Thomas BATES Circa 1770 - 1836

In January of the year 1788 as the First Fleet sailed into Port Jackson, Australia, a young man walked the streets on London looking for work. With a population of almost a million people, London was now the largest city in the world and was home to beggars, traders and royalty. The urban sprawl was made of up of communities along the Thames within reach of the open fields of Middlesex and Essex.

As the weeks went by Thomas’ boots began to wear out, and on 6 April upon seeing some boots on a counter in the lane he was walking through, he snatched a pair and ran off, but was pursued and indicted. A month later on 7 May 1788 Thomas was charged with stealing two (odd) men’s leather boots to the value of 10 shillings, the property of Edward Bell. His defence was that he had seen a boy go in and take the boots, he ran after him and picked them up when the boy dropped them. Thomas BATES, aged 15 years, was tried by a Middlesex Jury at the Old Bailey, the London Central Criminal Court before Mr Recorder, found guilty and sentenced to transportation to Port Jackson for seven years.

Thomas remained a year in Newgate Goal, next to the court until May 1789 when he was sent with a large group of London convicts to the Dunkirk hulk at Plymouth on the Devon Coast, about 310 kms south west of London. The Dunkirk was an old Fourth- rate ship built in Woolwich, London in 1754 and converted to a guard ship and moored at Plymouth in 1782. As the prison population grew during the 18th century the British government started to send convicts from Newgate and the county prisons to overseas penal colonies, firstly North America until the Revolutionary War stopped the British sending their convicts across the Atlantic. In 1786 the colony of New South Wales was proclaimed by King George III. In January 1787 the government decided to transport convicts to New South Wales and on 18 January 1788 the First Fleet arrived to set up a prison colony.

At the end of November 1789 Thomas was embarked on the 809 ton Second Fleet ship Neptune convict transport under Master Donald Triall and departed England on 19 January 1790 with the Surprize and Scarborough. These three ships were contracted from the slave trading firm , Camden, Clavert and King who undertook to transport clothe and feed the convicts for a flat fee of £17 7s.6d per head, whether they landed alive or not. They made only one stop on the way, at the cape of Good Hope, South Africa. The three vessels arrived at Sydney cove in the last week of June 1790, three weeks after Lady Juliana with 222 female convicts on board and one week after the storeship Justinian. The passage was relatively fast in comparison to the First Fleet, but the mortality rate was very high (26%). Of the 1,026 convicts embarked on the  Second Fleet 267 died during the voyage.The convicts on the Neptune were deliberately starved, kept in irons, were often refused access to the deck and had scurvy from poor food and lack of Vitamin C. On arrival the chaplain of the Colony, Reverend Richard Johnson described the terrible scene:

The landing of these people was truly affecting and shocking; great numbers were not able to walk, nor to move hand or foot. Upon their being brought up to the open air some fainted, some died on the deck, and others in the boat before they reached the shore. When come on shore many were not able to walk, to stand, or stir themselves in the least, hence some were led by others. Some creeped upon their hands and knees, and some were carried upon the backs of others.

On arrival half naked convicts were lying without bedding and too ill to move. All were covered in lice and those unable to walk were slung over the sides of the ship. At least 486 Second Fleet convicts, 47%, arrived sick and the remainder were described as lean and emaciated. The ill were treated in the makeshift hospital and the well were put to work in Sydney and Parramatta constructing roads, bridges and public buildings, farming to produce food, milling timber and manufacturing bricks. Thomas could have worked at any of these trades, honing his skills to become a soldier, carter, then a boat builder.

Thomas birthplace was recorded later in 1808 on his transfer from the 102nd Regiment as Harwich Suffolk. Harwich is an old maritime and shipbuilding area 70 miles (112km) north east of London, but is located in Essex, not Suffolk. Thomas was free by servitude in 1795, having completed two years in the hulks in England and then five years penal servitude in Sydney. Thomas obviously had a strong constitution to have survived the horrors of his transportation and long hours serving out the balance of his seven year sentence. The five years between 1785 and 1800 are unaccounted for, but he obviously made his living and had time to socialize and get to know his future bride, a soldier’s daughter named, Ann GRIFFIN.

By 1800 Sydney was becoming established and had 3,000 inhabitants. The first St Philips, a wattle and daub T shaped church that seated 500, was built in 1793 by the Chaplain of the Colony, Reverend Richard Johnson. It burnt down in 1798 and a new church was then built off York Street now Lang Park. The foundation of the sandstone church was laid in 1800 but was not completed until 1810.

Ann GRIFFIN, a soldiers daughter, married Thomas BATES on 12 May 1800 at St Philips Church of England, Sydney in a service conducted by the Reverend Richard Johnson. The witnesses were Harry PARSONS and Phebe WALTON. All parties signed the register with an X (meaning they could not read or write), with the exception of Harry PARSONS, a first fleet marine soldier from the Sirius. Harry transferred to the NSW Corps in 1792 and married seven year convict, Mary SWAIN in 1796.  Phebe was also a seven year convict sentenced in Gloucester in 1794, aged 22 years, and was transported on the Indispensible in 1796.

A few months after his marriage on 23 Aug 1800, encouraged by his friend Harry Parsons and his soldier father in law Michael, Thomas enlisted as a private in the NSW Corps, later renamed as the 102nd Regiment. Rarely more than 500 strong, they formed the garrison of the penal colony of New South Wales for almost twenty years. Their uniform was similar to that of the Marines, but with a yellow facing on the coat and different shoulder belt plate and buttons. A shako was worn on the head. It was a tall cylindrical military hat, made of stiff material, with a short visor and a plume at the front.

Thomas and Ann probably lived in the soldiers’ quarters in Back Row (Kent Street) when they first married. On 5 May 1805 the Sydney Gazette reported that Thomas Bates, a soldier in the NSW Corps received a severe wound to the neck from a falling branch when felling a tree near Cockle Bay, later renamed Darling Harbour. We do not know if this was his future grant he was clearing at the time or when the family home was constructed at Cockle Bay. Thomas and Ann raised their large family of eight children, five girls and three boys at their home in Bates Lane, off Sussex Street, Cockle Bay.

Lydia, their first child was born on 9 May 1806 and baptised at St Philips on 25 Dec 1806. The next year Thomas was transferred to York Town, near Port Dalrymple, Van Diemen’s Land, now known as Tasmania. York Town was first settled in 1804 and was originally chosen for its good water supply, but the hard clay soil proved unsuitable for agriculture. Thomas and Ann’s second daughter Maria (pronounced Mariah) was born there on 14 Dec 1808. After their return to Sydney in 1810 Maria was baptised at St Philips on 1 April.

In his absence on 17 July 1809 Thomas was granted lease number 219 by William Paterson of 13½ rods (1.37 hectares) at Back Row, now Kent Street, on the foreshore of Cockle Bay. The rent was 5 shillings a year for 14 years, securing his right to live there. Edward GOLDSBOROUGH, another soldier in the 102nd Regiment, was also given the next lease of 21½ rods (2.18 hectares) under the same terms.Ryan, R.J Land Grants 1788 – 1809, Sydney 1981

Sussex Street was cut from the rock bordering Cockle Bay and was named by Governor Macquarie in 1810. He also renamed other streets in the area that had military names. Sergeant Majors Row became George Street, Barracks Row became York Street, Soldiers (Middle) Row became Clarence Street and (Soldiers) Back Row became Kent Street. Although old names stick as in 1825 Thomas Bates, boat builder of Back Street was on the list of persons liable to serve as a juror in Sydney.

Thomas and Ann’s third child and first son, William was born on 2 Sep 1812 and was baptised on the 27th day of the same month at St Philips. Two years later on 26 Sep 1814 he was followed by a second son they named James who was not baptised until 26 Feb 1815. Their fifth child Ann, named after her mother, was born on 2 May 1817 and was baptised on the 25th  day of the same month at St Philips. Nathaniel, their third son was born on 24 Nov 1819 and was baptised on 2 Jan 1820 at St Philips.

About this time Thomas was discharged from the army and in the 1822 Muster HO 10/36 he was recorded as being employed as a carter. The former seven year convict now free by servitude living in Sydney with his six children all born in the colony. Lydia aged 16, Maria aged 13, William aged 11, James aged 9, Ann aged 5 and 3 year old Nathaniel. Ann was listed separately under her maiden name of GRIFFIN, came free on the Britannia, wife of T Bates of Sydney.

The Governors of NSW were empowered to grant land to emancipists (ex-convicts), some military and free settlers. Thomas applied for his land grant to Governor Macquarie in a memorial dated 3 July 1820 and was granted 80 acres in Gordon on the North Shore in 1823. He promptly sold the land to the merchant Thomas HYNDES, his son in law George Green’s uncle.

The memorial states:

To His Excellency Governor Macquarie
 Memorial of Thomas Bates, late a Private in the 102nd – 73rd & 46th Regiments ~ Respectfully represents:    That your Memorialist came to this Colony in the Ship Neptune in the year 1790. That your Memorialist has served in the said Regiments upwards of seventeen years; and in consequence of having a wife and six children he obtained his discharge.
That your Memorialist, in order to provide more comfortably for his numerous family, humbly prays Land may be granted to him, with such other
indulgences, as your Excellency may deem him deserving of.
Signed, Thos Bates
I believe the petitioner to be a sober, honest & industrious man. William Cowper   JP
Mr Bates has always been a well connected man. John Piper JP
Sydney 3rd July 1820

Martha, Thomas and Ann’s seventh child and fourth daughter was born on 22 May 1823 and baptised the next month on 15 Jun 1823 at St Philips. She was recorded as Matthew aged two and a half years on the 1825 Muster HO 10/19, but all other details for the rest of the family are correct. This Muster is the first time that Thomas’ occupation was recorded as Boat Builder, but it is unknown if he had his own business or worked for someone else.

Originally ship building was banned in the colony to prevent the escape of convicts and to prevent any infringement on the trading monopoly of the East India Company. New boats were soon required and the existing ones needed constant repairs. The Australian timbers proved difficult to work, but blackbutt, spotted gum and mahogany timbers were soon appreciated in ship construction for their toughness.

Eldest daughter Lydia married shoemaker John STEWART at St Phillips on 1 Mar 1825 and their first child, Thomas and Ann’s first grandchild, Mary Ann arrived on 7 Feb 1826. Sarah, Thomas and Ann’s last child, was born on 9 April 1826 and baptised 30 April at St Philips.

Two years later in the 1828 Census Thomas, aged 53, occupation boat builder, and his wife Ann, aged 42, were still living at Sussex Street with six of their eight children and a lodger born in the colony, Mary Kelly aged 16 years. The Census was taken in Nov 1828 and revealed that the white population of Australia was 37,000. Of these, 21,000 were free and 16,000 were convicts, 23.8% of the population were born in the Colony although Indigenous Australians were not counted.

 BUT Thomas’ status was given as CF, meaning Came Free. I have checked the original records and there is no mistake. One has to remember that the colony of NSW was now almost forty years old and convict origins would have carried a certain stigma.  Thomas had land cleared and cultivated at Sussex Street, with three horses and seven cattle. It is not hard to imagine that their children had an idyllic childhood on the shores of Cockle Bay, with boats to sail, horses to ride and cows to chase!

Thomas must have been fond of his horses. When one was lost or strayed in 1829  he offered a reward of £1 on page one the Sydney Gazette on Thursday 30 Apr. Thomas gave his address as Cockle Bay. . On 1 Aug 1823 Thomas BATES of Kent Street was on a list of persons who received an assigned convict. He was John PODMORE per Malabar 1819, but nothing else is known of him as he was not listed in the 1828 Census of NSW.

Thomas died 17 December 1836 and was buried in the Old Devonshire Street Cemetery. His tombstone read in part:

Sacred to the memory of Mr Thomas Bates,
late of the 102nd Regt. of Foot, aged 64 years.
He was a faithful man and feared God above many.

The cemetery was cleared to make way for the new Central Railway station in 1901 and relatives with family buried there were asked to apply for an exhumation permit to have the remains transferred to a dedicated Pioneer Park at Botany. This was done by Thomas and Ann’s granddaughter, Mrs Lydia WEST of 10 Nickson Street, Surry Hills, Sydney.

Extract from 'The Bates of Sussex Street'