William Thompson was a transported for life for burglary in 1841, when he was
21. He arrived just as the new probation system was introduced, and was freed
the year before transportation ended. In his almost 12 years in the convict
system he worked in road gangs at a number of probation stations, underground at
the notorious Coal Mines on the Tasman Peninsula and in the dreaded timber
carrying gangs at Port Arthur.
A skilled shoemaker, he also worked at his
trade, both within and outside of the system. When he was 80 years old he told
his remarkable story to well-known Tasmanian photographer John Watt Beattie;
this narrative, closely written in two small notebooks, has lain unremarked in
the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania until
now.
'The Career of William Thompson, Convict' is the product of a partnership
between the State Library of Tasmania and the Port Arthur Historic Site
Management Authority. Beattie's notes are reproduced in full, supplemented by
extensive explanatory footnotes. A foreword by Tony Marshall, State Library of
Tasmania, and Dr Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, University of Tasmania, background the
manuscript and Thompson's career in Van Diemen's Land. An introductory essay and
a series of notes at the end of the volume provide further valuable contextual
material.
Contents:
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Career of William Thompson who arrived in VDL in the ship 'Westmoreland' in 1841 under sentence of Life
3. Notes and Bibliography
