Letter from Nelson Thornton to Doctor John Coverdale
Date1874 - 1879
Object number00028799
NameLetter
MediumInk on paper
DimensionsOverall: 200 x 168 mm, 0.008 kg
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionA hand written letter to Dr John Coverdale by the ex-convict John Brooks (alias Robert Wyndham Nelson Thornton).
Brook's letter, signed Nelson Thornton, pleads with Dr Coverdale to have that 'important document' signed as soon as possible.
Brook's was transported to Tasmania in 1842 for the crime of larceny. He was sentenced to seven years at Port Arthur but later remained in Hobart and died at the New Town Invalid Depot (of which Dr Coverdale also presided) in 1879 a pauper.HistoryDr John Coverdale became a major medical and administrative figure in Tasmania, serving as the last Civil Commandant at the convict / penal settlement at Port Arthur in 1874 and Surgeon Superintendent at the Queen's Asylum for Orphans in 1864. He had extensive experience practicing medicine on board ships as a ship surgeon for two British troopships travelling to India between 1835 and 1836. Coverdale was also the ship surgeon and an immigrant on board the PERTHSHIRE in 1837, when he migrated to Tasmania. He initially established a surgery at Richmond which ran from 1840 to 1864, while he was the District Surgeon.
Dr Coverdale was appointed to the role of Surgeon Superintendent Hospital for the Insane at the Cascades, near Hobart. John Brooks (alias Robert Wyndham Nelson Thornton) wrote this letter to Dr Coverdale either during the final years at Port Arthur, where he remained at the Invalid Depot there, or later at the Hospital for the Insane where he was admitted when Port Arthur was closed in 1877. Brooks died in 1879 and is buried in the Pauper Section of Cornelian Bay, Hobart.
Many ageing and frail ex-convicts later became paupers and thus a charge on the
colonial government. Public opinion tended to resent them as shiftless and improvident, considering that people should work and save for their old age, forgetting that convicts had had few opportunities to do so and that many had no families to care for them.SignificanceThis letter by 'Pauper John Brooks' is significant in highlighting the fate of some convicts who remained in Tasmania but did not succeed in making a stable life for themselves upon their release. Although literate and eloquent, Brooks died in an invalid home still pleading for the return fare back to England.
