Bible & Prayer Book

Thomas Bagnall, 1830s

Too large to have fallen through the cracks between the boards, this Protestant bible and prayer book were hidden together under the floorboards of the northern dormitory on Level 2 of Hyde Park Barracks. The name and the date 1837 written inside the covers tell us they once belonged to an English brass founder named Thomas Bagnall who was convicted in 1837 at age 17, for breaking into a warehouse. Bagnall awaited his transportation on the River Thames in London on the Fortitude, Ganymede and Euryalus hulks, where he was probably given these religious books by the authorities. Religious texts were commonly given to convicts to occupy them during imprisonment or on transport ships, but some convicts quickly traded them for food and tobacco.

Arriving in Sydney on the Earl Grey in 1838, with a seven year sentence, Bagnall and his convict shipmates were conducted through the Domain to Hyde Park Barracks where they were inspected by the Colonial Secretary, and distributed for work. Bagnall seems to have spent some time sleeping in the wards though, leaving his books behind when he finally left. His convict indent noted that he could read and write, and that he had a reputation as a ‘bad character’, but after six years he was granted his Ticket of Leave to work in Yass, New South Wales.

Several of the newly arrived convicts have received presents of bibles and prayer books from the surgeons of the different convict ships... I have observed, however, that ... they lose, and sometimes sell them for purchases of bread and liquor.

Commissioner Bigge, Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales, 1822, Appendix, 6234, Bonwick Transcripts Box 26, 36.