Anthony Rope & Elizabeth Pulley

 

Compiled by Warren White 7th Generation Descendant 

 

 

My first fleet ancestors were Anthony Rope and Elizabeth Pulley. They arrived with the first fleet; Anthony Rope on the Alexander and Elizabeth Pulley started the journey on the Friendship but was off loaded at Cape Town and continued the trip on The Prince of Wales arriving at Botany Bay 18th January 1788.

 

They were both convicts. Anthony at age 26 was tried 10th March 1785 at Chelmsford Essex. He was charged with burglary by breaking and entering the home of Robert Gosling on 2nd September 1784 and stealing all sorts of clothing. There seems to be some evidence to indicate that Robert Gosling was in fact Anthonys employer. He was found not guilty of breaking and entering but guilty of stealing goods valued at thirty-five shillings. Sentenced to transportation for seven years.

 

Anthony was one of the hundreds of convicts forced to wait years in the Hulks, due to the African revolution, to be transported.

During this time Anthony worked digging sand and gravel from Woolwich Shoals and wheeling the material to build roads and embankments.

The Hulks were old ships of no further use in the open seas. They were crowded, dark and unsanitary. It must have been very depressing to those on board.

On 13th May 1787 the fleet set sail. There is no record of Anthonys journey so he must have behaved himself aboard ship.

Not so for Elizabeth Pulley!

She was sweet 16 when she was tried and acquitted for stealing wearing apparel.

The next year she was imprisoned in The Castle for stealing an assortment of goods, mostly clothes.

Later that year she was given three weeks goal for stealing wearing apparel. She was also publicly whipped in the marketplace of Bridwell.

In 1781 she was again convicted of stealing wearing apparel to the value of 3 shillings and was sentenced to 12 months hard labour in the house of correction at Aylsham.

 

On 11th January 1783 she was convicted of stealing:

·          10lb Cheese                                          Value 3/-

·          3lb Bacon                                                             1/6

·          24oz Butter                                         1/-

·          3lb Raisons                                                           1/-

·          7lbs Flour                                                             1/-

·          2 rolls Worsted                                   1/-

(Could you really imagine a young girl evn attempting to carry this lot? Was she framed?)

She was sentenced to hang but was later reprieved to 7 years transportation.

I understand she showed great happiness about the verdict. She had a chance to get away from the rotten enviroment she was in.

With more time I could describe the terrible conditions of the prisons of those days, suffice to say she must have been made of good stuff to survive them for the 5 years while she waited for transportation.

On the Friendship she gained an unenviable reputation of being a fighting, uncouth whore, one of the five troublesome Elizabeths that many words have been written about, but there is one entry that redeems her. A female convict on the Prince of Wales was giving birth. Our Elizabeth, being the only woman clean and intelligent enough to be trusted was assigned to help with the delivery.

There is also a notation to suggest that Elizabeth herself was pregnant but there is no record of the birth or otherwise or any record of the child. It is believed to have been either aborted or died during the journey.

 

It is well documented that the fleet firstly landed in Botany Bay but finding it unsuitable for colonisation, Captain Phillip relocated to Port Jackson, now known as Sydney Harbour.

It is also well documented that the male convicts, of whom Anthony Rope was one, were put to work building quarters for themselves, the officers and the women. The women had to wait to be given permission to be  allowed to disembark.

This work took  from 26th January to 6th February. During that time the Female convicts just had to endure the stifling heat, dressed in heavy European Clothes, aboard the ships anchored in the harbour.

 

When they disembarked they were immediately set upon by the male convicts and from all accounts the sailors and the Marines were no better behaved.

It was a night of wild abandonment which was not dampened by the sudden arrival of a violent thunderstorm accompanied by heavy rain and squalls.

This is when my ancestors met. Their first son, Robert was born nine months later.

They were married on 19th May 1788.

 

Anthony was brought before the court on 25th May, to answer to the charge of killing a goat owned by Lieutenant G. Johnston valued at 6 shillings. The meat was used in a Sea Pye to celebrate the wedding. Anthony claimed he found the goat dead along a track and that it had been mauled by a wild animal but the meat was still sweet. Luckily he was acquitted, as a charge like that could have led to hanging or years of hard labour. If that had have happened we would not be here.

 

Our family came from the second child a daughter, Mary who grew up to marry James Tobias Ryan and my family came down that line.

Anthony was put to work making bricks. Twice he received 25 lashes for either not working or for Laziness.

On 31st March 1791 Anthony was given a further 25 lashes for buying a pair of shoes believed to be stolen. The seller J. Marriott was also given 25 lashes for selling them.

As both Anthony and Elizabeth had served their 7 years in England and on the journey out here, they were virtually considered free people soon after arriving in Australia.

On 6th December 1791 Anthony was granted 30 acres to farm plus 20 acres for his wife and 10 acres for each of their two children, so he took up 70 acres at The Ponds two miles North of Parramatta.

In 1796 they sold their farm for Fifty pounds and moved to Mulgrave.

Apparently he was a good farmer and all his family, eventually 6 children were off government stores and despite being flooded out three times became self supporting.

 

In 1818 the family then sold up and moved to Tumbledown Barn at Windsor. The floods still remained a problem and at one stage the whole family had to be rescued from the roof of Tumbledown Barn.

The area is still known as Ropes Creek.

Elizabeth became a model wife but Anthonys activities have been noted in various journals.

In 1806 he was accused of working an illegal Rum still.

In 1816 he, with others rowed a Life Boat from the Hawkesbury to Port Macquarie, apparently for the Government and was granted ten pounds compensation because someone stole his clothes after reaching Port Macquarie.

In 1826 he only just got out of a charge of harbouring an escaped convict.

On 9th August 1837 Elizabeth Rope died. She was aged 76 and was buried next to her son William in the Anglican Cemetery, Church St Castlereagh. Her Headstone and footstone are still standing.

 

On 20th April 1843 Anthony died at age 84 and was buried in the same cemetery but no headstone has been found.

The Rope and Pulley association have erected a new one next to that of Elizabeth.

This is just a short summary of a very interesting life of two of our pioneers.

 

Other books that give much more detail are Strands of Rope & Pulley by Sylvia Taylor, Reminiscences of Australia by James T Ryan, Sydney Cove 1788 by John Cobbley, The Crimes of the Fist Fleeters also by John Cobbley and many others.