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FF ALICE (Stanfield) HARMSWORTH - Marine’s Wife & FF
THOMAS HARMSWORTH - Marine + their FF
children Ann, Thomas & John - all on Prince of Wales
Alice Harmsworth - Prince of Wales’
(1754-1830)
- this story is under review by Membership Team
Alice was born at Barkway in
Hertfordshire, England in 1754 to John and Elizabeth
Mansfield. It was a large family with more than eight
siblings.
John's brother William was my 4th great
grandfather making Alice my 5th Great Aunt.
She married Thomas Harmsworth in Barkway
on 25 Jan 1780. Thomas was also a Barway local and was 4
years older than Alice.
In 1771, Alice's father died (she was a
16 year old) and in 1780, her mother passed away. In the
subsequent four years, Alice and Thomas had a daughter,
Ann and son Thomas.
On 13 May 1787, the family of four
boarded the "Prince of Wales" in Portsmouth headed to
Australia as part of the first fleet. Thomas was a
marine private. The "Prince of Wales" was the second
smallest of the eleven vessels and had a crew of around
25. It carried 62 female convicts, 3 male convicts, 3
children of convicts plus 459 marines and their
families.. En route to Australia the vessel stopped at
Tenerife and Rio de Janeiro for supplies.
In December 1787 John Harmsworth was born
and then on 20 January 1788, "Prince of Wales" reached
Australia's Botany Bay. Many stories of the difficult
trip abound but one can only imagine the difficulty of
doing it while pregnant and caring for two small
children.
Alice's life was to get much worse very
quickly. In February 1788 their son Thomas died of fever
and then her husband died from "Flux" (Diarrhoea and
Fever) in Sydney Cove on 30th April 1788.
Thomas junior and Thomas senior are two
of the earliest deaths of European settlers. John is one
of the last, if not the last, of the 'First Fleeters' to
die in Australia
In April 1790 Alice had a son Daniel and
then in 1791 she married Corporal Daniel Stanfield, a
Marine who had also arrived with the First Fleet on
board the "Sirius".
They had 6 children: Daniel (1791) Thomas
(1791) James (1793) William Peter (1795) Sarah (1796)
Mary Ann (1796)
Earlier, in May 1791, Daniel was granted
60 acres of land at Norfolk Island as part of a 'marines
grant' and so the family moved to Norfolk Island. The
family had a son and two daughters while on the Island.
Daniel left the miltary and initially turned his hand
to farming and then became a constable.
Alice and Thomas' eldest child, their
daughter Ann was married to Private Samuel Marsden on
19th January 1800. The marriage was registered at St.
Philip's in Sydney. Samuel Marsden had arrived with the
Second Fleet on board the "Surprize" in 1790 and was a
soldier assigned to the "NSW Corps" on Norfolk Island.
The history of Norfolk Island is fairly
grim and the family moved to Van Diemen's Land (Now
Tasmania) on October 1808 on "City of Edinburgh". This
relocation was government enforced and was not well
accepted by the residents. There are reports that,as
the 'City of Edinburgh' was the last of a number of
vessels to take people on this journey, the departure
was delayed until settlers that had been hiding in the
bush were 'captured'.
Ann and Samuel remained on Norfolk Island
with their 4 children until the recall of the NSW Corps
in 1810 when in order to remain in the colony, he
transferred to the "Royal Veteran Company".
Given that Hobart was only founded in
1804, you can imagine that the facilities would have
been fairly basic.
Alice had eight children and at least 45
grandchildren.
Alice died October 1830 at Hobart,
Tasmania
Written by Gary Buck-
‘A First Fleeter –Sydney 1788’
http://www.buckfamily.com.au/People1.html
The Fellowship of First Fleeters
installed a FFF Plaque on Alice Harmsworth’s Grave on
11th September1999.
Refer FFF Web Site:http://www.fellowshipfirstfleeters.org.au/graves.html
Under
 see
FFF Plaque 108 – Installed 11th September
1999for
FF ALICE (Stanford) HARMSWORTH
Marine’s Wife ‘Prince of Wales’(1754-1830)
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