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Elizabeth was the daughter of John Beardshaw and Mary Rebecca or Rebecca Jarret or Jarrod. The Beardshaw and Jarret families appear to have originated in Yorkshire. There are many alternative spellings for both names, which makes researching them very difficult. Their marriage is recorded as occurring on the 5th July 1813 in Rotherham, Yorkshire under the spelling John Beadshall and Rebecca Jarret. There are several christening records for various John Beardshaws in Yorkshire, so its not possible to know which one is him. One possibility is that he was the son of John Beardshaw and Frances Johnson (another name with many variants of spelling!) and was christened at Maltby Near Rotherham on the 28th March 1785. Mary Rebecca's origins likewise are uncertain; one possibility is that she was the daughter of Daniel Jarrett and Mary Barber. John Beardshaw was a colourful character. According to research done by Graham Simpson (one of Elizabeth's descendants from her first marriage) "John was variously ragman, fisherman and duck hunter who was on the village pauper roll for many years. He must have lost at least one arm and at least one leg, possibly in an accident of the Napoleonic wars because he had one leg amputated at the expense of the village and was supplied with new wooden legs and arm hooks occasionally at public expense." There was a John Beardshaw who fought in the Napoleonic wars. He was a 2nd lieutenant in the Sherwood Rangers Corps of Volunteers, raised by William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland. However, 2nd lieutenant was an officer's rank and officer's commissions had to be bought, so were limited to those men with well off backgrounds or wealthy patrons. It seems unlikely that our fisherman/duck hunter was ever wealthy enough to buy himself a commission. Unlike the regular regiments of foot, the Sherwood Rangers were a volunteer corps. This means there is not much in the way of documentation available to find out more about the origins of this John Beardshaw.
Parish Church of Saint John the Baptist, Misson. |
Following their marriage, John and Mary Rebecca settled down in
the little village of Misson, near Bawtry, in the county of
Nottinghamshire (but very close to the borders of Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire) in north west England. Elizabeth was born on 9th March 1818.
She was christened in the church of Saint John the Baptist (shown on the
left), on the 18th April of that year. Elizabeth was her parents' third
child and third daughter; their other children were: Rebecca (1814),
Mary (1815), John (1820), twins Sarah and Thomas (1822), James (1824),
Matilda (1826), William (1828), George (1831), Caroline Sarah (1833),
and Abraham (1837).
When Elizabeth was 18 years old, she gave birth to an illegitimate son, John (a more common event than one would have thought). He was not christened until he was about 6 years old (on 12th June 1842), after Elizabeth's subsequent marriage to John Capel. Nevertheless, the christening record records her under her maiden name, using the spelling Berdshaw. Elizabeth married John Capel, (spelled Capill on the marriage certificate) at Sheffield on 25th December 1838. John was the son of John Capel and Hannah Stacey. At the time of their marriage, John was 34 (to Elizabeth's 20) and had been married before. His first wife was Sarah Clover. They had had 2 children: Ann in 1829 and Elizabeth in 1833 (although she lived for only 1 month). They are shown on the marriage certificate as being residents of Wicker in Sheffield, but must have returned to Misson afterwards because they appeared there on the 1841 census. On the census, they are shown as living with Elizabeth's son John (aged 5) and their daughter Elizabeth aged 2. A couple of houses away were Elizabeth's parents with her brothers Thomas and George and sisters Matilda and Sarah. John's widowed mother Hannah is also nearby, with his sister Martha and her illegitimate son Thomas. Elizabeth and John had 2 more children: Mary Jane in 1843 and James in 1845.
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On the 7th May 1847, Elizabeth took up a pair of scissors and stabbed John Needham 4 times on the left side of his head and neck. In the 1841 census, John Needham was living near Elizabeth, married with 6 children. He may have subsequently married Elizabeth's sister, Caroline Sarah in early 1851. I need to get the marriage certificate to find out for sure. According to the Assize records, she was brought before the Nottingham Assizes on 21st July 1847. She was found guilty by a jury of 12 men and sentenced to 12 years transportation.
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She was taken to Millbank Prison where she spent about 7 months. Every convict, both male and female sentenced to transportation spent time (mostly about 3 months) at Millbank before the sentence was carried out. Most likely, her future husband, Thomas Self had spent time here some 20 years earlier. Millbank prison was built in the early 1800's on the site of the present Tate Gallery and was pulled down in the 1890's. It was very much a Victorian institution when Elizabeth was there, cold and gloomy. Her life there would have been grim indeed. She would have been assigned some work, such as stitching flour bags as well as subjected to moral instruction. |
On the 2nd February 1848, she was taken from Millbank Prison to Woolwich where she was loaded onto the convict transport the "Elizabeth and Henry". According to the surgeon's report, the prisoners all looked worn out and much older than their stated ages. Elizabeth was leaving behind her 4 children: John then aged about 12, Elizabeth aged about 8, Mary Jane aged about 4 and James aged about 2. It couldn't have been anything other than utterly distressing for both mother and children to be separated in this way. John being left with 4 children to raise, one of which was not his, asked his remaining daughter from his first marriage to Sarah Clover, to move in with him and act as housekeeper. In the 1851 census Ann is shown as living with the family, together with her illegitimate son William. Poor John (with his surname spelled "Beatcher") is described as a lodger, rather than a step-son, and was an agricultural labourer. I wonder what this says about the family dynamics, some three years after his mother was sent to the other side of the world.
Although Elizabeth is not specifically mentioned by name, the surgeon's report makes for interesting reading as an idea of conditions on board the "Elizabeth & Henry". John Smith the surgeon, was very much a Victorian in his attitudes to cleanliness. The voyage was a long and difficult one, taking 5 months as compared with the more usual 4. They arrived at Hobart on the 30th June 1848. Elizabeth spent most of the next 7 years at the Female Factory at Ross. Ross is a small town north of Hobart, between Hobart and Launceston.
| The only building remaining of the Female Factory is the Commandants Cottage. It is open to the public, and in one of the rooms are 5 plaques commemorating 5 of the many hundreds of women who passed through. Elizabeth herself is one of these 5 (although there is a mistake on it - it states that her husband John was in Newgate Prison which he never was). Elizabeth didn't make life easy for herself. According to her convict records she was sentenced to periods of hard labour on five occassions, usually for insolence but also for lying and grossly immoral behaviour. Due to the harsh conditions and insufficient food, prostitution was very common amongst the female prisoners, and Elizabeth was no exception. On the 8th July 1850, she gave birth to a little boy, William. Conditions were harsh for the children too, and little William lived only 19 months, dying on 1st March 1852. He was buried in the cemetery at Ross, where there are very few headstones and those that there are belong to the ruling classes. |  |
Perhaps the loss of her son had a sobering effect on Elizabeth, because only a few months later on the 18th October, she was given a paid position as a child's nurse at the Female Factory at Ross. On the 19th January 1853, she was assigned to work in the household of S. Whitmarsh in New Town Road (Hobart). At this time there was a corndealer operating in Hobart, named Thomas Self. A former convict, he was almost 20 years older than Elizabeth and had received his ticket of leave in 1837. Perhaps because of her position in the Whitmarsh household and his business selling corn, somehow Thomas and Elizabeth met.
As a serving convict, Elizabeth could not marry Thomas Self without a licence from the Governor of the colony. Thomas Self applied for this licence on the 7th April 1853. The request was gazetted on the 13th April and recommended on the 30th April. On the application, Elizabeth declares herself to be a spinster! Thomas Self and Elizabeth Capel were married at St Georges Church in Hobart on the 16th May 1853. On the marriage certificate, Elizabeth declared herself a widow. This was a lie: John Capel did not die until 1872. Elizabeth must have kept in touch with her children because she knew where they were living in order to include them in her will. In no way was the marriage legal. According to the law of the day, people could only remarry if separated by sea for more than 7 years but Elizabeth and John Capel had only been separated 5 1/2 years. In spite of the fact that Elizabeth was still a convict, the new Mr and Mrs Self set up home together. Elizabeth Self was granted a Ticket of Leave on the 28th of June just a month after her marriage. Their first child, Thomas Edward arrived only 5 months after his parent's marriage, on the 19th October 1853. On the 16th May 1854, she was recommended for a conditional pardon, although it was not granted until the 3rd of April 1855. Elizabeth was now a free woman. Their next child, Sarah Ann arrived on the 18th June 1855, just a few weeks after Elizabeth had been granted her conditional pardon. Another daughter Emily, arrived 4 August 1856. She lived only a few years, dying in 1863. Frederick was born 30th January 1858, and their last son, George Henry on the 16th September 1859 . He lived only one month, dying on the 23rd October. Their last child, Rosina was born on the 26th November 1862. By the time of the birth of her last child, Rosina, her children back in England were 26, 22, 19 and 17 years of age and she herself was 44. At about this time, or a little later 3 at least of them emigrated to New Zealand and settled in Akaroa. (I haven't been able to find out what happened to Elizabeth.)
Some time after the birth of their last child, the Selfs gave up dealing in corn, and opened a drapers shop in Collins Street Hobart. This proved a lucrative trade, as they were able to acquire several parcels of land, including a farm in the area of Bellerive (somewhere in the neighbourhood of the famous cricket oval). Since Thomas was nearly 20 years older than his wife, it was fairly inevitable that he would predecease her. He died on the 20th November 1874 at the age of 76. With her new found affluence and respectability, Elizabeth was able to purchase a large plot in Hobart's cemetery for her husband's body and had an elaborate monument built. The bodies of Emily and George Henry had to be removed from St David's churchyard (it was turned into public gardens) and their bodies too were interred inside the Self family vault. Elizabeth, at only 56, still had years ahead of her and continued running the drapers shop. She continued to acquire property, so when she died on the 17th July 1880, she was able to leave a substantial property to her children. Relations within her large family could not have been universally amicable however. She amended her will several times, deleting various of her children from the inheritance.