Captain Cook discovered Australia in 1770

George Coxon was transported in 1791

THE FIRST COXON IN AUSTRALIA

Durham Assizes, Summer 1788

George Coxon was sentenced to transportation to Australia and 7 years detention on the 8th October 1788. There is no record of his age or the offence.

He and 350 other convicts sentenced to transportation to Australia were moved from various gaols to the Fortunée hulk at Langston Harbour (Hampshire) between 30th November 1790 and 1st January 1791. The convicts were aged between 12 years and 67 years with sentences from 5, 7, 14 years or a life term.

Fort Cumberland, Hard Labour 1788-1791

According to records in the National Archives, following conviction George Coxon was employed in either digging and making moats, delivering vessels loaded with stones, 'in hewing the same', making bricks and raising 'glacis' (the bank sloping down from a fort) in connection with the fortifications at Fort Cumberland in Portsmouth. The Fort was built to protect the Portsmouth Naval Dockyard.

Transportation, 1791

He was transported on the 'Matilda', a prison ship built in 1789. The 'Matilda' was one of eleven vessels famously known as The Third Fleet that began the transportation of convicts to Australia. 

From 1787 to 1867, 162,000 convicts were transported from Britain to Australia in this way.

The Third Fleet 1791

The Third Fleet consisted of 11 ships which sailed from England in February, March and April 1791 bound for the Sydney penal settlement, carrying over 2,000 convicts. 

The passengers consisted of convicts, military personnel and notable people sent to fill high positions in the colony. More important for the fledgling colony was that the ships also carried provisions.

The first ship to arrive in Sydney was the Mary Ann with its cargo of female convicts and provisions on the 9 July 1791. The Mary Ann could only state that more ships were expected to be sent. The Mary Ann had sailed on her own to Sydney Cove, and there is some argument about whether she was the last ship of the Second Fleet, or the first ship of the Third Fleet. The ships that make up each fleet, however, are decided from the viewpoint of the settlers in Sydney Cove. For them the second set of ships arrived in 1790 (June), and the third set of ships arrived in 1791 (July-October). The Mary Ann was a 1791 arrival.

The next ship to arrive just over 3 weeks later on 1 August 1791 was the Matilda. With the Matilda came news that there were another nine ships making their way for Sydney, and which were expected to arrive shortly. The final vessel, the Admiral Barrington, did not arrive until the 16 October nearly 11 weeks after the Matilda, and 14 weeks after the Mary Ann.

George Coxon was one of the 230 male convicts on board the ‘Matilda’ when she sailed from Portsmouth  on 27th March 1791. The ‘Matilda’ arrived on Monday 1st August 1791 in Port Jackson, Australia after a  passage of four months and five days. 25 convicts died during the voyage. On board the Matilda on arrival were two hundred and five male convicts; one ensign, one serjeant, one corporal, one drummer, and nineteen privates of the New South Wales corps; and some stores and provisions calculated as a supply for the above number for nine months after their arrival.

Log of Convicts on Third Fleet showing George Coxon

Matthew Weatherhead, the master of ‘Matilda’, had anchored for two days in a bay of one of Schoeten’s Islands, distant from the main land of about twelve miles where, according to his report, five or six ships might find shelter. Those who were on shore saw the footsteps of different kinds of animals and traces of natives, such as huts, fires,  broken spears, and the instrument which they use for throwing the spear. They spoke of the soil as sandy, and observed that the ground was covered with shrubs. Observers said that the convicts in the ship, on their landing, appeared to be aged and infirm, the state in which they were said to have been embarked. It was not therefore to be wondered at, that they had buried twenty-five on their passage. Twenty more were sick, and were immediately landed at the hospital.

Onward to Norfolk Island

Fifty-five of the convicts brought in this ship, selected from the others as tanners and tradesmen, were sent up to Parramatta, New South Wales; of the remainder, those whose health would permit them to go were put on board the Mary Ann, together with thirty-two convicts of bad character from among those who came out in the preceding year, and eleven privates of the New South Wales Corps.  On the 8th August 1791, the Mary Ann sailed for Norfolk Island. Since George Coxon was likely neither a tanner or tradesman he would be sent to Norfolk Island on board the Mary Ann.

Norfolk Island

European settlement of Norfolk Island began on 6 March 1788 when the British flag was raised by Lieutenant Philip Gidley King. George Coxon arrived only three years after the island was colonised. During the early period of settlement in Sydney, when food was scarce and widespread starvation a real danger, Norfolk Island was a source of much-needed supplies. However, maintaining the Island was expensive, owing to its isolation and the absence of a safe place of anchorage. The most well-known example of this danger was the wrecking of HMS Sirius, the flagship of the First Fleet, at Norfolk Island on 19 March 1790. The loss of the Sirius was a devastating blow to New South Wales, as it left the colony, precariously, with a single supply ship.

15th May 1788. Instructions from Governor of New South Wales to Lieutenant Philip Lidley King.

George Coxon would have had a tough time in Australia and a particularly tough time on Norfolk Island. The convicts were all sentenced to hard labour and when they arrived worked on manual tasks such as timber cutting, brick making or stone cutting. In 1788, the Governor of New South Wales had been ordered by the First Governor of Australia to establish a Flax Plant on the island and it was for this work that George Coxon would have been required. In those days seeds from the flax plant were used to make linen which was in high demand. There are no further records of George Coxon, The First Coxon in Australia.

Other Coxon Convicts Transported to Australia

Henry Coxon was sentenced to life at Derby Quarter Sessions and then transported on the convict ship ‘Camden’ to New South Wales, Australia on 21st March 1831. His crime was to ‘send a threatening letter’. The convict colony in New South Wales was the first established in Australia and life was very harsh. However, in 1831 when Henry Coxon arrived an Act was enforced in the colony that limited the number of lashes that a convict could receive to fifty. The transportation of convicts to New South Wales was suspended in 1840 and abolished in 1850.

James Coxon was sentenced to 12 years at Staffordshire Assizes for ‘robbery and previous conviction of felony’ and transported on the convict ship ‘Clara’ to Western Australia on 28th January 1864. A total of 9,668 convicts were sent to Western Australia and James Coxon was one of the last convicts to be transported. In 1865 the British policy changed and the last convict ship arrived in Western Australia in 1868.

The 'Convicts' of Australia

It is reported that the colonisation of Australia was driven by the need to address overcrowding in the British prison system. It was simply not economically viable to transport convicts for this reason alone. Many prisoners were transported for petty crimes; a small number were political prisoners. More serious crimes such as rape and murder were not transportable crimes. The journey usually took 250 days and life on board was harsh and crowded. Many convicts were either skilled tradesmen or farmers who had been convicted for trivial crimes and were sentenced to set up the infrastructure for the new colony. Convicts were often given pardons on completion of their sentences and were allocated parcels of land to farm. It has been estimated that around 20% of Australians today have one of these 160,000 convicts in their ancestry. Once considered shameful it is now a matter of pride for Australians to identify with the early convicts in their family history. Many of the convicts were judged to be unfairly convicted and are a relic of colonial history.

Acknowledgements & Thanks

‘An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales’ by David Collins; Historical Records of Australia Vol 1, 1788-1796, UK National Archives.