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The Forgotten Commandant: James Wallis and the Newcastle Penal Settlement, 1816–1818

2010; Routledge; Volume: 41; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10314610903483531

1940-5049

David Roberts, Daniel J. Garland,

Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies

Abstract This article explores the administration of Captain James Wallis as Commandant of the Newcastle penal settlement from 1816–1818, illuminating a forgotten character and a neglected aspect of Australia's early colonial history. Our argument explores two core strands. First, we consider Wallis' reputation and role as the primary architect of the colony's first secondary punishment regime. Second, we assess his influence in shaping the nature of those infamous penal institutions which have had such a powerful and arguably misleading impact on popular memories of the convict period. We demonstrate that Wallis' regime, and the responses to it, exposed conflicting ideas about the nature and administration of punishment in early colonial NSW. Notes We thank Frank Bongiorno, Andrew Piper and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart for their comments. 2Hunter Health Media Release, ‘Tender Approved for James Wallis Building’, 21 January 2004, (accessed 3 March 2007). John Mills MP described the naming the facility as ‘One of the most interesting aspects of getting the new hospital ready’. Parliament of New South Wales, Hansard Transcript: Legislative Assembly, 8 June 2006, 990. 3The phrase was coined by Mark Currie in 1823, quoted in J. Windross and J. P. Ralston, Historical Records of Newcastle (Newcastle, 1897), fac. ed., Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1978), 9. 4James Tucker, Ralph Rashleigh (London: Angus and Robertson, 1952), 226. The novel was written c1845. See also Frank MacNamara, ‘A Convict's Tour to Hell’, in Frank the Poet: The Life and Works of Francis MacNamara, ed. J. Meredith and R. Whalan (Melbourne: Red Rooster, 1979), 45–9; Memoirs recorded at Geelong, Victoria, Australia by Captain Foster Fyans (1790–1870), ed. P. L. Brown (Geelong: Geelong Advertiser, 1986), 92, 109–10, 112–3, 121–2. Morisset's bad press is perpetuated in Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787–1868 (London: Collins Harvill, 1987), 437, 458–61, 470. 5J. Croft, ‘A Sense of Industrial Place: The Literature of Newcastle, New South Wales, 1797–1997’, Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature 13, No. 1 (1999): 15–20. See also Nancy Cushing, ‘Coalopolis to Steel City: Perceptions of Newcastle 1797–1859’, Journal of Australian Studies 57, (1998): 61–71. 6J. Hirst, Convict Society and its Enemies: A history of early New South Wales (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1983), and B. Smith, Australia's Birthstain: The startling legacy of the convict era (Sydney: Allen and Unwin 2008). 7B. W. Champion, ‘Captain James Wallis of the 46th Regiment’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 19, Pt. 4 (1933) 364–73; T. W. Blunden, ‘Wallis, James (1785? – 1858)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), 568–9. 8James Wallis, An Historical Account of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependant Settlements: in illustration of twelve years, engraved by W. Preston, a convict; from drawing taken on the spot, by Captain Wallis, of the Forty-Sixth regiment (London: Rudolph Ackermann, 1821). R. Neville, ‘The Wallis album’, in Joseph Lycett: Convict Artist, ed. J. McPhee (Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 2006), 68–71. 9Bathurst to Bigge, 6 January 1819, Historical Records of Australia, Series I (hereafter HRA I), (Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1914–1925), vol. 10, 4.J. T. Bigge, ‘Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales’ 1822, British Parliamentary Papers: Colonies, Australia, Volume 1 (Shannon: Ireland University Press, 1971). See 114–8 (for his account of convict Newcastle) and 180–6 (for his ‘Directions and Regulations for the conduct of the New Settlements at Moreton Bay, Port Bowen, and Port Curtis’). For context, see Ray Evans, ‘19 June 1822. Creating “an Object of Real Terror”: The tabling of the first Bigge Report’, in Turning Points in Australian History, eds. M. Crotty and D. A. Roberts (Sydney: UNSWP, 2009), 48–61. 10Campbell to Thompson, 29 April 1814, 4/3493: 158, State Records New South Wales, (hereafter SRNSW), Sydney. 11For example, Phillip Perry, sentenced to 14 year for stealing from the public stores. Sydney Gazette, 12 October 1816. 12Bigge, 115. See for example, Campbell to Thompson, 3 March 1815, 4/3493: 477, SRNSW; Gill to Thompson, 11 October 1815, 4/3494: 223, SRNSW; Campbell to Wallis, 8 October 1816, and 10 October 1816, 4/3495: 175, 178, SRNSW. 13J. Turner (ed.), Newcastle as a Convict Settlement: The Evidence before J. T. Bigge in 1819–1821 (Newcastle: Council of the City of Newcastle, 1973), 29–34. For examples of violence, see Wallis to Campbell, 28 February 1818, 20 April 1818, and 25 April 1818, 4/1806: 107a, 118–118a, 119–119a; ‘Depositions taken at Newcastle’, April 1818, 4/1806: 120–120c, SRNSW; Sydney Gazette, 16 September 1819, and 4 December 1819. 14Bigge, 114. 15See items 10, 12 and 39 of Wallis' Instructions, 5 June 1816, 4/1806: 27–29, SRNSW; and Morriset's Instructions, 24 December 1818, in Turner (ed.), 177–89. 16Campbell to Wallis, 12 November 1816, 4/3495: 274, SRNSW. See also Campbell to Thompson, 20 July 1815, 4/3494: 128, SRNSW. 17Macquarie to Wallis, 3 January 1818, 4/1806: 105, SRNSW. ‘Accounts of cedar, coal and lime supplied to government and other vessels, 1816–1825’, 4/5606, SRNSW. 18R. Evans and W. Thorpe, ‘Power, Punishment and Penal Labour: Convict Workers and Moreton Bay’, Australian Historical Studies 25, No. 98 (April 1992): 90–111. 19R. Evans and W. Thorpe, ‘The Last Days of Moreton Bay: Power, Sexuality and the Misrule of Law’, Journal of Australian Studies 53, (1997): 59–77; R. Evans and W. Thorpe, ‘Freedom and Unfreedom at Moreton Bay: The Structures and Relationships of Secondary Punishment’, Beyond Convict Workers, ed. B. Dyster (Sydney: Department of Economic History, University of New South Wales, 1996), 64–82. 20Evans' evidence, in Turner (ed.), 84. 21See various letters from Campbell to Thompson throughout 1815, in 4/3493 and 4/3494, SRNSW. 22 Sydney Gazette, 1 June 1816. 23Prevost, 1 March 1805, in Thomas Southey, Chronological History of the West Indies, Volume 3 (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, 1827), 314; ‘Journal of Occurrences at Dominica’, The Royal Military Chronicle 4, (May 1812): 205–6. 24Major-General Dalrymple, 28 May 1806, in Southey, 365–6. 25Macquarie to Wallis, 9 April 1816, 4/1735: 9, SRNSW; Wallis to Macquarie, 9 May 1816, enclosing his Journal of the expedition, 10–29 April 1816, 4/1735: 50–59, SRNSW. 26Wallis, Journal, 17 April 1817, 4/1735: 56, SRNSW; Macquarie, Diary, 4 May, and 7 May 1816, A773, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 27Macquarie to Bathurst, 15 December 1819, HRA I, vol. 12, 12. Wallis' conduct in 1816 probably confirmed a prior decision to appoint him to Newcastle. He had visited the settlement in February 1815. Thompson to Campbell, 22 February 1822, 4/1805: 180a, SRNSW. Colonial Secretary John Thomas Campbell appears to have been on intimate terms with Wallis, evident in the glimpses of personal discussion of poetry, music and colonial politics which intruded into their official correspondence. Campbell to Wallis, 8 October 1816, 4/3495: 175–6, SRNSW. 28A collection of Government Orders and General Orders (hereafter GGO) from Newcastle, dated between 1816 and 1824, are bundled in 2/8632, SRNSW. These are not paginated. 29 Sydney Gazette, 27 September 1817. 30Wallis, GGO, 29 June 1816, 11 January 1817, and 27 June 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW. 31Wallis, GGO, 28 September 1816, 2/8623, SRNSW. 32Wallis, GGO, 10 May 1817, and 22 October 1816, 2/8623, SRNSW. 33Wallis, GGO, 8 July 1818, Turner (ed.), 195, and 1 March 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW. 34Wallis, GGO, 28 September 1816, and 13 July 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW. 35Wallis, GGO, 29 June 1816, and 10 May 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW. 36Wallis, GGO, 25 October 1816, and 14 December 1816, 2/8623, SRNSW. 37Wallis, GGO, 25 September 1816, and 22 June 1818, 2/8623, SRNSW. 38Notably his superintendent of public works and second in command, John Evans. Wallis, GGO, 25 September 1816, and 22 June 1818, 2/8623, SRNSW. 27 July 1816, 2/8623, SRNSW. 39Charges laid against William Evans, 22 August 1811, 4/1804: 83–9, SRNSW; Wallis to Campbell, 24 March 1817, 4/1806: 69, SRNSW; Campbell to Wallis, 1 May 1818, 4/3498: 197, SRNSW; Wallis, GGO, 19 October 1818, and 23 October 1818, 2/8623, SRNSW. 40Landers' evidence, in Turner (ed.), 134; Evans' evidence, in Turner (ed.), 83; Campbell to Thompson, 7 August 1815, 4/3495: 138, SRNSW. 41John Slater, A Description of Sydney, Parramatta, Newcastle & c Settlements in New South Wales, (Bridlesmith-Gate, UK: Sutton and Son, 1819), 9. 42John Evans' evidence, in Turner (ed.), 83, 92. 43Wallis, GGO, 17 June 1816, 13 December 1817, 10 January 1818, 2/8623, SRNSW. 44Campbell to Wallis, 20 November, 1816, 4/3495: 148, SRNSW. 45Bigge, 117. 46William Evans' evidence, in Turner (ed.), 114. 47‘Monthly Returns of Punishment, Newcastle, 1810–1825’, 4/1718, SRNSW. 48During Commandant Skottowe's command in 1812, absconders could expect around twenty-five lashes. By 1815, Lieutenant Thompson ordered no more than fifty lashes for a similar offence. ‘Monthly Returns of Punishment, Newcastle, 1810–1825’, 4/1718, SRNSW. 25, 37, 39. 49During Commandant Skottowe's command in 1812, absconders could expect around twenty-five lashes. By 1815, Lieutenant Thompson ordered no more than fifty lashes for a similar offence. 73–95. 50John Evans' evidence, in Turner (ed.), 85. Striking convicts was forbidden under Government Order, 26 December 1800, SZ756: 347, SRNSW. 51Wallis to Campbell, 2 April 1818, 4/1806: 116a, SRNSW. 52Wallis, GGO, 13 July 1817, 2/8623. SRNSW. 53Campbell to Wallis, 30 December 1816, 4/3495: 418, SRNSW. 54‘Wallis' Instructions, 6 June 1816, 4/1806: 27b, SRNSW. 55Wallis to Campbell, 9 December 1916, 4/1806: 58, SRNSW; Wallis, GGO, [undated], in Turner (ed.), 193–4. See also Wallis, GGO, 17 June 1816, and 11 January 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW. 56Evans' evidence, in Turner (ed.), 92–3. 57Campbell to Wallis, 11 February 1817, 4/3495: 500, SRNSW. 58Memorial of Mary Bircham, 13 January 1818, 4/1806: 105b, SRNSW. 59Evidence of Morisset, Clohesy and Eckford, in Turner (ed.), 53, 157, 172–3. For an example prior to Wallis' command, see Campbell to Thompson, 29 April 1814, 4/3493: 159, SRNSW. On the difficulties in ascertaining when a prisoner was entitled to leave the settlement, see Campbell to Wallis, 23 September 1818, 4/3499: 75, SRNSW. 60Wallis to Campbell, 31 March 1818, 4/1806: 110, SRNSW; Wallis to Rendall, 21 March 1818, 4/1806: 112, SRNSW. It was agreed that articles and supplies could be sent to Newcastle under permits applied for and granted via the authorities in Sydney. 61Wallis to Campbell, 5 September 1817, 4/1806: 86, SRNSW; Tucker to Wallis, 12 July 1817, 4/1806: 81–81a, SRNSW. 62Evans' evidence, in Turner (ed), 93–4; Wallis, GGO, 13 December 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW. 63Evans to Campbell, 24 August 1816, 4/1806: 43, SRNSW. 64Wallis to Campbell, 4 September 1816, 4/1806: 45, SRNSW. 65Campbell to Wallis, 27 May 1818, 4/3498: 240–1, SRNSW. 66Wallis, GGO, 17 June 1816, 11 January 1817, and 12 October 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW. 67Wallis, GGO, 12 October 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW; Wallis, 24 August 1816, 4/1806: 44–44a, SRNSW. 68Wallis, GGO, 20 April 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW. This proved unsuccessful and the order was rescinded. 69Morisset's evidence, in Turner (ed.), 66. 70Campbell to Wallis, 7 February 1818, 4/3498: 46, SRNSW; Campbell to Wallis, 5 January, 1817, 4/3495: 431, SRNSW. 71Wallis, GGO, 11 January 1817, 2/8623, SRNSW. 72Eckford's evidence, in Turner (ed.), 173; J. Turner, Joseph Lycett: Governor Macquarie's Convict Artist, (Newcastle: Hunter History Publications, 1997), 80; Wallis, GGO, 3 August 1816, 2/8623, SRNSW. 73Evans' evidence, in Turner (ed.), 89; Wallis, GGO, 29 June 1816, 2/8623, SRNSW. 74Campbell to Wallis, 27 March 1818, 4/3498: 114, SRNSW; Morisset's evidence, in Turner (ed.), 51. 75Campbell to Wallis, 23 January 1818, 4/3498: 1, SRNSW; N. Davies, Convict Nobbys (Belmont: Noel Davies, 1966). 76Macquarie, ‘Journal of a Tour to and from Newcastle’, 5 August 1818, A781, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 77Wallis, An Historical Account, 37. 78Clohesy's evidence, in Turner (ed.), 157, 161. 79Champion, 369; Morisset's evidence, in Turner (ed.), 77, 78. 80 Sydney Gazette, 15 August 1818. 81Macquarie, GGO, 24 December 1818, 2/8623, SRNSW; Bigge, 118. The school was actually an initiative of Commandant Thompson, which Macquarie regarded as ‘a most benevolent and praiseworthy institution’ which he ordered Wallis give ‘every possible support and encouragement’. ‘Instructions for the Guidance and Government of Captain James Wallis', 5 June 1816, 4/1806: 29c, SRNSW. 82Allen's evidence, and Clohesy's evidence, in Turner (ed.), 145–9, 157–163. 83 Sydney Gazette, 15 August 1818. 84Champion, 369; ‘A View of Kings Town’, c.1820 (artist unknown) in Turner (ed.), 40. 85Allen's evidence, in Turner (ed.), 147, 148. 86Macquarie, ‘Points of Colonial Administration Submitted by the Honble [sic] The Commissioner of Enquiry – to be answered by Govr Macquarie’, 4 February 1821, in J. Ritchie, The Evidence to the Bigge Reports: New South Wales under Governor Macquarie: Volume 1, the Oral Evidence (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1971), 225–6. Bigge was also questioning a glowing account of Wallis' building program that Macquarie sent to the Colonial Office in March 1819 (see below). 87Bigge, 118. 88H. Proudfoot, ‘Opening Towns: Public Virtue and the Interior’, in The Age of Macquarie eds. J. Broadbent and J. Hughes (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1992), 60–65; W. M. Robbins, ‘Spatial escape and The Hyde Park Barracks’, Journal of Australian Colonial History 7, (2005): 89–91; G. Karskens, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2009), 189–232. 89Macquarie, ‘Points of Colonial Administration’, 225–6. 90S. Bennett, The History of Australian Discovery and Colonisation (Sydney: Hanson and Bennett, 1867), 509. 91King, Government Order, 20 July 1804, HRA I, vol. 5, 89. 92Turner (ed.), 27, 128, 194–5; Campbell to Wallis, 17 September 1817 and 29 November 1817, 4/3497: 56, 173, SRNSW; Wallis, GGO, 16 August 1818, and September 1818, 2/8623, SRNSW. 93Morisset, in Turner (ed.), 74–5; Bigge, in Turner (ed.), Newcastle as a Convict Settlement, 291; Tucker, in Turner (ed.), 125. 94B.H. Fletcher, Landed Enterprise and Penal Society: A History of Farming and Grazing in New South Wales before 1821 (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1976), 132–3. See Macquarie's plans for early settlement at Bathurst. Macquarie to Bathurst, 24 June 1815, HRA I, vol. 8, 59–60. 95Macquarie to Bathurst, HRA I, vol. 10, 43; Macquarie, ‘Journal of a Tour’, 30 July 1818. 96Wallis, GGO, 20 February 1817, and 14 July 1817, 6 January 1818, 2/8623, SRNSW. 97Wallis, GGO, 6 January 1818, and 16 September 1818, 2/8623, SRNSW. 98Macquarie to Bathurst, 15 February 1819, HRA I, vol. 10, 43–4. 99Campbell to Wallis, 11 August 1818, 4/3499: 12, SRNSW. 100Morisset, in Turner (ed.), 51, 74–5. 101Turner (ed.), 32, 33. 102 Sydney Gazette, 11 September 1823. 103 Sydney Gazette, 8 May 1823, and 28 August 1823. 104 Sydney Gazette, 1 May 1823. 105Macquarie, GGO, 24 December 1818, 2/8623, SRNSW; Sydney Gazette, 26 December 1818; Macquarie to Bathurst, 15 February 1819, HRA I, vol. 10, 13–15, and 8 March 1819, HRA I, vol. 10, 45. The publisher reproduced the Order in a second issue of Wallis' An Historical Account of the Colony, allowing Macquarie's comments to be further promoted, for example in a review of Wallis' book in The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle 94, (1824): 397. 106Wallis, An Historical Account, 37. 107Karskens, 189–232. 108Macquarie to Bathurst, 8 March 1819, HRA I, vol. 10, 44. 109Wallis, An Historical Account, 1. 110Macquarie to Bathurst, 10 October 1823, in J. Ritchie, The Evidence to the Bigge Reports: New South Wales under Governor Macquarie: Volume 2, The Written Evidence (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1971), 291. 111Bigge, ‘Report of the Commissioner’, 118. 112Bigge, ‘Report of the Commissioner’, 180–6. 113Evans and Thorpe, ‘The Last Days of Moreton Bay’, 59. 114Bathurst to Bigge, 6 January 1819, HRA I, vol. 10, 4, 6. Bathurst decreed that the colony's ‘Territorial or Commercial Advantages’ were ‘a Secondary Consideration’ to its penal agenda. 115Bathurst to Brisbane, 9 September 1822, HRA I, vol. 10, 791. 116Bathurst to Bigge, 6 January 1819, HRA I, vol. 10, 6. 117Brisbane to Bathurst, 3 November 1824, HRA I, vol. 11, 409. See the discussion over whether Moreton Bay should be established as a secondary penal settlement or opened for ‘general Colonization’. Bathurst to Brisbane, 22 July 1824, HRA I, vol. 11, 321. 118Brisbane to Horton, 24 March 1825, and 16 June 1825, HRA I, vol. 11, 555, 649; Brisbane to Bathurst, 21 May 1825, HRA I, vol. 11, 604.