John Hudson

John Hudson was tried at Old Bailey, London on 10 December 1783 for stealing with a value of 22 shillings. http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17831210-19-defend309&div=t17831210-19#highlight He was sentenced to transportation for 7 years and left England on the Friendship aged about 13 at that time (May 1787). His occupation was listed as chimney sweep. A “child of nine years old” when arrested.Guilty of return from transport following the Mercury mutiny.Report from Dunkirk hulk was that he had behaved “very well”.Received 50 lashes on 15 February 1791 for being out of his hut after 9pm.

he stole one linen shirt, five silk stockings, one pistol and two aprons

The judge said, :” The boy’s confession may be admitted, in evidence, but we must take it with every allowance, and at the utmost it only proves he was in the house; now he might have got in after daybreak, as the prosecutor was not informed of it till eight the next morning. The only thing that fixes this boy with the robbery is the pistol found in the sink; that might not have been put there by the boy: his confession with respect to how he came there, I do not think should be allowed, because it was made under fear; I think it would be too hard to find a boy of his tender age guilty of the burglary; one would wish to snatch such a boy, if one possibly could, from destruction, for he will only return to the same kind of life which he has led before, and will be an instrument in the hands of very bad people, who make use of boys of that sort to rob houses.

John Hudson was transported to Norfolk Island boarding the ship Sirius in March 1790. A year later he reportedly received 50 lashes for 'being out of his hut after nine o'Clock' on the 15th of February 1791. The ship that he returned to Port Jackson is unknown but was prior to 1792. On the 24th of October 1795 a Port Jackson store listed "John Hudson" as an expired convict, off stores in New South Wales. Surprisingly, this is the last record that has been found for him in the colony.