CHARLES WOODIVIS was a 23 year old butcher from Bonisall, who appeared before the Lancaster Quarter Sessions in 1832 and was sentenced to be transported for life. We don’t know his crime (which need not have been serious to warrant a life sentence), but we do know that he arrived in Tasmania, where he was assigned to work with a Mr Gregory. In 1841 he married Mary Ann Robinson while still a convict, but he was pardoned in 1843 and lived until 1862. We also know a lot about his physical appearance from his transportation record.  He was five foot one and a quarter inches tall, with dark red whiskers, a high forehead, small mouth and several tattoos, including a birdcage on his left arm.

JOHN BOWNE was 19 years old when he boarded a boat with his father and his sister, heading for Massachusetts. Boston was a long way from his home at Lime Tree Farm in Matlock. But he did well, prospering as a merchant and marrying Hannah Feake, the great niece of the governor. They became Quakers, a new doctrine being vehemently repressed across New England. Moving to Long Island in New Netherland (soon to become New York), Bowne was instrumental in winning tolerance for Quakers and other religious groups. He was a busy man, marrying three times and having sixteen children. There are a park and two schools named after him in Flushing, Queens. Lime Tree Farm lies buried beneath today’s Londis, in Lime Tree Road. The name also survives in the brand of jams and pickles produced by the President of the Bowne House Historical Society of New York. This print shows John Bowne defending his beliefs before Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of New York, in 1663.