Charles Poole, did not fit the usual profile of a transported convict.
A married man of European heritage, he was born c1802-1804 in India. Employed as a clerk in the Arsenal Department, he was tried in Calcutta and convicted of stealing from the East India Company, for which crime he was sentenced to 14 years transportation.1
He arrived in Sydney in 1832, accompanied by his wife, Margaret, and their two children, and was assigned to the Australian Agricultural Company at Port Stephens.2
Charles is described as being a “gentleman prisoner”, as distinct from the hoi polloi, and this social distinction most likely influenced the degree of interest shown by the Commissioner’s wife, Lady Isabella Parry, in the family’s welfare. She intervened to find more comfortable accommodation and extra supplies for Mrs Poole whom she found unused to domestic chores, having previously been waited upon by servants.3
Further children were born to Charles and Margaret while on the AACo’s estate,4 Charles receiving his Ticket of Leave for the Port Stephens area in November 1838 and a Certificate of Freedom in August 1845.5
Charles was later to attain respectability as a police constable and bailiff with his death taking place in Newcastle in 1885.6
Author: Penny Teerman
References:
1 Convicts of the Australian Agricultural Company 1825-1850 published by Port Stephens Family History Society 2004
2 Ibid
3 A Million Pounds A Million Acres by Damaris Bairstow self-published 2003
4 NSW Births Deaths and Marriages – https://www.nsw.gov.au/topics/family-history-search
5 Convict Records – www.ancestry.com.au
6 NSW Births Deaths and Marriages – Death 12932/1885
