The Sankey family of Northdown, Tasmania, has its origins in the convict Joseph Sankey (1819-1878), who was the illegitimate son of Hannah Sankey (1794-?) and George Lee or Leigh (1795-1845?). Hannah lived at Burtonwood and George at nearby Great Sankey, villages in Lancashire, England, close to the city of  Warrington and on the road to Liverpool. “Sankey” probably derives from “Sand Quay”, an area where boats could have been moored where Sankey Brook flows into the the Mersey River. It is recorded as a surname from the early 13th century, and the early coat of arms contained 3 fish within a band.

Hannah’s father, William, was a farmer, but she was not to enjoy a quiet rural existence : in January 1816, not long after her 21st birthday, Hannah was tried before the Lancashire Quarter Sessions at Salford, found guilty of larceny, and sentenced to a 2 year  term in the Salford House of Correction. While incarcerated there, she gave birth to a daughter out of wedlock (Jane). In 1818, mother and daughter returned to Burtonwood and the local Overseers of the Poor obtained a filiation order from the Justices of the Peace naming Thomas Taylor, weaver of Bolton, as the father, and stipulating that he was to contribute financially to the child’s upkeep (dated 18 Feb 1818).  Within a few months of the order, Hannah was pregnant again, with the boy who was to be named Joseph when born on 23 Jan 1819. And again, the Overseers of the Poor obtained a filiation order, this time  naming George Leigh, labourer of Great Sankey, as the father, who had to pay £2 7/- upfront and 1/6  weekly for the child’s upkeep. Hannah herself was ordered to pay 9 d. per week if she failed to look after the boy. (Research has not yet revealed what became of Hannah or Jane. Joseph, in the convict indent drawn up in 1843/44, referred only to a sister named Marianne at Bolton, but we know nothing of her origins or circumstances.)

This was not an auspicious start to life for the young Joseph, who got into trouble with the law several times. On 18 Oct 1842, he was tried for larceny at Stafford Quarter Sessions and was imprisoned for 4 months. After completing this gaol term, barely 6 weeks then passed before he turned to crime again and on 5 April 1843 he was convicted of larceny at Stafford Quarter Sessions, having stolen 4 fowls from a Matthew Wilson. The sentence was 15 years transportation, and since New South Wales had ceased receiving convicts in 1840, Joseph was destined for Tasmania. After a month or so in gaol, he was sent south to Gosport, near Portsmouth, and was incarcerated on the hulk York, one of the infamous prison ships moored at various coastal towns in England. On 13 September 1843, he was allocated to the convict transport ship Anson and on 1 October sail was set from Southampton. Four months was spent at sea, and on 4 February 1844, the ship entered the Derwent. Upon arrival, Joseph’s convict record and physical description was drawn up, and from this we know he was 5’ 8 ¼” tall, with a fresh complexion, oval face, dark brown hair, dark eyes, large nose, and several tattoos includng a bust of a man and woman on his right arm, and a shepherdess leaning on a gate on his left arm.

As was the practice at that time, Joseph was allocated to a convict probation gang, where he would have worked with several hundred other men on tasks such as road-building, clearing land etc. He was sent north to Deloraine, and later worked in nearby Westbury and Longford. The first six months in Tasmania were difficult for him : he absconded three times from the gang and was punished with solitary confinement and hard labour. During this period he also got into trouble for hitting a watchman, and also not assisting one of the gang’s overseers who was being assaulted by another convict and calling for help. Things settled down, however, and he erred only once after the initial troubled period. Continued good behaviour led to him being given a probation pass in 1846, which allowed him to work for individual employers, and on 4 February 1851, he was granted a ticket of leave, which gave him the right to work as he chose, own property, and travel around provided he registered with local police and attended church musters each Sunday.

Not long after, he met Catherine O’Neill, a Roman Catholic widow in her late thirties and a convict from Ireland. Catherine was born ca 1811, probably in northern Ireland, She married John Duff in the 1830s and had two daughters by him : Margaret (ca 1834-1893 ) and Catherine (ca 1835-1925 ). While supporting herself and her family as a cook, she erred on the wrong side of the law several times, serving sentences of 1 month for stealing shoes and later 6 months for stealing some cotton. In mid-1848, however, Catherine transgressed more seriously and was found guilty of stealing a watch and sentenced to 7 years transportation. From Antrim Gaol, where her behaviour was recorded as “very good”, Catherine was sent south in 1849 with her daughters to the Grange Gorman Penitentiary in Dublin, to await transportation.

The convict ship Maria lay waiting at port, and the ship's surgeon selected female convicts for the voyage between 22 March and 2 April. As was not uncommon, many of the convicts' children accompanied their mothers. They departed on 5 April 1849, and thanks to the surgeon's log we have an evocative picture of life onboard. At 5.30 am, the cooks came on deck to light the fires and prepare breakfast. At 6.30 am all prisoners were roused and and had half an hour to stow bedding on the booms, followed by washing and cleaning themselves, and breakfast was had at 8 am. At 9.30 am the decks, hospital, water closets etc were cleaned, and at 10 am prayers were attended on deck. The rest of the morning was occupied knitting or learning to read and write. Dinner was at 12 noon, accompanied by lemon juice and a glass of wine on alternate days. Between dinner and 3 pm, activities such as knitting, reading, and writing  again took place. Bedding was taken below decks at 3.30 pm, and supper was had between 4 and 5. At around sunset, the prisoners were sent below and the doors were locked at 8 pm. The weather was very hot.

The Maria arrived at Hobart on 23 July. Catherine was sent to the female prison ship moored in the Derwent, which was – in a strange twist of fate – the Anson, the same ship which had transported Joseph Sankey 5 years earlier and which had remained in Tasmania to be refitted as the colony’s only hulk. Daughters Margaret and Catherine Duff were sent to the Queen's Orphanage in Hobart on 28 July 1849. They remained there until 13 Sept, when they were apprenticed to Mr Forster (Margaret) and Mr French (Catherine) of Brighton.

Catherine O'Neill was given a ticket of leave on 10 Feb 1852 and must have gone North with her daughters. She and Joseph Sankey decided to marry and as they were still serving their sentence it was necessary to apply to the authorities for permission to do so. On 19 January 1853, approval was granted and the couple wed on 14 March at the Wesleyan Chapel, Longford. One of the named witnesses to the marriage was their soon-to-be son in law, James Stott (1825-99), a fellow convict who had recently applied for permission to marry Catherine’s eldest daughter Margaret, and 5 weeks later, James and Margaret tied the knot at Longford Wesleyan Chapel.  On 7 June, Joseph Sankey’s good behaviour earned him a conditional pardon, which made him a free man (the only condition being a prohibition on ever returning to Britain). The other happy event in this period was the birth of  his first child, Harriet, probably in late 1853, but the event is missing from civil birth records.

With a conditional pardon under his belt and a wife and child to provide for, Joseph now took up the opportunity to join the Victorian Gold Rush. We know from Tasmanian police records that he boarded the steamship Clarence at Launceston, which departed at noon, 15 March 1854, and arrived at Melburne on the evening of 16 March. Unfortunately, we do not know how long he stayed or how much gold he found, but he must have been back in Tasmania by October when his wife fell pregnant with their next child, Joseph, born 22 July 1855.

Perhaps Joseph did have some luck on the goldfields, for at about this time, the family moved further north to the pioneer agricultural district of Northdown (named after “North Down”, the large estate owned by the Thomas family).   There is a tradition that he first worked as an employee on the Aul Derrig property, but thanks to the assessment rolls published in the Hobart Town Gazette (for municipal rate purposes), we know that by January 1863 he was leasing his own 50 acre farm from Sam Thomas, described as “a dry hill top west of the Hopground” and later known as “Sankey’s Old Garden”.

The Sankey's were never major landowners like their Thomas or Loane neighbours, but they established a firm and respected place in the Northdown district. In an obituary from The Devon Herald (6 March 1878), Joseph was described as a "straightforward, sterling, honest man", of "burly form and jovial countenance". He was a teetotaller and belonged to the Torquay (East Devonport) branch of the Good Templar Lodge, a worldwide temperance organisation. At temperance gatherings, he was always "installed master of the sports", and "his very appearance was sufficient to give the lie to the notion that jollity and teetotallism are incompatibles."

James (Jim) and Margaret Stott must have come north with the Sankey’s. James hailed from Lancashire and had been convicted of sedition in 1849. In 1855, his parents (Isaac and Martha) and siblings (Joseph, Isaac, Elizabeth and Sarah Anne) left England and arrived at Launceston on 2 June. Most of them (if not all) then came to Northdown. By 1858, James leased 83 acres on the Northdown estate and ran a dairy farm there into the 1880’s. In 1862, James’ younger brother Isaac (1839-1906/7) married Catherine Duff, and they had 7 sons and later moved to Riana (south west of Ulverstone). Joseph, Elizabeth and Sarah Anne eventually moved further west to Penguin. Parents Isaac (1807-95) and Martha Stott (ca 1800-73) lived in Wesley Vale.

In 1878, Sankey’s Old Garden was the scene of Joseph’s tragic and unforeseen death, a few weeks before his 25th wedding anniversary : on Saturday, 2 March, he was climbing a chock and log fence when the top log rolled off, throwing him to the ground, resulting in concussion and paralysis. Taken home from the scene, he lingered until Sunday afternoon, when he died, aged 59 years. He was  buried at the old cemetery on the Northdown estate (which, along with a small church, was established in 1845 and served the community before the church of St James’ opened in May 1878).

Joseph left behind his widow, Catherine, who lived another 15 years, and the two children (not to mention his Stott stepchildren). Six months before his father’s death, Joseph Jnr had married Mary Reid, daughter of ex-convicts John Reid and wife Elizabeth (nee Miles), who had settled in Burgess (Port Sorell) in 1844. The young Sankey couple  took out a lease from Charles Kent of Launceston on a 50 acre farm to the south of his father’s. Sadly, Mary died in 1889 – of “exhaustion” as the death registers describe it. Her funeral on Saturday 16 March made a slow 2 ½ hour progress from Torquay to old Northdown Cemetery, where she was interred a little after 4 p.m.

This left Joseph to bring up a young family of  4 boys and 2 girls, all aged under 10. From about 1897, however, their fortunes improved : Joseph leased an additional  72 acres of farmland from H.J. Wilson, and in about 1901 he was able to buy the Kent property (which remained in the family well into the 20th century). This was followed by further expansion into other areas, including the valuable Williamson homestead on the Port Sorell to Torquay road. Just after his death on 13 Dec 1912, the family occupied at least 5 freehold and leasehold properties in the Northdown area, mainly comprising 440 acres of farmland. Like his father, Joseph Jnr died ‘on the job’ : while hoeing potatoes one day, he took a smoko sitting against a log, and two friends later found him there, having passed away.

Sankey Properties in the Northdown district 1863-1946

1863-1878	Farm, 50 acres, leased from Sam Thomas
1878-1940	Farm, 50 acres, leased from Charles Kent 1878-1901, freehold Joseph Sankey Jnr 1902-1911, freehold John Joseph Sankey 1916-1940
1897-1905	Land, house, etc., 72 acres, leased from H. J. Wilson
1905-1911	Dwelling & land, 1 acre, freehold Joseph Sankey Jnr
1911-1913	Farm, 120 acres, leased from Andrew James
1911-1913	Dwelling & land [Post Office], freehold John Joseph Sankey
1911-1916	Farm, 201 acres, freehold Joseph Sankey Jnr 1911-1913, freehold William Sankey 1916
1911-1916	Farm, 69 acres, leased from Isaac Williamson 1911, freehold Joseph Sankey Jnr 1913, freehold Arthur Sankey 1916
1920-1946	Farm, 54 acres, freehold Arthur Sankey
1920-1946	Farm, 55 acres, freehold William Sankey
1920-1946	Land & cottage, ½ acre, freehold Arthur Sankey
1925-1946	"Bush run", part of Boisdale, 161 acres, freehold William Sankey
1925-1946	Land & house, Port Sorell, 100 acres, freehold Arthur Sankey
1927-1929	Land (formerly Freer), Port Sorell, 22 acres, freehold Arthur Sankey
1927-1929	Land, Port Sorell, 23 acres, freehold Arthur Sankey
1938-	various parcels of land, Port Sorell, freehold Arthur Sankey

Notes -
Location Northdown unless otherwise stated
Information drawn from assessment rolls - may be incomplete ; dates given are publication dates in Hobart Town Gazette.

Joseph was survived by his sister, Harriet, who lived to be 82 years old. She had been wooed in the late 1870’s by young George James (“Jim”) Jarman, whose father had come to Northdown in the 1860’s and from 1871 leased the farm at the Hopground, adjacent to “Sankey’s Old Garden”. Harold Thomas records a story regarding the track between the two properties worn by Jim visiting Harriet, when some of his friends played a practical joke by setting a kangaroo snare on the path. This achieved its purpose and caught Jim but did not deter him from his romance. The couple were the first to be married in the new church of St James’, Northdown, in 1879, and they went on to have 9 children. In the early 1890’s they moved to a farm at Nook, near Sheffield, where it seems they lived a comfortable life (which included a Ford motor car!). George died in 1929, and Harriet in 1935, and both were interred at Sheffield Cemetery.

Joseph’s children all have their own part in the story of the Northdown area.

Catherine (Kate, 1879-1972) married William (Willie) Brown, a bit of a local institution, commemorated in many ways across the district. With partner Charlie Lowery, they “built most of the houses, barns, stables and implement sheds of the district over some forty years” (Thomas). A hill south of Port Sorell is also known as Brown’s Lookout, where Willie built a lookout ca 1930. William’s mother was Northdown postmistress, and later he and Catherine took over the role.

Catherine’s sister Agnes Harriet (1884-1956) married John Emanuel Swan Appleby (1879-1957), whose father, Robert Samuel (1853-1929), had taken up farming in Northdown ca 1900.

Catherine and Agnes’ brothers - John Joseph, Arthur Thomas, William Alfred (Bill)  and James Henry – all stayed in the area, and they could be seen each Sunday sitting (and singing) together in the choir seats at St James’, Northdown.

John Joseph (1882-1954) took over the old farm which his father had occupied since 1878. He also briefly owned the old Northdown Post Office (on Port Sorell Road), and sold this to Charles Lowery in 1914.

Arthur (1886-1961) married his cousin Alice Reid (1892-1977) in 1909, and they had a daughter Thelma. He started out by taking over a 69 acre farm which his father had leased in 1911 then purchased from Isaac Williamson. By 1920, he owned instead 54 acres of farmland, and from the mid-twenties his property interests expanded rapidly, taking up a 161 acre bush run at Boisdale, and an increasing amount of land at Port Sorell which had been part of the Freer estate. This included the Freer family home, ‘Rosella Rise’ (now ‘Cockatoo Cottage’), located in Freer Street, and also the grand ‘Taroona’ homestead at Hawley Beach. Arthur sold most of this land (350 acres) to the Anderson family in 1946 for £2,100, and it now comprises the township of Shearwater. In commemoration of this, there is a Sankey  St in modern Hawley Beach.

James (1886-1963) was a churchwarden and bellringer at St James', Northdown. His nephew Ken Appleby (1916-2003) remembered how his Uncle would sometimes let him ring the bell.

William (1888-1951) worked as a commercial agent and auctioneer, and also owned a 55 acre farm in Northdown from about 1920. He married Ida Lucy Littlejohn in Nov 1912, at St John's, Launceston. After bearing 4 children, Ida died young in 1931 : she was greatly mourned and is said to have had one of the biggest funerals ever seen at St James’. Their eldest son Joe (Clarence Joseph) (1913-1996) went on to become a notable sportsman in Tasmania. William remarried, to Vera May Chilcott, and they had 3 children : Maurice, Barry, and Lurlene.

The Sankey family continues to be associated with the Northdown area to this day, and many members are buried at the historic cemetery of St James’.

© 2003