ROBERT RENNIE

(born circa 1762/7, married 1787, died 1835)

By

Rosemary Morrison

My great x 5 grandfather, Robert Rennie, was married in Lochwinnoch, and on the registration of the births of his eight children in the parish registers, was described as “farmer at Barbowie”.  I think that this must have been the farm now named Warbowie, just south of the Black Cart Water, and a little to the east of Castle Semple’s East Gate.

In 1812, when his youngest surviving child was aged six and possibly already working on the farm with her older brothers, Robert would be taken to Glasgow for trial, and condemned to death.  But on appeal, he was transported for life to New South Wales, then a British Colony in what is now Australia.  Soon after, with a supply of Prayer Books, he was taken to a new island prison on the south coast of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). He managed to buy a house, and, as he could read, write and count, even ran a shop and a Sunday School.

Over the past few years, I have followed his journey “across the seas”- but the only place that I have not yet visited is B/Warbowie. Maybe, if Covid regulations permit, this will be the year!

As readers of The Cairn of Lochwinnoch will know, from 1727 to 1814 Castle Semple estate in Lochwinnoch parish was owned by successive members of the wealthy MacDowall family, until the firm of Alexander Houston & Co, in which they had heavily invested, went bust. For the next few years, the estate was run by a cousin, who, unable to make enough of a success of it to repay the family debts, drowned himself in one of the estate ponds. The estate was then put on the market and the well-tended fields leased out to neighbouring farmers for grazing.

On the night of 27/28 September 1811, Robert was alleged to have stolen a cow from one of the Castle Semple fields. Unfortunately, in the dark, he had not realised that it was a distinctive colour, with a twisted horn, so that the next morning the cowherd immediately realised it was missing from the black and white herd!

The owner of the cow, a farmer from Greenock, set up a “Hue and Cry”, and the trail was followed to Glasgow. There, it seems, Robert had met a butcher on Glasgow Bridge, money changed hands, the cow led to slaughter, and the distinctive hide traced to a skinner’s yard. Robert meanwhile had returned home and unfortunately during a meeting in the Howgate Inn to pay his debts a dispute arose.

Someone must have spoken out, as Robert then seems to have been collared and put into Paisley Tollbooth; he was “well-known”, according to the procurator fiscal, who proceeded to take witness statements.  Wanting rid of this local scoundrel, he decided to send the case to be tried on the next circuit of the High Court of Justiciary, which had higher sentencing powers than the local Paisley sheriff.

His reputation was well known and is recorded in The Cairn of Lochinyoch Matters – see extract below. Dr Crawfurd records that Robert was very spiritual often praying to the Almighty. He notes Robert had many conflicts with Satan which I think can be read as he knew he was doing many “bad” things but could not help himself. Towards the end of the extract Dr Crawfurd notes that Robert has recorded in his Bible “I see you there, great big black Deil; thou’s ower seikan to devour us….” And concludes with a plea to the Almighty “Cow him, Lord; Cow him, Lord; Cow him Lord.”

And so it was that in April 1812, after several months in Paisley Tollbooth (sketch below), Robert was taken to Glasgow, where he was held with other prisoners in that city’s Tollbooth, until the arrival from Edinburgh of Lords Meadowbank and Woodhouselee, with the Advocate-Depute, Henry Dundas, then aged thirty (and not much older than Robert’s eldest son, from whom I am descended) and the fifteen-man jury of local landowners.

Most of the other prisoners pled guilty and were sentenced appropriately. But Robert, who seems to have had a good tongue in his head, opted to defend himself. And called his own witnesses. But the jury were not convinced, and on April 28th found Robert guilty. The judges sentenced him to death. But “by general acclaim” the jury pled for mercy (did they know Robert already?) and the judges decided to sleep on it. I cannot imagine what was going through Robert’s head that night.

Next morning, Lord Meadowbank declared that he and his fellow-judge had decided to reduce the sentence - to transportation beyond the seas - for life! Four months after his trial Robert was taken from Edinburgh for the start of his journey to the penal colony in Australia. At some point Robert became aware that he would need money. His theft and sale of the cow had been to repay debts in Lochwinnoch. Somehow, he obtained a letter, apparently signed by the chief cashier of the Union Bank of Paisley, certifying his wealth at £310 - today’s equivalent would be around £20,000 pounds. This was based on a yard in Inkle Street Paisley given to him by his father-in-law. As a Scot, Robert had been taught to read and write. If he managed to find paper and ink, my suspicion is, he might well have written the letter himself. This letter would help Robert in the years to come.

At this time, Britain was embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars against France and its allies. I have another ancestor (on the same side of the family) who served abroad with the Royal Artillery from 1804 to 1810, when, an “invalid”, he was stationed in Edinburgh and its port at Leith. I sometimes wonder whether they ever crossed paths during this time.

The first leg of Robert’s journey was from Leith to London in a “smack”. They were based on Dutch fishing boats and had originally been introduced in Berwick to carry fresh salmon, in sea-water, to London, for the dinner-plates of the wealthy. By the 1790s they were carrying passengers and goods, and had moved from Berwick to Leith, where there was more business. Smacks were stout-built ships of 140 to 180 tons, able to withstand very heavy seas. They had a tall thick mast with a heavy running-out bowsprit, and a very large mainsail. Because of the war they travelled in pairs for safety between Leith and London.They were all well-armed, and carried 18-pound carronades and two 4-pound guns. With the intensification of the Napoleonic Wars in 1812, and the need to move British troops quickly to England for onward transport to the continent, smacks were found convenient for conveying Scottish regiments south. In fact a squad of military, presumably en route to London themselves, were used to act as guards.

A smack called “Sprightly” arrived in Leith on 2 August. Word must have reached Glasgow Jail very quickly, because on the 8th of August there was a break-out attempt by two of the transportees, one a Gaelic speaker, and the other a teenager. Similarly, two of the Edinburgh prisoners plotted to disarm the guards, knock down the inner “turnkey” and take his keys, before their leader was double-ironed. 

I think it is fascinating to think about how quickly the message was passed from Leith to Glasgow that two ships were available with a quick turnaround, and that the prisoners should be taken, first to Edinburgh Jail and then, the same evening, and with others from the East of Scotland, to Leith, to be rowed out to the smack.

In the end, thirteen Scottish prisoners were embarked on the Sprightly, leaving Leith on 18th August for the prison hulks. One commentator is quoted as saying, “It was a sorrowful sight to see them put on board, chained and manacled together.”

They were leaving Scotland, the only land they had ever known. And, even if their sentence was not for life, they knew they were unlikely ever to return. Even this first part of the journey, in British waters, was dangerous. There were dangers from enemy ships, privateers, and coastal rocks - indeed, the commander of the Sprightly for this journey had, the previous year, run into another ship in the fog.

I expect that they were manacled, and kept in the hold, stinking of old fish. It is likely that both convicts and soldiers would have been served fish, perhaps mixed with oatmeal, and fried, for each meal. This diet, with limited fresh water, combined with the heavy sea conditions, and no knowledge of when either would end, would have made for a miserable first stage of Robert’s departure from Scotland

The 460-mile journey lasted six days, much of the time spent slowly travelling up the crowded River Thames.  The Sprightly arrived at Miller’s Wharf Wapping on Monday 24 August. On the same day, the prisoners were transferred by lighterman’s barge to the prison hulk Retribution.

Originally named HMS Edgar, the Retribution was a British Navy ship launched in 1779 that had seen service in the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars before being renamed and put into commission as a prison hulk in the early nineteenth century. The hulk was moored on the Thames, not far from the Woolwich arsenal and was one of the most dreaded of the prison hulks in the Thames because of the appalling conditions aboard. Deaths and illnesses aboard were more than double those on other hulks. James

Hardy Vaux, a prisoner who was held on the ship recounted,

“……. at four o'clock in the morning, myself and eleven others were conveyed by water on board the Retribution hulk at Woolwich.

I had now a new scene of misery to contemplate; and, of all the shocking scenes I had ever beheld, this was the most distressing. There were confined in this floating dungeon nearly six hundred men, most of them double ironed; and the reader may conceive the horrible effects arising from the continual rattling of chains, the filth and vermin naturally produced by such a crowd of miserable inhabitants, the oaths and execrations constantly heard amongst them and above all, from the shocking necessity of associating and communicating more or less with so depraved a set of beings.

On arriving on board, we were all immediately stripped and washed in two large tubs of water, then, after putting on each a suit of coarse slop clothing, we were ironed and sent below; our own clothes being taken from us and detained till we could sell or otherwise dispose of them, as no person is exempted from the obligation to wear the ship-dress.

On descending the hatch-way, no conception can be formed of the scene which presented itself. I shall not attempt to describe it; but nothing short of a descent to the infernal regions can be at all worthy of a comparison with it . I soon met with many of my old Botany Bay acquaintances, who were all eager to offer me their friendship and services,—that is, with a view to rob me of what little I had; for in this place there is no other motive or subject for ingenuity. All former friendships or connexions are dissolved, and a man here will rob his best benefactor, or even mess-mate, of an article worth one halfpenny.

Every morning, at seven o'clock, all the convicts capable of work, or, in fact, all who are capable of getting into the boats, are taken ashore to the Warren, in which the royal arsenal and other public buildings are situated, and are there employed at various kinds of labour, some of them very fatiguing; and while so employed, each gang of sixteen, or twenty men, is watched and directed by a fellow called a guard. These guards are most commonly of the lowest class of human beings; wretches devoid of all feeling; ignorant in the extreme, brutal by nature, and rendered tyrannical and cruel by the consciousness of the power they possess; no others, but such as I have described, would hold the situation. They invariably carry a large and ponderous stick, with which, without the smallest provocation, they will fell an unfortunate convict to the ground, and frequently repeat their blows long after the poor sufferer is insensible. At noon the working party return on board to dinner, and at one again go on shore, where they labour till near sun-set. On returning on board in the evening, all hands are mustered by a roll, and the whole being turned down below, the hatches are put over them, and secured for the night.

As to the food, the stipulated ration is very scanty, but of even part of that they are defrauded. Their provisions being supplied by contractors, and not by Government, are of the worst kind, such as would not be considered eatable or wholesome elsewhere; and both the weight and measure are always deficient. The allowance of bread is said to be about twenty ounces per day. Three days in the week they have about four ounces of cheese for dinner, and the other four days a pound of beef.  The breakfast is invariably boiled barley, of the coarsest kind imaginable; and of this the pigs of the hulk come in for a third part, because it is so nauseous that nothing but downright hunger will enable a man to eat it. For supper, they have….., burgoo, of as good a quality as the barley, and which is similarly disposed of; and on meat days, the water in which the beef was boiled, is thickened with barley; and forms a mess called "Smiggins," of a more detestable nature than either of the two former!

The reader may conceive that I do not exaggerate, when I state, that among the convicts the common price of these several eatables, is,—for a day's allowance of beef, one halfpenny;—ditto, of cheese, one halfpenny;—ditto, of bread, three-halfpence; but the cheese is most commonly so bad, that they throw it away. It is manufactured, I believe, of skimmed milk for this particular contract. The beef generally consists of old bulls, or cows who have died of age or famine; the least trace of fat is considered a phenomenon, and it is far inferior upon the whole to good horse-flesh. I once saw the prisoners throw the whole day's supply overboard the moment it was hoisted out of the boat, and for this offence they were severely flogged.

All letters written by prisoners must be delivered unsealed to the chief mate for his inspection, before they are sent ashore; and such as he thinks obnoxious, are of course suppressed. In like manner, all letters received from the post-office are opened and scrutinized.

If I were to attempt a full description of the miseries endured in these ships, I could fill a volume; but I shall sum up all by stating, that besides robbery from each other, which is as common as cursing and swearing, I witnessed among the prisoners themselves, during the twelvemonth I remained with them, one deliberate murder, for which the perpetrator was executed at Maidstone, and one suicide; and that unnatural crimes are openly committed…...” Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux, 1830

By April 1813, a year after his trial in Glasgow which included eight months on the prison hulk, a transport ship had been found to take him and his surviving fellow-Scots “across the seas” - which is the next stage  of Robert’s journey from Lochwinnoch.

The Earl Spencer was no ordinary ship. Nearly twenty years before, she had been built for hire to the East Indies Company, and by 1813 had undertaken seven two- or three-year voyages to India and China. But the Napoleonic Wars were interfering with the East Indies trade, producers were unwilling to entrust consignments of valuable commodities on such long journeys. The Earl Spencer’s last captain had, perhaps, made enough money to retire. And so, rather than a fast turn-about,  the ship had lingered on the Thames, awaiting a new captain, crew and consignment of goods.

These “goods” were to be two hundred convicts, condemned to transportation to New South Wales. They were to be accompanied in the hold by a steam engine - not to power the ship, but to grind flour in Sydney. And so it was that, in April 1813, Robert Rennie, one of thirteen Scots prisoners, and thirty members of the  73rd  Regiment of Foot, en route to relieve others of their regiment in Sydney, boarded the Earl Spencer for journey to Australia. 

Over the years, the hold of the ship would have transported silks, leather, and spices. If, as I suspect, the convicts were chained in the same space, the perfume that would greet Robert as he descended through the hatch to be stowed below, would have been very different from his two previous ships.

In the event, her new commander, young Captain William Mitchell, did not receive instructions to take her round to Portsmouth until June. Maybe the shipping agent was awaiting passengers, whose fares would add to the owners’ coffers. So, for a few weeks at least, the Scottish convicts had some relief from their experiences in the past year.

One passenger who did come on board on the Thames, with his family, was an Anglican priest, Thomas Kendall, destined for missionary work in New Zealand. He was to influence Robert’s later destination in New South Wales.[1] Another passenger claimed to be a surgeon, Henry St John Younge, described on the shipping list as “Assistant Surgeon” although destined, he hoped, to work for the British Government in New South Wales. He would end up, like Robert, in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), described as “uncouth and exceedingly ignorant”. The chief surgeon on the ship was a Scot, Duncan Mackenzie. I like to think that he came on board on the Thames, and, perhaps, on hearing the Scots convicts’ accents and sight of Roberts Paisley bank letter, might help ease Robert’s passage across the seas?

Eventually, in May, Captain Mitchell would take the Earl Spencer back down the Thames, round the Downs and along to Portsmouth.  There, she was loaded with stores, and more convicts and passengers came on board. And on 2 June, 1813, she left the harbour, escorted by a battleship, H.M.S. Kangaroo. Unusually, and unfortunately, no journal was kept for the Earl Spencer’s journey from Portsmouth to New South Wales (2 June - 9 October 1813). Only very recently has a record come online with her earlier sailing history, which interested readers can consult on Wikipedia. For the transportation from Portsmouth of Robert Rennie and almost two hundred other convicts, Wikipedia merely mentions:-

“ …..under the command of William Mitchell, Earl Spencer left England on 2 June 1813. She sailed via Madeira, escorted for the early part of the voyage by HMS Kangaroo, and arrived at Port Jackson (Sydney) on 9 October 1813. She transported 200 male convicts, four of whom died on the voyage.  An officer and 38 men of the 73rd Regiment of Foot provided the guards for the prisoners. Some 20 free settlers came too as passengers. Aboard the ship was the first steam engine brought out to Australia.”

Robert and the Scottish convicts had been transferred from their prison hulk on the Thames, to the Earl Spencer, in April 1813.  And so, although the voyage to Port Jackson, completed in 129 days, was recorded as the fastest so far undertaken, Robert and others had actually been on board for an extra six weeks - almost six months in all. 

On previous voyages, commanders of transportation ships had usually taken their ships across the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, where they re-supplied, and sometimes spent as long as a month, before sailing east, usually stopping again at the Cape (of South Africa) before embarking on the final stage of their journey across the Indian Ocean, and along the south coast and up the east coast of what is now Australia.

The Private Journal of A Voyage to Australia, by James Bell, graphically describes his voyage twenty five years later. A young clerk from Dumfries, hoping for a new life in South Australia, he kept a daily record of what he saw and experienced. Along the way, his ship lost a crew, several passengers, and much livestock. Drunken brawls and licentious couplings horrified Bell, who was sustained by his joint loves of adventure and poetry, and his Presbyterian faith. Sadly, he died in Adelaide, fifteen months after he arrived.

My Australian son-in-law’s ancestor, a doctor, travelled to Adelaide around the same time. He records in his own Diary the excitement of seeing sharks, and being attacked by pirates! I imagine that no such exhilarations  must have taken place among the twenty passengers on the Earl Spencer’s voyage. The passengers’ “cabins” were small, and separated by curtains.  The convicts were kept away from passengers, although all were brought together for a Sunday service, led by the passenger, Thomas Kendall. And the doctor may have recommended that they be brought up on deck for exercise, and to wash themselves and their clothes.

Apart from a few days’ stay in Madeira, where she parted company from her escort ship,  and took on water and fresh fruit, the ship sailed down the west coast of Africa, avoiding enemy warships and privateers. Captain Mitchell would know the route well, and probably wanted to dispose of his cargo as quickly as he could, to start on a “proper” East India Company voyage, which, for him personally, would be much more profitable.[2]

Whether it was because of the fast voyage, or the conditions on board, only four of the two hundred convicts died on the journey to New South Wales. The missionary, Thomas Kenyon, reported that his wife held classes for the convicts. Robert could already read and write. Governor General Macquarie, a Scot, records in his diary that he walked down to the beach at Port Jackson, to greet the Earl Spencer’s officers and passengers. He also met with the convicts to decide where best they should be sent.

For whatever reason, Robert was among a number of convicts, sent twelve miles upriver and inland to the fertile Hawkesbury valley, known as Sydney’s breadbasket, to work on farms. While most were allocated to private settler farms, with indeterminate conditions and food, Robert and one other from the Earl Spencer were retained on “government supplies”, and sent to work for the recently-arrived Deputy Chaplain, Reverend Robert Cartwright, on his farm in the small community of Richmond, just outside the military town of Windsor. 

Andrew Thomson, an early Scottish convict, had built up a substantial farm there, setting up trading boats to carry wheat grown in the area, down to Sydney. He was the first ex-convict to be appointed a justice of the peace and magistrate for the Hawkesbury district. He had died a few years before Rev. Cartwright arrived, his Trustees in Windsor were instructed to lease out the farm to suitable tenants. Below is a sketch of his Red House farm.

In England, Reverend Robert Cartwright (1771-1856) was something of a gentleman, and had only reluctantly agreed to accompany the principal chaplain in New South Wales, the infamous Samuel Marsden, back to the colony, arriving in Sydney with his family in 1810. He found he had been appointed chaplain of the Hawkesbury region, centred on the new town of Windsor, and was allocated the farm of the late Andrew Thomson.  Hailed as energetic and popular, and now aged over forty,  he had the farm worked by government-paid convicts. He avoided public controversy, held aloof from official disputes and only with reluctance accepted the position of magistrate.

My feeling is that Robert, with his Bible and farming knowledge, and persuasive tongue, won approval from Rev. Cartwright. When Cartwright ordered a gross of Prayer Books to be sent from England for the new convict settlement in Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land, he recommended that on arrival they be sent down to Hobart from Sydney, along with his convict, Robert Rennie.

In 1816 Robert bought a property in Hobart at 10 Collins Street and traded in clothing and tea. He also set up a Sunday School from his shop. He became known as Pastor Rennie. In his sixties he received a free pardon. He died in 1835 and was buried in the grounds of Hobart hospital which was opposite his house on the corner of Collins and Elizabeth Streets.

[1] A fictionalised version of the lives of Thomas Kendall, and his wife, is contained in Judy Corbalis’s novel Tapu, Vintage, 1997. The book also includes as a character Richard Stockwell, one of Robert Rennie’s fellow-convicts.

[2] He was to continue as Master of the Earl Spencer until 1819/20, undertaking more normal voyages for the E.I.C.