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Note: Joseph was listed at various occupations including Sawyer & Splitter, Farmer & Butcher. The origins or Joseph and Rachel are not known, although they apparently came from interstate rather that migrating directly to SA. They were in South Australia soon after it was officially proclaimed on 28 December 1836. All their children were born in the Adelaide hills ( or the Tiers as they were then known). Joseph was probably born about 1803 and Rachel was probably born about 1814.
We do not know when or where Joseph died, but it seems likely that he died between the birth of his youngest child Sophia Matilda in 1857 and the re-marriage of Rachel in 1866. Joseph was a sawyer and splitter/Farmer/Butcher in the Adelaide Hills for the period 1838 to c 1860.
The above information is provided by John Liddy of Brisbane and by Patricia Mahony of Carnarvon, W.A.
It is now believed that Joseph Hatfield came from London and was tried at the Middlesex Assizes for larceny and sent to Tasmania as a convict in 1815. He was sentenced to 7 years. How and when he met Mary Rachel Davis is unkown but they were together at the begining of South Australia's history in 1837.
The following is transcribed from Charles Whiteford's information:-
Our story commences in the Midlesex, England law courts, 15th Frbruary 1815, where a prisoner by the name of Joseph ATTFIELD was committed to Middlesex goal delivery and sentenced to seven years goal. The following details were given:- Age 21 years, Height 5feet 4.5 inch, Complexion Dark/sallow, Hair Black, Eyes Black, Calling Labourer, Native town London.
Later in the year of 1815 he was transported, together with 59 other convicts on the sailing ship "Fanny" to Sydney and then onto Hobart, Tasmania, via His Majesty's Colonial Brig,"EMU".
Over the fifty years from 1803 to 1853, some 67,000 convicts were transported to Tasmania. The first shipload to come direct from England arrived in the "Indefatigable" on 19th Oct, 1812 by 1820, there were about 2.500 convicts in the colony and by the end of 1833, the total had increased to 14,900. In 1835, there were over 800 convicts working in chain/gangs at athe dreaded penal settlement at Port Arthur which operated from 1830-1877.
The next information, from Police Records, shows where a prisoner by the name of Joseph Hatfield escaped from Hobart Goal in July 5th, 1817 ( the authorities had realised the name Attfield should read Hatfield, they being the same person. On his Police Record it was shown he had arrived per the two sailing ships as stated previously). He was found guilty of not only escaping from goal but, also stealing from the premises of R. Nash. He was sentenced to a 12 months on the goal gang and 50 lashes. On the 8th Dec. (year not legible) he was charged with stealing a boat sail, but was acquitted. On the 28th June 1832 he was charged with having in his possession a quantity of mutton supposedly to have been stolen. Luckily for him, he was discharged for want of proof. Not to be outdone, the Police eventually got him in that having on the 27th June and for sometime proviously he kept a dog without a licnce. He was fined twenty pounds (a lot of money in those days) it appearing the dog was kept for the purpose of killing sheep. He apparently was in the trade of butchering, as in a report in the Hobart Town Gazette dated the 28th June 1817 of his escape he was commonly called "Joe the butcher."
The city of Adelaide was founded in 1836, being proclaimed on the 3rd August 1836 under a tree at seaside Glenelg SA. There were no convicts sent directly to SA howevr, some escaped convicts did settle there and no doubt a number of ex-convicts came from other colonies. A good many of these found shelter in the hills above Adelaide, particularly in the area called the Tiers where they carried on many illegal activities, knowing they were fairly safe from being discovered by the authorities because of the difficult terrain.
The first evidence discovered in SA of our early ancestory Joseph Hatfield, is the court appearance, as reported in the Adelaide Gazette dated the 5th June 1837, where he was charged with stealing and receiving several articles of clothing namely, one silk hankerchief value one shilling, one cloth jacket value ten shillings, one pair of trousers value five shillings and a shirt valued at five shillings all the property of a Mr. J. Hill. The baptism details of Mary Ann, his eldest daughter, records that she was born at Woodside, indicating that her parents were living in the Adelaide Hills by August 1837. This area was known as the Tiers & was not a very safe area being inhabited by escaped convicts from other states, vagabonds & other unsavory characters. According to English Author Alexander Tolmer in an early history of the area, he was known as Black Joe. He was a hostile witness in a Murder Trial in Adelaide. We can only wonder what his character was really like!!
In July 1841 Joseph Hatfield applied to the Government of SA for permission to purchase 30 acres of land in the Tiers, Mt. Lofty Ranges on which he had been squatting and had built a house which he was afraid he might lose. His request was refused by Capt. EC Frome Surveyor-General, unless it was put up for public tender & purchased by him. The Assistant commisioner, Lands Dept. a Mr. Charles Sturt agreed with him and added, the applicant is, if I mistake not, a man of indifferent character, and it requires that some precaution is taken to prevent or at all events not to facilitate the settlement of such men in places where they can carry on improper practises. He did in time purchase several pieces of land in the Adelaide Hills and stll had owner-ship in 1860 as records show a 105 acres at section 5158 near Balhannah & Woodside on Swamp & Kumnick roads. Two houses were on these properties & the land was partly cultivated. He subsequently subdivided this hand and sold the smaller portion of 21 acres to a Johann Schmidt later known as John Smith. From information gleaned from the Onkaparinga District council Assessment Books by John & Maureen Liddy, the July 1861 Assessment of One Pound 16 shillings was paid on the 10th March 1862. This is the last ime Joseph Hatfield's name appears in the rate books. It must be assumed that he passed away about this time. His widow, Rachel still lived at this address when she married a Mr John Neaves in 1866. The story has been passed down from Joseph that as a small boy he can remember a very large home in England. There were many servants but, he had no mother or father that he knew of. He lived in a small cottage on the Estate being looked afer by a lady he called Nursie. A lady would visit him quite often, arriving in a grand carriage drawn by four horses. This could have been his Mother ????? He eventually ran away to sea at the tender age of fourteen and as reported earlier, was eventually transported to Australia.
Perhaps he was the "black sheep" of the family. According to his marriage certificate, dated 2nd Oct 1855 he was born in 1803.(this birth date does not agree with the age of our Joseph Hatfield of Hobart being 9 years younger but, I believe we have to assume they are one & the same person. Firstly, he was illiterate, unable to read or write, and both descriptions fit fairly well together with the fact that they were both in the buthchering trade) Many years later, towards the end of the 19th century a Lady Dorothy Hatfield made enquires from his daughters as to his whereabouts but, as he was in the meantime assumed dead, they didn't follow through with the enquiry, due we believe, to lack of finances. (No one have been able to find any information as to what happened to him or where he died. But, he presumabley passed on between the years 1861 and 1866 as his wife Rachel remarried in December 1866. His full name was Joseph Alexander Haftield and about the late 1830's lived in the Adelaide hills, his occupaiton being at various times, a sawyer,& splitter, a farmer and even a butcher. He formed a liason with a (Mary) Rachel Davis and started a family. We have no knowledge of her origins or entry into SA other than she was probably born in Cornwall England about 1814.
She remarried again on 15th Dec, 1866 to a Mr John Neaves. she died, officially of old age on the 15th May 1895 at her daughters home , a Mrs Mary Ann Patridge in Sutherland St. Glanville a suburb of Adelaide. Joseph's marriage to Rachel was not blessed until the 2nd Oct. 1855 at Balhalla SA after the births of their first eight of their ten children .
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