James Bisdee, Convict “Minden” 1851

Convict Records

https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/bisdee/james/461

I have written a biography for Edgar and his father James Bisdee.

Between the years of 1850 and 1868, there were 9,720 convicts sentenced to transportation between forty-three ships sent from the United Kingdom to Fremantle Harbour, Western Australia.[1] The Minden was one of these ships. The Minden was a 916-ton ship constructed in 1848. There was a total of 302 convicts, 115 passengers (including the pensioner guards, their wives and children) and the crew of Captain Robert Dawson Crawford on board.[2] Convicts had started to board the Minden on the 16th of July 1851 and set sail on the 21st of July from Plymouth England.[3]
On this voyage was a father and son duo, James and Edgar Bisdee. They were tried and convicted on the 28th of March 1848 in the Wells courts of quarter sessions, where they were both charged with grand larceny for the theft of 17 fowls in total (from two separate persons) and 1 sheep.[4]
From the time of their conviction (excluding what little time they spent in Wilton Gaol[5]%29 until they set sail on the Minden, they were imprisoned on the prison hulk, the decommissioned HMS York in Portsmouth harbour.[6]
The voyage across the sea was documented officially by the ship’s surgeon John Rowland Gibson.[7] Doctor Gibson’s Surgeon Superintendent’s journal has been preserved and is kept on record in the Public Record Office (PRO) in London.[8]

Though neither of my two ancestors was recorded as visiting the surgeon while onboard the ship, there were 55 entries entered in the daily sick book with a few returning patients, most with the complaint of diarrhea. There were four recorded deaths, a three-month-old child with infantile colic and another young toddler with what has been written as Scropula (there was no search that came up for this term, there is however a term of Scrofula, a lymph node infection. This could be a transcription error), a male convict with what the doctor has listed as Febris (a search for this term had brought up results including typhoid) and lastly a seaman with dysentery. The doctor noted that overall the ship was in good health. [9]
The Minden’s voyage took just 85 days from Plymouth United Kingdom until it docked in Fremantle. One passage documented in the doctor’s journal after the anchor was deployed, states “To preserve and secure good health, a rigid adherence to cleanliness in the prison Barracks and crews Berth was practised with attention to dryness, ventilation and occasional fumigation by the swinging stoves. The families were encouraged as much as possible on the upper deck, weather permitting, and within the tropics the bath filled with saltwater was in use morning and evening by the Parents and children, the latter improving wonderfully from its effects.”[10]
Dr John Gibson had exceptional awareness of the benefits of keeping the bedding clean and dry and the prisoners busy by alternating with half of the convicts above deck working in the fresh air and the other half below being guided in education. After supper, the prisoners were allowed on deck for diversions to keep them entertained with dancing, singing and boxing. Lime juice was mixed with wine and the surgeon was there to make sure that each person took their daily dose to help combat diseases.[11]
Of his mentioned occupations in the journal by Doctor John Gibson, James and Edgar would have participated in making cut garments and shoemaking when it was their turn to spend time on the upper decks. A document that has chronicled the behaviour of the convicts on the voyage over has penned that both James and Edgar Bisdee were “Very good, son & father most exemplary & deserving of note”.[12]

James and Edgar arrived in Fremantle ready to be put to work and in good health, this was because of the standard set by the ship’s surgeon.

In previous years and many other exported convicts, this was not the case. Many convicts would have already been in declining health before their long journey across the seas with no thought for their wellbeing. Many would have spent months or years in prisons previously and with the overcrowding of prisons, in prison hulks (such as both the Bisdee men spending two years in the HMS York).[13] Wet conditions, poor sanitation and hard conditions set an impoverished scene on board the convict ships. In the earlier days of transportation, convicts were usually kept below decks and only allowed above for some fresh air and exercise before being taken back down below deck in the dark and gloomy barely ventilated overcrowded quarters.[14]
Hygiene was not a big strong point, usually a bucket for water and a bucket for waste. Illness would have spread between the convicts rapidly with dysentery and cholera being the main spread illness, not to mention any rodents onboard spreading diseases. Poor diet was also an issue with the likes of scurvy and malnutrition being present in most convicts who were fed small portions of salted meat and flour. [15]
Realising that looking after the health of the convicts with additional provisions such as higher quality hygiene practices was beneficial in that they would be ready to work as soon as they arrived, and they would be increasingly motivated with improved productivity.

1
http://members.iinet.net.au/~perthdps/convicts/con-wa.html Western Australian Convicts 1850-1868.
2
http://members.iinet.net.au/~perthdps/convicts/con-wa4.html Minden - arrived in WA in 1851.
3 Ancestry.com. Australian Convict Transportation Registers – Other Fleets & Ships, 1791-1868.
4
James and Edgar Bisdee Somerset Sessions, https://www1.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette 6 April
1848.
5 Ancestry.com. Somerset, England, Gaol Registers, 1807-1879.
6
http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/conMediaFile.1206/P....
7
Dr J. Gibson (1851), Minden Surgeon Superintendent’s report, Australian Joint Copying Project, Reel 711, pp. 441-3.
8
http://members.iinet.net.au/~perthdps/convicts/con-wa4.html Minden - arrived in WA in 1851.
9
http://members.iinet.net.au/~perthdps/convicts/conwa04b.htm Daily Sick Book kept on Board Her Majesty's Hired Convict Ship
"MINDEN".
10 http://members.iinet.net.au/~perthdps/convicts/conwa04c.htm General Remarks transcribed by Gay Fielding.
11 Dr J. Gibson (1851), Minden Surgeon Superintendent’s report, Australian Joint Copying Project, Reel 711, pp. 441-3.
12 Australian Convict Transportation Registers – Other Fleets & Ships, 1791-1868.
13 Ancestry.com. Australian Convict Transportation Registers – Other Fleets & Ships, 1791-1868.
14 https://www.intriguing-history.com/first-fleet-australia/.
15 https://www.intriguing-history.com/first-fleet-australia/