LIST 16 - 1802 MUSTER - NORFOLK ISLAND

 
 
The first of two musters presented for Norfolk Island is the 1802 Muster. There 
are 164 children of the First Generation identified from the muster (159 
colonial born and 5 childhood arrivals, 68 males and 96 females). 
 
The information presented for each entry is:
 
 family name
 Christian name
 date of birth 
 place of birth
 parents' names 
 parents' civil status at the time of the child's birth
 parents' marital status at the time of the child's birth 
 age grouping 
 civil status grouping
 when the child was placed "on stores" (if after 1st January)
 when the child was placed "off stores" (if before 31st December)
 surname as it appears in the original muster
 reference number linking the entry back to the original source document. 
 
The entries are listed in alphabetical order; firstly on the child's father's 
name, secondly on the child's Christian name. This was done to preserve the 
family groupings.
 
The date & place of birth and parental details are all "value added" fields 
not found in the original muster.
 
The "1802 Muster of Norfolk Island" is not really a muster in the usual sense 
of an official government recording of all the inhabitants of the island 
on a given day. Its correct title is "The Victualling List of Norfolk Island 
for the Year 1802". What this list really shows is all persons who drew 
provisions from the government store for the 365 days starting on the 1st January 
1802. Not everyone on the list was present on the island on the 1st January 
and not everyone was still present on the 31st December. Of course for 
those persons on the island who did not draw provisions from the store at all 
during this period their names would be missing altogether, and unfortunately 
as will be seen in the 1805 Muster, taken just three years later, there were 
many such people. As a consequence this is by no means of comprehensive 
list of the island's population in 1802.
 
Three boys went 'off' then returned to being 'on' stores during the course 
of the year, leading to duplication of their entries: 
 
 Thomas Priest(Rochford) [CA712/CA724] 
 James Triffet(Higgins) [CA652/CA682] 
 Thomas Triffet(Higgins) [CA653/CA683]
 
leaving a total of 161 individual children inhabiting the island and drawing 
stores during 1802. Why there should be almost one third as many more girls 
as boys requires further investigation.
 
The parents of five children have not been determined:
 
 Jane Bolton  [CA660]
 Samuel Brooks [CA678]
 John Lynch [CA680]
 Mary Mullins [CA587]
 Ann Scott [CA180]
 
The father has not been discovered at this time of:  
 
 Ann Wishaw [CA594] 
 
nor the mothers of: 
 
 Ruth Cameron [CA567] 
 Daniel Ross [CA649]
 
It would have been nice if the exact age of each child was recorded but 
because the list was primarily a working document to allow planning by the 
commissariat staff for the provisioning of the inhabitants of the island (and 
not an information resource for 21st century family historians) the children 
are grouped into three categories; over 10, over 2 and under 2. These correspond 
to the proportion of the male ration to be allocated to each child; two 
thirds, one half and one quartre respectively. If one looks at page xxi of the 
introduction to the source document one can see exactly how Commissary William 
Broughton calculated and tabulated the needs of the community that year.
 
The oldest of the colonial born children would have been 14 on the 1st January 
1802, although some of the childhood arrivals would have been older and indeed 
three such entries appear on the list, classified as adults: 
 
 Roger Connor (aet.24) [CA136]
 Ann Marsden(Harmsworth)(aet.19) [CA139]
 Edward Munday (aet.19) [CA127].
 
From other sources, the dates of birth of 152 of the children are known and 
they mostly correspond with the groupings on the original list, exceptions 
being - Elizabeth Buchannan and Mary Jones who are listed as under 2 when 
they were not, and George Lucas as over 2 when he was not. But the biggest 
discrepancies occurred in children over 10 - Euphemia & Mary Davis, Elizabeth 
Hambley, Maria Hazlewood, Emmeline Hibbins, Mary McCarthy, Ann & Maria Merriott, 
James & Jane Ryan were all listed as over 10 when they were not. There must 
be some explanation for this. Conversely Thomas Lucas and Charlotte Owen 
were not listed as over 10 when they were.
 
Apart from the five children whose parents are unknown and consequently 
their dates of birth are unknown, three other children's dates of birth 
remain a mystery:
 
 Margaret Beachey - over 2 [CA148] 
 Ruth Cameron - over 10 [CA567] 
 Constantia Hibbins - over 2 [CA016] 
 
Beachey & Hibbins were born overseas and as will be discussed below, the 
parents of Cameron are uncertain.
 
The places of birth of the children have also been added to the list; Norfolk 
Island (NI), Port Jackson (PJ) and the United Kingdom (CF). The vast majority 
were born on the island.
 
 Table 16.1. - Places of Birth
 
 Place No. %
 -----------------------------
 Norfolk Island 127 77.4
 Port Jackson 32 19.5
 United Kingdom 5 3.1
 
The children were also categorized on the list into four groups according to 
the civil status of their mothers upon arrival in the colony; "civil", 
"military", "free" and "other" which for practical purposes meant convict. 
 
 Table 16.2. - Maternal Status
 
 Status No. %
 ------------------------
 Civil 5 3.1
 Military 9 5.5
 Free 9 5.1
 Other 141 86.4
 
Children in the "civil" and "military" categories all have surnames 
corresponding with their father's surnames since in all cases their mothers 
were married to their fathers at the time of arrival on the island. Joseph 
Marsden's mother, Ann Harmsworth, had only married his father Samuel in Sydney 
in 1800, she herself had arrived as the free daughter of a marine with the 
First Fleet and as mentioned above is also listed in muster as a wife in her 
own right. Why John Rousseau is not in the military category defies reason, 
his father was a soldier, married to his mother and both arrived free !
 
The entries in the "free" category are informative about attitudes to 
the "convict stain" at the time, apparently all it took was one free parent 
to wipe the stain away; Sarah Wheeler was the free wife of her convict husband 
- married in England before transportation, as was Harriet Hodges; Ann Fulton 
was the free wife of Irish exile Anglican priest Thomas Fulton; Elizabeth 
Gregory had arrived as the free child of convict parents; the parents of 
Ann Scott are unknown but her mother must have arrived free. Why Mary Smith 
is listed as "free" is somewhat hard to explain as both her parents were 
convicts. 
 
All the children in the "other" category have convict or former convict mothers, 
although the father often arrived free. This would appear to directly 
contradict what is said in the paragraph above about the "convict stain". Even 
John Townson who was an officer in the New South Wales Corps had his daughter 
classified in the convict category because his defacto wife was a convict 
and William Broughton the Commissary, who presumably was in charge of 
compiling the list, had his children listed in the convict category because 
his defacto was a convict. Several soldiers'  children were also similarly 
classified because of their convict wives and defactos. 
 
The children tended to be listed under their mother's surnames, which explains 
why the "surname in original muster" column is included. The reason for this 
system of classification is not hard to find. Cynics might well say that "one 
always knows who one's mother was but not necessarily one's father" - true 
but under our English naming conventions, a women takes on the surname 
of her husband upon marriage. Thus for the colonial authorities, charged 
with the responsibility of tracking and generally officiating over all aspects 
of the lives of the female transportees for the remainder of their time in 
the colony, multiple name changes would have presented an administrative 
nightmare. The simple solution was to continue to record all government 
documents with the name of the female transportee as it appeared on the first 
document to reach the colony, namely the ship's convict indent. Given the 
uses of this particular victualling list, it was also much more likely that 
the mother would attend the commissariat store to collect rations for a 
child rather than the father so associating the children with the mother's name 
would make more sense and facilitate the smooth functioning of the store.
 
James Donohoe in his book "Norfolk Island 1788-1813, The People and their 
Families" states that the father of Ruth Cameron was the soldier Duncan Cameron, 
but this does not fit the pattern of naming children after their mother's 
surname and there is no suggestion that Duncan Cameron brought a wife to the 
colony with him. Similar comments apply to William Ross being the father of 
Daniel Ross. Elizabeth Farr & Kennedy Murray also break this pattern by 
being listed under their father's surname as are the seven children of Nathaniel 
Lucas. Charlotte Day is listed under her stepmothers surname. Richard Larsom 
and George & Grace Morrisby are listed under their mothers alias of 
Lavender (although for some strange reason Dinah Morrisby is, as expected, 
listed under Bolton) likewise the two children of Jemima Wilson are listed 
under her alias of Wasker. Again defying the rules somewhat, when Ann Beazley 
finally married John McCarthy, her legitimate children were listed under her 
married surname.
 
There are 22 entries in the "when on stores" column. There are two explanations 
for such notations; either the children came from being independent of the 
government and needed to go back on government assistance for some reason, or 
they were newly arrived on the island. As 17 of the children were Norfolk Island 
born it is most likely that they were going "on stores" because of the former 
reason.
 
There are 52 entries in the "when off stores" column. There are three 
explanations for such notations; either the child's family became self 
sufficient and  no longer needed government assistance, or they left the 
island, or they died. The notation on every entry for the children is simply 
"departed", implying leaving the island. Several of the adult entries are 
noted as "died" and it would be surprising if not a single child died on the 
island for the year 1802 but of course it is possible, perhaps the climate 
on Norfolk Island was particularly conducive of good health.
 
It is interesting to compare the "when off stores" entries  with the 1805 Muster 
of Norfolk Island. Of the 52 "departures", 44 were still on the island in 
1805 and 32 were still off stores, implying perhaps that the "departure" was 
from the store rather than the island itself.
 
It would appear that actual movement to and from the island was quite small 
and that the island's population was reasonably stable during this period.

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