One Queensland colonial town was awash with convicts who appear to have been forgotten today. Here’s the story of just one of them to illustrate what they got up to. I told a version of this story live on Ipswich’s West Bremer Radio.
John Wilson was a nineteen-year-old weaver living in the High Street of Glasgow, Scotland, at the time of his trial in Glasgow in 1846. He and a young lady by the name of Margaret Campbell, alias Rosanna Duggan, were convicted of theft by housebreaking. With a previous conviction, Wilson was sentenced to ten years transportation. His female accomplice was sentenced to just seven years transportation and was speedily shipped off to Van Diemen’s Land, that’s Tasmania.
Wilson, meanwhile, was packed on board the prison hulk Warrior, on the Thames at Woolwich, in London, and for the next three years awaited his transportation to the colonies. From then on Wilson’s life was simply one of survival. The conditions he faced on the prison hulk weren’t pleasant. The ship’s capacity was 450 people but a daily average of 534 made living conditions just awful.
Wilson got a break because on the 22nd of December 1849 prisoners from hulks on the Thames were boarded onto the ship Bangalore for transportation to beautiful sunny Queensland. Even though the Moreton Bay penal settlement had closed in 1839, the burgeoning free settlement still needed labour. And so Wilson was part of a special shipment of exiles with the deal being that he was given his Ticket-of-Leave upon arrival. This was a sort of probation that allowed him to work within a defined district.
The Bangalore with young Wilson onboard arrived at Moreton Bay on the 29th of April 1846. Others arriving on the Bangalore that day included Dick Austin who would set the record for the biggest robbery in Ipswich, his mate Peter Gentle who bribed the police to let Austin escape, and their pensioner guard Michael Turley who became the oldest person ever sentenced to death in Australia.
Wilson stood out from the other exiles because of his liking to regularly go by different names. When he was first convicted and in 1850 when he got his Ticket-of-Leave for Moreton Bay he was known as John Wilson alias Hugh Arrol.
He went by the same name in 1858 when he received his Ticket-of-Leave for Ipswich. The following year when he had it cancelled because he missed muster and was illegally at large. For that misdemeanour, he had to serve, in addition to his original ten-year sentence, a further three-and-a-half years on the roads which was working in the chain gangs.
In 1863, Wilson appeared at the Ipswich courthouse before the colony’s first chief justice, His Honor Chief Justice James Cockle for issuing forged cheques, and this time he was known as John Wilson alias Jack Smith.
In 1866, again at the Ipswich courthouse, he went by the name John Wilson alias John Russell. He was arrested at the original Shamrock Hotel, which was at 215 Brisbane Street where the Shamrock Inn and Fourthchild café is today. He was charged with stealing two £10 notes from the person of the Welsh coal miner John Parker. Parker was called to give evidence but was evidently too drunk, and so the bench sent him to the lock-up for contempt of court.
The Ipswich convict John Wilson alias Hugh Arrol alias Jack Smith alias John Russell then disappeared from history, which was probably his goal.
But Ipswich’s connection to Australia’s convict past remained as strong as ever. They were the town’s earliest residents and we shouldn’t forget them.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON WEST BREMER RADIO.
Photo credits:
Alias John Wilson – Harold Peacock with Copilot 2026.
Ticket-of-leave holder John Wilson described in 1859 – Copilot 2026.
Convict hulk Warrior, Woolwich, London, 1840-1855 – Illustration 1862, London Museum.
The convict Bangalore based on scrimshaw photo from Carters Price Guide to Antiques – Copilot image.
James Cockle, the first Chief Justice of Queensland, 1863-1879 – State Library of Queensland.
John Parker one of the oldest coal miners in the district – Queensland Times, Ipswich, 18th July 1914, page 10.
