Thomas Daveny (abt. 1760 - 1795)

Born about 1760 in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England

Husband of Catherine (Hounsum) Daveny — married 17 Jul 1791 in Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia

Died 8 Jul 1795 at about age 35 in Toongabbie, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

The following has been written by Heather Stevens 2020, initially based on research for her Diploma for the Society of Australian Genealogists in 2000, and expanded with more detail. Heather's interest in Thomas Daveny's story is her ancestor John O'Hara who worked in Daveny's garden.

Thomas Daveny, also known as Thomas Daveney was baptised 25 July 1760 at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, parents Martha and James Daveny. ^[1][2] His parents were James Daveny and Martha Willet who married 16 October 1758 at High Wycombe.^[3]

Thomas Daveny was an able seaman on the HMS Sirius in the First Fleet. He joined the crew on 30 December 1786, aged 27.^[4]

Apparently he had much-needed skills for the fledgling colony and he was appointed superintendent of artificers. [Gillen p.95]

Thomas made his will on 10 March 1791: beneficiaries were his "beloved sisters Sarah, Martha, Ann and Susanah Daveny late of High Wycombe in the county of Bucks". The will was witnessed by "John Hunter Captain" and "John Palmer Purser".^[5]

He was appointed superintendent of convicts at Toongabbie in April 1791.

On 17 July 1791 he married convict Catherine Hounsum (Second Fleet, Lady Juliana) at Parramatta. The ceremony was performed by Richard Johnson. Thomas signed 'Thomas Daveny' in the register with a clear and confident signature. ^[6]

Thomas and Catherine's son Thomas was born 6 November 1791, baptised at St John's Parramatta on 19 November, but died soon after - he was buried at St John's Cemetery Parramatta on 25 November 1791: The burial register has the entry 'Thomas the son of Thomas & Catherine Daphney buried'. ^[7] His headstone is still in St John's Cemetery Parramatta. The headstone reads:

In Memory

of

THOs DAVENY

Who died Decbr 1791

In Infancy

On 5 December Thomas Daveny was visited by Captain Tench. Daveny told him that that as it was too late to plant maize on the newly cleared ground, he would plant turnips 'which would help to meliorate and prepare it for next year'. Daveny said that of the five hundred men employed there, forty of them 'are either sick, and removed to the hospital, or are run away in the woods'.

Each labourer was expected to work seven rods daily (a rod is thirty and a quarter square yards); 'it was eight; but on their representing to the governor that it was beyond their strength to execute, he took off one'. Tench described the conditions there:

'thirteen large huts ... contain all the people there. To every hut are appointed two men, as hut-keepers, whose only employment is to watch the huts in working hours, to prevent them from being robbed. This has somewhat prevented depredations, and those endless complaints of the convicts, that they could not work, because they had nothing to eat, their allowance being stolen. - The working hours at this season (summer) are from five o'clock in the morning until ten; rest from ten to two; return to work at two, and continue till sunset. This surely cannot be called very severe toil: but on the other hand must be remembered the inadequacy of a ration of salt provisions, with few vegetables, and unassisted by any liquor but water.'

Punishments for stealing food were severe, with Judge-Advocate David Collins and the bench of magistrates sentencing miscreants to floggings of 100 lashes or more (500 and even 2000 lashes were sometimes ordered by the court). In January 1792 Judge-Advocate David Collins, Reverend Mr Johnson, and Mr Alt, the surveyor-general were sitting on the bench when John Davis was charged with stealing corn from the government farm and a melon from Thomas Daveny's garden. A witness was convict John O'Hara who testified that he had been told by another convict, May that May had seen Davis take the melon, and Davis had left some of the corn on the ground. May told the court that he was in Daveny's garden and saw a person who he thought was Davis, but did not see what the person took. The accused prisoner, Davis obviously felt that if he was going to ‘go down’ then the informer May was going to as well. Davis declared that May had himself committed a crime - May had 'robbed Mr Arndell's garden, that he had told him of it, and said if he would not say anything about it, he would soften his evidence against him'. Davis was sentenced to 100 lashes for stealing, and May 100 lashes for suppressing evidence.

By the end of 1792, 700 acres were cleared at Toongabbie; over 500 planted with maize, seventeen with wheat, and fourteen with barley. However two years later, in 1794 the colony still relied on imported food. Thomas Daveney wrote to a friend in England (on 1 July):

'on the 8th of March, at eleven o'clock in the morning, the last ounce of animal food then in store was actually issued to all ranks and descriptions of people alike, and nothing but absolute famine stared us in the face; the labour of the convicts was remitted, and everyone seemed to despond, when, in the evening of the same day, the William arrived from London, and a ship from Bengal, loaded with provisions of every kind'.

After the arrival of new provisions, conditions in the colony improved. In 1794 Thomas Daveny received a land grant of 100 acres at Toongabbie.^[8] He wrote:

'At present everything bears the appearance of plenty, there being about 2,000 acres of wheat. I am now a farmer in my own right, having a grant of 100 acres of fine land well watered and in good cultivation. I have 100 head of fine goats, and am hopeful by Christmas to have both [sic] horses, cows and sheep... I have this season returned to His Majesty's stores 1514 bushels of Indian corn at 5s. per bushel, and have now upwards of 1000 bushels on the farm, in order to pay for men's labour in building a dwelling house, barns, out-houses, etc. I have likewise purchased a farm called Egleton's containing sixty acres of land, felled and cleared, for which I paid sixty guineas and am going to sow the whole with millet. Upwards of 4,000 acres of land being cleared, thunder and lightning are by no means as violent as before. There are nearly 300 convicts whose term of transportation is expired, and who live by their labour. I have six of these men employed on my farm at taskwork, who earn from 18s. to a guinea per week, so that no settler is at loss for men to perform his work... Goats thrive better than sheep here and fetch seven to ten pounds each.'

Governor Phillip had been pleased with superintendent Thomas Daveny's work at Toongabbie and in October 1792 wrote to London that he was 'a most useful man' and asked for permission to grant to Daveny 'a greater quantity of land than he is empowered to grant to the non-commissioned officers, and some of the land to be cleared for him at the public expense'. Phillip left soon after writing the letter, and Major Grose became Lieutenant-Governor at the end of December. He appointed John Macarthur director of public works at Parramatta and Toongabbie.

Daveny had to appear in court on 25 October 1794 when William Joyce tried to sue him for damages after an assault. Collins wrote in his book:

On the morning of the 25th a civil court was assembled, for the purpose of investigating an action brought by one Joyce (a convict lately emancipated) against Thomas Daveny, a free man and superintendant of convicts at Toongabbie, for an assault; when the defendant, availing himself of a mistake in his christian name, pleaded the misnomer. His plea being admitted, the business was for that time got over, and before another court could be assembled he had entered into a compromise with the plaintiff, and nothing more was heard of it.^[9]

Gillen's book has more details about the assault: William Joyce 'the Chief Watchman at the Toongabbie farm was involved in a brawl with John Love a private in the NSW Corps. Daveny intervened on behalf of the corps. A further fracas resulted during which Joyce's jaw was broken.' [Gillen - to check court records]

About 1795 Daveny was dismissed from his position as superintendent. The only 'official' reason found is a footnote in a list of superintendents: 'Thomas Daveney has been removed from his situation for drunken and irregular behaviour, and on suspicion of having stolen the wheat belonging to Government.'^[10] David Collins wrote in his book, that he 'had been suspected of having improperly and tyrannically abused the confidence which he had enjoyed under Governor Phillip'.

The positive outlook in the previous year's letter was now replaced by despondency, as Daveny went on a drinking binge. As it happens judge-advocate Collins became involved as a witness to Daveny's plight. Collins wrote:

'his conduct was represented to the lieutenant-governor in such a light, that he dismissed him from his situation, and he retired to a farm which he had at Toongabbie. He had been always addicted to the use of spirituous liquors; but be now applied himself more closely to them, to drown the recollection of his disgrace. In this vice he continued until the 3rd of May last, on which day he came to Sydney in a state of insanity. He went to the house of a friend in the town, determined, it seemed, to destroy himself; for he there drank, unknown to the people of the house, as fast as he could swallow, nearly half a gallon of Cape brandy. He fell directly upon the floor of the room he was in (which happened to be of brick) where the people, thinking nothing worse than intoxication had ailed him, suffered him to lie for ten or twelve hours; in consequence he was seized with a violent inflammation which broke out on the arm, and that part of the body which lay next to the ground; to this, after suppuration had taken place, and several operations had been performed to remove the pus, a mortification succeeded, and at last carried him off on the 3rd of July. A few hours before his death he requested to see the judge-advocate [Collins], to whom he declared, that it had been told him that he had been suspected of having improperly and tyrannically abused the confidence which he had enjoyed under Governor Phillip; but that he could safely declare as he was shortly to appear the last tribunal, that nothing lay on his conscience which would make the last moments in this life painful.'

Thomas Daveny was buried at St Johns Cemetery, Parramatta on 11 July 1795. ^[11]

After he died, Daveny's 'flock of goats, consisting of eighty-six males and females, [was] sold by public auction for three hundred and fifty-seven pounds fifteen shillings'. Collins wrote that Daveny's widow Catherine 'had for several years been deranged in her intellects'. However, Catherine continued to run the farm after her husband's death, and four years later Collins gave her as a example of a successful Parramatta farmer in 1799, with fifty acres in wheat and twenty-three in maize.

As superintendent of convicts at Toongabbie, Thomas Daveny had a difficult job to do at a time when food was short, and land had to be cleared and planted as quickly as possible. An educated man, his letter shows that he had compassion when he allowed his convict labourers to stop working when the last of the meat stores had been used early in 1794. He was proud of his achievements in the production of agriculture both at the Government land and his own farm at Toongabbie. Governor Phillip had been pleased with Thomas Daveny and had told him he would get approval from London to clear some of his land 'at the public expense'. Phillip left soon after making this request and it is not known if it was granted. He was accused of stealing wheat from the Government Farm - was it a misunderstanding stemming from Daveny's perceived special privilege? David Collins showed some sympathy towards Daveny after his drinking bout and resultant infection which eventually killed him. In his book, Collins wrote in detail about Daveny's death and his death-bed assertion that he had done no wrong.

The Mythology of Toongabbie

Tyranny, torture and oppression? "Toongabbie came to be associated with tyranny, torture and oppression -- for which, however, there is little evidence".^[12] Examples are Ned Kelly's Jerilderie letter, and the folk song "Moreton Bay". This mythology persists today, when historians take the word "tyrannically" out of context, for example in an article titled THOMAS DAVENEY: THE TYRANT OF TOONGABBIE, which has the overly dramatic concluding sentence: "If the large public farms like Toongabbie seemed to resemble slavery’s plantations, then Thomas Daveney could be made to fit the bill for the Australian version of the cruel overseer Simon Legree in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin". What a shame that a historian would make such an exaggeration.^[13]

Research Notes

Date of death of Thomas Daveny: Collins has 3 July however Richard Atkins's journal has 8 July, so it could be a typo in Collins's book. [Cobley p.273]

Sources

1. ↑ Source: his will - three of his sisters mentioned in his will were baptised at High Wycombe: Martha 26 Nov 1763, Ann 26 June 1766 and Susannah 29 July 1768, all have parents Martha and James Daveney.
2. ↑ His baptism was found in findmypast https://www.findmypast.com.au/transcript?id=GBPRS%2FBUCKINGHAMSHIRE%2FBAP%2F001462349
3. ↑ High Wycombe : All Saints : Phillimore's Transcripts : "Parish Register" database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/5817ad81e93790eb7f5f468a : viewed 18 Jun 2020) marriage Jas. Daveny to Martha Willet 16 Oct 1758
4. ↑ Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, (Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989), p. 95.
5. ↑ Will of Thomas Daveny, The National Archives ADM 48/21/22
6. ↑ Parramatta parish registers. Catherine 'Honsom' marked, Thomas Daveny signed
7. ↑ St John's Parramatta parish registers: Baptised 19 November 1791 in St Johns's parish register: "Thomas the son of Tho's and Catherine Dapheney was born Nov'r the 6th"
8. ↑ Land grant 100 acres 1794 • Toongabbie, New South Wales, Australia: Thomas Daveney Event Date: 1 Apr 1794 Event Description: On list of all grants and leases of land registered in the Colonial Secretary's Office.
9. ↑ http://www.fullbooks.com/An-Account-of-the-English-Colony-in-New10.html
10. ↑ Historical Records of New South Wales: Grose and Paterson, 1793-1795 https://books.google.com.au/books?id=T8dJAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA250#v=onepage&q&f=false When was he dismissed? After the list of supervisors 20 Aug 1794 and before 3 May 1795 when he came to Sydney.
11. ↑ Burial record: 11 Jul 1795 Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia: St Johns register: 'Thomas Daveney Superintendent'
12. ↑ Toongabbie Government Farm Archaeological Site. Karsken pp.93-97 discusses this in more detail.
13. ↑ David Morgan, "Thomas Daveney: The Tyrant of Toongabbie,” St. John’s Cemetery Project, (2019), https://stjohnscemeteryproject.org/bio/thomas-daveney-i, accessed 3 June 2020.

• St John's Parramatta parish registers
• Historical records of Australia, Edited by Frederick Watson, Published Sydney, Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1914-1925, Series 1, Vol. i, p.384 https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-472896848/view?partId=nla.obj-473231662#page/n415/mode/1up [see p.416 of scan]
• The Toongabbie story : a compact history of the settlement established soon after Australia was founded in 1788 up to 1964 /​ by Doris A. Sargeant ; edited by Collinridge Rivett, Toongabbie, N.S.W. : Primary Mothers' Club, Toongabbie Public School, 1964.
• 'Parramatta : a Past Revealed' by Terry Kass, Carol Liston, John McClymont. Parramatta City Council, 1996 - this has the explanation of the Toongabbie illustration
• A PRIVATE JOURNAL, The Journal of George Thompson, who sailed in the Royal Admiral, May, 1792, Early News from a New Colony: British Museum Papers, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1300291h.html#ch-53
• Thompson's journal is also in George Dyer, Slavery and Famine etc 1794 https://books.google.com.au/books?id=xsNbAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q=toon&f=false
• Two stories about the harsh conditions at Toongabbie written in 1845 were recounted in a newspaper article in 1905. William Freame, “Our Old Towns and Institutions: No. V.—PROSPECT, SHERWOOD, AND TOONGABBIE,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 15 April 1905, p. 7 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/86177763/9005483
• The same two stories were previously published in The Three Colonies of Australia: New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia; Their Pastures, Copper Mines and Gold Fields. Author: Samuel Sidney, 1852. A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook eBook No.: 1400441h.html http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks14/1400441h.html [see Chapter Three for stories from 'MSS., Voluntary Statements of the People of New South Wales, collected by Mrs. Chisholm' - to check]
• Thomas Daveney To A Friend At Wycombe, Extract from Saunders's News-Letter of Friday, the 21stAugust, 1795, Appendix E, Historical Records of New South Wales Series 1; VolII, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1300291h.html#ch-67
• Historical records of Australia, Series 1, Vol. i, p.384,https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-472896848/view?partId=nla.obj-473231662#page/n415/mode/1up [see p.416 of scan]
• Toongabbie Government Farm Archaeological Site https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5061406
• Benches of Magistrates: Judge Advocate’s Bench Proceedings Feb 1788 - Jan 1792, State Records NSW 1/296 Reel 654.
• An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, 2 Volumes, by David Collins.
• Sydney's First Four Years, by Watkin Tench.
• Sydney Cove 1793-1795: The spread of Settlement, by John Cobley.
• The Colony: a History of Early Sydney, by Grace Karskens, 2009
• Will of Daveny, Thomas: Rank/Rating: Seaman Ship Name: Sirius, Reference: ADM 48/21/22 Description: Will of Daveny, Thomas, Rank/Rating: Seaman, Ship Name: Sirius, Ship's Pay Book number: 154, Date: 10 March 1791, Held by: The National Archives, Kew.
• THOMAS DAVENY - A TRAGIC LIFE by Heather Stevens, Fellowship of First Fleeters http://www.fellowshipfirstfleeters.org.au/thomasdaveny.htm