LIST 21 - 1818 MUSTER - HOBART TOWN

 
 
The first of the three musters covering Van Diemens Land is the 1818 Muster 
at Hobart Town which took place in October of that year. There are 163 members 
of the First Generation identified in this muster; 72 males and 91 females, 
152 colonial born and 11 childhood arrivals.
 
The information presented for each entry includes:
 
 family name
 Christian name
 year 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 
 whether on or off stores 
 date of arrival in Hobart Town
 ship of arrival in Hobart Town
 acres of land held(males)
 location of land held(males)
 husband's name(females)
 surname as it appears in the original muster.
 
The list is ordered alphabetically on the father's surname.
 
As in the original source document the women have been separated from the men 
and the names of their spouses included in order to make sense of the surnames 
under which their entries are found in the Muster because most of them were 
already in relationships with men and following the English custom, women 
took their husband's surname upon marriage. 
 
The list presented here is a combination of three separate lists from Mrs 
Schaffer's book "Land Musters, Stock Returns and Lists of Van Diemens Land 
1803-1822": 
 
 General Muster of Free Men, Hobart Town, 7 September to 2 October 1818
 Free Women on General Muster, Hobart Town 1818
 Free Children Off and On Stores, Hobart Town, October 1818 
 
Notice for a start that all three lists are restricted to 'free' persons. This 
is not a problem in the case of the First Generation because hopefully 
they were all free, although if any had colonial sentences they would be missing 
from the list and unknown to researchers unfortunately. 
 
The First Generation can easily be identified from the "Men" list when they 
are described as 'Born Norfolk Island' or 'Born Port Jackson' or 'Born Sydney' 
or 'Born in Colony'. It is a little more difficult when a man is described 
as 'Came Free' - does this mean came free to New South Wales or came free to 
Hobart Town ? Usually information from other sources, mainly the Pioneer 
Register project, can resolve these issues but not always. It would have 
been so much more helpful if the original muster had listed the ship the man 
came free on !
 
Identifying the First Generation from the "Women" list was much more difficult 
due to the absence of any helpful description. Many but not all entries list 
a maiden name and the name of their spouse but even this by itself is not 
always reliable in identifying any particular woman. It is not at all clear 
for a woman without a maiden name or spouse whether the woman could still 
be married or if the surname is in fact a maiden or a married name. Once 
again the Pioneer Register project was the key to unlocking many of these 
mysteries but of course it does leave the possibility that some unidentified 
women may well have been from the First Generation.
 
Another issue with the "Women" list is whether some of the information 
has been supplied by Mrs Schaffer or if it is all as in the original. Take for 
example, the case of Hannan Bonny, she is listed with a maiden name of Ronay 
and a spouse of Bartholomew Reardon, now it is true that a Hannah Ronay was 
the wife of Bartholomew Reardon and the implication is that Bonny is an error 
for Ronay but in the 1822 Muster she is again listed as Bonny and this time with 
the helpful information that she arrived on board the 'Friendship' in 1817.
 
The "Children" list was the greatest challenge of all. The original muster 
simply gave the name of one parent, often without even a Christian name, and 
the total number of children on and off stores. Other sources had to be relied 
upon entirely to tease out the First Generation - the Pioneer Register project 
being indispensable as always. Unfortunately there were 110 cases in which 
the family could not be recognised and how many of these were of the First 
Generation will never be known. In other cases some of the children could 
be identified but no all. In still other cases more children for a particular 
family would be eligible for inclusion than the number specified in the list. 
In this instance, those children with known later life events such as marriages 
or child birth have been selected and failing this, the youngest children 
have been selected. Unfortunately the bottom line remains though, for this 
list, those First Generation included are highly speculative. Where some 
children are listed as 'on' stores and some 'off' generally speaking the 
youngest children have been selected to be listed as 'on' stores but again this 
is only speculative.
 
The muster presented in this list is 'based on' Mrs Schaffer's source document 
in the sense that the original has very little information apart from the 
presence of the individual at Hobart in 1818, where born (for some males only) 
and whether they were on or off the government store. All the other information 
in the list is 'value added' having been derived from other sources and brought 
together to create a more complete whole.
 
This fact makes this list and the two other Van Diemens Land lists less 
informative than their New South Wales counterparts because with the latter 
new information on the individuals in the muster can be found, in particular, 
new individuals who have not otherwise been identified can come to light, 
but not in these three cases.
 
William Abel and Henry Burgess appeared in both the adult and child lists 
reducing the total number to 161.
 
For five men and seven women their parents remain unknown:
 
 James McCormack
 William McDonall
 William Nichols
 Thomas Smith
 James Williams
 
  Mary Adams
 Elizabeth Connor
 Charlotte Cowarth
 Mary Ann Leviston
 Mary Ann Mullins
 Margaret Nichols
 Mary Thomas
 
The fathers of four men and four women are unknown: 
 
 James Hannaway
 Richard Larsom 
 Thomas Smith 
 William Smith 
 
 Elizabeth Burn
 Ann Evans 
 Sarah Lee 
 Susannah Mortimer 
 
as are the mothers of:
 
 James Joseph 
 Harriet Sutton.
 
Thomas Ellis, James Hannaway, John Kelly, Thomas & William Smith and George 
Wood are listed in the muster under their mother's surnames. William Snailham 
is listed in the muster under his stepfather's surname of Needham. Richard 
Shaw used his stepfather's surname of Alwright as well.
 
James Mitchell was the only male to be given the honorific of 'Mr'. Mary 
Lakeland(Arndell), Sophia Rayner(Cullen), Sarah Reiby(Devine), Ann 
Young(Eades), Sarah Birch(Guest), Sarah Mitchell(Lee), Isabella 
Lewis(McKellar), Sarah Thrupp(Piper), Harriet Humphrey(Sutton) were all 
graced with 'Mrs'. Lucinda Goodwin had her spinster status honoured with a 
'Miss'.
 
All the married women used their husbands' surnames with the exception of 
Elizabeth Young, although sometimes with an interesting interpretation 
of the spelling, eg Mary Ann Fluerty (Lucas) is listed as Flesule ! Mary McCarthy 
had been recently abondoned by her soldier lover Thomas Skottowe.
 
Only 14 of the women were single and of these seven would soon marry.
 
Thomas Lucas is listed as born on Norfolk Island when in fact he arrived there 
as a young child.
 
Since Hobart Town was not founded until 1804, all the First Generation 
located there in 1818 of necessity had to sail thence from either Norfolk Island 
or Port Jackson. Appendix I at the end of this work lists shipping movements 
between colonies and this has been the source of the information of shipping 
arrivals to Hobart Town. Nearly all the arrivals from Norfolk Island came on 
one of four ships; HMS Porpoise 1807, Lady Nelson 1807, City of Edinburgh 1808, 
Estramina 1808.
 
It has not been possible to identify the ship to Hobart Town in every case. 
In some cases a date is given before which (<)  or after which (>) the person 
was known to have been in Hobart Town. The dates chosen are based on other 
muster entries, the most frequent being before or after the 1811 muster but 
there are some people who are known to have arrived after the 1806 muster 
or after the 1814 muster.
 
As can be seen from the 'Birth Place' column, the vast majority of entries 
on the list were born on Norfolk Island and even those not born on the island 
came to Hobart Town via Norfolk Island. Amongst the childhood arrivals only 
Henry Anson, John Anson, Ann Eades & Harriet Sutton and amongst the colonial 
born only Ann Anson, Mary Arndell, Henry Burgess, John Field, Thomas Ikin, 
Ann John, Elizabeth Jones, Isabella & Lilias McKellar, John Randall, Richard 
Shaw, Margaret Shortland & Elizabeth Young, can definitely be stated 
to have come directly from Port Jackson.
 
The distinction of being 'on' or 'off' stores is quite significant. 
Usually only those with some official position were able to draw provisions 
from the government store and interestingly it was often the wealthiest 
individuals in the community who were able to claim this extra benefit.
 
To make the list a little more informative, at least in the case of the males, 
the list "Land and Stock Muster, Van Diemens Land, 1819" was consulted to 
determine who amongst the First Generation were landholders and how much they 
held and where. A total of 43 (60%) were landholders and whilst Thomas Fisher 
owned no land he was grazing 90 sheep on leased land, the First Generation 
where doing well in the colony. William Kimberley was the largest landholder 
with 600 acres. The reader is directed to the original list which tabulates: 
the number of acres devoted to each type of land use; wheat, barley, peas/beans, 
potatoes & pasture - the number and variety of livestock; horses, cattle 
& sheep - the number of people supported by each farm. There was only 
one female recorded as a landholder, Sarah Briscoe (Goodwin) with 70 acres at 
Clarence Plains which she obviously inherited from her deceased husband as she 
is described as a widow.
 
As an added bonus this land muster lists additional occupational data on some 
of the entries. For example; James Folley, Richard Larsom, Richard Lucas, James 
Triffett & Thomas Williams were all listed as constables; William Rayner was 
a district constable; James Kelly was the harbour master and James Mitchell 
the post master; poor William Mitchell was listed as an invalid.
 
There are 32 men and 29 women in the 1818 Muster whose civil status is as 
yet undetermined. They may have been convicts, they may have been free arrivals 
or they may have been colonial born. It is possible that one or more could 
have been of the First Generation. They are listed below in the hope that 
some might be identified by an informed reader:
 
 William Anderson Mary Ashborne 
 William Bainden Ann Barclay  
 John Beache Mary Beadle 
 William Brist Mary Burgess 
 John Davidson Margaret Burne 
 Thomas Davis Sarah Carn 
 James Eddisson Elizabeth Cassidy  
 Francis Evans Ann Clarke 
 John Faber Mary Cohen ux Henry Cone 
 Charles Feen E Cullen  
 William French Jane Davis 
 Mark Green Miss Davis 
 James Grimes Hannah Gardner 
 Charles Horam Mary Ann Horam 
 Isaac Jackson Susan King 
  Thomas Johnston Selina Lawrence 
 John Lewis Mary McCormich 
 William Mansell Frances Martin 
  Joseph Pattison Mary Ann Ridge 
 George Rayment Sarah Risby 
 David Reynolds Martha Rorbertson  
 Nathan Robinson Elizabeth Smith 
 Thomas Simpson Sarah Smith Mrs ux John 
  Francis Sullivan Mary Sullivan 
 Samuel Taylor Sarah Taylor 
 Peter Temaru Elizabeth Thompson  
 John Thompson Susannah Thorbey 
 John Tonice Mary Ward 
 Thomas Tuiett Jane Wright  
 John Williamson 
 John Wilson 
 William Wilson 

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