Researchers who have claimed this convict
There is currently one researcher who has claimed John Maplestone
Biographies
John Maplestone was born on 25 Jamuary 1795 and baptised at St Giles, Cripplegate in the City of London. His father was Austim Maplestone a maker of presses for the printing industry. Austin had migrated to London from Lincolnshire in the late 18th century. John had worked with his father as a press maker but later described himself as a solicitor and in 1830 when he was sentenced to transportation was described as a Press Maker and Attorney's Clerk.
John married Judith Colsill Beaumont at St George, Hanover Square in 1818 and had two children by her, Mary Ann and William. He was convicted at the Old Bailey of stealing a watch and sentenced to 7 years.
He was sent to the Goulburn Plains region between Sydney and Canberra and was probably used as convict labour on the new settlements there. Although he was freed in 1837 he died in Australia aged about 46 in 1841 apparently never seeing his family again.
The plight of Austin’s granddaughter appears in a sad hearing at Guildhall reported in the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser in 1821. Mary Ann Maplestone born in 1819 two and a half years old had been left by Judith’s father at Austin’s house because neither he nor Judith could maintain her since John and Judith had separated two years earlier. Austin refused to take the child and she was thus taken to the Cripplegate Workhouse.
Fortunately, by the 1841 Census, Mary Ann can be found living at Cutler’s Hall in the City of London with her mother and 76 year old grandfather, John Beaumont.
Judith remained in London living with her two spinster sisters, Sarah and Sophia, at 1 Finsbury Square, in Islington and eventually died in 1868.
Submitted by Researcher (13852) on 5 March 2021
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There are currently no research notes attached to this convict. Sources
- The National Archives (TNA) : HO 11/7, p.429
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