The Tailor and the Shipwright

by Robert Westphal

  As soon as repairs were made, Davison and the crew bid farewell to Port Jackson and sailed out through the majestic Sydney Heads onwards to China.

  William watched from the dock as Perseus’s stern moved ever further from sight up the harbour towards the heads. He could see Captain Davison standing at the wheel. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he watched the ship disappear. The last physical link to his parents, siblings and old life was gone.

  Voices nearby tore him back to the present, where he had no choice but to stay. Thoughts of home were comforting and distressing at the same time. Sydney was his life now and there was no point being morose about what might have been.

  William decided it was time to make himself a more permanent, safer home than the tent. After the following Sunday’s church service, which was held in the open, William decided to take a walk and find himself a suitable place to build. He went north towards Dawes Point.

  Like much of the harbour, this headland was composed of ledges of sandstone rocks. They formed natural elevations along the shoreline, on top of which homes could be built. The entire Dawes Point headland area had become known as The Rocks. Much of the area higher up the ridgeline, which had only fourteen years prior been undisputed Eora country, was now vacant and had yet to be reclaimed. As far as William was concerned, it was all up for grabs. His only thoughts about the prior inhabitants of the land were in line with what he was told: they were wild, wandering savages who had never been exposed to civilisation and had tragically died of smallpox because of never having had prior exposure to the virus.

  William wandered up and through the bush looking for a suitable spot on which to build. It took some time but he eventually chose an area near the top of the hill. This chosen plot had easy access via a timeworn pathway following the land’s natural curves to the harbour and the dockyard. The steep walk up and down to the dockyard each day would be good for him. He would face his hut due east to catch the morning sun.

  A stake, driven into the ground, claimed his position. William knew it would be a long process to build a home here. He had looked closely at the houses that already adorned the cliff face and noted that they were constructed very much like some of the simpler houses in his village at home. As a boy he had been fascinated by the process of wall building. Now it was his turn to make a house.

  In the following weeks, in his own time, he scoured the headland for a cabbage palm of suitable height and width. Using tools borrowed from the dockyard he cut one down, and made four equal lengths from its solid trunk to use as corner posts for his home. He dragged each piece, one by one, back to his land. Backbreaking work. He dug holes into the sandstone to place the poles inside. Chipping the stone down about a foot took many Sunday afternoons.

  He cemented the poles into place with mortar from lime he had bought with a gallon of rum he had been given as payment for working in the dockyard outside his work hours. The lime was made from shell middens and baked to a fine powder, then mixed with sand and enough water to make a thick paste before filling the holes.

  Between upright stakes William wove thin, pliant branches of wattle trees and placed these in a timber frame. This infill panel he coated with mud, pushing the mixture tightly between each stick and branch, and once all was dried he painted the lot with a whitewash of lime. After that he constructed an internal wall, to make two rooms.

  He pounded the dirt floor flat and swept it. Sourcing and preparing timber to make a wooden floor would take longer and could wait. A bark roof, a front door hung on a leather strap and flanking window spaces covered by wattle screens finished his home.

  William enjoyed making the few pieces of furniture he needed. A bed frame, a table and two chairs and finally a large trunk to hold his few possessions he fashioned in the light-filled summer evenings after work.

  William moved into his first home at just fifteen years of age, by which stage it was well into the year 1803. During the past months he had worked hard at the dockyard on the repairs of the convict ships Glatton and Rolla. Now he was gaining valuable shipbuilding experience working on the construction of Cumberland, a colonial vessel.

  As he sat inside his house he reflected on how far he had come since those dreadful days in Warwickshire gaol. The young, foolhardy boy of those days had gone and he realised he was now so much stronger, both in body and mind. He was determined to succeed and have a good life. Would his mother be proud? He thought so.

  10.

  Upper Pitt’s Row

  SYDNEY TOWN, 1803

  Having been granted a pardon, Tommy was eligible to apply to the Governor for an indentured convict. He specifically asked for his friend, Darby Carbery, who had travelled with him on Friendship three years earlier. The Governor was happy to oblige and Darby, at the age of fifty-six, was soon working again in the trade of tailoring. The pair celebrated this occasion by attending the first cricket match in the colony. Neither had much idea of the rules of the game but enjoyed the day nonetheless.

  The two men noticed, and often discussed, the slowing growth of the convict population in recent years as fewer prison ships arrived. Only four ships in two years, bringing a total of 875 convicts, of which 292 were women, had landed at Sydney Cove. Those who had arrived during the sixteen years of the colony’s existence were being granted tickets of leave and pardons.

  ‘Where’re they going to get workers from to build that Tank Stream Bridge King wants?’ said Darby. ‘Don’t reckon a coupla old fellas like us’d be up to the task.’

  ‘Mate, we’re better off plying the needle than the hammer,’ responded Tommy.

  Unbeknown to the general population, in 1803 Lord Hobart, the Home Secretary in London, had accepted King’s application to return home. However, King would stay in his role until a replacement could be found.

  King, like Hunter, and like Hunter’s predecessor the first Governor of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip, had clashed with the officers of the New South Wales Corps, primarily over their liquor and rum trading monopoly. It had become an intractable problem in the colony. The officers gouged prices, which many convicts were willing to pay for the painkilling properties and peace of oblivion that liquor could bring. The convicts spiralled into debt, which they had to repay through free labour for the officers, who became increasingly rich and powerful.

  King’s overall aim was to promote the prosperity of the colony, and to this end he allowed traders and merchants to build larger ships at their docks and encouraged the development of a sealing industry that sent oil and skins to England, despite this undermining the East India Company’s monopoly. The sealing industry enabled Sydney Town to be classed as a trading port within the Navigation Act.

  For the next few years Thomas and Darby continued to work hard. They watched the town grow away from the cove in an easterly and southerly direction, following the lie of the land.

  Governor King decided this haphazard growth was not desirable and ordered the streets to be surveyed. Where possible, a grid pattern was established, with streets running north to south and east to west. He also established common gardens and parkland around the cove. As part of this reconfiguration King made a general offer of leasehold tenure to households. This had the effect of doubling the number of dwellings. Convicts who had become settlers, those who now had families and had built houses as homes, and those who had started businesses in these streets, gained private property rights and had a greater, vested interest in their development.

  Of the seventy-four leases, King approved one for Thomas. In January 1805 he was granted a fourteen-year lease on a shop in Upper Pitt’s Row. This street had its beginnings as a path that followed the Tank Stream, but was now a hub for tradespeople and shopkeepers. As well as the tailor’s shop, some small manufacturing concerns had been established along the street. These included: boot and shoemakers, who made their goods with kangaroo leather; potters who made clay pipes and orange-coloured earthenware jars and dishes; brewers and artisans. Adding to the daily sound
s of these industries, the town crier shouted the latest decrees from Government House and the constable bellowed the hours by day and from the dark streets at night.

  Thomas’s lease came with a quarter acre of land and at an annual cost of ten shillings, which seemed expensive and would not be easy to save for. Thomas and Darby moved into a four-roomed house that was well shingled, glazed throughout, with a shady verandah at the front. Darby, by then also emancipated, enlisted the help of his newly acquired assigned servant, Frances, to carefully clean the chimney, as the chimney catching alight was quite a common cause for houses to burn down. This house contained several pieces of useful furniture, including a large table in the front room, perfect for cutting and sewing. They moved it closer to the window for maximum light. Darby fashioned shelving for one wall and Tommy set up his tailoring paraphernalia on the shelves and hung a large wooden sign with a picture of scissors, a spool of cotton and a needle outside the front door. Darby and Frances re-established the vegetable garden at the rear of the dwelling and revived the neglected lemon and orange trees.

  Across the dusty row from Tommy’s new tailor’s shop was a tavern run by Rosella Marsh. The whole town was thick with public houses and unlicensed grog shops of the most appalling type. However, for Thomas and Darby, Rosie’s Inn was a convenient place to quench their thirst and have a yarn, and was not too bad by comparison to most. There was still constant noise, brawling patrons, a stream of inebriated men and women, and drunken military men to contend with on a daily basis. It was dangerous for those who let down their guard even momentarily.

  Over a year later, in March 1806, incessant rain in the colony turned the street in front of Thomas’s shop to mud and made it difficult to get around the town. To the west, the food bowl for Sydney Town, the Hawkesbury area, was inundated. Floodwaters were said to be twelve to eighteen feet deep. Several people died but many more were saved by men in boats, constantly employed taking settlers and their families from the roofs and ridges of their houses. There was extensive damage to property, loss of farm produce and livestock, and loss of seed stock for the following year. During this time, while the days were heavy and gloomy, Tommy read stories of the flood from the paper to Darby and sometimes to a visiting Frances.

  The men both worried for their friend Barney, and wondered during the following weeks if he was affected by the famine that came after the flood receded and before roads had become passable. Supplies were eventually sent at the order of His Excellency, the Governor through the insistence of the Reverend Marsden. Many labourers from government works in Parramatta and volunteers also gave assistance.

  At the end of April a dray stopped in front of the O’Neil shop. A man jumped out and entered. Tommy looked up from his work and it took him a few seconds to recognise Barney.

  ‘My dear old friend, how very grand to see you,’ he said, leaping up and clasping Barney’s hands in his.

  ‘And you,’ said Barney, clearly moved.

  ‘I was thinking of you of late, during the great flood. Eh, but you look well. Sit here and tell me all that has happened this past month and indeed the last six years.’

  Barney explained he had come to town to replenish supplies and try and buy the scarce seeds needed for next year’s crop. He had come with Henry Lamb, to whom he was still indentured, and Henry’s eldest child, nine-year-old Rebecca, and he was obliged to stay with them.

  It turned out Henry Lamb, when he was still a member of the New South Wales Corps, had heard of Thomas O’Neil as King’s tailor and had helped Barney find him again. A discussion between the three men soon led to an understanding that Barney could spend the night as a guest of Tommy and he would be picked up the next morning. As it was late in the day Tommy decided to close the shop earlier than usual. The two retired to Rosie’s, where Darby was having his first drink for the day.

  ‘Look who’s here,’ said Tommy to Darby. ‘The farmer, himself!’

  Their discussions, after loud and joyous greetings, initially centred on Ireland and how that country was now faring. Their information was mostly gleaned from the newspapers Tommy had read and letters from his sister. They sang songs from their homeland loudly and with gusto. The other patrons of the pub soon joined in and a raucous noise permeated the tavern. But none seemed to care.

  As they drank more, Tommy and Barney grieved together at the years they had missed with their children. Tommy told them Eliza and Mary Ann, his youngest daughters, would be young girls, in need of a father’s guidance. Barney was beset with guilt at not being able to read or write, which stopped him knowing his family’s circumstances.

  Barney talked of the new skills he had learned, such as building houses and sheds, animal husbandry and cropping. He talked of the flood, which had been so costly for the farm. The livestock, which had been given to Henry Lamb as one part of King’s initiatives to help struggling farmers, had all perished. The crops were destroyed and wiped out. The house and orchard had survived. As a consequence of the flood, Lamb was allotted a new grant of 70 acres that included some higher ground away from the river.

  Before long it seemed prudent to retire to the shop. The three staggered happily across the road. Tommy picked up a bottle of whiskey, admired it briefly and then poured it into tumblers.

  After a few moments of contemplation he said, ‘By the way, Barney, I am giving some thought to go farming myself. Not tomorrow, but in a few years time when my eyesight and fingers no longer work as well as they should. My back has started to ache in the evenings after bending over my sewing all day. I might petition the Governor for some acreage.’

  ‘But Tommy, you know nothing about farming,’ Barney cried. Darby echoed the sentiment.

  ‘True, but I would seek to indenture a convict or two who have a farming background. Barney, come and join me when you get your pardon.’

  ‘Tommy, I’ll think about it. In the meantime, how about another round!’ said Barney picking up the bottle.

  The next round from the whiskey bottle went down sweetly. The morning after the three of them were suffering from the previous night’s drinking bout. However it was time that Barney packed his swag and waited for Henry Lamb to arrive and take him back to the Hawkesbury. Tommy gave Rebecca a length of fabric as a souvenir.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said in a shy voice after thanking him.

  ‘Her mother will make her a new dress,’ declared Henry Lamb.

  Thomas extended an invitation to Henry to come to the shop anytime he was in town, providing he brought his daughter, as she helped him imagine his own girls.

  One of King’s last acts as governor was to institute a muster of the settler population. On Wednesday 13 August, those who lived in Sydney Town were required to present themselves at the yard in front of Government House. Clerks recorded each person’s name and particulars.

  ‘Thomas O’Neil, Governor King’s Tailor, Emancipated Convict, indented convict Darby Carbery,’ Thomas told the clerk.

  Frances, standing beside him, said, ‘Frances Waller, free by servitude, and servant to Darby Carbery.’

  ‘James Dixon, Roman Catholic Priest, self-employed.’

  King’s replacement, William Bligh, arrived in the colony on 6 August that same year. He was sworn in as governor on 13 August 1806. Stories of Bligh circulated widely in the colony, some true, others full of wild exaggeration. Tommy did not know what to make of them. All regarded Bligh as a master seaman but what had forced the Bounty crew to mutiny?

  King was not in good enough health to face the long sea voyage so his departure was delayed. Thomas was often called upon to adjust and alter clothing to accommodate his growing size. The months until King finally left were hectic. It was not until 17 February 1807 that Tommy and Darby were among the many people who watched the ship, Buffalo, leave the harbour to carry King back to London.

  Tommy’s primary source of income had gone.

  During the six-month period following Bligh’s appointment, King had been good enough
to introduce Thomas to him. Thomas sought additional work from previous clients. D’Arcy Wentworth, John Piper and William Redfern became regular customers. With these initiatives his business continued to prosper.

  King had not managed to stamp out the corruption in the New South Wales Corps, and Bligh had been sent as his replacement because he was seen by England as having the toughness and integrity to deal with the problem. Bligh forbad both the distilling of spirits and its use as a currency. In February 1808, primed with a special issue of rum, the soldiers of the New South Wales Corps weaved along Bridge Street and stormed Government House. Governor Bligh was arrested by the very men he had come to tame. Tommy was alarmed that the Corps had taken over and the rule of the Governor had been overturned. It was a very sad state of affairs that the Corps had absolute power. What future could an honest man expect?

  In November 1808 a newly arrived settler, a Mr G Stokes, tailor and habit maker by trade, approached Thomas with an offer to buy his premises at 33 Upper Pitt’s Row. Tommy was only too pleased to sell the shop and distance himself from the activities of the Corps and from the general rowdiness of the area. Tommy moved his business to new, smaller premises at 103 Upper Pitt’s Row. It was further up the hill, and in a much quieter area.

  He modelled the layout of his new shop on his former premises at Francis Street, in Dublin. At the same time he engaged some convict labour to build him a small hut as his home, along the ridgeline of Woolloomooloo Hill. At sunset on the first evening in his new place, a large, noisy flock of cockatoos perched in a big eucalyptus tree on the property. It reminded Tommy of his first glimpses of Sydney Town nine years earlier. This area was far enough away to escape the perils of the town but just an easy walk to his shop.

  Below where Tommy had erected his hut was a popular place for Aboriginal people to camp and access the resources of the bay. At nighttime Tommy observed the numerous fires lit in the valley below.