From Dorset Gallows to Van Diemen's Land: Tale of Two Convicts - Softcover

Barnett, Barry

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798345192511

Verlag: Independently published, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Two Dorset men, Richard Bleathman and George Long are to be hanged on 31st March 1832. Outraged by the tangible corruption witnessed in a fiercely contested Dorset Parliamentary by-election, they feel powerless. Despite being respected citizens they are denied the right to vote. Seething with anger, they are convicted for rioting in the usually peaceful town of Blandford.
Their fate takes a sudden turn when the people of Dorset, moved by this injustice, successfully petition Judge Sir Stephen Gaselee for clemency. Instead of the gallows they are to be transported to the distant penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land – now Tasmania. Their journey mirrors that of George Loveless, the early trade union leader, from the nearby village of Tolpuddle. He would face the same punishment some three years later.
Awaiting transportation, Richard Bleathman and George Long are confined to the decaying prison hulk, Captivity where they are put to hard labour in Plymouth Dockyard. After enduring these grim conditions, they transfer to a second ‘hell on earth’, the convict transport vessel, Circassian bound for Australia.
Their true stories reflect the contrasting fortunes that awaited so many others who were forcibly uprooted, often for minor crimes, and cast into the brutal penal colony that was Van Diemen’s Land. This book also chronicles the deceit and duplicity of politics in the English county of Dorset at the time. The last chapter is written by descendants Bill and Ria Bleathman.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Independently published
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 13: 9798345192511
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 112
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.de/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxemburg