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NLA News - home March 2003 Volume XIII Number 6
A Pardon for Mr Robertson
The Conditional Pardon document for William Robertson  dated 1831
The Conditional Pardon for William Robertson, 1831
Manuscript Collection, MS 9603

Patricia Stone examines the text of an important convict document, recently added to the National Library’s Manuscript Collection

A wax seal  with royal arms possibly used on convict pardons etc. c.1800

Seal possibly used on convict pardons
etc. c.1800
wax seal; diam. 11 cm. approx.
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an7880637

A ‘Conditional Pardon for a Transported Convict’, dated June 25 1831, has been acquired by the Library. It is printed on vellum, with manuscript insertions, and is signed twice by Governor Darling, bearing a near perfect impression of his seal, which is damaged and presently being restored.

Not many pardons were issued—this one is numbered 54—so it can be regarded as a rare historical document. It provides a conditional pardon to William Robertson, a clerk from Edinburgh, convicted of housebreaking at Edinburgh Court of Justice in 1821 and sentenced to transportation for life to New South Wales.

William Robertson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, had a ruddy complexion, brown hair and grey eyes. It was noted that he had a scar on his right breast. His date of birth is unclear; in the pardon it is given as 1802, but the declaration below says that he was 16 in 1821, which would probably make his birthdate some time in 1805.

The Pardon itself is couched in lawyer’s careful terms
WHEREAS HIS LATE MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE THIRD by a Commission under the GREAT SEAL of GREAT BRITAIN, bearing Date the Eighth Day of November, in the Thirty-first Year of His Majesty’s Reign was Graciously Pleased to Give and Grant full Power and Authority to the Governor (or in Case of his Death or Absence the Lieutenant Governor) for the Time-being of His Majesty’s Territory of the Eastern Coast of New South Wales and the Islands thereunto adjacent, by an Instrument or Instruments in Writing, under the Seal of the Government of the said Territory, or as HE or THEY respectively should think fit and convenient for His Majesty’s Service, to REMIT either ABSOLUTELY or CONDITIONALLY the Whole or any Part of the term, or Time for which Persons convicted of Felony, Misdemeanor, or other Offences, amenable to the Laws of Great Britain, should have been, or should thereafter be respectively Conveyed or transported to New South Wales or the Islands thereunto adjacent.

BY VIRTUE of such Power and Authority so vested as aforesaid, Lieutenant-General RALPH DARLING, Captain General and Governor in Chief of His Majesty’s said Territory of New South Wales and its Dependencies and Vice-Admiral of the same, taking into Consideration the good Conduct of William Robertson who arrived in this Colony in the Ship ‘Guildford’ 5, Johnson Master, in the Year One thousand eight hundred and twenty-two under Sentence of Transportation for Life and whose description is in the margin

DO hereby CONDITIONALLY REMIT the Remainder of the Term or Time which is yet to come and unexpired of the original Sentence or Order of Transportation passed on the aforesaid William Robertson at Edinburgh Court of Justice on the … Day of July One thousand eight hundred and twenty-one.

PROVIDED ALWAYS, and on Condition, that the said William Robertson continue to reside within the Limits of this Government for and during the Space of his original Sentence or Order of Transportation:—Otherwise, the said William Robertson shall be subject to all the Pains and Penalties of Re-appearing in Great Britain and Ireland for and during the Term of his original Sentence of Order of Transportation or, as if this Remission had never been granted.

GIVEN under my Hand and The Seal of the Territory, at Government House, Sydney in NEW SOUTH WALES, this twenty-fifth Day of June, in the Year of Our Lord One thousand eight hundred and thirty one.

R.A. DARLING.

[signed at Government House, Sydney]

REGISTERED IN THE COLONIAL SECRETARY’s OFFICE

A letter from W.J. Stevenson, Clerk of Justicuary at the High Court in Edinburgh, to Stevenson Gilchrist, reveals more about the convict Robertson:

From a Judicial Declaration emitted to the Sheriff at Edinburgh, Robertson states that, at the date thereof, 23 February, 1821, he was sixteen years of age and at one time apprenticed to a grocer, that his Master, failing about two and a half years ago, he went to the service of a Wharfinger in Leith, but after remaining there for nine months left the place because there was no further use for him, and that he had ever since been out of employment. He also admitted to having been sent three times to Bridewell (a House of Correction in London for Juvenile Offenders) by the Police Courts, on charges of theft.

A watercolour of Port Jackson, Fort Macquarie and Part of Sydney Cove 1836 by W.R. Govett—View from the shore

William Romaine Govett (1807–1848)
[Port Jackson, Fort Macquarie and Part of Sydney
Cove]
1836
watercolour; 14.6 x 20.4 cm
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an3365061

The Application for the Pardon can be found in historical records:

From Sir George Murray to Governor Darling

Despatch No. 70, per Ship Florentia, acknowledged by Governor Darling, 7th April, 1831.

Downing Street, 9 August, 1830.

Sir,    Application having been made to His Majesty’s Government by the Lord Justice Clerk in favour of William Robertson who was tried at the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, in the month of July, 1821, and was transported to New South Wales for life in the Ship Guildford, I am to desire that you will grant the said William Robertson a Pardon on condition of his residing within the Colony, provided the Prisoner’s conduct has been such as to throw no impediment in the way of granting that Pardon.

I am, etc.

G. Murray.

A hand coloured print showing the death of a convict in bed on the Hulk Justitia [ 183-?] by George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank (1792–1878)
Death of a Convict on the Hulk Justitia [183-?]
engraving print, hand col.; 21.5 x 32.7 cm
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an8891819

Charles Bateson in his book The Convict Ships 1787–1868 (Sydney: Reed, 1974, pp. 231–233) revealed that the Guildford had made a record-making voyage to Port Jackson in 1822, leaving London on 7 April, on her fifth voyage under the command of Magnus Johnson. She called in at Teneriffe and made it into Port Jackson in 99 days with William Robertson on board. She was one of the best-known convict ships and in eight voyages conveyed over 1500 male prisoners to Australia, only losing about 12 in all. Her last voyage as a convict ship was from Dublin, arriving in Port Jackson on 4 November 1829. The following year she sailed from Hobart with a detachment of troops for India and arrived at Bombay on 14 April, 1830. Nothing was ever heard from her again after she sailed for England from Singapore.

In William Robertson: Victorian Pioneer, Stevenson McGilchrist searched for his ancestor, another William Robertson, and writes:

A watercolour of a convict hulk with adjacent shipping in port c.1830 by an unknown artist

Artist unknown
A Convict Hulk with Adjacent Shipping in Port
c.1830
watercolour; 14.7 x 19.8 cm
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an10670870

I felt that I must get more knowledge regarding the William Robertson who was a convict. I wrote to the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, Scotland, and after waiting for three months the following reply came to hand: ‘From the Records of the High court of Justiciary for the 12 July, 1821, it appears that a prisoner named William Robertson was charged along with two other men (named James McLachlan and John Lawson) with having, “on the evening of the 23 January, 1821, broken open the window of a shop in West Register Street, occupied by a James O’Donnell, Jeweller and Watchmaker, and theftuously carrying away therefrom a watch with silver cases, and that he was by habit and repute a thief, he having been previously convicted of theft, and after trial by Jury was found guilty and libelled”. The Public Officer, having restricted the pains of law, i.e. punishment to an arbitary one, the Court sentenced Robertson, and also the other two men, to be transported beyond the seas, to such place as His Majesty with the advice of his Privy Council should declare and appoint. In the case of Robertson and McLachlan, the period of transportation was during all the days of their lives … “and that should any of them return after being transported, and found in any part of Great Britain and Ireland without some lawful cause and be thereof lawfully convicted, then they should suffer death as felons”.’

Nothing is known of James McLachlan and John Lawson and little is known of William Robertson’s life in the colony. It is important to note that conditional pardons released a convict from custody and hard work but were different from absolute pardons because the former prisoner could not return home.

PATRICIA STONE is a Canberra-based freelance writer.

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