Owen Hargrave Suffolk (4 April 1829 – ? ) was an Australian
bushranger
Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under ...
,
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
, confidence-man and author of ''Days of Crime and Years of Suffering'' (1867).
Early life
Owen Henry Suffolk was born on 4 April 1829 in comfortable circumstances in
Finchley
Finchley () is a large district of north London, England, in the London Borough of Barnet. Finchley is on high ground, north of Charing Cross.
Nearby districts include: Golders Green, Muswell Hill, Friern Barnet, Whetstone, Mill Hill and H ...
,
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...
, Suffolk was sent to sea as a youth when his father, a London merchant, was ruined.
Crime, imprisonment and transportation
On his return Suffolk found himself homeless and fell into a life of crime. Charged with stealing in 1844, he was sentenced to a year’s detention. He was then convicted of
forgery
Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone (other than themself). Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidd ...
in 1846 serving time in
Newgate
Newgate was one of the historic seven gates of the London Wall around the City of London and one of the six which date back to Roman times. Newgate lay on the west side of the wall and the road issuing from it headed over the River Fleet to Mid ...
,
Millbank
Millbank is an area of central London in the City of Westminster. Millbank is located by the River Thames, east of Pimlico and south of Westminster. Millbank is known as the location of major government offices, Burberry headquarters, the Millb ...
and
Coldbath Fields prisons before being
transported
''Transported'' is an Australian convict melodrama film directed by W. J. Lincoln. It is considered a lost film.
Plot
In England, Jessie Grey is about to marry Leonard Lincoln but the evil Harold Hawk tries to force her to marry him and she w ...
on the convict ship the ''Joseph Soames'' in 1847. In
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
by his own account he led a colorful life as a bushman,
bushranger
Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under ...
thief, prison identity and repeat offender. In his third period of incarceration commencing in 1858 he began his autobiography.
In July, 1866, Suffolk received a
ticket of leave
A ticket of leave was a document of parole issued to convicts who had shown they could now be trusted with some freedoms. Originally the ticket was issued in Britain and later adapted by the United States, Canada, and Ireland.
Jurisdictions ...
, his third in Victoria, and a full pardon on board the ''Norfolk'' bound for London on 20 September 1866. This pardon (in the possession of the
National Museum of Australia
The National Museum of Australia, in the national capital Canberra, preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation. It was formally established by the ''National Muse ...
) was conditional on his not returning to Australia. Suffolk thus obtained the neat distinction of having twice been made an exile. His story published in the ''Australasian'' newspaper in 1867 was well-written, racy and a powerful account of criminal and prison life by an insider, one that squared well with the popular fiction of the day. His account of family misfortune, ill-treatment at school and at sea, subsequent misadventures, romantic interludes and descent into vagrancy and crime in London, reads like a misplaced
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
plot. In Australia he tells of his youthful infatuation with crime, bush ranging and difficulties in finding honest work, and the hardships, injustices and folklore of prison life.
Back in England he quickly resumed his old habits as a confidence-man, swindler and thief and added
bigamist
In cultures where monogamy is mandated, bigamy is the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another. A legal or de facto separation of the couple does not alter their marital status as married persons. I ...
and deceiver of women. In March, 1867, he married a widow, Mary Elizabeth Phelps, in London. In August 1868 Owen Suffolk, 'a journalist', appeared before
Lord Chief Justice
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...
Sir Alexander Cockburn
Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, 12th Baronet (24 September 1802 – 20 November 1880) was a British jurist and politician who served as the Lord Chief Justice for 21 years. He heard some of the leading '' causes célèbres'' of the nine ...
at
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
charged with stealing a black mare and carriage belonging to the landlady of the Great White Horse Hotel and obtaining ten pounds by false pretences. Suffolk begged for mercy on account of his ''de facto'' wife, aged 19, who was his brother's child, and her infant. The judge rejected the marriage as bigamous and sentenced Suffolk to 15 years penal servitude. By 1880 he had been released from prison and on 4 August married Eliza Shreves at St Lukes Church in the parish of St Marylebone in London.
Suffolk began to scheme to fake his own death, he set it up by spending his spare time, a lot because he wasn't working, rowing on the Thames. One day, when he was out boating with two others, the boat capsized and his companions were found exhausted and bedraggled on the river bank but Suffolk had drowned. Various newspaper offices were supplied with the information, headed, "Melancholy accident to an Australian gentleman." Later, It was discovered that the information had been written by the victim himself, who, by the time of the discovery, was on his way across the Atlantic, with his wife's money.
He was last heard of in New York.
Writer
Suffolk is remembered as Victoria's 'prison poet'
and for his readable autobiography "Days of Crime and Years of Suffering"
which reveals much about London street life and the behaviour and treatment of criminals in the
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
. An important contribution to Australian literature it influenced
Marcus Clarke
Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke (24 April 1846 – 2 August 1881) was an English-born Australian novelist, journalist, poet, editor, librarian, and playwright. He is best known for his 1874 novel ''For the Term of His Natural Life'', about the co ...
and his novel ''
His Natural Life''.
See also
*
List of convicts transported to Australia
Penal transportation to Australia began with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 and ended in 1868. Overall, approximately 165,000 convicts were transported to Australia.
Convicts
A
* Esther Abrahams (c. 1767–1846), English wife of ...
References
* ''Owen Suffolk's Days of Crime and Years of Suffering'', edited and introduced by David Dunstan, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2000.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suffolk, Owen
1829 births
Bushrangers
Australian memoirists
Convicts transported to Australia
People from Finchley
Year of death unknown