It is 1832, Sydney Cove. Our very good turner John Daines and his two Highway Robbery accomplices are awaiting their fate in their new homeland. What will it be gentlemen? Conform or rebel?

Let’s start with the weaver, William Miller. Conform? Rebel? Fight back or go quietly into this good night?

William Miller will first be assigned to James Cunningham in Sydney. The next we will hear of him it is January 1840, and he has absconded! The announcement in the newspaper reads

Miller William, Planter (1), 29, Norfolk, weaver, &c., 5 feet 6 inches, ruddy comp., brown hair, hazel eyes, front teeth irregular, lost one in upper front, scar ball of left thumb, two scars back of left hand, Woman MWAH inside lower right arm, blue ring middle finger of right hand, from Thomas Atkinson, Liverpool, since December 31.

8 January 1840, NSW Government Gazette

It will be three full months before William is apprehended. Five years later he will be given a Ticket of Leave in the County of Cumberland (Campbelltown). At the quite mature age of 44 he will marry Phoebe Franklin at St Mary’s Denham Court in 1847. They will have a tribe of children. He will live to the age of 75 and will be buried in the South Gundagai Cemetery in southern NSW.

And James Poll (or Pole, Paull etc.), the groom?

James will first be assigned to John Wiseman of Wollombi. He will choose to go quietly. He will marry free settler Margaret McMullen in 1839, be issued a Ticket of Leave in Patrick’s Plains in November 1840 and receive a Conditional Pardon in September 1848. James and Margaret will have many children, and he will die in the vicinity of Singleton in 1866.

And what of our turner, the young John Daines, with his ruddy and freckled complexion and his three small moles on the left side of his neck?

Soon after the arrival of the Planter into Sydney Cove in late 1832, John will first be assigned to John Wood, of Maitland NSW. In the first few days of the following year, he will be back in Sydney, assigned to James Underwood of Rushcutter’s Bay.

And Highway Robbery? A thing of the past, surely John…?

Or perhaps not…

Joseph Weasley, John Deans, and William Taylor, all assigned to Mr. Underwood, Parramatta Road, were indicted for attempting to steal a quantity of wearing apparel from the house of Mr. John Solomon, Publican, George-street, Sydney, on Sunday the 27th March.

22 April 1835, The Sydney Monitor

I want to believe that John, the youngest of the three Highway Robbers of 1832 Wymondham, is a good wholesome boy, led astray by a couple of older lads. But the more I read about this robbery, the more I’m having my doubts.

By now it is 1835. John is no longer the young lad who committed a petty crime. He is labelled forever a Highway Robber. He’s now a young man, a Highway Robber thrown into company with practiced criminals. If he is the type to be easily led, nothing has changed.

In court, the evidence is presented. The three prisoners (actual names Joseph Whitely, John Daines and William Taylor) have been at Mr Solomon’s residence with two other prisoners of the Crown, supposedly named Hannibal and Foster. They have all ‘had some spirits’.

Taylor contrived to slip upstairs to Mr. Solomon’s bed-room, and having opened the drawers packed up four large bundles of the contents; …he then went to the bar and appeared so much agitated, that the servant suspected that he had been after some roguery and watched him; on leaving the house, they found that he was carrying off a bundle which they took from him, and allowed him to go away.

22 April 1835, The Sydney Monitor

William Taylor apparently left three more ‘bundles’ behind, lying at the top of the stairs. It was a cache of loot not well hidden because the servants found the bundles after the group left the house.

Our suspects were easily apprehended by 11 o’clock. And that’s when they seem to have concocted a story:

According to the evidence of one of the witnesses, Weasley threatened to stab him if he made any noise about his taking the bundle from Taylor. The prisoners in defence asserted, that the robbery had been planned by the two witnesses Hannibal and Foster, both assigned servants to the prosecutor [Mr Solomon].

22 April 1835, The Sydney Monitor

And as I read through the newspaper story, I’m finding it hard to work out who was where, who had what bundle, nor who is blaming who for what.

That after the things had been packed up ready to take away, the witness Foster came to Taylor and told him he had a good thing for him and told him to carry off the bundle; on which Hannibal seeing him about to leave the house took back the bundle and said it would not do at present.

It’s a wild and crazy story, a ‘not me Sir, he dunnit, Sir‘ of enlarged dramatic proportion. It’s designed to confuse the judge and jury, and it doesn’t stop there:

After they left the house, Foster came up to them and wanted them to return at night and carry off the things, on which Weasley told Taylor to have nothing to do with Foster, and threatened to put his knife into Taylor, if he paid any attention to what he wanted him to do. The witnesses had been afraid of their master finding out that they had premeditated the robbery by the disarrangement of the articles in the room and had got up the present charge to save themselves.

And does it work? Of course not. So what now? What outcome for our three prisoners telling stories at the bar? Guilty! Remanded!

The interesting part is that all through the ‘he dunnit‘ story John Daines doesn’t get mentioned at all. Not once. Was he even there?

It really doesn’t matter whether he was there or not. Once a robber, always a robber. Once a thief, always a thief.

We will next find John Daines on the sunny shores of Moreton Bay in Queensland, suffering through – and I say suffering deliberately because legend tells us the Penal Settlement is a horrible place – suffering through a four-year colonial conviction.

John certainly didn’t go quietly into this good night. When he returned to New South Wales after four years at Moreton Bay, it’s quite clear that the sunny shores of Queensland didn’t suit his countenance. Perhaps all that fresh air in the Queensland sun didn’t sit well on his ruddy freckled complexion.

Before long John is in trouble again. He is sentenced to 6 months on a chain gang – a road gang at Wooloomooloo – for repeatedly absconding and assaulting a constable. Considering his recent history, he has got of lightly.

What next for our good Turner?

You’ll have to wait and see!