Skip to main content
Advanced Search
Image Not Available for The Life and Experience of an ex-convict in Port Macquarie
The Life and Experience of an ex-convict in Port Macquarie
Image Not Available for The Life and Experience of an ex-convict in Port Macquarie

The Life and Experience of an ex-convict in Port Macquarie

Author (1817 - 1900)
Date1930
Object number00037559
NameBook
MediumPaper, cardboard, ink
DimensionsOverall: 215 x 145 x 10 mm, 0.16 kg
ClassificationsBooks and journals
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionA book by Woomera (pseudonym of William Delaforce) titled 'The Life and Experience of an ex-convict in Port Macquarie'. Delaforce was sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia in July 1834 for housebreaking. He wrote this pamphlet detailing his experiences as a convict and ex-convict in Rawdon Island, Port Macquarie where he worked as a dairy farmer. The booklet was first printed in 1899, one year prior to Delaforce's death at the age of 83 in Port Macquarie.HistoryWilliam Delaforce was one of the 160,000 convicts transported to Australia between 1788 and 1868. He stood trial at the Old Bailey in London on 3 July 1834 for housebreaking and was sentenced to seven years transportation, despite having no previous convictions and proclaiming his innocence. Leaving England on 28 July 1834 on the wooden ship HOOGHLY, Delaforce was just 17 years old and able to read and write. HOOGHLY was a 468-ton wooden, three-masted ship built in 1819 as a convict transport. The ship made five journeys to New South Wales between 1825 and 1840, four transporting convicts and the last as a cargo ship. Arriving in Port Jackson, Delaforce was sent to Hyde Park Barracks and assigned to work for Sam Terry's Station at Mt Pleasant, Windsor. While in service there Delaforce contracted Sandy Blight (a bacterial eye infection) and after 10 months in Windsor hospital was transferred back to Sydney and stationed on the prison hulk PHOENIX. Some time after 1836 he was assigned to work at Port Macquarie. Delaforce obtained his Certificate of Freedom in January 1843 at the age of 26 and married Frances Jane Shane on 10 October 1851. He worked as a dairy farmer and went on to have a family of six children. He died on 7 June 1900 at the age of 83 in Port Macquarie. Delaforce's life as a convict was carefully recorded in a booklet by 'Woomera' (now identified as William Delaforce) and titled 'The life and experiences of an ex-convict'. It was first published in 1900 during the same year that Delaforce died and a second edition was released in 1930. The pamphlet provided a rare written account of a convict's first hand experience of transportation and arrival in Sydney. Delaforce described his impression of Sydney in 1834 as ' anything but a bright one, and by no means came up to my faintest expectation... It was a scattered looking place - a house here and a terrace there, but miserable enough to my mind'.SignificanceWritten accounts by convicts of the voyage to Australia are rare. Delaforce's pamphlet is one of the few published authentic accounts and only one of two accounts detailing life in the secondary prison at Port Macquarie.