Thomas Hoskisson

  Noted events in his life were:

• source. http://www.easystreetretreat.com.au/australianroyalty where it is noted:
Thomas Hoskisson, may have arrived in Australia on the Scarborough, part of the Second Fleet which left Portsmouth on 17 January 1790 and arrived in Port Jackson on 28 June 1790. He was tried at Thomas Hodgetts.
Alternatively, he may have been Thomas Hodgkis who was sentenced at Maidstone Kent, sentenced to 7 years and was transported aboard "William Ann" part of the third fleet arriving 1791.
After 3 ½ years Sarah Pigg married Thomas Hoskisson at St. Philips Church Sydney by Rev. Richard Johnson the first Chaplain of the colony. Thomas could read and write and we think he changed his name from Hodgkis who was sentenced at Maidstone Kent and transported for 7 years. He was aboard the ship "William Ann" part of the third fleet. They lived together for some time before being married. They farmed along the Hawkesbury river at Green Hills (Windsor) had 3 children. Sarah was pardoned 27 Jul 1798 by Governor Hunter after recommendations from Rev. Richard Johnston.
After Thomas was killed by Aboriginals in 1799 Sarah was left to run the farm and raise three young children. In November of the same year Sarah was granted 60 acres of land at Petersham Hill but it appears this land was sold.
Thomas was killed by aborigines and left Sarah with a young family of two children and at that stage expecting the birth of the third. The actual circumstances of his death are unclear but the following information is believed to be close to the truth.
By the spring of 1799 Thomas and Sarah were farming a small property near Green Hills , and were the employers of convict labour. Aboriginal visitors to the farm were reputed to be treated kindly but no doubt the Hoskisson cornfields were ruled to be out of bounds. Not realising that to go shooting kangaroos was a comparable violation of rights, Hoskisson and his companion Wimbow, on reaching the second ridge of the mountains, were savagely done to death.
The corpses when found were dreadfully mutilated. The burial party of soldiers and settlers had Hobby's (the leader of the searching party) orders to shoot on sight, but they met no natives.
A reprisal killing by five white men (one an employee) (Simon Freebody, James Metcalfe, William Butler and William Timms) and a free constable (Edward Powell) led to these men being charged over the death of two aborigines. The circumstances of the reprisal were as follows. Some three weeks after the killing of Thomas and his companion, some aborigines came to the Hoskisson farm to reuturn Thomas' gun. It was said that one carried a concealed tomahawk. They were detained by the defendants and when one of the aborigines escaped during the night, the other two were seized, bound and executed by gunshot, and buried in a secret grave. A Mary Archer told chief constable Rickerby, who reported the matter to Hobby (?), and with a Lt. Braithwaite they exhumed and inspected the remains. Five men including Powell and Freebody, denied tyhe charge of murder, believing themselves under mitilatary orders covering such situations; "to destroy the natives wherever they were met with...except native children as were domesticated among the settlers" The men were found guilty but were not punished.
In both his books "Macquarie Country", and "Up the Windsor Road", the late Douglas Bowd narrates the killing of a Thomas Hodgkinson and Wimbow under the same circumstances as above. There is little doubt that both of these are mistakes and refer to Thomas Hoskisson and his companion Wimbow. It is also worth noting that in the 1828 Census Thomas's descendents are referred to as Hoskinson. This is typical of the times due to the poor education of some of the people carrying out the Census.

Thomas married Sarah Prigg, daughter of John Prigg and Mary Sheffield, on 30 Jan 1795 in Sydney, NSW Australia. (Sarah Prigg was born on 15 May 1772 in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire England, died on 13 Nov 1827 in Windsor, NSW Australia and was buried on 15 Nov 1827 in St Matthews R C, Windsor, NSW Australia.)