CRIMINALS AND CONVICTS

ENGLISH CONVICTIONS (1814 & 1845), AUSTRALIAN SERVITUDE (1815-1828) 

The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable: A true tale of passion, poison and pursuit (Oneworld, UK/International, 2013)

John Tawell was convicted in London in 1814 of financial crimes and was transported to New South Wales the following year, where he became a wealthy pharmacist. He returned to England in the late 1830s and was convicted of murder in 1845. 

    The colonial section of this book explores the experiences of convicts who became successful and wealthy in the penal settlement. 

    The later British section explores capital punishment (the death penalty) in England in the mid-1800s before important legislative changes were made. In fact, Tawell's case was raised in the parliamentary committee examining capital punishment as an example of the need for change.     

Captain Thunderbolt and His Lady: The true story of bushrangers Frederick Ward and Mary Ann Bugg (Allen & Unwin, AUS, 2011)

Fred Ward and Mary Ann Bugg were born in New South Wales in the 1830s. Fred received two convictions for "receiving" stolen horses and was incarcerated in the hell-hole of the Cockatoo Island penal settlement. He escaped with a companion and they became the only successful Cockatoo Island escapees. He soon became a bushranger (a rural outlaw), committing many additional robberies in his years on the run from the police.  

    Captain Thunderbolt and His Lady is set against the backdrop of the "authorities-versus-settlers" issues of the 1860s, which flowed from the "guards-versus-convicts" attitudes of the early penal settlement.

    The bushranging epidemic, which largely resulted from changes in rural policing in the early 1860s, ended with Thunderbolt's dramatic death in a shoot-out in 1870.