Shipnicking on the Hunter

In June 1796 some fishermen who had been forced by bad weather to shelter in a bay near Port Stephens discovered coal. For serveral years the river was known as the Coal River. Even after 1797, when it was formally named the Hunter, Hunter himself maintained a characteristic attiude of indifference to its significance.

On the 10 June 1801, King send Lt-Gov. Paterson in the Lady Nelson (Grant) to examine the Hunter River. On the 16th Paterson founded a settlement on the Hunter. The settlement was established there for convicts undergoing secondary punishment - that is punishment for serious offences committed in New south Wales, for those hardened criminals deemed likely to contaminate other convicts, or deemed dangerous on other grounds. This settlement was abandoned in at the end of 1801, but was begun again when some poor deluded Irish insurgents from the Castle Hill rising were sent there to mend the error of their ways.

However, in November 1800, the year before the penal settlement was established, there was activity at the Hunter River. The following is a transcript of the record of the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction held in Sydney into the events that transpired (note, the copy this was taken from was blurred and hard to read):

Court of Criminal Jurisdiction
Minutes of Proceedings
9 February 1801 - 15 December 1808

Date of trial: 5 Mar 1801

Paul Loutherborow, Samuel Pain, Richard Perkins, Thomas Rose: Placed at the Bar, Vede no 4

Joseph Robinson being sworn deposes, that he recollects a Boat belonging to William Harris taken at Hunters River 22 Nov last. That the Prisoners at the bar with many others fell in with the Deponent George Beven who asked them to eat, that he staid (sic) all night with them, and next morning he ? his ? that George Beven ? his at the same time. That the Prisoners walked with the Deponent to the Coal River, where they stopped that night, that next morning two boats same in sight, and the prisoners asking him what boats they where, he said he judged them to be Haines and Jones's boats. The prisoners then ordered them to keep out of sight, and carried a small boat they had over a neck of land into the river and there waited until the two boats came to an anchor. That the prisoners after some time returned and left them a musket, a small quantity of pork and some powder of ?, that he is certain that Loutherborow and Perkins where on those with them, that the next morning Harris's boat sailed out of the harbour and he saw no more of the Prisoners until the present time.

George Beven being sworn says that he was at the Coal River with Joseph Robinson, that he fell in with the Prisoners and staid the night with them, that he Prisoners went to Hunters River with them, that they saw two boats belonging to Haines and Millar leave in sight on which the Prisoners confined him and Joseph Robinson. That he saw Harris' boat sail out of the Harbour and has not seen the prisoners since until the present time.

William Haines being sworn says his boat was taken from him at Hunters River on the 23 of last November, that he saw Loutherborow on ?, that his boat sailed out of the Harbour and he saw no more of him.

Peter Ludlow, ?, being sworn says he sailed away in Haines' Boat after she was taken, and that the four prisoners were with him, that Loutherborow and Perkins were on shore with him and some time in the night they all went on board Haines' board, where he found Pain and Rose, the other two prisoners and that they then sailed out of the harbour.

The Prisoners having put on their defence beg the mercy of the Court that they gave themselves up, and the sufferings they have undergone will they hope plead for that mercy.

Guilty Death. But from the sufferings they had experienced and from the examples already made they by strongly to recommend them to His Excellency's Mercy.

Richard Atkins, Judge Advocate.

Nothing more is known about the story behind this court case. Hopefully some notes may be found among the Governors' papers regarding his decision to grant the four prisoners a pardon.

After the Irish revolt at Vinegar Hill in 1804, some thirty of the men involved in the tumult were sent to Coal River, which King decided to use as a penal settlement for the Irish. At the same time he announced that the name of the settlement was to the changed from Coal River to Newcastle, that the thirty four Irish convicts were to cut coal and cedar on week days, while on the Lord's Day the commandant, Lieutenant Menzies, was to cause the prays of the Church of England to be read with all due solemnity and to enforce a due observance of religion and good order.