A Turbulent Career Jane Hadden
By Alison Alexander
Jane Baird was born about 1800 in Lanarkshire, Scotland, and at some stage she married William Hadden from the same area. They had six children, but the 1841 census shows only six people living in the Haddens’ changehouse, or small inn, in the hamlet of Ferniegair.
Jane was not present on census night. She too had lived in the changehouse, presumably helping William to run it. In 1834, they were both charged with assault; William was exonerated but Jane was sentenced to a fine of three guineas or imprisonment for one month. She seems to have chosen the prison term.
Then, in 1840, Jane was charged with assault and theft. She told the court that one Thomas Lamond had come to the alehouse one night a little intoxicated and became more so as the night wore on. The next day he was led away by his daughter. Jane denied stealing any money from him, but said he gave her some money to keep for him, which William later gave back to Thomas’s son and daughter when they came for it. The daughter, Janet, became intoxicated and broke some dishes. Jane denied throwing a bottle at Janet and cutting her head, but said that the two Lamonds were so noisy and riotous that she went out to the road and enlisted the help of three men to help keep the Lamonds in order. The Lamonds offered to fight the men, and Jane got rid of them and secured her door. The men returned and threatened to break down the door, but as there were plenty of passers-by, they did not do it.
The story was not convincing enough, and Jane was found guilty of assault and robbery, and sentenced to seven years transportation. By the time the 1841 census was taken, she was well on her way to Australia, having left behind her six children, Mary still only a baby. Jane arrived in Tasmania in October 1841, giving her trade as dairymaid. She was quite tall at 5’6”, but was pock-pitted with a scar on her hand and a wrinkled forehead. The gaol report described her as ‘of turbulent disposition’.
She was assigned as a domestic servant to Captain William Clark, a magistrate, and shortly afterwards was found to be absent without leave, but otherwise she kept out of trouble. In 1843, the bushranger Martin Cash visited the Clark house, but, as his band was approaching, wrote Cash or his ghost-writer, they were seen by a female assigned servant who gave the alarm, and before they could get inside the house it was barricaded, so they were foiled. Jane was the female servant, and Clark recommended her for a pardon, which was granted in April 1843, only eighteen months after Jane had arrived. She rented a cottage in Green Ponds, now Kempton, and set up a laundry. She also brought out her children—but not her husband—and five of them arrived in Hobart in 1845.
How Jane obtained the considerable sum for their passage with her only apparent asset a laundry, not usually known for leading to great wealth, can only be suspected. But even Martin Cash knew that after setting up the laundry, she ‘formed an intimacy’ with a wealthy man, Joseph Johnson. Another former convict, Joseph had been transported in 1802 for horse stealing. He arrived at Hobart in the Calcutta with Collins, was pardoned in 1810, and received a land grant at Glenorchy. Later, he moved to a farm at Green Ponds, and in 1815 he married convict Elizabeth Smith, aged forty-four to his forty. They amassed a large estate, The Grange, and in 1834 the Quaker missionary James Backhouse described Joseph as a courteous and industrious man, who had prospered greatly, owning 5000 acres of land. He had taught himself to read and write and his Bible had the appearance of being well read. Elizabeth served the visitors tea, ‘and waited on us very kindly’.
Into this scene of domestic felicity erupted Jane Hadden, whose laundry was only just across the paddocks from The Grange. By this date, 1843, Elizabeth was seventy-two and James sixty-eight. Despite the pock marks and wrinkles, Jane was thirty or so years younger than Elizabeth, and so the ‘intimacy’ developed. On 13 April 1846, Elizabeth died of burns; the story ran that she was pushed into the fire. There was no inquest.
On 13 May, a bare month later, Jane married Joseph and moved with all her family into The Grange. Joseph’s two nephews, who had naturally hoped to inherit, were furious. The newly-weds did not have an entirely happy life, for in 1848 Joseph advertised in the Hobart Town Courier that he would not be responsible for Jane’s debts, and that she had left him ‘without any sanction and without provocation’. The next day, Jane was accused of assault in an unsavoury court case, a familiar scene, but was found not guilty. She did return to live with Joseph, who died in 1852, and there was a long saga of quarrels over the estate. The families did come together to some extent, for Joseph’s nephew Edmund Johnson married first, Jane’s daughter Ann, then, after her death, another daughter, Jean.
Another problem arose in 1856, when William Hadden, Jane’s first husband, arrived. The family were reported to be upset at his filthy, unkempt appearance. There is no evidence that he lived with his wife; Jane dwelt in a cottage with a daughter, and William with his son, James, at The Grange (victory for the Haddens).
Jane died at Green Ponds in 1867, after a long and painful illness; in many ways, she had had a long and painful life. The local authorities were at a loss as to which name to bury her under. In the church burial register she is Jane Hadden Johnson, in the general register of deaths she is Jane Johnson, but her tombstone called her Jane Hadden.
Jane and William had a great many descendants, who kept extremely quiet about their ancestor’s criminal career, which was unknown to later family members. Research brought it to light in the 1970s, and a gathering of all Jane’s descendants was held. My parents returned highly entertained: to commemorate the life of this turbulent woman was collected a group of the most respectable and well-behaved late twentieth century Australians that could be imagined.
Source
Herbert G. Cullis, No Tears for Jane A Hadden Family History, Ashburton, Victoria, 1982.
This story was originally published in 2004 by the Writers Group of the Hobart Branch of the TFHS Inc. in the publication PROS and Cons of Transportation A collection of convict stories.
Not only does this publication celebrate the cessation of transportation of convicts to Van Diemens Land, it also celebrates the work of the Family History Writers Group. This group was formed in 2003 to assist members who wanted to write their family histories. The monthly meetings stimulated great interest and enthusiasm.
The original introduction may be found here.