Samuel Payten (1766 - 1788)

Born 10 Aug 1766 in Spitalfields, Middlesex, England

Died 25 Jun 1788 at age 21 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Samuel Payten was a convict on the First Fleet.

Samuel was born in 1766. He was the son of William Payten. He passed away in 1788.

Birth: Samuel was born on 10 August 1766. He was baptised on 5 September 1766 at Christ Church, Spitalfields, parents William and Ann "Payten". The church register recorded that their abode was Great Pearl Street, Samuel was 27 days old, and his father was a mason.^[1]

Convictions in England: He was tried in January 1783 for stealing a piece of woollen striped cloth. He was described as aged 15, and was his mother's 21st child. Samuel's mother stated in the court: "I have five very good children; this boy has but just done schooling; he is sixteen next August, he is with me at home. ... My husband is a stone mason; he has had an asthma seven years; he is almost dead; this is the 21st child, the 21st child; I have been married 35 years, and have been a housekeeper 38 years." She was asked if she had objection to his going to sea and she said she had no objection. Samuel was found guilty and sentenced to transportation for seven years: "Permitted to go to sea, if an officer could be found to take him." The Old Bailey trial can be seen here.^[2] After a petition in February, he was pardoned in April 1783.^[3]

The following year he was tried again in the sessions which began 26 May 1784 for another robbery committed on 3 May. (£31 in notes and a bill of exchange for £22). He was described as wearing a green waistcoat, with gold lace on it, a green coat, nankeen breeches, silk stockings, and a round hat, and his hair tied. The jury, in spite of the testimony of several witnesses, found him not guilty. The Old Bailey trial can be seen here.^[4]

He was additionally indicted for stealing, on the same day (3 May) a watch, value £7 and and two cornelian seals, set in gold, value £3. The witnesses' description of him was the same, particularly the distinctive waistcoat. He had been apprehended in Pearl-street, Spitalfields: he had just come from the house of his father, a master stone mason. A character witness said he was working for his brother, a master stone mason. The judge, Mr. Justice Willes directed the jury not to convict on the capital charge because the residence was not strictly a dwelling house as defined by law. The jury found him guilty of the lesser charge of stealing, and he was sentenced to transportation for seven years, which was a lenient sentence, considering the value of the goods stolen. The Old Bailey trial can be seen here.^[5][6]

He was sent from Newgate Gaol to the Ceres hulk at Woolwich on 5 April 1785, age given as 17, and discharged on 6 January 1787 to the ship Alexander.^[7]

Transportation: He was transported aboard the Alexander, one of the ships of the First Fleet, which arrived at Port Jackson, New South Wales in January 1788.

Judge advocate David Collins wrote about the activities of the settlement in May 1788, and presumably Samuel Peyton was the stonemason referred to by Collins when he wrote:

"Another gang of labourers was put under the direction of a stonemason, and on the 15th the first stone of a building, intended for the residence of he governor until the government-house could be erected, was laid on the east side of the cove. The following inscription, engraven on a piece of copper, was placed in the foundation:

His Excellency

ARTHUR PHILLIP Esq.

Governor in Chief and Captain General

in and over the Territory of New South Wales,

landed in this Cove

with the first Settlers of this Country,

the 24th Day of January 1788;

and on the 15th Day of May

in the same Year,

being the 28th of the Reign of His present Majesty

GEORGE the THIRD,

The First of these Stones was laid.^[8]

Thus it was probably Samuel who established the first sandstone quarry in Sydney on what was to be known as Bennelong Point.^[9]

Samuel had been given an important job as a stonemason convict overseer in spite of not being a fully qualified mason (he had only briefly worked for his brother in London). He had already served nearly half his sentence and could return to England in four years time.

However Judge advocate David Collins and the Criminal Court tribunal were handing down some appallingly severe punishments for theft. Just two weeks before the first stone of the Governor's house was laid, a young convict, John Bennett was found guilty of robbing a tent belonging to the Charlotte, and stealing stores to the value of 5/-. He was hanged on 2 May 1788.^[10]

Conviction and execution in New South Wales: Knowing the consequences of getting caught, Samuel had taken a huge risk, when, on 4 June 1788, the night of the King's birthday celebrations, he was caught stealing some shirts, stockings and combs from the tent of Lieutenant James Furzer. During the trial, on 24 June, he asserted that he had no knowledge of how he came to be discovered in the tent. His plea of not guilty was rejected.^[11] [to check trial notes] He received sentence of death and was hanged the following day, on the 25 June.^[10]

Surgeon White wrote on 23 June: "His trial had been put off to the present time, on account of a wound in his head, which he had received from Captain Lieutenant Meredith, who, on his return from the bonfire, found Payton in his marqee." Samuel Peyton and another thief, Edward Corbett were executed on 25 June at 11:30am. White noted that when they "were brought to the fatal tree, they (particularly Payton) addressed the convicts in a pathetic, eloquent and well directed speech".^[10]

Watkin Tench later wrote in his book A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay:^[12]

Samuel Peyton, convict, for having on the evening of the King's birthday broke open an officer's marquee, with an intent to commit robbery, of which he was fully convicted, had sentence of death passed on him at the same time as Corbet; and on the following day they were both executed, confessing the justness of their fate, and imploring the forgiveness of those whom they had injured. Peyton, at the time of his suffering, was but twenty years of age, the greatest part of which had been invariably passed in the commission of crimes, that at length terminated in his ignominious end. The following letter, written by a fellow convict to the sufferer's unhappy mother, I shall make no apology for presenting to the reader; it affords a melancholy proof, that not the ignorant and untaught only have provoked the justice of their country to banish them to this remote region.

“Sydney Cove, Port Jackson,

New South Wales, 24th June, 1788.

“My dear and honoured mother!

“WITH a heart oppressed by the keenest sense of anguish, and too much agitated by the idea of my very melancholy condition, to express my own sentiments, I have prevailed on the goodness of a commiserating friend, to do me the last sad office of acquainting you with the dreadful fate that awaits me.

“My dear mother! with what agony of soul do I dedicate the few last moments of my life, to bid you an eternal adieu! my doom being irrevocably fixed, and ere this hour to-morrow I shall have quitted this vale of wretchedness, to enter into an unknown and endless eternity. I will not distress your tender maternal feelings by any long comment on the cause of my present misfortune. Let it therefore suffice to say, that impelled by that strong propensity to evil, which neither the virtuous precepts nor example of the best of parents could eradicate, I have at length fallen an unhappy, though just, victim to my own follies.

“Too late I regret my inattention to your admonitions, and feel myself sensibly affected by the remembrance of the many anxious moments you have passed on my account. For these, and all my, other transgressions, however great, I supplicate the Divine forgiveness; and encouraged by the promises of that Saviour who died for us all, I trust — to receive that mercy in the world to come, which my offences have deprived me of all hope, or expectation of, in this. The affliction which this will cost you, I hope the Almighty will enable you to bear. Banish from your memory all my former indiscretions, and let the cheering hope of a happy meeting hereafter, console you for my loss. Sincerely penitent for my sins; sensible of the justice of my conviction and sentence, and firmly relying on the merits of a Blessed Redeemer, I am at perfect peace with all mankind, and trust I shall yet experience that peace, which this world cannot give.

Commend my soul to the Divine mercy. I bid you an eternal farewell.

Your unhappy dying Son,

SAMUEL PEYTON.”

“To Mrs. Peyton,

London.”

Samuel's brother Isaac was transported to Sydney ten years later in 1798.

Sources

1. ↑ London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 for Samuel Payten, Tower Hamlets Christ Church, Spitalfields 1729-1812 https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/1624/images/31280_194728-00202?pId=3424176 (accessed 9 April 2022)
2. ↑ Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 08 April 2022), January 1783, trial of SAMUEL PEYTON (t17830115-42). (accessed 9 April 2022)
3. ↑ Associated records 1783 https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/search.jsp?form=associatedRecords&_associatedRecords_trials=t17830115-42 (accessed 9 April 2022)
4. ↑ Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 08 April 2022), May 1784, trial of SAMUEL PEYTON (t17840526-124). (accessed 9 April 2022)
5. ↑ Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 08 April 2022), May 1784, trial of SAMUEL PEYTON (t17840526-16). (accessed 9 April 2022)
6. ↑ Cobley, John, The Crimes of the First Fleet Convicts, 1970, pp219-220.
7. ↑ Gillen, Mollie, The Founders of Australia : A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, 1989, pp. 284-285.
8. ↑ David Collins, An Account of the English Colony of NSW Vol 1, LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. CADELL JUN. AND W. DAVIES, IN THE STRAND. 1798. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00010.html (accessed 9 April 2022)
9. ↑ http://www.australiaforeveryone.com.au/files/sydney/sandstone.html See also https://inspireme.cyaontheroad.com/post/669140925793140736/the-quarries-that-built-sydney-inner-city#gsc.tab=0 (accessed 9 April 2022)
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1 10.2} Cobley, John. Sydney Cove 1788. Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1980, pp.134, 168-169.
11. ↑ Community Contributors, Convict Records database https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/peyton/samuel/66014 (accessed 9 April 2022)
12. ↑ Tench, Watkin (1759-1833), A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay With an Account of New South Wales, its Productions, Inhabitants, &c. To which is subjoined, A List of the Civil and Military Establishments at Port Jackson. https://adc.library.usyd.edu.au/data-2/p00039.pdf (accessed 9 April 2022)