IMPORTANT NOTE ON JOSEPH FORRESTER The story of Joseph Forrester was first published as a peer-reviewed article, ‘Finding

Forrester: The life and death of Joseph Forrester, convict silversmith’ in Tasmanian

Historical Studies in 2011. This article republished over two editions of History

Scotland in 2014. A subsequent shorter peer-reviewewd book chapter was

published in 2015 under the title “To end my days in my native land: The life and

death of Joseph Forrester, convict silversmith’ in Scots Under the Southern Cross

(Ballarat Heritage Studies 2015).

With each version of the story additional research has revealed new information

about the life of Joseph Forrester. Each version of the story is therefore more

extensive and more accurate than the preceding version.

Further research has continued to add detail to the story and to correct errors and

omissions in earlier versions.

A further peer-reviewed book chapter telling the life of Joseph Forrester is

scheduled for publication in late 2018 or 2019. This version will contain

significantly new material about the circumstances surrounding the conviction of

Joseph Forrester in London in 1829, and his subsequent life after his return to

Australia after 1856.

Douglas Wilkie August 2017

TO END MY DAYS IN MY NATIVE LAND: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOSEPH

FORRESTER, CONVICT SILVERSMITH

DOUGLAS WILKIE

Pre-Print Final Draft

Douglas Wilkie, ‘To end my days in my native land: The life and death of Joseph

Forrester, convict silversmith’, in Fred Cahir, Anne Beggs-Sunter, and Alison Inglis,

(Eds),Scots Under the Southern Cross: Scottish Impressions of Colonial Australia,

Ballarat, Ballarat Heritage Services 2015. ISBN 9781876478209

Scots Under the Southern Cross is a collection of essays from speakers at the

Scottish Symposium held in Ballarat 9-11 May 2014. The chapters reflect the many

styles, themes and formats embracing the Scottish Diaspora in Australia. This

publication complements the Art Gallery of Ballarat Exhibition For Auld Lang Syne:

Images of Scottish Australia from First Fleet to Federation. The five interrelated

sections of Scots Under the Southern Cross are: 'Retrospect', 'The Scots in Aboriginal

Australia', 'Biographical Studies of Scottish Australians', 'Scottish Artists on

Australia' and 'Commemorating Scotland in Australia'. Essays tell the stories of

Scottish immigrants and their successful establishment of economic and cultural

networks in Australia. These chapters hopefully will form a basis for expansion into

research of the Scottish diaspora and the way the Scots and their descendants have

contributed to and adapted to Australian conditions.

1

TO END MY DAYS IN MY NATIVE LAND: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOSEPH

FORRESTER, CONVICT SILVERSMITH

DOUGLAS WILKIE In his 1972 book and television series, Ways of Seeing, John Berger presented a

painting by Vincent Van Gogh and described it as ‘a landscape of a cornfield with

birds flying out of it’. He then presented the same image with a new description

‘This is the last picture that Van Gogh painted before he killed himself’. As Berger

observed, in the first instance the sentence described the picture; in the second, the

picture illustrated the sentence, and the viewer’s perception was surely, if

indefinably, altered.1

The silverware of Joseph Forrester has been described in numerous Australian

exhibition catalogues and antiques journals, and it is not the intention of this essay

to do that, but the addition of a single descriptor to his name ‘convict’ changes

the way this early colonial craftsman is perceived. The knowledge that Van Gogh

killed himself after painting Wheatfield with Crows changes our perception of the

painting; and the knowledge that Forrester was a convict brings a diversity of

preconceptions to the way his work is understood. Just as we need to go further and

understand the circumstances of Van Gogh’s life and death, we also need to

understand the circumstances of Forrester’s life and death if we are to understand

the person who created these works.

Joseph Forrester’s death was mysterious and unexplained, and was almost

undiscovered and unannounced. For many years those who wrote about him could

never finish their story, and those who wrote usually restricted their discussion to

an evaluation of his silverwork, accompanied by a brief summary of what they could

find in his convict conduct record. What they told was the story of Forrester the

prisoner, not Forrester the man. This essay is an abbreviated version of a longer

study of Joseph Forrester’s life first published as ‘Finding Forrester: The life and

death of Joseph Forrester, convict silversmith’, in Tasmanian Historical Studies,

volume 17, December 2012.2

Between 1817 and 1820 William Forrester, born in 1801, and his brother, Joseph

born in 1805, both from Perth in Scotland, were apprenticed to their uncle, Robert

Keay senior, a silversmith of Perth. Their cousin, Robert Keay junior, was also an

apprentice. By 1825 William had moved to Clerkenwell, in London. Younger brother

Joseph, a troublesome and unsteady youth, did not complete his apprenticeship and

moved to London with William. Unable to find work, Joseph was supported by

William, who described him as ‘such a simpleton’ who ‘cannot keep his mouth shut’,

and could not be left in charge of the shop as ‘he is not a very good person to give

work to or look after men’.3 Nevertheless, Joseph’s trade skills improved, and

2

William wrote, ‘He can chase very well & has been very steady’, but unable to

manage finances, William gave him ‘only enough to pay his lodgings, washing &c and

an allowance for pocket money’. William appears to have been a caring and forgiving

older brother.

The late 1820s saw economic downturn in London and William needed financial

assistance from both uncle Keay and cousin Robert. To save money, he avoided

purchasing gold and concentrated on setting diamonds, employing only one

mounter, one setter, and Joseph. By the end of 1826 William was almost insolvent.

Joseph’s skills increased, but so did financial problems; then, in 1828, a fire

destroyed much of the property. The situation looked dire and, perhaps hoping to

raise much needed cash, in the evening of 15 January 1829, Joseph stole eleven

diamond pins and two brooches, valued at £35, from Charles Plumley’s jewellery

shop on Ludgate Hill.

In a scene straight from Dickens, Joseph was chased by an angry crowd into a cul-de-

sac. He was tried and found guilty of breaking and entering. It had taken him less

than a minute, but the prescribed sentence was Death — the shop was also the

jeweller’s home. Fortunately death sentences for property crimes were routinely

commuted to transportation for life. Two months later William was declared

bankrupt. The relatives in Scotland were unimpressed.

Joseph arrived at Hobart on board the Thames, on Friday 20 November 1829, and

listed his occupation as silversmith and jeweller.4 In October 1830 David Barclay, a

Scot from Montrose and of almost identical age to Forrester, arrived in Hobart,

opened a jewellery and watch making business, and sought whatever skilled

watchmakers, silversmiths and jewellers he could find. By 1832, Forrester was

assigned to work for Barclay, who was described as a ‘man of marked individuality,

of great mental vigour & of remarkable mechanical skill,’ but had a ‘caustic tongue

which he could use with effect on provocation’. He was also full of ‘sarcastic humour,

and shrewd wit’.5

It was a volatile combination. A caustic tongue and sarcastic humour would surely

have provoked Joseph as much as Forrester provoked Barclay. Before starting with

Barclay Forrester’s record was clear, but from July 1832 he was regularly punished

for misdemeanours and he was eventually sentenced to fifteen months breaking

rocks on the road gang. This was not good for Barclay — a silver presentation cup

and salver had been commissioned for Police Magistrate, James Simpson, and

Barclay had to explain that Forrester was ‘the only one in town capable of making

such plate so that unless a man arrives in the course of a few weeks you have no

chance of getting it done in the colony’.6 Simpson’s silver cup was eventually made in

London and presented to him in August 1834 two years after being ordered.

Joseph survived the chain gang and in 1835 returned to Barclay’s where he soon

made silver cups for presentation to George Augustus Robinson, J. H. Cawthorn and

S. & J. Austin. The demand for Joseph Forrester’s skills as a silversmith was steady

3

and spreading beyond Hobart. Alexander Dick, was short of workmen in Sydney, and

asked Barclay to make a gold and silver presentation snuff box.

The cycle of quiet times alternating with minor misdemeanours and severe

punishment continued for the next three years — the list is readily available in

Forrester’s Conduct Record. On 22 May 1839, after serving nearly ten years, Joseph

was granted a ticket of leave and could have started his own business, but being a

silversmith required equipment not available in Hobart, and it required capital.

Fortunately, Joseph was a minor beneficiary in the estate of Euphemia Boswall, heir

to the Blackadder estate, who died in 1829 leaving a fortune of £12,000. Joseph

would have been disinherited but for the efforts of his brother and cousin, and there

was £40 owing to him. When an uncle, James Forrester, died in 1840, he left £1,000

each to brother William and sister Christian, but nothing to Joseph.

Joseph continued to work for Barclay, and continued to be punished for

misdemeanours. Early in 1840 the workshop made a gold snuff box for presentation

to Captain George King, and a silver salver for presentation to James Garrett,

Presbyterian Minister at Bothwell in 1841. Forrester’s style has been described as

‘naive’ when compared to work being done by London silversmiths, however, given

the scarcity of silversmiths in Australia he was the best that could be found.7

[Pic. 1 here - Garrett Salver]

In April 1841, Joseph married Mary Ann Sadler, a free emigrant. He was 36, she was

26. While the punishments handed out to Forrester could have hardened rather than

reformed him, the presence of Mary Ann in his life seems to have been positive and

he wrote lovingly of his wife to William. When he received a conditional pardon in

June 1842, the citation was that his conduct had been ‘exemplary’ for the previous

three years. Within a week of receiving his pardon Joseph opened his own business.

William shipped out the flatting mill Joseph required; sympathetic members of the

family sent finance; and cousin Robert sent silver plate and jewellery. Joseph

proudly advertised the newly arrived stock in December 1842 — and within a

month the shop was burgled of its entire contents. Most of the items were

fortunately recovered.

In 1843 Joseph wrote home with news that he was ‘pretty well established and have

got a good share of the work and thank God getting a comfortable living’. He was

‘manufacturing some Silver Plate for St. Georges Church ... and have got two or three

more good orders in the house and Plenty of Jobing [sic].’ He was proud of his wife

— ‘Mrs Forrester who is now sitting at the Fire side with me sends her love to Mrs

Keay and you ... She was very Proud of the hansome [sic] presents from you and

hopes that Some Day she will have it in her Power to thank you herself.’

Joseph missed his family and old friends — ‘I am most comfortable in my home but

often think of you and all my relations and should like to end my Days in my native

land’. He reminisced, ‘I often think of the happy days of my youth and when I used to

ride behind the Gig when we used to go fishing — those times are gone never to

return’. Memories of home were with him constantly, and when he lost a ‘silk-velvet

4

tartan bag’ containing some rings, anxious for its return, he offered a reward to the

finder. The letters written by Forrester suggest that, although he was enjoying both

his marriage and business success, he really wanted to return home.

[Pic 2 here – Tarleton Cigar Case]

Although jeweller William Cole advertised as a silversmith, it was Forrester who did

his work, and a silver cigar presentation case made for former Assistant Police

Magistrate, William Tarleton brought Joseph more good publicity early in 1846. But

an ongoing economic depression, and increasing competition, meant diversification

was in order, and Joseph opened a pawn broking shop. Nevertheless, prospects

looked better in Melbourne, and in November 1846 the Forresters joined a growing

exodus to Port Phillip. It was almost seventeen years to the day since Joseph had

arrived at Hobart.

Joseph lived in Flinders Lane but worked from Charles Brentani’s shop in Collins

Street, but on Saturday 10 June 1848, his wife Mary Ann was found dead in the Yarra

River. An inquest returned a verdict of ‘drowned, being in a state of insanity’, but a

correspondent to the Argus implied that the death was suspicious and that

Forrester’s tendency to bad temper and violence may have played a part.

In 1848, the publicans of Melbourne commissioned a silver snuff box from Charles

Brentani for presentation to Melbourne’s Chief Constable, William Sugden. Although

Forrester made the box, like Dick in Sydney, and Barclay in Hobart, the

commissioning jeweller took credit for the work. Brentani, had started learning the

trade of silversmith in his youth, but transportation interrupted his training and

Forrester was the only person in Australia with the skills to create such a box with

its intricate hinges. It seems likely that Forrester also made the Flemington Cup

commissioned from Brentani for presentation at the Flemington Races in January

1849. The cup is clearly more finely finished than Forrester’s cups of 1835, but then,

thirteen years’ practice can make a difference. Another cup commissioned for the

Plenty Races in October 1849 was also probably made by Forrester.

In July 1849 Major Alexander Davidson refused to pay the price asked by Brentani

for setting a valuable diamond into a ‘massive gold ring’. Legal proceedings followed,

during which Justice Redmond Barry was told by former Launceston watchmaker

James Robe that Forrester’s work was of inferior quality. Furious at the slur on his

workmanship, Forrester pointed out that Robe was merely a watchmaker, not a

jeweller, and challenged Robe, ‘for £50 a-side, to manufacture any article whatever,

in either silver or gold, from a diamond pin to a silver tea-urn’. Aware of his

reputation for bad temper and violence, Forrester added, ‘I have carefully avoided

either exaggeration or harsh language, and leave the public to form their own

judgment without my adding one word of comment’. The challenge was not taken

up.

5

By early 1850 Forrester had a watchmaking business in Elizabeth Street, and after

marrying widow Ann Willis in January 1851, soon acquired her Bourke Street pawn

broking store. After the gold rushes of mid-1851, the business of jewellers,

silversmiths and goldsmiths took a turn for the better. However, Forrester and

Brentani seem to have fallen out following an unsuccessful court case in September

1851 where Brentani accused a former employee of pawning stolen watches at

Forrester’s shop. In March 1852 Brentani advertised for a working jeweller who

would be paid wages of £6 per week. Forrester was available, but Brentani clearly

wanted somebody else.

Not only did Forrester fall out with Brentani, but early in 1852 Forrester’s fiery

temper got the better of him and he was charged with assaulting tinsmith John

Hughes. Five months later his shop was broken into and ‘completely stripped of all

the valuables ... to the value of £2000’. As if that was not enough, his second wife,

Ann Willis, died on 30 March 1853.

Forrester continued the pawn broking business, as well as Forrester & Co.

Watchmakers and Jewellers. It is unclear who else formed the company, but by early

1854 he was in partnership with Edward Hodgson, as Forrester and Hodgson,

watchmakers and jewellers. It appears that Forrester had not received any major

commissions since 1849, but in November 1854 the Independent Order of Odd

Fellows ordered a presentation medal made of ‘colonial gold’ which turned out to be

‘a most creditable specimen of colonial art’. The partnership between Forrester and

Hodgson could have been a turning point in Forrester’s career, but events back in

Scotland were to determine otherwise.

Joseph Forrester’s maternal grandfather, William Young, died in 1810 leaving an

estate benefiting his descendants. The conditions meant the distribution did not

occur until after the death of his daughter Euphan in 1852, when cousin Robert Keay

became administrator of the estate. Joseph’s share was £774 13s 10d, but before

matters were finalized, brother William died in London in August 1854, News of

William’s death prompted Joseph to disobey the conditions of his conditional pardon

and return to Scotland. He dissolved the partnership with Edward Hodgson and, in

January 1855, left Melbourne for London on board the Anglesey. He was now fifty

and it was twenty-six years since he left England.

Joseph Forrester imagined that his family wanted to see him as much as he longed to

be with them again, and as soon as he arrived in London he wrote to his sister

Christian in Perth. She was shocked that her convict brother had returned and,

fearing the malicious gossip that might ensue, urged him to stay away. Joseph’s

reaction was one of dismay, of betrayal, and of defiance. Perhaps, like the returning

convict, John Edmunds, in Pickwick Papers, Joseph discovered that ‘in the distant

land of his bondage … he had thought of his native place as he had left it, not as it

would be when he returned. The sad reality struck coldly at his heart, and his spirit

sank within him’.

6

Despite his sister’s advice, Joseph defiantly wrote to cousin Robert on 5 June 1855 to

say that he would visit Scotland anyway.

it is nearly thirty years since or more since I saw her [Christian] or any of my

relatives. I actually think she is much too severe in fact Dear Robert I feel it

worse than when I left my home. I am extremely sorry that there is such a

change in Family concerns and that differences should exist between Friends ...

had I come to England a Beggar man or a disgrace it would have been different

– But I do not see why I might not come to Perth or some place handay [sic] to

see you as it might be the last time that I will have a chance altho thank God I

am as well and strong as ever I was, and when I settle my business in London I

am going back to Melbourne to sell off all there and come back eithr to Scotland

or London for good.

Cousin Robert persuaded Joseph to change his mind, but Joseph was bitter.

I duly received yours of 22nd June when you state that you were surprised at my

returning to England. The reason is simple after so many years absence that I

would naturally have a wish to see my native place again and the Friends of my

youth. I certainly will not visit Perth. I will take my sisters & your advice. I was

not aware of the gossiping tendencies it would create and would be extremely

sorry to do any thing that would be painful to any of my relations in any

manner . Dear Robert that was the chief cause of my returning to england & I

did not mean, nor do not to rem’n in England, I have got enough to keep me and

to spare in Melbourne & think of embarking again in about 14 days so might be

by the Queen of the Seas which sails on the 15th of next month. I am very

anxious to get away...

Joseph again expressed regret that he was being rejected and concluded,

the alterations in life and circumstances are great, the many that I knew in

London are all most of them dead. Give my respt and Love to Aunt Keay, Your

dear wife & family. Please to answer this as you might not hear from me again

until I write you from Melbourne. I Remn My Dear Robert Your Old Friend.

As Robert Hughes noted, convicts transported to Australia ‘could succeed, but they

could hardly, in the real sense, return’.8 On 7 August 1855 Forrester left Gravesend

on board the Queen of the Seas, arriving back at Port Phillip eleven months after he

had set out. Not only had he lost his family in Scotland, but years earlier his wives

and only son had died, and upon returning to Melbourne he appears to have lost his

friends as well. Six months later his lifelong friend, cousin Robert Keay, died. The

inheritance from his grandfather’s estate would not be finalised for years.

When Forrester returned to Melbourne the people he previously worked for were

no longer there. His old employer Brentani was dead. His former partner, Hodgson,

thought Forrester would not be returning and sold the Bourke Street business.

Joseph decided to go north to Beechworth in the Ovens District.

By 1860 the matter of the inheritance had finally been settled — Joseph’s share was

just over £700 — but it would be many months more before he finally received

anything.9 But then the news broke — ‘A working jeweller, residing at the Ovens, has

7

inherited a fortune of about £70,000 by the recent death of a female relative in

England’. The news spread — the town was identified as Beechworth, but none

named the ‘Lucky Fellow’. Joseph’s inheritance been inflated from £700 to £70,000.

Eighteen sixty-one was the tenth anniversary of the Crystal Palace Exhibition and in

preparation for the London International Exhibition of 1862 local exhibitions were

organised. An exhibition at Beechworth October 1861 attracted 1,991 visitors, and

the Bendigo Advertiser observed, ‘We presume there was something worth seeing at

Beechworth.’ It might have been the case of ‘Colonial Jewellery and Gems’ put

together by rival jeweller, William Turner, and this may have prompted Forrester to

place a challenge in the Ovens and Murray Advertiser. Claiming to be a ‘Member of

the Goldsmiths’ Corporation, London’ and ‘Embosser and Chaser from Green’s

Terrace Islington’, Joseph Forrester ‘Challenges Victoria, from a Diamond Pin to a

Gold Tea Urn, for 100 Guineas!!! Go Ahead Beechworth.’ It seems that nobody

responded.

Forrester’s enjoyment of his newly acquired fortune was short-lived. He was

unhappy and had taken to drinking heavily. One day in mid July 1863, following an

altercation with hotel keeper, Charles Duchatel, Forrester told his housemate James

Barfoot that if Duchatel ‘summoned him’ he would leave the district.

A few days later Forrester left his house and walked off towards the Chiltern Road.

When he did not return, Barfoot reported him missing to the Police. A search was

carried out and enquiries were made, but without success. Eventually it was

assumed he had carried out his threat to go to Melbourne.

Five months later, on the morning of Sunday 6 December 1863, Charles Falcke took

his dog for a walk into the bush behind his house. The dog ran off and discovered the

remains of a body lying beneath a pine tree. The body was dressed, but had been

reduced to a skeleton. Falcke identified the clothes as those of Joseph Forrester. An

inquest was told there was no evidence of violence or poison, and the Chief

Commissioner of Police noted that ‘There does not appear to be any reason to

suspect anything criminal in this matter’. However, an inquest said nothing about

the possibility of suicide.

Forrester’s death was registered at Beechworth on Tuesday 8 December 1863 — the

cause of death was unknown and the date was sometime around July 1863. Other

details were minimal — a jeweller; believed to have been married but his wife was

dead; thought to have been in Victoria for about twenty years and in New South

Wales for fifteen years; thought to have been born either in Perth in Scotland, or in

London; aged about sixty-four. No mention of time in Van Diemen’s Land. Forrester

was buried at Beechworth on 9 December 1863 with only the Reverend W C Howard

and James Barfoot being present. A death notice was placed in the local newspaper

two weeks later: Forrester — Mr. J. Forrester, aged 65 years. That summed up his life.

The Ovens and Murray Advertiser carried a report of the inquest on 8 December

1863. The same report was copied to the Melbourne Age a week later. The

Tasmanian newspapers did not carry the news at all, and none connected the lonely

8

death of Joseph Forrester of Beechworth with the person who had worked as a

silversmith, jeweller, watchmaker and pawnbroker in Melbourne for about sixteen

years. As for the relatives back in Scotland — his cousin was dead, his brother was

dead, and his sister, Christian — she was still alive, but would she be interested? It

would appear that Forrester left no Will and it is not known what might have

happened to the £700 inheritance he received a few years earlier.

For a brief number of years Joseph Forrester had been the most competent

silversmith in Hobart and Melbourne, and was in great demand, but this was due

more to an accident of history than to his superior skills and business sense. As the

gold rushes brought more talented gold and silversmiths to Melbourne Forrester

moved to the country and was forgotten. If we ignore the fact that his work sells for

hundreds of thousands of dollars today and look beyond the silverware and antique

collectors, we find a man who enjoyed, and suffered all the emotions of any human

being, and perhaps suffered them more than most. Was he one of Manning Clark’s

‘permanent outcasts of society’; serving out ‘the term of his natural life’ in more

ways than the sentencing judge might have intended.10

If he was an outcast it was

only partly because he was an ex-convict and more because of whom he was and

how others saw him. Because of his comfortable family connections in Scotland, he

was, perhaps, outcast more than most.

Vincent Van Gogh went to the distant countryside of France where he found the

wheat fields to be an expression of the ‘sadness and extreme loneliness’ he had

experienced for much of his life, but at least he died in the arms of his brother; and

was remembered. The sadness and extreme loneliness of Forrester’s death was

known only to himself. Many people are quickly and easily forgotten and Joseph

Forrester became one of Port Phillip’s forgotten people. But perhaps Forrester’s

tragedy is that those he cared about the most were also those who most wanted to

forget him.

1 John Berger, Ways of Seeing, Penguin Books, Ringwood, 1972, pp. 27-28. 2 Douglas Wilkie, ‘Finding Forrester: The life and death of Joseph Forrester, convict

silversmith’, Tasmanian Historical Studies, vol. 17, 2012, pp. 45-71, and in two parts in

History Scotland, vol. 14, no. 4, July/August 2014, pp.22-29 and History Scotland, vol. 14,

no. 5, September/October 2014. A full listing of primary sources not cited here can be

found in the 2012 Tasmanian Historical Studies article. 3 All letters between William Forrester, Joseph Forrester and Robert Keay, senior and junior,

are in the Perth & Kinross County Archive (PKCA), Scotland, ‘Robert Keay, elder and

younger, papers 1790-1872’, MS24. 4 Details of Forrester’s time as a convict can be found in the Tasmanian Archives and Heritage

Office, CON18-1-21; CON31-1-13; CON27-1-4

5 James Backhouse Walker, ‘Reminiscences of life in Hobart 1840s to 1860s ’,

(1890), University of Tasmania Library Special and Rare Materials Collection, np, online

at http://eprints.utas.edu.au/1865/ accessed 8 July 2010. 6 David Barclay to John Leake, 19 March 1833, University of Tasmania Library, Rare

Collections, Archived Documents, L1-F184.

9

7 Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Decorative Arts, Joseph Forrester,

http://static.tmag.tas.gov.au/decorativeart/objects/metalware/P708/index.html 8 Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore, Collins Harvill, London, 1987, p 586. 9 Details of the inheritance are found at Perth & Kinross County Archive, ‘Papers relating to

the settling of the estates of William Young, late supervisor of excise, Perth and of his

daughters Maria Young or Menzies and Euphan Young’, MS24. 10 Manning Clark, ‘The origins of the convicts transported to eastern Australia, 1787-1852’,

Australian Historical Studies, vol. 7, no. 26, 1956, pp. 124-125.