James Martin (ca. 1760 - ?) was a convict transported to
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
, notable for being the author of the only extant
First Fleet convict account of life in the colony, known as the ''Memorandoms by James Martin''.
Early life
James Martin was born ca. 1760 in
Ballymena,
County Antrim
County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population o ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. He had a wife and son in Exeter and had worked in England for seven years when, at Exeter Assizes on 20 March 1786, he was sentenced to transportation for seven years for stealing eleven screw bolts and other goods, valued at 11 shillings, from Powderham Castle. He was held on the Dunkirk hulk for almost a year. His official report from Dunkirk hulk was that he was "tolerably decent and orderly". On 11 March 1787, Martin was placed upon the ''
Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
'' and sent to New South Wales as part of the First Fleet. Martin was a useful tradesman in Sydney.
Escape from New South Wales
On the night of 28 March 1791, Martin,
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
and
Mary Bryant
Mary Bryant (1765 – after 1794) was a Cornish convict sent to Australia. She became one of the first successful escapees from the fledgling Australian penal colony.
Early life
Bryant was born Mary Broad (referred to as Mary Braund at the ...
and their children Charlotte and Emanuel , James Cox, William Allen, Samuel Bird, Samuel Broom, Nathaniel Lillie, and William Morton stole the colony's fishing boat, and rowed out of Sydney Harbour and into the Pacific Ocean.
During the voyage back to England, William, Charlotte, and Emanuel Bryant, James Cox, Samuel Bird, and William Morton died. The survivors, rather than being prosecuted on the capital charge of returning from transportation, were instead ordered on 5 July 1792 to serve out the remainder of their respective sentences of transportation in Newgate gaol. The lawyer and biographer
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 ( N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the English writer ...
interceded with the government on their behalf, and on 2 May 1793 Mary Bryant was given an unconditional pardon, and the four men were discharged from Newgate by proclamation on 3 November 1793. Martin's fate after being released is unknown.
Portrayals
Martin was portrayed by
John Ewart
Jon Ewart (06th May 1996) is a British television and film actor. Ewart attended the prestigious National Youth Theatre, Identity School of Acting and has appeared in many successful Television shows.
Biography Career
Ewart, who was born in M ...
in the 1963
Australian Broadcasting Commission
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-owned ...
serial, ''The Hungry Ones''.
The ''Memorandoms''
As well as being the only extant first-hand account of this famous escape, ''Memorandoms by James Martin'' is the earliest Australian convict narrative. The original manuscript is part of the vast manuscript archive of the philosopher
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
, held by University College London Library's Special Collections. The ''Memorandoms'' was first discovered by the Bentham scholar Charles Blount in the 1930s, who published a short edition, limited to 150 copies. A second edition of eleven pages, by Victor Crittenden, was published in 1991.
A new edition, ''Memorandoms by James Martin: An Astonishing Escape from Early New South Wales'', edited by Tim Causer, was published in open access in 2017 by UCL Press. This new edition makes available, for the first time and for free, facsimiles of the original manuscript alongside an annotated transcript, and features a scholarly introduction which puts the escape in context, and challenges many of the myths and legends which have grown around the Bryant party's escape.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, James
Convicts transported to Australia on the First Fleet
Convict escapees in Australia