Transportation and Workhouses - One Families
Struggle with Poverty
Today's post brings you the story
of how one mans mistake affected the lives of the future
generations and makes us wonder if severe punishments
actually work.The story starts in Heacham,
Norfolk where on the 1st August 1840 the headline was -
Sheep Stealing -
"𝑹𝒐𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒕
𝑵𝒆𝒘𝒕𝒐𝒏,
𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒅
40,
𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒔
𝑵𝒆𝒘𝒕𝒐𝒏,
𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒅
30,
𝒂𝒏𝒅
𝑾𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒎
𝑵𝒆𝒘𝒕𝒐𝒏,
𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒅
32,
𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒅
𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒅
𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉
𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈
𝒕𝒘𝒐
𝒓𝒂𝒎𝒔,
𝒕𝒉𝒆
𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒚
𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒆𝒔
𝑭𝒂𝒘𝒄𝒆𝒕𝒕
𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆
𝑹𝒐𝒍𝒇𝒆,
𝑬𝒔𝒒.
𝒐𝒇
𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒎."
After a lengthy trial it was established they had gone
through a hedge onto the land of Mr Rolfe and stolen the
rams. The Newton brothers had cut the rams up and left
some their body parts in a wheat field close by, they
also left a sack with around 40lb of mutton inside. When
their houses were searched traces of blood were found
and mutton fat, knuckle mutton and sheeps pluck in an
oven boiler.
All three men were found guilty and sentenced to 15
years transportation.
Robert arrived in Tasmania via the ship 'Duncan' which
sailed from Sherness. The ship left on the 16th December
1840 and arrived in Tasmania on the 3rd March 1841, with
259 male prisoners. His report said he had been given 14
days previously for abusing his master. The gaol report
said 'bad character'. His trade was shepherd and farm
labourer. He died in Hobart, Tasmania from ascites in
1857.
When Robert was transported he left behind his wife Mary
and five children. Mary lost her son, aged 12, in 1847
and his burial record reveals he died in the Docking
Union Workhouse. Her eldest daughter Mary went to live
with her aunt in Heacham, in 1851, as her mother was
most likely struggling without her husbands support. She
is listed as a pauper servant and she has one
illegitimate daughter named Harriet.
In 1861 we find the daughter Mary in Docking Union
Workhouse with two illegitimate children, Harriet, Mary
Ann and William. Mary married Philip Sands in 1864, and
had two children, sadly, he died in 1867. She then
married Thomas Staines and had three more children. She
died in Heacham in 1904.
We find her daughter Mary Ann, aged 18, in the Docking
Union Workhouse in 1871 with an illegitimate daughter
Sabrina. In 1891 she appears again in the workhouse with
two more illegitimate children, George and Harriet. In
1897 she married Richard Farrow Pierce.
Her son George, along with four other young men, was
sentenced to five years imprisonment for raping Anne
Richardson (17) in Heacham, Norfolk in 1898. He was
imprisoned in HM Prison Portland, Dorset.
In 1905 Doris Gertrude Newton Burton was born. Her
mother was Gertrude Burton and we find young Doris
living with Richard Farrow Pierce and Mary Ann nee
Newton, in 1911, She is listed as granddaughter. This
means she must of been George's daughter. We find
Gertrude in 1911 living in Exton’s Road Workhouse,
King's Lynn with two other illegitimate children, Edith
Maud and Alice Mary. Incredibly, this is the fourth
generation of family who have ended up in the workhouse
since Robert was transported.
George married Annie Elizabeth Jeffery in Worksop,
Nottinghamshire in 1909. They had a daughter Laura in
1911. By now he was using the name George Newton Earle,
possibly the name of his father? They would go on to
have six more children.
George would get in trouble for stealing wheat in 1918
and fowl in 1919 but escaped with fines. He died in 1927
in Oldcotes, Nottinghamshire.
Pictured below George Newton with his wife Annie.
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