Club Meeting - A Case of Mis-Identification

A report of William Chamberlain of Leicestershire who was convicted of larceny in 1840 and sentenced to 7 years transportation was found.

From the 1841 muster reports of Prison Hulks a William Chamberlain was
discovered – a convict who died on 8th February 1841. The conclusion was there must be two William Chamberlains from Leicestershire with similar dates of birth! This would mean the absence from the census was due to the transportation. Stuart showed us an image of a Muster Report which showed a mystery entry of William Chamberlain who had died…..
We next looked at an extract from the Leicester Mercury of 14th March 1840. The text talked of the Chairman, during the Epiphany Sessions, addressing the Grand Jury with an assessment of crime for the period preceding the sessions. Between 1st January 1839 and 1st January 1840 600 offences had been committed of which 283 were of sheep stealing! The cases tried at these sessions included one of a William Chamberlain (22) who had been convicted of stealing half a loaf and a piece of cheese; he had already been convicted for felony on a previous occasion. The sentence took this into account
and William was sentenced to 7 years transportation. In another newspaper report from the Leicester Chronicle of 16th March 1840 we heard in more detail of the crime – the prisoner had called for the articles in question (the bread and cheese) and when they had been weighed he took them and ran off.
Another report from the Leicestershire Mercury of 24th March 1838 of the County Assizes of 19th March detailed a 21 year old William Chamberlain indicted for stealing a coat in Loughborough. On pleading guilty he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment with hard labour. We noted the crime took place on 12th March and the court proceeding was on 19th March! The 1841 census entry was resolved as the entry for William Smith, framesmith of Arnesby was entered as William Chamberin.
The bread and cheese stealer was our man! As often with research one thing leads toanother! We moved on to 19th century Prison Hulks. When sentenced to transportation most would serve some of their time on a prison hulk before being put on other ships for their final destination. Prison hulks at that time were described as ‘A Floating Hell’. The Royal Arsenal History also has details about prisoners and hulks docked at Woolwich. Stuart showed some images of prison hulks in Woolwich which were old demasted warships; between 1776 and 1857 such ships housed prisoners at Woolwich ‘in grim austerity’. More images showed HMS Warrior and another, prisoners returning to
their prison ship after labours of the day. Stuart shared some links to various websites/blogs detailing
the history of 19th centurey prison hulks:
https://www.prisonhistory.org/
https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/Hulks_Registers_1801-1879
https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/floating-hell-life-early-19th-century-convict-hulks/
https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/prison-hulks-britain-conditions-escapestransportation-
social-reform-charles-dickens/

We looked more closely at detail of William Chamberlain’s transportation. Again, looking at Quarterly Returns of Prisoners in Hulks for March 1841 we could see that William was boarded on HMS Warrior, based in Woolwich, on 28th April 1840. Later he was transferred to HMS Dromedary in Bermuda. The entry in the 1841 Muster that couldn’t be deciphered was ‘RnHosp L’ which subsequently was understood to refer to the Royal Naval Hospital in the Naval Dockyard in Bermuda.
More images showed us the hospital and the dockyard in Bermuda. An extract from Wikipedia told the dockyard was the principle base of the Royal Navy in the western Atlantic between American Independence and the Cold War. The Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda occupied a useful position on the homeward leg taken by many European vessels from the New World since before its settlement by England in 1609; it is now a major tourist attraction.
The National Archive is an amazing facility…...A photograph of a page in the Medical Journal of the Royal Naval Hospital Bermuda (convict patients) identified an entry for William Chamberlain but was difficult to read/understand.