Solomon Wiseman (16 April 1777 - 28 November 1838) was a

convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convict ...

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

and

ferryman A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

. The town called

Wiseman's Ferry Wisemans Ferry is a cable ferry across the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales, Australia. The ferry operates from the eponymous community of Wisemans Ferry on the south bank, to a point on the north bank downstream of the Hawkesbury River's c ...

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 ...

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 ...

is named after him.

Life

Wiseman was born in

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

, England in 1777, the son of a Richard Wiseman, a cloth worker and victualler, and became a

lighterman A lighterman is a worker who operates a lighter, a type of flat-bottomed barge, which may be powered or unpowered. In the latter case, today it is usually moved by a powered tug. The term is particularly associated with the highly skilled men ...

on the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

. He was employed by the British government to carry spies to France. On 30 October 1805 he was found guilty of stealing wood from a

lighter A lighter is a portable device which creates a flame, and can be used to ignite a variety of items, such as cigarettes, gas lighter, fireworks, candles or campfires. It consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable liquid or c ...

and was sentenced to death. This was commuted to Transportation for Life and he was sent to

where he arrived in August 1806 on the Alexander. He traveled with his wife Jane and two sons, in a cabin rather than with the other convicts. On arrival he was almost immediately given conditional liberty and assigned to his wife. In 1810 he was given his

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 ...

and in 1812, a

pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...

. In 1811 Wiseman had constructed a

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

called the '' Hawkesbury Packet'' which was a coastal trader. Not long after he acquired the sloop . He shipped coal from Newcastle (New South Wales), wheat from the Hawkesbury and timber from Shoalhaven. Both ships were wrecked within months of each other in 1817. After the wrecks of his ships he purchased the '' Mary Ann (ship)'' which he chartered to the Government. In 1817 he was granted a lease of on the

Hawkesbury River The Hawkesbury River, or Hawkesbury-Nepean River, is a river located northwest of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Hawkesbury River and its associated main tributary, the Nepean River, almost encircle the metropolitan region of Sydney. ...

Lower Portland Head Lower may refer to: *Lower (surname) *Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) *Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England See also *Nizhny Nizhny (russian: Ни́жний; masculine), Nizhnyaya (; feminine), or Nizhneye (russian: Ни́� ...

, which later became known as

. In 1821 he established an inn called 'the Sign of the Packet' on the banks of the river. When he heard that the government intended to build a road between Sydney and the Hunter valley, he persuaded the authorities to route it through his land. Road building commenced in 1826 with two gangs operating either side of the river, and in 1827 he received a contract to supply all provisions to the gangs and later that year a license to operate a ferry to transport people and stock across the river. The ferry crossing site was moved in 1829, to its current site, when a route was chosen for the Great North Rd. The current site is the oldest ferry crossing in Australia. In 1826 he built on his land an elaborate house for his second wife, Sophia, called Cobhams Hall. This is now a pub called Wiseman's Inn Hotel. He died in 1838.

The Secret River

''The Secret River'', a novel written by Wiseman's great-great-great-granddaughter,

Kate Grenville Catherine Elizabeth Grenville (born 1950) is an Australian author. She has published fifteen books, including fiction, non-fiction, biography, and books about the writing process. In 2001, she won the Orange Prize for '' The Idea of Perfection ...

, was inspired by her desire to understand "what had happened when Wiseman arrived there he area now known as Wiseman's Ferryand started the business of 'settling'".Grenville, Kate (2006), "Searching for The Secret River", Text, Melbourne, , p. 13 Her inspiration to understand this came from her taking part in the 28-05-2000 Reconciliation Walk across

Sydney Harbour Bridge The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge in Sydney, spanning Port Jackson, Sydney Harbour from the Sydney central business district, central business district (CBD) to the North Shore (Sydney), North Shore. The view of the bridg ...

during which she realised that she didn't know much about "what had gone on between the Aboriginal people and the settlers in those early days".Grenville (2006), op. cit., p. 12 Initially intended to be a work of non-fiction about Wiseman, the book eventually became a fictional work based on her research into Wiseman but not specifically about Wiseman himself.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiseman, Solomon Australian businesspeople in shipping Convicts transported to Australia English emigrants to colonial Australia 1777 births 1838 deaths