing the same to the Office of this Paper will be rewarded for their trouble.

Description - About 5 feet 6 inches high, dark brown hair, and a lump on left cheek, about the size of a marble. [57]

In 1859 Alfred was in the service of a John Bellette of Spring Hill as a labourer when he was called to give evidence concerning a large fire on the property.[58] In 1863 he was fined £5 for assaulting Henry Crowther by throwing a stone at him[59] and the same year gave evidence, along with his mother and John Ponds, in an indecent conduct case where the defendant (Acres) was accused of ‘committing an act of nuisance against a door’ near the Ponds’ home in Murray Street.[60]

On 23 May 1864 Alfred was admitted to the General Hospital in Hobart with phthisis pulmonalis (tuberculosis or consumption) and died, Alfred Gurney Ponds, six months later at his mother’s home in Murray Street on 24 January 1865 aged 28.[61] With all her children now gone Ellen must, yet again, have been consumed with sorrow.

Community life

In December 1846 both Ellen and John Ponds were witnesses to the marriage of Elizabeth Wilson (a fellow traveller from the Hector) and Robert Blinkinsop.[62]

Ellen and John were vocal members of their local community and were certainly no strangers to the legal process – albeit with varying degrees of success.  Ellen’s legal claim for assault by Ann Curtain in 1857 was dismissed on the grounds the court found the affair to be ‘one of mutual battle’;[63] but a charge against Ellen for threatening language was upheld in 1859 resulting in a £10 surety;[64] in 1860 John’s suit against a neighbour for nuisance was upheld;[65] in 1861 charges against John and Ellen for disturbing the peace were dismissed;[66] as was Ellen’s complaint in 1862 against one John Sullivan for assault;[67] John’s suit in 1864 against Isaac Simpson for perjury was dismissed;[68] as was a nuisance suit against John in 1866 for wandering cows;[69] John successfully prosecuted George Jones in 1866 for theft of materials from his shop in Elizabeth Street resulting in a term of 12 months’ imprisonment with hard labour for Jones;[70] and Ellen was fined 5 shillings each on two charges of drunkenness and abusive language in April and September 1871.[71] Her spirit lived on!

Most of these cases involved contradictory witness testimony and demonstrated obvious antipathy between the parties. The courts’ dismissals often reflected the view as expressed in one case as ‘Rows of the kind were of rare occurrence indeed, and only took place between people who were always at war with each other.’[72]  The situation might be epitomised by a notice Ellen placed in the press in 1874 as follows:

£1 | REWARD  - I hereby give notice that the above Reward will be given to any person giving information that will lead to the conviction of the mischievous person or persons, that wilfully damaged my property in Murray street, on Thursday, April 23rd, 1874.[73]       

Nonetheless, they must have had some success financially as, in February 1858, John bought a property in Patrick Street near Murray Street – which became their home – for £228.[74] Between 1864 and 1880 both John and Ellen regularly petitioned the council for repairs outside their property and complained about disturbances and disorderly conduct from the White Conduit public house in Murray Street[75] – somewhat ironic given Ellen’s history of similar behaviour!  It seems Ellen was also working as a ‘monthly nurse’ [76] and gave evidence in a disputed paternity and child maintenance case in 1872.[77]

Life and death

John Cramer Ponds died at home in Murray Street on 6 January 1875 aged 72 from ‘paralytic stroke and debility’.[78] In his will, executed in July 1873, he appointed Ellen as the sole executor and left his entire estate – not exceeding £500 - to ‘his dear wife Ellen Ponds’.[79]

Ellen Ponds, still living in the Murray (Patrick) Street home, died suddenly in the house of a friend (Michael Ryan in Harrington Street), on 4 February 1882 from apoplexy (cerebral haemorrhage or stroke).[80] She died intestate (without a will) and the Dean of the Roman Catholic Church of Tasmania, Charles Peter Woods and architect Henry George Hunter were granted letters of administration (as interested parties) to administer her estate.[81] In a final expression of independence and indignation, a year before her death, Ellen placed the following notice in the local media:

NOTICE

I wish to CORRECT a MISTAKE which appears in the April number of the Tasmanian Catholic Standard, in the subscriptions to the St. Mary's Cathedral. The item, "by Arrangement of Mrs. FONDS, £10," is INCORRECT, as my subscription to the Cathedral was £50, and my name is ELLEN PONDS.[82]

Assessed as not exceeding £431,[83] and with no immediate family in the jurisdiction, clearly, the church would have had some interest in a share of Ellen’s estate!

In the end

​It is unlikely that Ellen would have been described as a shy and retiring young woman. Her spirited independence and frequently confrontational behaviour clearly created conflict. Yet the life traumas she endured and her battle with addiction - undeniably a panacea at times - cannot be ignored. As a young woman she was forcibly and permanently removed half way around the world to a developing and often brutal colony for a single crime - in which the evidence of her guilt was not clear cut - and for which the punishment was inhumanely disproportionate.

Although she lived a relatively long life, Ellen’s last years were probably spent alone with all her children and her husband having predeceased her. The fact that her relationship with John lasted almost forty years, given the challenges it faced, is a testimony to the forces that bound them together rather than divided them. Did the loss of all their children unite them in grief? In the end, for Ellen, did the punishment really fit the crime?