James Osborne: Convict 62

The arrival of the barque Scindian at Fremantle on 1 June 1850 signalled the start of Western Australia’s period as a penal settlement.¹ Then known as the Swan River Colony, the State had been founded as a colony of free settlers, but a faltering economy and business pressure led the colonists to petition the British Government for convict labour.² The Scindian arrived with the first seventy five of nearly 10,000 convicts to be sent by Britain over the next eighteen years.³ Amongst that first shipload was James Osborne, my wife’s great great granduncle. He was transported to Western Australia on the Scindian after receiving a sentence of fifteen years at the Worcestershire Quarter Sessions for breaking into a house.⁴ He was described as a ‘middling stout’ fresh-complexioned man, literate, five feet eight inches tall with a long, sharp face, blue eyes and light brown hair. He became Western Australia’s convict number 62.⁵

James was born in the village of Kidderminster, Worcestershire, and baptised there in 1827.⁶ His mother died soon after he was born and when his father left the country James had to be raised by his grandmother.⁷ The 1841 census found him living in an inn with his uncle and siblings.⁸ The housebreaking offence for which he was transported was committed in 1847, with the trial report describing him and the two other men who committed the burglary with him as ‘noted thieves’, but James was to claim later that he was drawn into crime ‘by the inducement of bad associates’.⁹ After sentencing he petitioned the Queen for remission, but was unsuccessful and was sent down to Millbank Prison.¹⁰

James was later transferred to Pentonville and then to Portland, arriving there on 1 May 1849 to await a ship.¹¹ He was visited in Portland by his brother John, probably the last time he would see a family member again.¹² The prison records state that his health and behaviour were good and he boarded the Scindian with his housebreaking accomplices on 28 February 1850.¹³

The voyage to Fremantle was uneventful and James, like the other passengers, suffered only minor ailments.¹⁴ When the Scindian arrived it was found that there was no suitable building to house its convict passengers and the first task for James and his fellow inmates was to prepare suitable quarters for themselves.¹⁵ Work parties from the ship, which remained anchored offshore, were tasked with renovating the Harbour Master’s property as a temporary prison.¹⁶

Four months after his arrival James appeared on a published list of prisoners as being suitable for employment after they got their tickets-of-leave.¹⁷ Ticket-of-leave holders were given a certain degree of freedom, but were subject to restrictions on their activities and movements.¹⁸ James was granted a ticket-of-leave on 1 May 1851 and obtained employment as a carpenter with Toodyay farmer JT Cooke at a rate of £2 per month.¹⁹ In all likelihood this is where he met Elizabeth Roser, the daughter of William Roser of Toodyay.²⁰ With the consent of the Colonial Secretary, James married her on 23 November 1853.²¹

Apart from an early infraction when he and a fellow convict briefly absconded from a road party, James’s conduct was deemed to be very good and he progressed rapidly to the next level of indulgence, a conditional pardon, which was granted in August 1854.²² He took advantage of the pardon’s travel provisions and left the State in 1855 to live in South Australia.²³

Presumably James worked as a carpenter when he first moved to South Australia, but he was later able to set up a building business in King William Street, Adelaide, where he advertised for carpenters, joiners and stone masons to work for him.²⁴ His original sentence would have expired in about 1863, entitling him to a certificate of freedom, but as he was no longer in Western Australia he may not have received it. It is unlikely that James revealed his convict status in South Australia, a State which had never been a penal settlement and which had legislated to prevent the infiltration of convicts from Western Australia.²⁵

Two sons were born in Adelaide: John William and Arthur George.²⁶ It is not known whether they married and had children, but Margaret Thompson believes that they moved to New South Wales.²⁷

James and Elizabeth re-visited Western Australia in 1883 and James published an account of the trip on his return to Adelaide, not mentioning that he had originally seen the State when he was a convict.²⁸

James’s building business became insolvent in 1886, mainly because of poor mining investments.²⁹ He returned to Western Australia in 1891, perhaps to follow up mining opportunities, but unfortunately contracted pneumonia and died shortly after his arrival.³⁰ He is buried in the East Perth Cemetery.³¹ Elizabeth remained in Adelaide, where she died in 1894.³²

How should we measure James Osborne’s life? The State of Western Australia would have seen him as a component of their coerced workforce and might therefore have regarded his short stay in the State as a failure.³³ James, on the other hand, might have seen transportation as a personal success as he was able to move to a place where he could live a life free of the encumbrances of a convict past and with opportunities he might not have had in Kidderminster. His life was unfortunate at its end, however, as bad judgment led to the collapse of his business, just as poor judgement had led him to break into a house all those years ago. In a final irony, his life ended back in Western Australia, where it had had its convict beginnings.

Elizabeth is the silent voice in James Osborne’s biography. We know nothing of how she negotiated life as a convict’s wife and Janice Young found scant knowledge of her in her family, so much so that she titled her book ‘In Search of Elizabeth’.³⁴ Perhaps this genealogical amnesia had something to do with the ‘stain’ of her marriage. Future research will hopefully discover more about her.

Notes

1. ‘Arrival of the “Scindian” with Convicts’, The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, 7 June 1850, p 2; JS Battye, Western Australia: A History From its Discovery to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1924, p 207. ↩︎
2. Pamela Statham, ‘Why convicts I: an economic analysis of colonial attitudes to the introduction of convicts’, Studies in Western Australian History, 1981, 4, p 8. ↩︎
3. RT Appleyard, ‘Western Australia: economic and demographic growth, 1850-1914’, in, CT Stannage (ed), A New History of Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1981, p 212 ↩︎
4. ‘Worcestershire Quarter Sessions’, Worcestershire Chronicle, 5 January 1848, p 8. ↩︎
5. Entry for James Osborne, Estimates and Convict Lists (128/1-32), Western Australia, Convict Records, 1846-1930, Ancestry.com, accessed 20 June 2024; Entry for James Osborne, Convict Department, Registers, Character Book, 1850-1857 (R17), Ancestry.com, accessed 21 June 2024. ↩︎
6. Baptism of James Osborne, baptised 12 June 1827, England Births and Baptisms 1538-1975, (index only), FamilySearch.org, accessed 7 June 2024 ↩︎
7. Petition of James Osborne, Criminal Petitions: Series II, 1849, HO 18/262, UK, Criminal Records, 1780-1871, Ancestry.com, accessed 18 June 2024. ↩︎
8. Entry for James Osborne, Stourbridge Street, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, 1841 England, Wales & Scotland Census, FindMyPast.com.au, accessed 7 June 2024. ↩︎
9. ‘Bewdley’, Worcestershire Chronicle, 10 November 1847, p 5;.Petition of James Osborne, HO 18/262. ↩︎
10. Petition of James Osborne, HO 18/262. ↩︎
11. Entry for James Osbourne (sic), Prison Registers and Statistical Returns, 1848-1850, HO 24/4, in UK, Criminal Records, 1780-1871, Ancestry.com, accessed 18 June 2024;Entry for James Osborne, Pentonville Prison Registers, Volume 1, HO24, piece number 16, in, England & Wales, Crime Prisons & Punishment, 1770-1935, FindMyPast.com.au, accessed 17 June 2024; Entry for James Osborne, Criminal Entry Books, 1849, HO 13/96, page 378, in, UK, Criminal Records, 1780-1871, Ancestry.com, accessed 18 June 2024. ↩︎
12. Entry for James Osborne, Register number 417, Portland Prison, Dorset: General Record of Prisoners, piece number 383, page number 53, in, England & Wales, Crime, Prisons & Punishment, 1770-1935, FindMyPast.com.au, accessed 2 June 2024. ↩︎
13. Entry for James Osborne, Prisoner number 417, Quarterly Return of Prisoners, Convict Hulks, Convict Prisons and Criminal Lunatic Asylums, HO8, piece number 102, in, England & Wales, Crime, Prisons & Punishment, 1770-1935, FindMyPast.com.au, accessed 17 June 2024; Entry for James Osborne, Prisoner number 417, Quarterly Return of Prisoners, Convict Hulks, Convict Prisons and Criminal Lunatic Asylums, HO8, piece number 103, in, England & Wales, Crime, Prisons & Punishment, 1770-1935, FindMyPast.com.au, accessed 17 June 2024. ↩︎
14. ‘Medical and surgical journal of the hired convict ship Scindian for 28 January to 3 July 1850’, The National Archives (UK), ADM 101/66/8B, Ancestry.com, accessed 10 June 2024. ↩︎
15. FK Crowley, Australia’s Western Third: A History of Western Australia from the First Settlement to Modern Times, Macmillan, London, 1960, pp 32-34. ↩︎
16. Alexandra Hasluck, Unwilling Emigrants: A Study of the Convict Period in Western Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1978, p 32 ↩︎
17. ‘Classified Advertising’, The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, 11 October 1850, p 1. ↩︎
18. PR Millett, ‘Convicts, ticket of leave’, in Jenny Gregory and Jan Gothard (eds), Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 2009, p 243. ↩︎
19. Entry for James Osborne, Australian Joint Copying Project and National Library of Australia and Library of New South Wales and Great Britain. Public Record Office. Colonial Office records, 1714-1951 [microform], image 182, National Library of Australia,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2033923502, accessed 19 June 2024. ↩︎
20. Baptism of Elizabeth Rosa [sic], baptised 2 March 1834, East Grinstead, Sussex, FHL Film Number 1041580, item 2 p 73, Ancestry.com, accessed 17 June 2024. ↩︎
21. Comptroller-General to Colonial Secretary [letter], 21 November 1853, Letter and Memoranda Books, Comptroller-General to the Colonial Secretary (C19-C21), p 345, Western Australia, Convict Records, 1846-1930, Ancestry.com, accessed 21 June 2024. ↩︎
22. Comptroller-General to the Colonial Secretary [letter], 13^th December 1850, Letter and Memoranda Books, Comptroller-General to the Colonial Secretary (C19-C21), p 236, Western Australia, Convict Records, 1846-1930, Ancestry.com, accessed 21 June 2024; Entry for James Osborne, Convict Department, Registers, General Register, 1850-1868 (R21b), Ancestry.com, accessed 21 June 2024. ↩︎
23. Margaret Thompson, ‘Elizabeth Roser and James Osborne’ (unpublished manuscript, 2021), typescript, p 5. ↩︎
24. ‘Advertising’, Evening Journal, 11 September 1876, p 1; ‘Advertising’, Evening Journal, 13 September 1876, p 1; ‘Advertising’, The Express and Telegraph, 3 December 1877, p 1. ↩︎
25. Convicted Felons Act 1857-8 (SA); Hasluck, Unwilling Emigrants, pp 58-59. ↩︎
26. Entry for John William Osborne, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842 to 1922, Ancestry.com, accessed 21 June 2024; Entry for Arthur George Osborne, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842 to 1906, Ancestry.com, accessed 21 June 2024. ↩︎
27. Thompson, ‘Elizabeth Roser and James Osborne’, pp 7-8. ↩︎
28. ‘Cleared’, The Express and Telegraph, 19 January 1883, p 2; ‘Experiences in Western Australia’, The Express and Telegraph, 7 June 1883, p 2; ‘Experiences in Western Australia’, The Express and Telegraph, 12 June 1883. ↩︎
29. Entry for James Osborne, ‘Law and Criminal Court’, Evening Journal, 6 April 1886, p 2. ↩︎
30. Entry for James Osborne, ‘Deaths’, Express and Telegraph, 1 October 1891, p 2; ‘Deaths’, South Australian Register, 1 October 1891, p 4 ↩︎
31. Entry for James Osborne, ‘Funeral Notice’, The West Australian, 16 September 1891, p 4; Entry for James Osborne, East Perth Cemeteries, n.d.,  https://eastperthcemeteries.com.au/index.php/explore/burial-search/burialsite/132940, accessed 18 June 2024. ↩︎
32. Death registration for Elizabeth Osborne, died 15 August 1894, South Australia – Deaths 1842-1915, page number 20, volume number 221 (index only), Ancestry.com, accessed 17 June 2024. ↩︎
33. Kellie Moss, ‘The Swan River experiment: coerced labour in Western Australia 1829-1868’, Studies in Western Australian History, 2020, 34, pp 24-39. ↩︎
34. Janice M Young, In Search of Elizabeth, Chatterbox Printing, Armadale, 1982, p 9. ↩︎

Bibliography

Primary Sources
Ancestry.com.
Convicted Felons Act 1857-58 (SA).
East Perth Cemeteries, n.d., https://eastperthcemeteries.com.au.
Evening Journal (South Australia).
FamilySearch.org.
FindMyPast.com.au.
National Library of Australia (trove.nla.gov.au).
South Australian Register.
The Advertiser (South Australia).
The Express and Telegraph (South Australia).
The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News.
The West Australian.
Worcestershire Chronicle.

Secondary Sources
Appleyard, RT, ‘Western Australia: economic and demographic growth, 1850-1914’, in, CT Stannage (ed), A New History of Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1981, pp 211-236.
Battye, JS, Western Australia: A History From its Discovery to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1924.
Crowley, FK, Australia’s Western Third: A History of Western Australia from the First Settlement to Modern Times, Macmillan, London, 1960.
Hasluck, Alexandra, Unwilling Emigrants: A Study of the Convict Period in Western Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1978.
Millett, PR, ‘Convicts, ticket of leave’, in, Jenny Gregory and Jan Gothard (eds), Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 2009, p 243.
Moss, Kellie, ‘The Swan River experiment: coerced labour in Western Australia 1829-1868’, Studies in Western Australian History, 2020, 34, pp 24-39.
Statham, Pamela, ‘Why convicts I: an economic analysis of colonial attitudes to the introduction of convicts’, Studies in Western Australian History, 1981, 4, pp 1-10.
Thompson, Margaret, ‘Elizabeth Roser and James Osborne’, unpublished manuscript, 2021, typescript.
Young, Janice M, In Search of Elizabeth, Chatterbox Printing, Armadale, 1982.

Copyright © 2026 Michael Robinson.

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Last updated 12 November 2025