By Leonie Mickleborough

The Mercury newspaper of 10 April 1871 recorded the death, the previous day, of Mary Prince, fifty-six-year-old relict of the late Mr James Prince. Mrs Prince's friends were respectfully invited to attend her funeral, which was planned to leave from her late residence, opposite the Joiners' Arms, Upper Macquarie Street, Hobart. [1] James Prince had died eleven years earlier, on 27 February 1860, at Landsdowne Crescent, where the family was then living.

Who were these Hobart Town residents-Mary and James Prince?

Any descendants trying to trace the 'Prince' name will have as much difficulty as I did when I was trying to find the death details of my maternal great-great-grandparents.

Sometime between May 1849 and January 1850, my great-great-grandparents, James and Mary Anne (née Boyer/Bowyer) Freeman changed their surnames from Freeman to Prince. It is unclear why they made the change, other than to avoid the stain associated with former convicts. James had been transported in 1828, after being convicted of horse stealing in 1825.

Why the choice of 'Prince' for their surnames? I have not been able to establish the reason, as there is no family association with the name that I have been able to find. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, has any other family descendant. The change of name made the family very hard to trace. James was almost successful in concealing his past, but a lot of perseverance and luck eventually found the missing piece of the puzzle.

So how did I find out about the change? It took many years. After I put several queries in all likely places, a South Australian descendant of Ann Euphemia Prince, their eighth child, saw my entry in the Genealogical Research Directory and contacted me. The lady had located a family bible with details of the name change written in the front, traced backwards from Prince, and found the Freeman connection. Similar information came from a second cousin, who was given a family Bible in which is written:

Mr James W. Freeman

Mrs James W. Freeman

A present from his mother Mrs James Prince on his wedding day June 3rd 1865.

Grandmother Mary Prince died 9 April 1871 aged 57 years.

So here was the missing link, hand written in two family Bibles belonging to two different 'branches'.

James William Freeman (as mentioned in the Bible), the second born child of James and Mary Anne, was the only one to retain the surname Freeman, and the name has continued with his descendants, but not from any of his nine brothers and sisters. His sisters who survived to adulthood all married, and therefore changed their surnames. I was once told that it was possible that their fifth child, William John Freeman, changed his surname to Howard, not Prince, and moved to New Zealand. I have been unsuccessful in tracing any descendants.

In 1828, eight convict transports arrived at Hobart Town landing approximately 1180 convicts, of whom 170 were females. One of these was James Freeman, my great-great-grandfather, who arrived on 1 August aboard the 503-ton Calcutta-built convict transport Bengal Merchant, after having left Plymouth 138 days earlier. [2]

James Freeman was born on 6 July 1802 in Kent. His father was Thomas, but there is no record of his mother (not even when his birth was registered), nor any record of siblings. Thomas was a sawyer and was living at East Farley near Maidstone in 1825.

On 29 May 1825, at the Kent Summer Assizes at Maidstone, the single, twenty-three-year-old James was convicted of stealing a mare worth £10 at Ryarsh, the property of John Usher. Described as a labourer from the Parish of Leybourne in the County of Kent, James was sentenced to transportation for life. At the time of his conviction, James stated that his native place was Eltham. He was a coachman, who lived with Squire Booth at Barnett, and was employed driving a carriage for Mr Howe, a four-in-hand. [3] The only description of James comes from his convict records. He was 5'4¾" tall, had a fresh complexion, a small round head and dark brown hair, small bushy whiskers, a small broad visage with low, narrow temples and a hairy forehead. His eyebrows were dark and arched, below which were light hazel eyes, a straight nose with open nostrils and a large mouth with prominent lips. His chin was round, and his distinguishing marks were two hair moles on his right cheek and one on each side of his neck. He also had a brown hair mole on the back of his left arm. His behaviour in the gaol was reported to be 'Good', and in the hulk, to be 'Tidy'. [4]

After the long journey of over four and a half months, the Bengal Merchant with its convict passengers, including James Freeman, arrived at the Derwent River. James was assigned to Mrs Lakeland (the former Mary Arndell), wife of John Lakeland. In 1818, Lieutenant-Governor William Sorell had appointed Lakeland as assistant to Thomas Bell, Engineer and Inspector of Public Works in Hobart Town. When James arrived, Lakeland was Principal Superintendent of Convicts. Lakeland and his family were living at Pitt Water, so it is likely that was where James was employed. Lakeland died suddenly on 26 November 1828, and James remained in the service of Mary Lakeland.

James' behaviour report is brief. On 9 October 1828, after being found drinking in a public house, he was sentenced to seven days on the treadwheel. On 20 August the following year, he was again sentenced to the treadwheel, this time for two days, for absconding without leave from his service at 9 o'clock the previous night. His behaviour was clearly satisfactory, because, in 1831, he was permitted to withdraw £5 10s 10d from his account in the convicts' savings bank. [5]

The establishment of a savings bank for convicts followed a recommendation by Commissioner John T. Bigge that such an establishment would be the best means of providing for the deposit of convict funds. [6] On 9 June 1828, Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur was able to advise the Secretary of State that suitable arrangements had been made with a local bank for a convict savings bank. The British Government directed Arthur that money and property which convicts possessed when they arrived in the colony should be taken from them and deposited in the bank. They received ten percent interest on their savings and were not permitted to withdraw their funds until their masters testified to their good conduct. [7]

Apparently well-behaved apart from the two minor misdemeanours, by the 1832 Muster, James was a javelin man-an attendant of the court who carried a spear or pike. This was a position which was granted to prisoners of the Crown with indulgence. The sheriff, under the direction of the gaoler, employed them at a small salary. James was still a javelin man at the time of the 1833 Muster.

Around this time, he met Mary Ann Bowyer/Boyer (born London 12 October 1814 or 1816) who had travelled on the Princess Royal, which arrived in Hobart Town on 6 September 1832. The Princess Royal was an immigrant ship with 300 females on board, and on 24 August, in thick and hazy weather the ship took the wrong passage and sailed into Frederick Henry Bay. In danger of being wrecked in a violent gale, she was run on shore to avoid destruction. This necessitated the women's removal down the side of the ship into small boats to convey them to Hobart Town, where they were lodged in the Female Orphan School. The following month, Arthur, when corresponding with William Fry in London, listed the fate of the female settlers. One hundred and forty were 'Engaged in Service or enabled to provide for themselves respectably' and twenty-six had 'Withdrawn themselves from the advice' of the Committee of Ladies who had undertaken to advise them in the choice of situations, and 'promote their welfare and comfortable settlement'. Thirteen had been expelled for 'improper conduct'; eleven remained 'disengaged'; two wished to go to Sydney; and eight had gone to the Layford family. [8] What Mary's immediate fate was is unknown; however, it appears she was employed somewhere near James, as on 21 May 1833, they were married by Reverend William Bedford at St David's Church, Hobart Town.

The signatures of J.W. Freeman (1835-1887), D.H. Freeman (1872-1957),
Nathaniel Henry Propsting and witness Edward NcNamara on 'Indenture of Apprenticeship' form for
D.H. (Harry) Freeman's six-year apprenticeship to Propsting as a 'Letterpress & Stationery Bookbinder'.
The indenture was signed on 1 January 1886. [9]

Both James and Mary signed with an 'x'. The witnesses were William Tremaine, of New Town, who also signed with an 'x', and one of Mary's fellow Princess Royal passengers, Ann Nichols (née Fortnam) of Hobart Town. James received his conditional pardon on 9 March 1835 and, on 3 June 1839, his free pardon. [10] The marriage produced ten children born between 1834 and 1858. I am descended from their second child, James William Freeman (1835-1887).

At the time of the birth of their first child, Sarah Ann, James listed his occupation as a gardener. It seems that the family remained living in Hobart, with addresses ranging only as far apart as Murray, Patrick and Warwick Streets and Lansdowne Crescent. On each occasion, he gave his occupation as either gardener or carrier. Seven of their ten children lived to adulthood, but the years between 1850 and 1858 must have been a particularly distressing time for them, when three of their last four children died. The children were aged eight months, three months, and one month.

James William Freeman, my great-grandfather, married Mary Henderson in 1865. They had seven children, three of whom were males. My grandfather, David Henry (Harry) Freeman (1872-1957), was their third born. Grandpa (who enjoyed a nip of rum and always had two shillings in his pocket for me), was a bookbinder and craftsman of gold lettering on leather, and survived three wives. He and his second wife, Clara Danks (née Merriman), had four daughters, but no sons to continue the surname. My mother, Florence Edna, was their second born. There are now very few descendants of James, if any, who have the surname of Freeman. The decision by James in 1849 to hide his past life has, I think now, some 154 years later, meant the end of this particular Freeman line.