Last updated 07/02/2010
(NB Dates after names relate to the period in Australia.)
Samuel Bednall did not (so far as is known) wish to emigrate but he had no choice -His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for Cheshire decided for him. Sam was born in Hanbury, Staffordshire in 1804, the son of John Bednall and his wife Sarah nee Godwin. His father died when Sam was 8 years old and a year later his mother married Rupert Wardle of Foston, Derbyshire and subsequently moved to Stockport - presumably taking her young children (including Sam) with her.
The next we hear of Sam is when, on the 14th April 1826, 18 year old Samuel (Bednall alias Pye) and 19 year old William Mace were charged, at Chester Assizes, with breaking into the house of John Kay in Stockport and stealing a silver watch, a pair of shoes and some clothing. Both were found guilty sentenced to death on [3rd April 1826. ]
The death sentence was commuted to 14 years transportation and on 5 August 1826 he set sail from London for Van Dieman's Land ( modern Tasmania) in the Woodford (1). After a voyage of nearly 4 months he and 98 other convicts, landed in Hobart on the 22 November 1826 as convicts on ticket of leave. He completed his sentence in 1836 and in May 1837 applied for a pardon, which was granted on the King’s birthday. Sam remained in Tasmania until June 1848 when he sailed from Launceston to Sydney, Australia and subsequently returned to England. By 1851, he and his mother Sarah , were living with his sister, Mrs Harriet Jepson, in Stockport, Cheshire but he didn't stay there long. Sometime before 1861, he returned to the place of his birth -Hanbury, Staffordshire- to lodge with William Withnall, a man who may have been a childhood friend, and he was still living there 20 years later. [For further details see his entry under "Profiles"]
Sources:
[1] Archives Office of Tasmania, Guide to Convict Records by Ship Reference.
[2] Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships 1787-1868, Brown, Son & Ferguson
Ltd 1985.
[3] Phillips, Margaret E., Australian Joint Copying Project, Handbook Part 7,
Public Records Office Admiralty Records, National Library of Australia 1993,
pp 75-77.
[4] Immigrant Ships http://www.immigrantships.net/v5/1700v5/au3rdfleet17910926_02.html
Another Bednall convict has turned up, this time one John Bednall who was transported to Tasmania. As yet, little is known about his origins but he may have been the sawyer son of Thomas & Eleanor Bednall of Leicester[1] and a cousin of Samuel Bednall whose story is told above. Is so, then he was born in Leicester in 1811 and at 18 years of age, joined the Royal Marines. In 1838 he was discharged from the Marines for mutiny and returned to Leicester to live with his parents whose home was on High Cross Street, St. Martins parish. John was then working as a labourer[9]. Although nothing is yet known about the offence that led to his appearance before the JPs at the Leicester Borough Quarter Sessions, on the 13 October 1845, it is known that he was judged guilty and sentenced to transportation for 7 years [2]. The details of his captivity during the following 3½ years are similarly unknown but he seems to have been transported to a penal colony in Bermuda sometime before April 1849, when somewhere between the 18th and the 24th of that month, he and 299 other convicts, sailed from there to South Africa, in the "square rigged" NEPTUNE 2". The Neptune 2 was a 35 year old sailing ship of some 644 tons, built in Calcutta in 1814 and for this voyage, under the command of a Captain Henderson. Apparently, in May 1848, the Foreign Office had decided to dispatch convicts to the Cape of Good Hope where they were to build a breakwater in Table Bay and Lord Grey had subsequently proposed that these convicts be exiled to the Cape and gave instructions that 300 political offenders in Bermuda should be sent there [3].
In a letter to the
Administrator of the penal colony at Bermuda, Grey refused to accede to a
request that these prisoners be sent to the Cape at no charge to themselves and
instead ordered that each should pay ten pounds for his passage to the Cape.
After
making a brief stop at Pernambuco on the east coast of Brazil on July 18th. to
replenish water and supplies, the "NEPTUNE 2" dropped anchor in Simon's
Bay at the Cape on September 19th. 1849. They were not welcome! The people of
the Cape Colony were violently opposed to the arrangements proposed by
Grey and in June 1849 had formed an anti-convict association to lobby the
Colonial Office against the move. By the time the ship arrived, opposition to
their landing in the Cape colony was such that they could not disembark.
Furthermore, the colony refused provisions, medical supplies and water to the
"NEPTUNE 2," all of which had, therefore, to be obtained from
Mauritius[4][5].
Grey came under increasing pressure to abandon his plans and eventually bowed to the wishes of his opponents, both in England and the colonies. On February 13th. 1850, five months after the ship had arrived of Simon’s Town, he ordered Captain Henderson to set sail in "NEPTUNE 2" for Van Dieman's Land. She sailed on the 21st of February 1850 carrying 282 convicts (18 had died since leaving Bermuda), 43 troopers as guards, 6 paying passengers and an unknown number of crew. Incidentally, the surgeon entrusted (in Bermuda) with the formidable task of keeping "passengers" and crew alive and as healthy as possible, died before they reached the Cape and had to be replaced.
From
the diary of one of the prisoners we learn that, immediately after clearing
False Bay the "NEPTUNE" sailed South at such a speed that she
often covered 200 miles in a day and thus reached the mountainous southern coast
of Van Dieman's Land in early April. The waters were placid as they rounded the
many promontories, wooded to the waters edge. After one night becalmed, the ship
made way to the head of the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, taking on a pilot there to
guide them to anchor in the Derwent river, a quarter of a mile from the quays
and Custom house of Hobart Town where she docked on 5th April 1850. Sadly,
the surgeon, who had joined the ship at the Cape and had kept all but seven on
board alive to this point, died just ten days later, in Newtown [6][7][8].
On his arrival, John Bednall, like most of the other convicts, received a conditional pardon -the question is, what happened to him after that? Gold was discovered in Australia in 1851, starting the goldrush as hoards of ticket-of-leave men, escaped convicts and others, from Van Diemens Land and elsewhere flocked to the goldfields -perhaps John Bednall was one of these? However, records for admissions to the Royal Derwent Hospital, New Norfolk, used predominantly for the treatment of mental diseases, show that a John Bedenall, born circa 1807, was admitted on 1st February 1859. This may well be the man we seek and it is possible that he died in this institution, however, one of the steerage passengers on board the barque Kate (341 tons, Master Jones) which sailed from the Port of Auckland :for Sydney on 9th April 1861, was one J. Badnall (Bednall?) so perhaps he didn't die after all.[10] [1]
REFERENCES:
[1] Census of England & Wales 1841, PRO HO 107 / 605 / 7 -5
Leicester St. Martins.
[2] UK Public Record Office, PRO
HO 11/16 p.4.
Home
Office: Convict Transportation Registers 1849/1850.
[3] Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships 1787-1868, Brown, Son & Ferguson Ltd
1985.
[4] History
of Cape Town
[5] The Argus, April 24th. 1850.Cape of Good Hope
[6] Jail
journal: or, five years in British prisons, by John Mitchell, 1815-1875,
Haverty, New York 1868 also Jail
Journal 1876, Mitchell, John, Woodstock Books, 1997, ISBN: 185477218X.
[7] Archives Office of Tasmania, Guide to Convict Records by Ship Reference.
[8] Broxam, Graeme, Shipping Arrivals and Departures, Tasmania, 1843-1850,
Roebuck, 1998, p195.
[9] UK Public Record Office, PRO ADM
157/355 Folios 47-50, 1828-1833.
[10] Archives Office of Tasmania: Series: HSD285 Hospital Admission Records
1843-1964. Item No. HSD285/1/132
[11] Daily Southern Cross, Vol. XVII, Issue 1391, 12 April
1861, page 2
Conchologist,
genealogist, journalist, editor and one of the founder s of the Royal Society of
South Australia, William Tompson Bednall was the next
Bednall to emigrate to Australia. He was born in Leicester, UK in 1838 and
educated at the Philological School, London. He and his widowed mother
Etheldreda, (nee Blore) emigrated to Australia in 1853. He obtained a post
on the Adelaide newspaper The Register where, except for a period as editor of
Port Darwin newspaper, he remained until he retired in 1908. A conchologist of
repute, he was particularly proud of two species that he discovered –Voluta
bednalli and Murex bednalli. His reputation in the field of genealogy was
also considerable and such was his wide ranging interest that he is credited
with being the first to attest 57 words in the Larrika language. Today,
his descendants constitute the majority of Australian Bednalls and in August
2003 they celebrated the 150th anniversary of their ancestor's arrival in
Australia. For that event, our cousin Roger Bednall wrote a
family history which he has kindly allowed us to post on this
site. See also "The Ancestors
of W. T.Bednall"
The Register 1836-1931. A daily newspaper (the first in the State of South Australia) which was eventually taken over by the Advertiser.
*An
aboriginal tribe of Northern Australia.
Charles
Henry Fiennes Badnall was born at Home Farm, Douglas, Isle of Man,
where he was baptised in St. Matthew’s Church, Douglas on 13th January
1833 [1]. He was the son of silk manufacture, inventor, poet and
would be MP, Richard Badnall junior (formerly of Ashenhurst, Leek,
Staffordshire) and his wife Sarah, nee Hand. Some years earlier
Charles’ father had been declared bankrupt and subsequently had, while
struggling to maintain the family finances, had moved to the Isle of Man
to avoid being gaoled for debt [2].
Little
is known of Charles Badnall’s life and it seems likely that he received
his early education at home. In 1841 Charles (then aged 8), his mother,
his aunt Martha and his brother Edward are recorded by the Census
Enumerator, staying as visitors with Philip Gell of Hopton Hall near
Ashbourne, Derbyshire. By 1851 he had become a scholar at Durham
School and in that year (and the following year) was stroke in the school
rowing club’s “1st Crew” [3] [4][5].
Sometime
before 1858 Charles emigrated to Australia where he became the secretary
of the Geelong Grammar
School, an independent Anglican,
co-educational, boarding and day school, then in the centre of Geelong,
Victoria. The school that had been established in 1855 under the auspices
of the Church of England, ran into financial problems in 1859 and couldn't
pay its bills. Although Charles, who received and paid the bills, was
involved in this and one witness stated in court that he had absconded, it
does not seem to have affected him significantly and a few years later
(towards the end of 1862) he obtained a government post [6][7][8].
The government post in question was that of an official recorder to the Geodetic Survey of Victoria, which ended in 1873. While carrying out this work he became involved in an agreement with A. C. Allen, Inspector General of Plans and Surveys concerning lands which they he (with others) had selected for allocation to them individually but which they had subsequently combined for sale to Allen at a profit. As a consequence of this action, he was called upon to give evidence to a Crown Lands Commission investigating this and other matters, in 1878-79 [9].
In
1864, Charles married Hannah, widow of Edmund
Lee McKeand and daughter of cotton manufacturer Nicholas Whitworth
and his wife Sarah nee Barratt, of Manchester. Hannah was 14 years older
than Charles and although she had 6 children under the age of 15 by her
former husband, sadly the couple were not to have any children [10].
Charles may have already been in business with either Edmund McKeand for
in November that year The Argus announced the sale "of the
stock-in-trade, book debts etc., in the insolvent estate of C. H. F.
Badnall, trading as Badnall, McKeand, and Co., of Haywood, storekeeper".
In hearings before the "Insolvent Court" the assignee of
his estate reported that Badnall's land was mortgaged to its full extent,
there was a scarcity of buyers for Badnall's stock-in-trade and although
the value of the book debts was high, he wasn't hopeful about the prospect
of getting much for them. History seemed to be repeating itself
for 6 years before Charles brother Edward had been jailed as an insolvent
debtor just as his father had some 25 years earlier. [11][12][13].
By
1866 Charles and his now quite large family were living in Heywood,
a small town on the Fitzroy River, 17 miles west of Portland, Victoria,
where they ran a combined post office and shop [14]. The shop was
principally Hannah's responsibility while Charles devoted himself to other
activities including his work as trustee of the Heywood Common School.
Two years later the Badnalls were living in Collingwood, now one of the
oldest of Melbourne’s suburbs but then an independent municipality. [15]
[16] Charles’ “other activities” also seem to have included local
politics for in 1877, an article in the Hamilton Spectator on the
impending election, reported that “Mr C.H. Badnall is likely to come
forward for Portland” [17].
By 1878, however, he had become a journalist in Portland, Victoria but was obviously unsuccessful in establishing himself in this field, for was declared insolvent in April 1881. The amount was not large (liabilities of £210 compared to assets of £140) and he attributed his bankruptcy to “the stoppage of annual income from England”. [18]
At
or about the time he became insolvent in the early 1880s, Charles
(who then lived in Portland)
became ill and about two months before his death began to experience
symptoms described by the surgeon who attended him as “syncope” i.e.
repeated bouts of unconsciousness or fainting. In view of the
outcome, it seems likely that Charles had an underlying heart problem,
possibly brachycardia, tachycardia or some form of obstructive diseases
e.g. aortic or mitral stenosis. Whatever the cause of his illness, he was
lovingly nursed by his stepdaughter Sarah McKeand and a friend (Miss
Walker). Today medical/surgical intervention might have saved him
but then, despite the care of those who loved him, he died in
November1885, at just 51 years of age.
For
Hannah, his wife, life had to carry on outlived him, by almost 20 years
and was buried in Warrnambool in 1904. Shortly after her death, the local
news section of the Argus reported “News has been received here of
the death, at the age of 86 years, of Mrs Badnall. The deceased was well
known in this district having been, for some 30 odd years since, post
mistress of Heywood. She was the widow of the late C. H. Badnall, a
well-known Western District journalist, who died some 18 years ago.”
[19] [8]
NB 1: Hannah’s 1st husband, Edmund Lee McKeand, died in Australia in 1861.
NB
2: Charles H. F. Badnall may have been the man named Badnall, mentioned in
the journal of, Dr Osbourne Johnson, surgeon, on ship the Genghis Khan,
which arrived in Moreton Bay, Australia in 1854. If he was, it may
not have been a coincidence that Captain John Clement Wickham, the
Commissioner for Moreton Bay District Crown Lands was also a passenger.
REFERENCES
[1] Parish Register Transcripts St. Matthew’s Church, Douglas, Isle of
Man, 1705 to 1803. CJCLS Film No. 0106718 Family History Library, Utah,
USA.
[2] Commission of Bankruptcy London Gazette
[3] Census of England & Wales 1841. HO 107/198/15 Hopton Hall, Hopton,
Derbyshire
[4] Census of England & Wales 1851 Place St Oswald District, Durham,
Sub-district St Oswald. County Durham. PRO Reference: HO107, Piece 2390,
Folio 156, Page 37.
|
Schedule
number |
133 |
|
Address
|
Crossgate,
Durham |
|
Name
|
Charles
H BADNALL |
|
Relationship
|
Border |
|
Condition
|
Unmarried |
|
Age
|
18 |
|
Occupation
|
Scholar |
|
Birth
place |
Isle
Of Man IOM |
[5]
Register of Durham school January 1840 to December 1907. L. A. Body & C. S.
Earle. School Yearbooks 1908 page 269.
[6] Charles H. Badnall, Secretary to The Geelong Grammar School. The
Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848-1954) Saturday 27 November 1858 Page 7
[7] A key piece of evidence in a subsequent court case was a letter from Charles
Badnall requesting the bishop [of Geelong] to attend and sign a bond of
indemnity, which would throw no obligations on the trustees more than they had
already incurred. The Bishop declined to sign stating that he had incurred no
pecuniary responsibility on account of the Geelong Grammar School. Taylor versus
Perry and others in the County Court, Geelong, Victoria, Australia.
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.: 1848-1954) Tuesday 9 April 1861 Page 6
[9] Yeoman and Bureaucrats; The Victorian Crown Lands Commission 1878-1879.
J.M.Powell, Oxford 1973. pages 235 to 237 and pages 242 to 243. See
also the National Geodetic Survey of Australia by John Manning.
(Paper 8). http://www.surveyors.org.nz/Documents/Paper%208%20-%20J%20Manning.pdf and
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848-1954) Tuesday 27 August 1878 Page 6.
[10] Charles Henry Fiennes Badnall died in Ferry Street, Portland, Victoria,
Australia, on 20 November 1885. Victoria State Records -Death Reg No 1885
-13346. Mrs Hannah Badnall died, age 86. in Warrnambool, Victoria,
Australia on 9th July 1904. Register of Deaths in Victoria, Australia Victoria
State Records -Death Reg No: 10863.
[11] Advert inviting tenders for the stock-in-trade, book debts &c. of the
insolvent C. H. F. Badnall, trading as Badnall, McKeand, and Co., of
Haywood, storekeeper. The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.: 1848-1954)
Wednesday 30 November 1864 Page 8 col.2
[12] Report of the assignee of C.H.F Badnall's insolvent estate to the Insolvent
Court. The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.: 1848-1954) Saturday 11 February 1865
Page 6 col 6
[13] The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.: 1848-1954) Wednesday 6 November 1867, page 1
column 4
[14] The first town allotments were sold in 1854 so the Badnall's were amongst
its first inhabitants
[15] See “The Victorian Post Office Directory”: 1866, page 220,
Heywood and “ The Victorian Post Office Directory”, H.Wise, 1868
–Collingwood.
[16] Names in Australian Government Gazettes, Victoria c1858–1900.
www.familyhistoryonline.net/index/database/GSVGovtGazettes.shtml
|
Given name |
Surname |
State |
Location |
Year |
Subject |
Page |
|
C H |
Badnall |
Victoria |
|
1861 |
Unclaimed Ship Letters |
207 |
|
Charles Henry |
Badnall |
Victoria |
Heywood |
1873 |
Church Trustees |
|
|
Chas H |
Badnall |
Victoria |
|
1874 |
Notice to Licensees in Arrears |
|
[17]
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.: 1848-1954) Tuesday 3 April 1877 page 4.
[18] Source: Insolvencies Listed in The Age Newspaper, Melbourne,
Australia. 18 April 1881, C. H. F. Badnall, journalist, Portland, South
Australia.
[19] Reference 17A The Scrapbook of John Sleigh of Leek, Staffordshire. Wm.
Salt Library, Stafford, UK.
[20] Personal communication from Ms Helen Ulman, Victoria, Australia. 2006
based on Victoria State Records 1885-13346 and 1904-10863 and Personal
communication from Ms Helen Ulman, Victoria, Australia. 2006 based on Victoria
State Record 1864-2063.
[21] Names in Australian Government Gazettes, Victoria c1858–1900. www.familyhistoryonline.net/index/database/GSVGovtGazettes.shtml
The Bednall's of Narrogin
in Western Australia are the descendants of John Harrop Bednall who was born in
Hanley, Staffordshire in 1879. He was the son of John Harrop and Catherine
Bednall and his father was the brother of
Peter Bednall, partner in the firm of Bednall & Heath of Hanley, potters.
John's Army Record shows that when he joined up on
6 May 1916 he was 5' 3" tall, weighed 107 lbs and had blue eyes and brown hair.
Initially appointed to the Army Reserve he was mobilised in October and became
a private in the Royal Scots Guards. In April 1917 he was
transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps, Aldershot and 3 months later sailed
in Stephen for Archangel with the North Russia Expeditionary Force in September
1918. There he remained, working in the staff hospital until he embarked for
home in August 1919. Demobilised on 1st September 1919,
John returned to his wife and civilian life at 1 London Road,
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire.
What it was that caused John and his wife Harriet Ann, née Leach, and their son Alan to emigrate to Freemantle, Australia in 1924 is not known but by 1925 they were living on Forrest Street, Narrogin and John then described himself as a potter. [NB Both Harriet and her son are referred to as potters, in the Australiana Magazine]. Eleven years later the directories show that they then lived on Williams Road, Narrogin and that John then worked for the local water company. His son Alan, described himself as "maker of the famous A.J.B. Cycles, Fortune Street, Narrogin". John died on 26 August 1962 at the age of 83 and Harriet on 12 May 1979 aged 88 followed 2 years later by their son. Alan had married and he and his wife Vida Jean had at least two children. .Descendants are thus believed to be still living in the Perth area.
Several Badnall families currently live in Australia but we have no further information about their family history -yet. One possibility is that they are related to Walter Badnall of London whose daughter Florence Alice Badnall who is said to have married Edward Killick in Peru, in 1930. [Please note: the link to the Killick details is slow] Their marriage was actually recorded in Fulham in the 2nd quarter of 1905 [vol. 1a, fol.688 ] and Florence's paternal family tree can be traced directly back to James Badnall of Soho, a tailor and his wife Hannah nee Hawkes.
Other Badnalls/Badnells may have emigrated to Australia, for example: on the 20 April 1861 the barque Kate of 341 tonnes, Master Philip Jones, arrived in Sydney from Auckland carrying amongst others a steerage passenger by the name of J. Badnell (see John Bednall above]. Who this person was is as yet unknown and further research is needed to identify all those early Badnall etc, settlers who moved to the Australia prior to the middle of the 20th century.
Leonard John Bednall was born in Bridgewater, Somerset, one of the sons of Alfred Michael Bednall of Leicester, England. In the 1920s, Leonard emigrated to Australia and was living in Mowll Retirement Village, NSW when he died at the age of 72, on the 1st September1974*. Leonard's descendants still live in Queensland and elsewhere in Australia. The family's paternal family tree can be traced back to the Badnalls of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire and hence to the original origin of the Badnalls in the Eccleshall area of that county. They are thus cousins of all the Badnalls/Bednalls mentioned on this page with the exception of "The Other Badnalls of Australia".
*Sydney Morning Herald 03/09/1974
©A.W.Bednall Macclesfield 2000-2008