New Year’s Day 1842 proved to be the end of the line for my 4x great-grandfather, George Kennewell, when he was killed at the age of 42.

A native of Sutton Cum Lound in Nottinghamshire, in 1817 eighteen-year-old George began working as a servant to cheesemonger Richard Castle in London. He was living in the same house as his employer in Broad Court, Long Acre, near Covent Garden, when just seven weeks into the job, he stole a cash box containing a significant amount of money.

When the theft was discovered, George was also missing. A Bow Street officer found him quite some distance away, and he apparently confessed and was charged with breaking and entering, and theft.

I went in pursuit of the prisoner, and traced him to Sheffield, and found him lying under a hedge, without his hat, close by Sheffield Park–I took him into custody. He begged I would not hold him as he went through Sheffield, as he was known. I asked him what he had done with the money? he said he had none about him, but had left part of it at his sister’s, in Sheffield. I asked him where she lived, and went there. I found his hat, and gloves, there–it had his name in it …. He said he did it himself, was very sorry for it, no person was concerned with him, and he must suffer.

– Trial of George Kennwell [Kennewell], 29 October 1817, Old Bailey Proceedings Online (t18171029-24), accessed 20 February 2016.

Transportation for theft

George was found guilty of theft, but not breaking and entering, and was sentenced to death. However, his sentence was transmuted to transportation for life, and five months later he was aboard the Isabella bound for New South Wales.

George’s assignments in the colony included working for James Larra (a publican and former convict), Captain John Fennell (aide-de-camp to Governor Brisbane), Doctor Short, and Alexander Warren (a free settler and politician).

In November 1822, George was sentenced to the Port Macquarie penal settlement. Established in 1821, its early purpose was to isolate convicts found guilty of further offences. The reason for George’s transfer there is unknown, but he departed for Port Macquarie at the end of December, just one week after marrying Harriet Sleigh, who was pregnant with her second child to him.

George was allowed to return to Sydney eighteen months later, although it seems he and his family moved back and forth. He worked in Sydney, and was robbed at Cockle Bay in 1825. He also worked in the Hunter Valley, and the births of his children with Harriet were registered in Sydney and Williams River in the Hunter Valley region. They went where assigned and where the work was, which also included Newcastle.

George’s behaviour appears inconsistent. He received a ticket of leave three times. The first was in 1822, lost almost immediately for imposing on the magistrates to obtain it. The second was issued in 1834, but cancelled for drunken and disorderly conduct. He behaved well enough to be appointed pound keeper at Brandon in Williams River, in 1834. As pound keeper, also known as pound master, he was a local government official who fed and took care of stray livestock.

Just a year later George was found to have illegally sold a bullock. And two years after that he was found guilty of drunk and disorderly behaviour and embezzlement of two gallons of spirits! His second ticket of leave was cancelled, and he was assigned to work for the government at Newcastle. He was ineligible for a new ticket of leave for a year. It wasn’t until January 1840 that George received his third ticket of leave.

A deadly incident

On New Year’s Day 1842, George spent time at the Commercial Inn, also known as Groves’ public house, near where he was living in Newcastle. Also present was an Irish convict named Hugh Bannon who was intoxicated, troublesome, and loitering despite being “turned out”. Bannon was described as being in a “murderous” mood. When the noise of an altercation in the yard attracted others to investigate, they found George lying on the ground, the victim of an unprovoked attack. Unable to walk, he was carried home, where he died the following morning.

People “flocked” to hear the details at the inquest. Witnesses “prevaricated”, with the publican found to have “interfered” with their testimony. To make matters worse, the coroner was taken ill due to the crowded, confined and poorly ventilated inquest location. Proceedings eventually resumed after an adjournment.

George’s wife Harriet was a witness at the inquest and her evidence was also used in the trial of Hugh Bannon, where he was found guilty of George’s murder.

On the first [of] January, [at] half past nine at night, my son [George] ran over … and said, “Mother, my father is beat and cannot walk but I saw the man jump over the fence and I know him.” I told him to get anyone to assist him to bring him home. Noble brought him about ten minutes after …. He was put to bed and was in great pain and about an hour afterwards he told me he had been beaten and by whom. I had no apprehension at that time that he was so near his end …. He was crying with pain through the night. He told me he felt happy the two boys were apprenticed and that the two eldest daughters were married, and to be careful who the next eldest girl married and to give the rest of the children a trade, if I should be spared.

– Justice William Westbrooke Burton‘s notes in the case of Hugh Bannon indicted for the murder of George Kenniwell, from: Johns, W. E., Chronicle of George Kenniwell 1799-1842, W. E. Johns, Campbell, ACT, 1993, pp. 50-51.

Medical evidence suggested the blows George received, believed to have been from a piece of wood, were what ultimately killed him, although it may have only hastened his death. The Colonial Surgeon, Doctor George Brooks, conducted a medical examination and deemed George had been in poor health, at least some of which was due to excessive alcohol consumption. If not for that, George might have survived the incident. It was a sad end.

Selected references

Trial of George Kennwell [Kennewell], 29 October 1817, Old Bailey Proceedings Online (t18171029-24), accessed 20 February 2016.

Johns, W. E., Chronicle of George Kenniwell 1799-1842, W. E. Johns, Campbell, ACT, 1993.

‘Notice’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 1834, p. 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12849638, accessed 26 July 2024.

‘Colonial Politics. The Convict Press.’, The Colonist, 24 March 1836, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31717817, accessed 24 July 2024.

‘Newcastle. Coroner’s Inquest.’, Hunter River Gazette, 8 January 1842, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article228140773, accessed 24 July 2024.

‘Maitland Circuit Court’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 March 1842, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12874172, accessed 27 July 2024.

‘Maitland Circuit Court’, The Australian, 15 March 1842, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36848940, accessed 27 July 2024.

‘Maitland Circuit Court’, Australasian Chronicle, 15 March 1842, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31735298, accessed 27 July 2024.