Travels with my Ancestors #29: The Rags to Riches Tale of the Roberts Family Part Five

This is Part Five of the epic story of my 4 x great-grandparents, William Roberts and Jane Longhurst.
In Part Four we saw Jane coping with the death of William in 1819, and his care for the family via generous legacies in his will. Jane continued to forge her way through colonial business and society as a widow, independently wealthy and answering to no one.
Was this about to change?

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Part Five: Introducing William (2)

Another William was about to enter Jane’s life. William Hutchinson, like Jane and the first William, had been a convict. He had broken into a London home and stolen goods worth over £168; at his trial at the Old Bailey in 1796 he was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to transportation for life. He either had some influence wielded on his behalf, or he was lucky, because the sentence was then reduced to seven years.^[i] He arrived on the Hillsborough in 1799.^[ii]

Once in New South Wales he had a rather chequered career. In Sydney, he was convicted of theft from the Government Stores—a serious crime at a time when the settlement faced food insecurity, verging on starvation levels in its first decade. A few years earlier and William would have been hung for the crime; instead, he was sent to Norfolk Island, a penal settlement which also served as a place of secondary punishment.^[iii]

There he met and married Mary Chapman (or Cooper), herself a transported convict, and they had eight children.^[iv] Two of their daughters, Hannah and Martha, would feature in the Roberts family story in years to come.

William was industrious and well behaved on Norfolk; he was soon appointed overseer of government stock, acting superintendent of convicts in 1803 and then superintendent in 1809.^[v] He may have smothered a smile at these appointments—overseer of the government stores, after having stolen from them so recently in Sydney!

When the government gave orders that the Norfolk Island settlement was to close, he oversaw the evacuation of the last inhabitants in 1814—a complex operation—winning himself a recommendation to Governor Macquarie.^[vi]

Back in Sydney, he was made the Principal Superintendent of Convicts and Public Works—a prestigious and powerful position for a twice-offending convict. He was now responsible for the assignment of convicts, and he had gained the ear of the Governor.^[vii] He had control over newly arriving convicts’ possessions and any money they brought with them—which, some suspected, he sometimes invested to his own benefit.^[viii]

Was William just very good at any task he set his mind to? Or a smooth-talking opportunist? Perhaps he was a blend of both. It’s easy to imagine his grey eyes twinkling as he charmed people with tales of his adventures and successes. However it happened, he certainly won favour with the Governor. His next appointment was the highly sought after Principal Wharfinger (supervisor of the wharf) which gave him influence over the movements of ships in and out of the harbour—and their cargo.^[ix]

In 1819 his wife Mary sailed back to England on the Shipley, along with returning regiment officers and naval surgeons.^[x] This may have been an amicable separation; perhaps she was in bad health— or was Mary escaping from her husband or from life in the colony? She did not take the children with her: in 1822 they were living with their father.^[xi] It’s possible that William held the children back from their mother if the separation was contested. As their father, he had complete custody and control over them. It’s likely Mary died within a few years of her return— that is, if her husband did not commit bigamy a few years later.

Some of his conduct came to the attention of Commissioner John Thomas Bigge, sent by the authorities in England to investigate matters concerning transportation to the colony. It would not have helped William’s case that he was an ally of Governor Macquarie who was at odds with Bigge and his commission. Despite this Bigge did not find any evidence to support a claim of wrongdoing on William’s part.^[xii]

By the 1820s, William was an important and influential person. He owned pastoral properties south of Sydney, real estate in the main towns of the colony, business concerns such as the Waterloo Flour Mill, and was a founding director of the Bank of New South Wales.^[xiii] He built a handsome sandstone house in Sydney on the corner of Pitt and Campbell Streets.^[xiv]

He was active in various campaigns to increase civil rights in the colony.^[xv] William’s trajectory was very much in line with Governor Macquarie’s belief that once they had served their sentence, convicts should be given every opportunity to become productive citizens on an equal basis with free settlers.

A happy second marriage?

William Hutchinson and Jane almost certainly met in Sydney. It could have been his role at the Bank that brought him into contact with the widowed Jane after her first husband’s death. Jane recognised a dynamic, forward-thinking man when she saw one. Hutchinson had been one of the three witnesses to her first husband’s will a few years earlier; settler society was small and networks brought people together in the commercial world of Sydney.

They married in 1825, blending their large families in the process. ^[xvi]

A certain amount of blending had already taken place. Jane’s son Thomas, one of her twin boys, had developed a relationship with his new stepfather’s daughter Hannah. They married in 1828 when Thomas was twenty-one and his bride seventeen.^[xvii]

Ann (‘young Jane’) had died so tragically the year before, and Jane’s older children were mostly independent by then. Four of Hutchinson’s children were living with him in 1828, though none of Jane’s appeared on the household list in the Census of that year.^[xviii]

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Was Jane happy with her second William? Perhaps not. In the year following their marriage, there is a record of ‘Jane Hutchinson’ being sent to the Female Factory, the women’s prison at Parramatta, for one month. Her crime? Living in a state of prostitution. ^[xix]

According to a newspaper report, Jane had deserted her husband and children and was staying with a Ticket-of-Leave man, William Menzies. This is what led to the charge of ‘prostitution’; a term flung at any woman found living with a man other than her husband. Menzies was convicted of having harboured and concealed the said Jane. He had his Ticket cancelled and was returned to convict labour.^[xx]

The Gaol Entry record showing Jane’s admission in January 1826.
Source: Ancestry.com, accessed 11 April 2026

There were at least several other women called Jane Hutchinson who committed various crimes in this period, resulting in time in the Female Factory, Sydney Gaol, and even the ‘lunatic asylum.’ Was this newspaper reporting the arrest of the wrong Jane? If not, what could have made Jane seek shelter with Menzies, so soon after her marriage to Hutchinson? She was, after all, a wealthy woman in her own right and capable of supporting herself, should she have regretted her choice of second husband.

Source: Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser 12 Jan 1826 p3 Police Reports. Via Trove, accessed 11 April 2026

A clue might be found in a court case held ten years later, at the Sydney Quarter Sessions of July 1836. Jane’s son Charles was before the court on a charge of assaulting his stepfather, William Hutchinson.

Witnesses testified that at tea-time on 5^th of May, Charles and his brother Joseph burst into the Hutchinson house in Pitt Street. Jane appeared beside them, described by Joseph as having the appearance of much ill usage. Charles confronted William in the hallway, calling him a damned infernal scoundrel for having hit his mother and hurled a glass at her.

He threw William to the floor and knelt on his chest, until blood gushed from his mouth. William grabbed a knife and the Roberts men ran off, with Charles crying out My mother has been the making of you!  It appeared that when William had hit her, Jane had sent a maid to tell her sons what had happened and the brothers rushed to the house to get her out of harm’s way.

When giving his own testimony, Hutchinson freely admitted that:

he had hit her {Jane} and would do so again under similar circumstances; I struck her six times with my hand whip; I did not strike her with a tumbler; I threw one at her…she may or may not have been bleeding.

The brothers would have been enraged at hearing his, but their stepfather’s lawyer remarked that this behaviour towards his wife was not ill treatment. The lawyer for Charles’ defence, though, objected:

…if an assault under any circumstances could be justified, it was this…{Charles}had acted because of the natural feelings of a son who conceived that his mother had been grossly injured…

The jury found Charles guilty of assault, but given the mitigating circumstances, he was not sentenced to gaol, but to pay a fine of 40 shillings.^[xxi]  

William Hutchinson faced no penalty whatsoever for his behaviour.

Was this instance of abuse of Jane by her second husband one of many; behaviour that had begun early in their life together? Perhaps that report of Jane leaving her husband a decade before had been her attempt to escape his mistreatment. Menzies, the man she’d briefly stayed with then, had given her shelter and had paid a steep price for doing so.

If Jane was sent to the Female Factory for a month in 1826, she was back living with Hutchinson and his children two years later.^[xxii] Judging by the ferocious response by Charles to his stepfather’s behaviour in 1836, the violence she experienced at Hutchinson’s hands had continued.

Jane knew that gossip was rife in Sydney Town. Both she and her second husband were well-known in its business and property circles. She would have faced scandal and likely condemnation if she had permanently severed her ties with him, given his prominence in the settler community. She would be punished for desertion, while he would escape any penalty for his abuse. She may have felt she had no option but to endure his behaviour.

It’s also possible that despite the provisions in her first husband’s will, which left her a legacy for her sole and exclusive use and benefit …for the term of her natural life, Free from the Control of any person, the laws of coverture might still have applied unless she and the second William had a property agreement (a sort of colonial-era ‘pre-nup’) between them when they wed. Otherwise, her new husband would have control over all the wealth she brought to the marriage.

Real choices for women, even independently wealthy ones like Jane, were limited, given the legal and social constraints they faced.

                                                                   ~

Jane died later that year, after a decade with the second William. ^[xxiii]

She had done so much in her fifty-four years of life: convict girl, wife and mother, emancipist, businesswoman, a second marriage and many stepchildren.

William Hutchinson followed her into the grave ten years later^.[xxiv] At his death, the value of his estate was estimated to be £220,000—equivalent to something like $1.77 billion in today’s money. His name appears at position 147 of the 200 ‘richest Australians of all time.’ ^[xxv]

They were both buried in Sydney’s Devonshire Street Burial Ground, near Jane’s first husband, her daughter Ann, and sons Richard and Thomas.^[xxvi] Her surviving children may have felt some bitterness at burying their stepfather next to Jane, given his apparent unkindness towards her. Still, other links had been forged between the two families, with Thomas and his brother Joseph both marrying Hutchinson daughters: Thomas and Hannah in 1828, Joseph and Martha in 1835.

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Legacies

William Roberts and Jane Longhurst demonstrated that despite the privations and cruelties of their world, people could—and did— overcome these obstacles to survive, and then to thrive. Theirs was certainly a ‘rags to riches’ tale.

Jane dealt with the wealthy and famous of colonial Sydney in her business life, despite the label of ‘whores and prostitutes’ routinely applied to convict women.  She defied the convict stain and the scorn of her social betters, becoming a wealthy and influential woman after William’s death. If her second marriage had been an unhappy one, perhaps the loyalty and support of her children somewhat compensated for that.

Their children and grandchildren could thank William and Jane for their legacy: the monetary wealth and, importantly, the personal pride bequeathed by their parents.

This brings us to the end of the amazing story of William and Jane. Thank you for following along!
Soon I’ll be posting about the next generation of the Roberts in my family tree: the equally intruiging tale of Thomas Roberts and Elizabeth Greenwood, my 3 x great-grandparents.
This one has it all: convict voyages, orphanages, a teen marriage, theft and gaol in the colony, illicit romance and children.
Do join me for this next chapter.

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[i] England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892, Class: HO 26; Piece: 6; Page: 43.
Via Ancestry.com, accessed 17 Dec 2025

[ii] Australian Convict Transportation Registers – Other Fleets & Ships, 1791-1868, Class: HO 11; Piece: 1.
Via Ancestry.com, accessed 17 Dec 2025

[iii] Biography – William Hutchinson – Australian Dictionary of Biography (anu.edu.au), accessed 19 Jan 2026

[iv] State Archives NSW; Ships musters; Series: 1289; Items: 4/4771; Reel: 561; Page: 147. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 18 Jan 2026; William Hutchinson 1776–1846 – Australian Royalty: Genealogy of the colony of New South Wales, accessed 18 Jan 2026

[v] William Hutchinson 1776–1846 – Australian Royalty: Genealogy of the colony of New South Wales
Accessed 17 Dec 2025

[vi] Colonial Secretary Index 1788-1825, Reel 6004; 4/3493 p.147. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 16 Dec 2025

[vii] Biography – William Hutchinson – Australian Dictionary of Biography (anu.edu.au) accessed 16 Dec 2025

[viii] Biography – William Hutchinson – Australian Dictionary of Biography (anu.edu.au) accessed 16 Dec 2025

[ix] Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertiser 8 November 1817 p1 Via Trove, accessed 16 Dec 2025

[x] State Archives NSW; Ships musters; Series: 1289; Items: 4/4771; Reel: 561; Page: 147.
Via Ancestry.com, accessed 19 Jan 2026

[xi] State Records Authority of New South Wales; Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia; Population musters, Dependent settlements; Series: NRS 1261; Reel: 1254. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 17 Dec 2025

[xii] Biography – William Hutchinson – Australian Dictionary of Biography (anu.edu.au) Accessed 16 Dec 2025

[xiii] State Records Authority of New South Wales; Copies of Deeds to Land Grants and Leases; Series: NRS 13836; Item: 7/484; Reel: 2704. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 18 Dec 2025

[xiv] Casey & Lowe Pty Ltd Archaeology & Heritage, Report on Archaeological Investigation for Meriton of 420-426 Pitt St & 36-38 Campbell St, Sydney, p4

[xv] Biography – William Hutchinson – Australian Dictionary of Biography (anu.edu.au)

[xvi] New South Wales, Australia, Butts of Marriage Licenses, 1813–1835, 1894, Series Title: Licenses for Marriages, 1813-1827; NRS Number: NRS 1037; Reel Number: 2281; Volume Number: 4/1710
Via Ancestry.com, accessed 18 Dec 2025

[xvii] Series Title: Licenses for Marriages, 1828-1831; NRS Number: NRS 1037; Reel Number: 2281; Volume Number: 4/6030. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 24 Jan 2026

[xviii] State Records Authority of New South Wales; Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia; 1828 Census: Alphabetical Return; Series Number: NRS 1272; Reel: 2554. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 17 Dec 2025

[xix] State Records Authority of NSW online, NSW Musters of Convicts in the Colony 1808-1849, Jane Hutchinson, HO10, Piece 19 NRS-2514-3-[4/6430] Page 137 Reel 851. https://search.records.nsw.gov.au/

 accessed 18 Jan 2026

[xx] 1826 ‘The Police’, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), 12 January, p. 3.  Via Trove http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2185036, accessed 18 Jan 2026

[xxi] 1836 ‘Quarter Sessions’ The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842),14 July, p3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2205436, accessed 19 Jan 2026

[xxii] State Records Authority of New South Wales; Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia; 1828 Census: Alphabetical Return; Series Number: NRS 1272; Reel: 2554. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 19 Jan 2026

[xxiii] Australia Death Index, 1787-1985, Jane Hutchinson, V1836267 20. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 17 Dec 2025

[xxiv] Sydney Morning Herald 26 July 1846, p3. Via Trove, accessed 17 Dec 2025

[xxv] Rubinstein, William (2004). The All-Time Australian 200 Rich List, quoted at https://findingmerriman.com.au/merriman/william-hutchinson-1776-1846-william-bowmans-father-in-law/, accessed 7 March 2026

[xxvi] Sydney Devonshire Street Cemetery headstone inscriptions photographed and transcribed by Arthur and Josephine Ethel Foster, 1900. Via Ancestry.com, accessed 17 Dec 2025