Convict Cousins in My Baxter Family

I have already blogged about, my ancestor, Thomas George Baxter, who arrived in Sydney as a convict on board the Roslin Castle in 1834. However, he was not the first in our Baxter family to be transported as a convict. William Shipman Baxter, his first cousin, was transported in 1829.

William Shipman Baxter, the eldest son of John Baxter and Sarah Shipman was born in London in 1806. He was baptised at St Botolph Without Aldersgate, London, which is the same church his first cousin, Thomas George Baxter was baptised in some nine years later.

[St Botolph Without Aldersgate, London, Google Earth, 2014]

Although they were both born and raised in London, and even baptised in the same church some years apart, due to a family quarrel, they are not likely to have met, or had knowledge of each other.

John Baxter, William’s father , inherited half the family business along with his mother,Elizabeth, when his father, James, died in 1802.

John Baxter married Sarah Shipman in 1806 at St Botolph Without Aldersgate, London. They had three sons; William Shipman, 1806; Charles, 1808 and Frederick John, 1810,all of whom were baptised in the above mentioned church.

John Baxter died suddenly in January 1810, a few weeks before his youngest son was born. He was only 29 years of age and died without a Will. His mother, Elizabeth took the family business over herself, including John’s apprentices. It appears she declined to assist John’s young widow and infant family, and is said to have turned them out into the street.

Sarah Baxter with her three young sons moved to the poorer area of Shoreditch, where she worked as a laundress and charwoman.

She stated in a letter to the Home Office in 1828, that she apprenticed her sons to a trade at a young age, but I have not been able to find any apprenticeship nor guild records for these Baxter boys. As she was very poor, perhaps it was a more casual arrangement.

William Shipman Baxter was reported to have been apprenticed to a silk weaver. However, he didn’t finish his apprenticeship as the silk weaving trade fell into rapid decline and there was very little employment. He then found work on the waterfront moving cargo. Work was piecemeal and wages very low and William struggled to make a living. He was also the sole support of his mother and aged maternal grandmother.

William Shipman Baxter, known as William Baxter was tempted, along with many others, to steal goods from his employer and sell them to make ends meet. He was caught and sentenced to transportation for life. He was sent to NSW on board the convict transport, Waterloo, under Captain Addison, in 1829. On arrival he was assigned to the McArthur family at Camden. Later he was sent to their properties near Goulburn.

William Baxter married Ann Rankin in 1846 at Goulburn, and they had nine children, before William died from injuries after a fall from a horse in 1868.

Meanwhile his cousin, Thomas George Baxter, was not faring well either. When his father died in 1829, and his mother remarried, he was left to find his own way on the streets of London. Early in 1832 he was arrested and indicted at the Old Bailey for stealing a cap. He was sentenced to one month imprisonment in the nearby Newgate Prison.

The following year, he was again arrested and charged with picking pockets. The sitting Justices of the Peace at the Middlesex Session in September did not treat him so lightly this time, as he was considered a habitual petty thief, and was sentenced to seven years transportation. He was held in Newgate until transferred to the Euryalus prison hulk for boys, which was anchored off Chatham in the Medway River in Kent.

Thomas Baxter was in the Euryalus for eight months, when he was transferred to the Roslin Castle to be transported to New South Wales.

When we were in Kent last year I was able to visit an interesting mock-up of a ‘hulk prison ship’ at Rochester. This gave me some idea what it was like on board these vessels.

When Thomas Baxter arrived in Sydney in 1834, he too was assigned to the Camden area, in the employment of George Brown.

In the 1837 Convict Muster, Thomas Baxter is listed as working for George Brown at Camden.Two years later, Thomas Baxter is recorded as receiving a Ticket of Leave, which allowed him to hire out to work for himself as long as he remained in the Camden area. His residence was shown as ‘Stonequarry,’ which is now ‘Picton’. He was granted his Certificate of Freedom in 1842 having completed his sentence.He married Harriet Mary Mather in 1850, and they had a family of nine before Thomas died in 1889.

In the 1837 Convict Muster, William Baxter is recorded as working on the McArthur property at Goulburn.

Although both cousins were in the Camden area for a time, it is very unlikely that they ever met. Even if they had, they would not have known they were related.

Some years later, these convict cousins, both had sons born within a few months of each other, whom they named “John.” When Thomas George Baxter’s son “John” (born 1860), married Mary Ann Davis at Stonequarry (Picton) in 1885, they moved to Taralga near Goulburn, where they raised their family.

Meanwhile William Baxter’s son ‘John” (born 1859), married Mary Ann McLean at Taralga in 1902.

Believe it or not the old cemetery at Taralga, where many of the Baxter families are buried is referred to as ‘Stonequarry’. Similiarly, the old cemetery (St Mark’s Churchyard) at Picton, formerly known as ‘Stonequarry’ is also the resting place of many of the our Baxter families too. These two cemeteries are about 168 kilometres or over 100 miles apart.

[Above: St Mark’s Anglican church and churchyard, Picton, Chalmers Family Private Collection, 2014]

There lay the ground work for much confusion between not only these two ‘convict cousins’ Baxter families, but several other Baxter families in and around Goulburn.

What wonderful puzzles there are in our family histories just waiting for us to sort them out.

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Researching James Baxter, Apprentice Haberdasher, of 18th Century London`

In an earlier blog I wrote about my ancestor George Baxter, who claimed his Freedom of the City of London by patrimony in 1807, through the Haberdashers’ Livery Company. I mentioned at the time his father, James Baxter was also a member of this Company.

James Baxter had married Elizabeth Dixon, by Banns on 29 July 1766, at St Augustine’s, Watling Street, London. They had a number of children, all of whom were baptised at St Faith’s-under St Paul’s. James Baxter died in 1802 and Elizabeth 1813.

It is important that I prepare before I go off looking for my James Baxter, as there are many James Baxter’s in London, and I do not want to go off on the wrong family, and claim ancestors that are not mine.

I knew from my research that there were three way to have Freedom of the City- by apprenticeship, patrimony and by purchase. I now needed to know more about the process, and what records there might be.

I found the London Metropolitan Archives had  very good information in their leaflet, No 14, ‘London, England, Freedom of the City Admission Papers, 1681-1925’, which gave me not only what I was looking for, but also listed the surviving records. These I could cross-check with those available on on-line subscription websites and published resources.

Another very good book I found was ‘My Ancestor was an Apprentice’, by Stuart A. Raymond, a publication of the Society of Genealogists, London.

Now, as I have worked and documented my family from the ‘known to the unknown’, I knew I would be looking for a ‘James Baxter’, who applied for the Freedom of the City of London, in a probable time period of one to ten years before his marriage, and it could be by patrimony, purchase or apprenticeship.

A search of the online subscription websites I found the following-

The Genealogist had transcriptions from Freeman and Burgess Books from various towns in England, and Findmypast had transcriptions from various occupational records.

Ancestry.com had two sets of records which I believed would be useful.- Freedom of the City Admission Papers 1681-1825 (Original records at London Metropolitan Arches) and Register of Duties Paid for Apprentices Indentures,1710-1811 (Original records at National Archives.)

I found several entries for ‘James Baxter’ on these websites, and listed all for further investigation.

On Ancestry.com , I found an apprenticeship record of a James Baxter, which was in the right time period, and other criteria, such as it was for a ‘haberdasher’ in London, led me to believe it needed further examination.

This scanned image of the original apprenticeship indenture at the London Metropolitan Archives, was for ‘James Baxter, son of James Baxter, late of Maidstone in the County of Kent, Threadman, deceased, dated 5 May 1758.’ He was apprenticed for seven years to Charles Wheatley, Citizen and Haberdasher of London. Calculating his age from his burial entry, James would have been born about 1740-41, and about seventeen years at the beginning of his apprenticeship. By the terms of this indenture he could not marry until completion of his apprenticeship. This would have been completed about 1765, and with his marriage the following year, fitted well.

This Indenture was clear, and a very good example of one at that time. However, it should be noted that it was important, that I not only print out a copy of the front of this document for further study, but also the reverse side.

This additional document scan is not indicated on the website, but can be found by using the → key to move onto the next document page. On the reverse side you will find the date of ‘duty’ paid for the indenture (1758), and the name of the warden of the Habberdashers’ Company, David De Lavan, who presented him on his application for Freedom of the Company (1764). This I was able to confirm from Company records.

It was also important that I researched the life of Charles Wheatley from his own apprenticeship, to his list of apprentices over the years. I could also confirm his place of residence from Tax records, which placed him in the area where James Baxter continued to live and work after his marriage. This helped to put James Baxter in the right time and place, and so confirmed I have the right family.

Note James Baxter’s family were from Maidstone, and through thorough research I found they had resided there for more than three generations.

On my recent visit to Maidstone I spent a very successful day at the Kent Archives and Library of Kentish Studies consulting the original Burghmote Minutes and Chamberlain Accounts for the town of Maidstone in the 17^th Century. I was able to find the details of two generations applying for the Freedom of the City. However, it should be noted the occupation of the family at this stage was ‘bricklayer’.

Our James Baxter’s uncles were apprenticed to their father, but James’s father was apprenticed to his mother’s side the family. Their claim to the Freedom of the City was by patrimony.

Having done extensive research on the Baxter families of Maidstone before I left on my trip, I was able to identify the streets they resided in, and the church they attended, so was able to take photographs of many medieval buildings, (above) and All Saints Church, (below) that would have been well known to our Baxter ancestors.

Our London Adventure- The Monument and Pudding Lane.

In my last blog I wrote about our visit to several places around St Paul’s Cathedral that had significance in the lives of ancestors in my Baxter family.

We then walked down Cheapside, Eastcheap and Poultry before turning down King William Street, towards The Monument.

The Monument is a fluted Doric column in the City of London, near the northern end of the London Bridge, which commemorates the Great Fire of London in 1666. This is the area where the fire started, and then burned across the city to the west of St Paul’s Cathedral. In fact the whole area we had just traversed.

I have recently found at least one branch of my family in London at the time of the fire, and so they would probably have witnessed it. To put this family into context I have researched this topic, not only from books and paintings, but found much helpful material on the Internet.

I have summarised the information from the following site.

http://lostcityoflondon.co.uk/tag/pudding-lane/

“September 2^nd  – On this day in 1666, the Great Fire of London broke out in the bakery of Thomas Faryner in Pudding Lane. The fire soon spread from Faryner’s bakery to nearby buildings and went on to take a firm hold of the City, largely built of wooden houses, weatherproofed with pitch, and separated by only a few feet

The  spread of the fire was further facilitated by the weather, with the strong easterly wind.

The fire eventually essentially halted in its own tracks, spent, after the wind dropped, on the fourth day.

However, eighty percent of the area within the walls was more or less completely burnt out, and only the extreme north and east had survived substantially  intact (the walls had essentially confined the fire to the City within, although some areas without to the west had also been affected).  Around 13,000 private residences and places of business within and immediately without the walls of the City were either essentially or entirely destroyed, alongside 85 parish churches and St Paul’s Cathedral, 45 Livery Company Halls, the Custom House, the Guildhall, the Royal Exchange, the Royal Wardrobe and Castle Baynard.  Damage to property and trade was on an entirely unprecedented scale, as was associated homelessness and loss of livelihood.  Around  100,000 persons were made homeless, and had to be temporarily rehoused in camps,

The rebuilding of London was initiated by the Lord Mayor, essentially straight away, and within weeks a commissioned detailed survey of the fire-damaged area had been completed.

The man selected to oversee and implement the chosen reconstruction plan was Christopher Wren, an architect and a  member of an aristocratic family

Wren and his  office set about their reconstruction work as speedily,  as practicable, so as to provide  the City with the opportunity of re-establishing itself with the minimum of delay and loss. 

In all, they rebuilt 51 parish churches within and immediately without the walls, that is, around half of those that had been destroyed in the Great Fire’ together with St Paul’s Cathedral, and also rebuilt numerous other public and private buildings, many in the High (English) Renaissance or Early Baroque style – the cost of the entire enterprise being covered by a tax on coal.” 

The Great Fire of London of 1666 is not the only great conflagration that London has experienced. We must not forget the bombings of the 1940’s, which of course has a great bearing on what we see today in London.

In references to the churches rebuilt by Wren– “Of  these 51 churches, 30 are still standing, together with St Paul’s Cathedral, and 21 are not.  Of  the 21 that are no longer  standing, 17,   far more than one might have hoped, were demolished by our own over-zealous town planners and engineers in the pell-mell expansion of London following the Industrial Revolution – in some cases, at least marginally justifiably,  to  allow for development, but in many others simply because they were deemed, under the Union of Benifices Act of 1860, to be surplus to requirements!  Only 4, far fewer than one might have feared, were completely destroyed by German bombing during the Blitz of the Second World War.  However,  a number of others were also damaged to varying extents at this time, some of which were subsequently restored, and  some left as empty shells.   Two, St Mary Aldermanbury and St Stephen Coleman Street, were destroyed,  and 8,   Christ Church, St Alban, St Andrew by the Wardrobe, St Anne and St Agnes, St Augustine, St Bride, St Lawrence Jewry and St Vedast alias Foster, damaged, on a single, fateful night, Sunday 29^th December, 1940, when thousands of incendiaries were dropped on an essentially unguarded City.”

There are several other sites that have detailed information about the Great Fire including the following

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk › Stuart England

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk › Education

Then there are You-tube ‘clips’ that are well produced depictions of the time and event.

I like ‘Peter Ackroyd’s London’ which is a history series, and includes some well delivered ‘interviews’ with witnesses of the event, such as Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn.

For London before the fire, my favourite is ‘Pudding Lane Productions, Crytek off the Map’, which gives you a small window into what this part of London probably looked like before the fire.

In Pudding Lane itself there are plaques that commemorate the Great Fire and mark the spot where it all began.

The family I am researching appear to have lived at Clerkenwell and Holborn and so just outside the area devastated by the fire. However, if they were of the Tile and Bricklaying trade, which I believe they were, they no doubt would have been very busy in the task of rebuilding London. What a fascinating time period to be researching family history in this city and beyond, as building in brick came into its own.

After visiting the Monument and Pudding Lane, we continued walking along Great Tower Street and Byward Street, passed All Hallows (Barking), to Tower Hill.

More On My Baxter Families of London

In my last Baxter blog, I mentioned I was investigating court cases in Chancery concerning George and Mary Baxter and the Brayne family. Although I have not solved all the mysteries concerning the court cases, I have been able to find much more on the lives of the Baxter and Brayne families in 18^th London.

Over the last few months, I have been using the research facilities at the Grafton Latter Day Saints Family History Centre, for access to microfilms of English records and to the Internet subscription sites of Ancestry.com, Findmypast, and The Genealogist. I have also spent a lot of time researching all kinds of topics on- line and at the local library, as well as in the hundreds of books in my own private library.

After many hours of meticulous research and the collection, assessing and filing of over three hundred documents I have been able to extend and record in some detail our Baxter and connected families in London. Finding burial dates and places in London has been notoriously difficult, but I have finally met with great success.

I have connected many, but not all the above-mentioned documents to our families, but I have filed them, as they may yet be useful in that the connection may be in an earlier generation, not yet investigated. Collecting all these documents has enabled me to trace the origins and lives of several interesting Baxter individuals, such as the George Baxter, who is credited with the development of colour printing, although I have not found a family connection yet. Another interesting person was Charles Baxter the noted 19^th Century portrait artist, who was connected to our family.

The results of all this research in England, particularly London, has been most pleasing, but the most interesting fact I discovered, was that several family members, particularly cousins of our Thomas George Baxter, came to Australia in the early to mid 19^th Century. Some as convicts, as was Thomas George Baxter, and others as free immigrants.

This was revealed when I decided to sort out several Baxter families in New South Wales, who were living in the same area at the same time and had the same Christian names running through the families. This was particularly the case with Charles, John, Thomas., George, and William, for the males and Mary Ann, Elizabeth and Sarah for the females, in the Baxter families around Goulburn. I knew from the material placed on the Internet that other researchers had drawn conclusions and made certain claims about these families, but from my own research, I knew several of these were incorrect.

Although the indexes for Civil Registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria are very informative, you cannot build your family tree on these indexes alone. It is necessary to purchase the full certificates to get the correct information. For many years I have used the Transcription Services of Joy Murrin and Marilyn Rowan, to obtain full copies of Birth, Marriage, and Death Certificates from the office of the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in New South Wales. Both have websites you can Google to find full information about their services.

It was by following the Golden Rule of Genealogy, that is by moving backward from the known to the unknown, with the correct documents, that I was able to identify who these people were, where they came from, and to whom they were connected, both in Australia and in England. As I sorted, grouped and documented these families I have been also able to extend many branches down to the present, in several states of Australia.

Early next year I look forward to meeting and sharing information and photographs with many of these recently found ‘cousins,’ although the ‘connection’ may be some six or seven generations back in London in the 18^th Century. That for me is the ultimate pleasure of doing Family History.

Lost in the City of London-the Baxter Family

My mother, Margaret Nola Baxter was born in Murwillumbah in 1924, the fifth child of Arthur and Harriet Baxter (nee Bell). My grandparents had married at Thirroul in 1913 and came to settle at Kunghur, on the South Arm of the Tweed River soon afterward.

 Arthur Baxter had been born at Picton in 1888, the sixth child of James and Margaret Baxter (nee Kennedy). He had been raised on a farm at High Range in the Picton District. His bride, Harriet May Bell had also been born in Picton, where her father was a blacksmith.

 Arthur’s father, James Baxter, had been born at Spring Creek near Picton in 1851, the eldest son of Thomas and Mary Baxter (nee Mather), who had married at The Oaks, on 30 December 1850.

Thomas Baxter arrived in Sydney on board the Roslin Castle on 15 September 1834. He was a native of London and had been convicted of ‘pickpocketing’ on 2 September 1833, and sentenced to seven years transportation. In the 1837 Convict Muster, he is listed as working for George Brown at Camden. He remained in the Camden area after the completion of his sentence and received his Certificate of Freedom in 1840.

 Thomas and Mary had nine children: James, 1851; Elizabeth, 1853; Mary, 1856-1860; George Thomas, 1858; John, 1860; Charles, 1862-1863; Mary Ellen, 1864; Robert, 1866 and Thomas Henry, 1869. All were born and raised in the Picton area.

 Thomas and Mary Baxter later retired to Sydney where Thomas died on 5 February 1889. He is buried in the churchyard of St Mark’s, Church of England at Picton. His wife Mary who died in 1907 is also buried there.

 On Thomas Baxter’s death certificate it is stated that his father ‘was believed to George Baxter, a bookbinder of London’.

London has always been a very big city, and Thomas Baxter is not an unusual name, so for a while, it seemed an impossible task to find where to start.

 Searching for new clues I followed up on Thomas Baxter’s convict records and found that on 16 February 1832 in the proceedings of the ‘Old Bailey’ he was convicted of larceny and was imprisoned for one month.

 I then used a map of London to identify the parishes around where he was apprehended for his crimes. Having made a list of these parishes I then consulted the International Genealogical Index (1978 and 1988). This is a research aid prepared by the Latter-Day Saints Genealogical Department. I then made a list of ‘Thomas Baxters baptized about 1812 to 1816, which were found in the parishes of interest. I also noted the marriages of all ‘George Baxter’s’ in the area 1800-1815 who might be Thomas’s father.

 I then consulted the catalogue of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and ordered the microfilms of the parish registers of all the parishes in London which were of interest to my research. These were sent to the Grafton Family History Centre where I could visit and read the films.

 After searching through several sets of films I found the baptism of ‘Thomas George Baxter’ at St Botolph Without Aldersgate on 17 April 1816, the son of George and Mary Brayne Baxter. The father, George’s occupation was given as ‘bookbinder’. I was able to find the baptisms of all the other children of George and Mary Brayne Baxter. I was also able to locate the marriage of George Baxter and Mary Brayne Kington at Christ Church Greyfriars Newgate, London on 13 August 1809.

 All this was before the internet and the advantages of researching on-line. However, as the new technology became available I used it where I could to advance my family history. When the scanned images of the London parish registers were available I downloaded and printed the baptism and marriage entries, which I added to my folder system for quick reference.

 By using the clues suggested by the family naming pattern revealed by the baptisms I was able to ‘guess’ that ‘George Baxter’s father’ was probably a ‘James Baxter that had possibly married a Miss/ Mrs. Dixson. The on-line search facilities enabled me to find a ‘James Baxter who married Elizabeth Dixon in London in 1766. I was able to find a number of children born to this couple as being baptized in London.

 I was then able to find a reference to a Will of ‘James Baxter, a Claspmaker in London’, on the National Archives website in England, which I was able to purchase and download immediately. This gave not only a great deal of information about his business but also confirmed the names of his wife and eight children.

 A further search of the National Archives website led me to Court cases in 1810 involving George and Mary Bayne Baxter, as well as Mary’s half-siblings, stepbrother and mother. My present challenge is to sort this out and continue to research the lives of these ancestors.