Samuel Day (Convict) 1st Fleet

  General Notes:

(S37) "The Founders of Australia" Author Mollie Gillen (Page 102) States: -
DAY, Samuel (c 1767-)
"Samuel Day was sentenced to death at Gloucester on 23 March 1785 for breaking into a house and stealing nearly two pounds of abb yarn [warp yarn] from a clothier. He was possibly the child of William Day and Sarah Allen baptised Samuel at Durslev Glos, on 5 April 1767. He was not reprieved until 28 December, when the sentence was commuted to 14 years transportation. He was sent to the Censor hulk aged 9 and delivered on 6 January 1787 to Alexander. (* 1st Fleet?)

At Sydney Cove in June 1788, after having been a guest at the wedding party of Anthony Rope and Elizabeth Pulley (qqv), at which " sea pye" was served, Day was one of those charged with theft of some meat from a goat, suspect because it was fresh in a community where fresh meat was normally unavailable. They put up a good defence of having found a goat mangled by some animal and "took the liberty of cutting some of the meat off to make a pie or the wedding dinner". All were acquitted.

Day was one of 16 convicts who went from work at the brick kilns without leave on 6 March 1789 and "marched to Botany Bay... to attack the natives and to plunder them of their fishing tackle and spears". Attacked in turn "our heroes were immediately routed". Wrote Collins "and endeavoured. To escape".
One was killed, seven wounded. The convicts at first insisted the attack was unprovoked while they gathered sweet tea, but were obliged to confess that it was revenge for ill treatment of a friend. Governor Phillip, incensed, ordered each to receive 150 lashers, tied and flogged in front of the provision store, "and to wear iron on the leg for a year". Seven were punished on 7 March, four others discovered later, on 4 April. The Aborigine Arabanoo, present at the first incident and told why the men were being flogged nevertheless "displayed symptoms of disgust and terror only''.

On 2 November 1788 Day had married Mary Bishop, (which seems to have been an alias,) and on 7 August 1798 he was sent to Norfolk Island by Surprize. At 1 July 1791 Day was supporting two persons on a one-acre lot at Sydney town, of which he had cleared 28 rods.

Probably trying to earn some money, Day (a sawyer) earned instead a 200-lash punishment on 11 February 1792 for working during government hours for his overseer. He was recorded with Mary Bolton (gv) and no children at mid June 1794 and by 1818 he was selling grain to government stores, signing his name for receipt of payment.

There is at this point what has seemed to be an insoluble puzzle. At the time when Mary Bolton is recorded as living and working with Samuel Day at Norfolk Island, Mary Bishop (Lady Penrhyn) is recorded in the NSW Muster for 1806. No woman named Many Bishop appears on any First fleet documents except at her marriage to Day in November 1788. There is also no mention of Many Bolton in colonial records except as the woman living with Samuel Day at Norfolk Island after her appearance in the 1788-victualling list.
Either Mary Bishop was an alias for another woman altogether and not for Mary Bolton, or Mary Bolton was by some chance present in NSW when the 1886 Muster was recorded (as Olive Gascoigne, gv, was in the1828 Census on a brief visit from VD.) and chose to be recorded not as Mary Bolton or Mary Day, but as Mary Bishop, the name used at her marriage.
Another suggestion which has since been proved valid identified Mary Bishop with Mary Davis (gv) who was listed as a time expired convict at Sydney in 1801. As Mary Bolton and Mary Davis were sentenced at the same place and on the same date, it seemed very possible that confusion arose between the two women, especially as Samuel Day was associated with both Mary Bolton and the mysterious Many Bishop.



Day and his wife, a hospital nurse, were among the last few to remain at Norfolk Island On 6 August 1812 he was growing grain on three acres and had five male and one female hogs, and one male and three female goats. With his wife and two children (a third is listed no VDL records), he for Port Dalrymple, VDL on 28 January' 1813 by Lady Nelson, and farmed 40 acres at Norfolk Plains and another 30 at Morven. In 1815 he signed the petition at Launceston for a Court of Criminal Judicature at VDL. The two children going to VDL with Day seem to have been adopted: Mary' (1797) and Catherine (1802), both named Sullivan, perhaps illegitimate children by one of three Sullivan women arriving by Marquis Cornwallis in 1796.

He was appointed constable at Port Dalrymple (Tas) on 30 May 1818. At May 1827 a VDL Colonial Secretary Department document described Samuel as destitute in Launceston, (Tas) without property or relatives, he said to be aged 79 and his wife Mary aged 69. No further record has been found". End quote.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Convict.

• Arrived on the Ship: On board the "Alexander " 1st Fleet salied from Portsmouth on the 13 May 1787, 26 Jan 1788, Sydney Cove, NSW Australia.

Samuel married Mary Davies Davis Bishop (Convict) 1st Fleet, daughter of John Davis and Sarah Bridgwater, on 2 Nov 1788 in St Philips C of E, York St, Sydney, NSW Australia. (Mary Davies Davis Bishop (Convict) 1st Fleet was born in 1761 in Diddlebury Parish, Shropshire England, died on 1 Jan 1839 in Kurrajong, NSW Australia and was buried in St Peters C of E, Richmond, NSW Australia.)