Dear Alice,
Many thanks for such a stimulating read. While I know nothing about
Noelene's bonnet project, I am well informed on Australian Colonial history.
"This bonnet pattern is from an 1860s colonial bonnet
The 1860s were right near the end of the transportation period, which
extended from 1788 until the last stragglers in Perth, Western
Australia in 1865.
There was certainly no lace on any convicts in the first 40 years or
so. In fact when the First Fleet arrived with over 1000 convicts in
January 1788, it was so poorly provisioned that by the time the 2nd
Fleet arrived in June 1790, the people were starving and barely had
enough rags to hide their privates!! So lace was definitely out of
the question.
My partner Lindsay descends from one of the 2nd Fleet women - one Ann
CAREY or GILBERT. What amazing women these were. Ann had her 1st 3
children from a 1st Fleet Marine whom she took up with on Norfolk
Island. Although they never actually got around to marrying before
his untimely death, she reckoned she would have considered it :). In
1799 she married a soldier from the New South Wales Corps, one
Theophilus FEUTRILL (or FEWTRELL) from Staffordshire, UK.
By Theophilus she had a further 8 children in Tasmania. By 1818
Theophilus and his son Joseph (by another woman) were in Ceylon (Sri
Lanka) with the British Army. The son died there, and Theophilus went
back the England where he hanged himself. Ann never did learn what
became of her husband. In fact his death was only unearthed (so to
speak) quite recently - since the internet!
So there was Ann, back in Tasmania, rearing at least 10 children on
her own - the youngest of whom was only 4 yrs old when his father
took off! Most of these survived to adulthood and became the
progenitors of thousands of Australians.
Unfortunately there were no convicts in my own family - well that is
until my brother came along :)
If you're interested there's heaps more.
David in Ballarat
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