Researchers who have claimed this convict
There are currently 3 researchers who have claimed William Silk
- Researcher (2140)
- Researcher (Pamela Heather)
- Researcher (Marilyn Guy)
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Biographies
William Silk 1760 – 1835
William Silk was my fourth great grandfather. He was born in Ireland, probably in Waterford in 1760. On Saturday 25th July, 1795, William was brought to trial at the Waterford Assizes, found guilty of horse stealing and sentenced to death.(Saunders's News Letter Dublin 30.07.1975, page2) This must have been commuted to transportation for life as this is the sentence recorded on convict documents.
Margaret or “Peggy” Silk, William’s wife and his sons Patrick and Thomas were allowed to accompany him to NSW on the Britannia. The journal of the Britannia records that on 5th February, 1797, while at sea, the “infant child of Mrs Silk, a free woman, died”. The Britannia arrived in Sydney on 27th May 1797 after what must have been an horrendous voyage. The story of the voyage of the Britannia, to New South Wales, under Captain Thomas Dennott and surgeon Augustus Beyer is told in Charles Bateson's The Convict Ships.....”As in the Second Fleet transport Neptune, the combination of a callous and brutal master and a weak, incompetent surgeon made the voyage of the first Britannia one of the worst in the history of transportation. There was one death to every 17 prisoners embarked, 10 men and one woman dying out of 144 men and 44 women; but the convicts were brutally mistreated and the survivors were landed in a wretched and emaciated state. The Britannia's master, Thomas Dennott, was a sadist who, in consequence, as Governor Hunter declared,.' of some conjecture of mutiny", kept the prisoners confined in irons and flogged them unmercifully. Even the women received three or four dozen cuts from a cane for the most trivial offences.....”.
William must have continued his rebellious ways in the Colony as he was named, in September 1800, in an enquiry into the aborted uprising of convicts who had planned to attack the soldiers attending Divine Service at Parramatta. It was claimed that he was the leader of 150 Parramatta convicts. William was imprisoned on the Hulk Supply, in Sydney Harbour, sentenced to receive 1,000 lashes and to be transported to Norfolk Island.
The General Muster of Norfolk Island in February of 1805 lists William Silk as a convict, working on the bull carriage and victualling on stores. He returned to NSW on the Hibernia in 1810 and petitioned the newly arrived Governor Lachlan Macquarie, requesting confirmation for the remission of his sentence that had been granted to him by Colonel Foveaux on Norfolk Island. It seems unlikely that he returned to live with his wife and sons as in the 1811 Muster Margaret Silk is listed as living just with her son Patrick. In the musters of 1823/4/5 William Silk is listed as a landholder in the Parramatta District, holding a Ticket of Leave.
On 16th September 1824, William swore an oath that he had received a Ticket of Leave twelve years earlier but in moving from one hut to another he’d had his Ticket of Leave rolled in a ______ when carrying his things and had lost it on a farm in the district of Prospect about eight months ago. He received, on 20th September 1824, Ticket of Leave 394/1328 in lieu of the one granted by Governor Macquarie & reported lost. In this he is described as being from County Cork, a labourer, born in 1763, height 5 feet 4¼inches, with dark sallow complexion, dark brown hair, hazel eyes and living at Prospect.
William Silk, a catholic, aged 65, appears on the 1828 Census as living at Prospect with Phoebe Bennett, aged 39, his housekeeper. A death is recorded in 1835 (BDM 1604) of a William Silk, aged 75, and seems more likely to be the correct William Silk than the two recorded in 1841 where these men were aged only 70.
Submitted by Researcher (Pamela Heather) on 5 August 2014
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