Thomas Pamphlett

Thomas Pamphlett (1788?–1838), sometimes Pamphlet, also known as James Groom, was a convict in colonial Australia. He is best known for his time as a castaway in the Moreton Bay area, half way up the eastern coast of Australia, in 1823. He was marooned with two others, Richard Parsons and John Finnegan, until rescued by explorer John Oxley on 29 November of that year. They were the first white people to live in the area.

They led Oxley to a might river, later named the Brisbane River. Consequently, a new colony at Moreton Bay was established in 1824. Ironically, Pamphlett, an ex-convict, committed another crime and was sentenced to seven years at the new settlement. It eventually became Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. Without Pamphlett and his fellow castaways, Brisbane may never have been founded.

Transportation

Pamphlett became a brickmaker in Manchester, England. In 1810, he was charged with stealing a horse and five pieces of woollen cloth. The Justices of Assize sentenced him to 14 years’ transportation to New South Wales. [Criminal Register, Lancaster Criminal Hearings, 1810, Public Record Office, United Kingdom, ref. HO27/6.] He left England on the "Guildford" on 3 September 1811 with 199 other convicts, and sailed via Rio de Janeiro before arriving at Sydney on 18 January 1812. [Ship Guildford’s Log Book, 1811-1812, India Office Library and Records, British Library, London, ref. 10R L/MAR/B/78A.]

Life as a convict

He worked at Brickfield Hill just south of the town and lived at The Rocks. On 28 May 1814, Pamphlett was charged with two others of stealing the windows from Birch Grove House, the first and only building on the Balmain Peninsula, on 13 May. His punishment was 100 lashes at the marketplace and six months in the Sydney gaol gang in double irons. [Courts of Petty Sessions, Judge Advocate’s Bench, 10 April, 1813 to 31 December 1814, Archives Authority of New South Wales, ref. SZ774.]

After four months he absconded, ["The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser", 1 October 1814.] only to be recaptured and put in the carpenter’s gang, but he escaped again. ["The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser", 20 November 1814.] Finally, on 29 March 1815, he was sent to Newcastle, [New South Wales Colonial Secretary, Letters Received, Bundle 7-9, Newcastle, 1813-1815, Archives Authority of New South Wales, ref. 4/1805, p. 182.] a place of secondary punishment 100 miles north of Sydney and now the second largest city in New South Wales. Within a few weeks, he disappeared once more. ["The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser", 22 April 1815.] On recapture, Pamphlett was given 50 lashes for “absenting from government labour”. [Monthly Returns of Punishments at Newcastle, 1810-1815, Archives Authority of New South Wales, ref. 4/1718.] In October, he received another 50 strokes for “neglect of government work”. [Ibid.]

Commutation of sentence

On 31 January 1820, Pamphlett successfully applied to the Governor for commutation of sentence, [New South Wales Colonial Secretary. In Letters, Petitions for Mitigations of Sentences, 1819-20, Petition of Pamphlett to the Governor for commutation of sentence, Archives Authority of New South Wales, ref. 4/1859, p. 79.] receiving a conditional pardon. He was returned to Sydney, evidently with a wife and three children. [Pamphlett’s petition to the Governor is the only known record of his family. Unfortunately, their names are not given. He may have met his wife in Newcastle. A number of female convicts lived at the colony. In 1815, there were about 160 male and 40 female prisoners. Within a few years, numbers had grown significantly. By 1819, when Pamphlett left Newcastle, the convict population was around 700.] They lived in the Hawkesbury River area west of Sydney, where Pamphlett worked on the river in some capacity. He was sentenced to seven years at Port Macquarie penal settlement for stealing from a house at Pitt Town in early 1822 but was let off due to “unsound mind”. [Prisoners Tried at the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction, Sydney, NSW, 1820-24, Archives Authority of New South Wales, ref. X820.] He was also reported as “occasionally insane”. ["The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser", 12 June 1822.]

Cedar fetcher

Pamphlett and fellow “ticket of leave” convicts Richard Parsons and John Thompson, along with full convict John Finnegan, were hired by settler William Cox to fetch cedar from the Illawarra District, or the Five Islands, now known as Wollongong, 50 miles south of Sydney. They set sail on their maiden voyage on 21 March 1823 in an open boat 29 feet in length and 10 feet in beam. On board were large quantities of pork and flour and five gallons of rum to buy cedar from the timber cutters, plus four gallons of water. [John Uniacke, ‘Narrative of white men castaways on Moreton Island in 1823 discover the Brisbane River: statement by Thomas Pamphlet, 1823’, Mitchell Library ms. B1431; & in Barron Field (ed.), "Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales", London, 1825, pp. 87-130.]

They got to within sight of Illawarra when a strong breeze blew them away from the coast. The wind became stronger, heavy rain fell and it got dark. They were blown further out to sea. It was five days before they could use any sail and they drank the water and the rum. Prevailing winds and currents may have taken them most of the way across the Tasman Sea toward New Zealand. [Chris Pearce, "Through the Eyes of Thomas Pamphlett: Convict and Castaway", Boolarong Publications, Brisbane, 1993, p. 79.]

Lost at sea

They were hopelessly lost. They thought they had drifted south and headed north-west to try and get back to Illawarra and Sydney. Pamphlett spotted land on their twenty-second day at sea. Before they could land, Thompson succumbed to the lack of fresh water and the elements, and collapsed and died. They kept his body on board, thinking they would be able to land and bury him, but they couldn’t find a spot free of wild surf so buried him at sea after two days. [Uniacke; & Field.]

Castaway

Pamphlett, Finnegan and Parsons finally landed on Moreton Island. Thinking Sydney was to the north, the set off along the beach in this direction with two sacks of flour and a few other items. They spent the next seven and a half months walking around Moreton Bay, island hopping, and following river and creek banks until they could find a way of crossing them. They lived for periods with several Aboriginal tribes who fed them fish and fernroot and thought they were the ghosts of dead kinsmen due to their pale colour.

While Pamphlett attended a series of organised fights with an Aboriginal friend, Parsons and Finnegan headed further north. The pair quarrelled and Finnegan returned to Bribie Island to the south. Pamphlett also returned to this spot. Parsons continued northwards. [Uniacke; & Field.]

Rescued

On 29 November 1823, Pamphlett and some aborigines were on the beach at Bribie Island cooking the day’s catch when he saw a cutter in the bay. It was explorer John Oxley who had been searching up and down the coast for a new convict settlement. Only then did Pamphlett learn that Sydney was over 500 miles to the south rather than to the north. He told part of his story to crew member John Uniacke. Next day they picked up Finnegan who was returning from a tribal fight. He showed Oxley the Brisbane River while Pamphlett assisted Uniacke and others with aspects of Aboriginal culture. [Uniacke; Field; & John Oxley, Field notebooks and reports, 1823, John Oxley Library.] Parsons was picked up by Oxley on another trip nearly a year later. [‘A curious case of shipwreck’, "The Australian", 21 October 1824.]

Moreton Bay convict settlement

Oxley took Pamphlett and Finnegan back to Sydney. A year and a half later, as a labourer at Portland Head west of Sydney, Pamphlett committed another crime. He stole two bags of flour, the very food that had initially kept him alive at Moreton Bay. In a further irony, he was sentenced to seven years’ transportation to the new Moreton Bay penal colony, [Clerk of the Peace, Quarter Sessions: Papers and Depositions, Windsor, October 1826, Archives Authority of New South Wales, ref. 4/8477, pp. 1-8.] which had been set up after a favourable report on the area by Oxley, [John Oxley, ‘Report of an Expedition to Survey Port Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen’, 1823, John Oxley Library.] thanks to Pamphlett and Finnegan. The Moreton Bay settlement became Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia.

Penrith

In October 1833, Pamphlett had served his seven year sentence and was returned to Sydney. His remaining years were uneventful and he died of unknown causes on 1 December 1838 at Penrith, west of Sydney. [Society of Australian Genealogists, Burials at Christ Church, Castlereagh, SAG reel 0089.]

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