Researchers who have claimed this convict
There are currently 8 researchers who have claimed William Hampton
- Researcher (262)
- Researcher (Lori McIntosh)
- Researcher (Peter Jones)
- Researcher (12438)
- Researcher (12312)
- Researcher (4161)
- Researcher (Neil Newton)
- Researcher (Audrey Jones)
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Biographies
16 July 1836 when according to the Kent assizes, 45-year-old William Hampton was convicted of stealing firewood and sentenced to be transported to New South Wales, Australia for seven years. At the trial it was stated he had six sons and five daughters. You have to wonder if the courts ever considered the families!
According to Louise Westall Taylor in 2015, William:
"... had been born in 1791, the fifth of 12 children, in Woodchurch, a community in Kent in England’s south where his father, Thomas, was born and buried (c. 1750- 1811) and his mother, Ann Kingsnorth, born in the nearby town of Kenardington, was also buried (1757-1825). Hampton married by banns in 1815 when he was 24; his bride, Mary Ann Muckaway, already had a son, William, who had been born in the Poorhouse, High Halden, Kent in 1812. It is likely that Mary Ann was living in High Halden, the place of her birth, as it was there they married in 1815 in the Church of St Mary the Virgin. Since Hampton could not produce a certificate of settlement for High Halden, they were demeaned by being ordered by Justices of the Peace out of the area and back to the parish of Woodchurch into the care of the overseers of the poor and the church wardens. Although the distance between the parishes of High Halden and Woodchurch was not great – about one and a half hours on foot – the order of removal could be seen as a reflection of the poverty of post-Napoleonic War in England and the responsibility of the parishes to look after the welfare of none but their own.
"With five children to care for by 1822, Hampton found himself in court charged with larceny, but was found not guilty. When charged with larceny on a subsequent occasion, however, he was sentenced to serve a three-month gaol term. Then, 11 years later in 1836, while working as a farm servant and gardener, he was convicted at the Kent Assizes for stealing firewood and sentenced to be transported for seven years. He would never see his wife and at least five of his 11 children again.
"Hampton was sent from the Kent Assizes to the Horsemonger Lane Gaol in London where he spent three weeks before being sent to Chatham on the Thames where the hulk Fortitude was moored. Crowded into the teaming hulk for seven months, Hampton, perhaps not surprisingly, exhibited a bad disposition according to one of the guards."
"... several members [of his family] came to New South Wales as assisted emigrants before this approval had been finally received. This is evidence, if nothing else, that even the poor had agency: notwithstanding their reduced circumstances, some of the Hamptons were able to take matters into their own hands. In 1841, a Mary Ann Hampton had sought assistance from the church wardens to pay for her voyage to Australia. Evidently this was not Hampton’s wife but rather his daughter who arrivedlater that year. After spending a short time in Sydney, she moved north to Raymond Terrace where she presumably saw her father at his farm. Hampton’s brother, Benjamin, and his family had arrived earlier, in 1839, also as assisted emigrants. With them came Hampton’s son, James. Some years later, in 1855, Hampton’s step-son and three of his other children who were in England until this time, emigrated with their families.
"... [he died] from asthma in Maitland Hospital on 14 September 1859. Although it is possible that at least some of his family were present, none were recorded as present when he died. He was buried in Maitland’s Oakhampton Cemetery."
Submitted by Researcher (Peter Jones) on 17 March 2017
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Disclaimer: The information has not been verified by Claim a Convict. As this information is contributed, it is the responsibility of those who use the data to verify its accuracy. Research notes
There are currently no research notes attached to this convict. Sources
- The National Archives (TNA) : HO 11/11, p.28
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