LIST 19 - 1802 MUSTER - DEUXIEME DIZAINE - NORFOLK ISLAND

 
 
The first of two musters presented for Norfolk Island is the 1802 Muster. There 
are just 26 children of the "Deuxieme Dizaine"identified from the muster (13 
boys and 13 girls - all appear  to be colonial born).
 
The information presented for each entry is:
 
 family name
 Christian name
 date of birth 
 place of birth
 parents' names 
 parents' civil status at the time of the child's birth
 parents' marital status at the time of the child's birth 
 age grouping 
 civil status grouping
 when the child was placed "on stores" (if after 1st January)
  when the child was placed "off stores" (if before 31st December)
 surname as it appears in the original muster
 reference number linking the entry back to the original source document. 
 
The entries are listed in alphabetical order; firstly on the child's father's 
surname, secondly on the child's Christian name. 
 
The date & place of birth and parental details are all "value added" fields 
not found in the original muster.
 
The "1802 Muster of Norfolk Island" is not really a muster in the usual sense 
of an official government recording of all the inhabitants of the island 
on a given day. Its correct title is "The Victualling List of Norfolk Island 
for the Year 1802". What this list really shows is all persons who drew 
provisions from the government store for the 365 days starting on the 1st January 
1802. Not everyone on the list was present on the island on the 1st January 
and not everyone was still present on the 31st December. Of course for 
those persons on the island who did not draw provisions from the store at all 
during this period their names would be missing altogether, and unfortunately 
as will be seen in the 1805 Muster, taken just three years later, there were 
many such people. As a consequence this is by no means of comprehensive 
list of the island's population in 1802.
 
It would have been nice if the exact age of each child was recorded but 
because the list was primarily a working document to allow planning by the 
commissariat staff for the provisioning of the inhabitants of the island (and 
not an information resource for 21st century family historians) the children 
are grouped into three categories; over 10, over 2 and under 2. These correspond 
to the proportion of the male ration to be allocated to each child; two 
thirds, one half and one quartre respectively. If one looks at page xxi of the 
introduction to the source document one can see exactly how Commissary William 
Broughton calculated and tabulated the needs of the community that year.
 
There are five children whose exact date of birth is unknown. As all of these 
"Deuxieme Dizaine" children were by definition under 2 years, they could either 
be born in 1800 or 1801, straddling the cut off point for inclusion in this 
study. For purposes of this volume they have all been assumed to be born in 
1801. Peter Dutton, Ann Bird and Sarah Bird were all listed as "over 2" when 
they were not.
 
There are four children whose dates of birth are unknown; 
 
 Richard Mitchell (whose parents are known)
 Lucy Mollet (whose father is unknown) 
 Robert Jones & Sarah Smith (whose parents are both unknown)
 
The places of birth of the children have also been added to the list, all appear 
to have been born on Norfolk Island (NI).
 
The children were categorized on the original list into four groups according 
to the civil status of their mothers upon arrival in the colony; "civil", 
"military", "free" and "other" which for practical purposes meant convict. 
Why Lucy Mullett is classified as "free" when her mother was a convict is a 
mystery. 
Children in the "civil" and "military" categories all have surnames 
corresponding with their father's surnames since in all cases their mothers 
were married to their fathers at the time of arrival on the island. There 
are no children in the "civil" category on this list. Why William Rousseau 
is not in the military category defies reason, his father was a soldier, 
married to his mother and both arrived free !
 
All the children in the "other" category have convict or former convict mothers, 
although the father often arrived free. Several soldiers' children were also 
similarly classified because of their convict wives and defactos. Charles 
Lucas appears under his fathers surname for some unknown reason.
 
The children tended to be listed under their mother's surnames, which explains 
why the "surname in original muster" column is included. The reason for this 
system of classification is not hard to find. Cynics might well say that "one 
always knows who one's mother was but not necessarily one's father" - true 
but under our  English naming conventions, a women takes on the surname 
of her husband upon marriage. Thus for the colonial authorities, charged 
with the responsibility of tracking and generally officiating over all aspects 
of the lives of the female transportees for the remainder of their time in 
the colony, multiple name changes would have presented an administrative 
nightmare. The simple solution was to continue to record all government 
documents with the name of the female transportee as it appeared on the first 
document to reach the colony, namely the ship's convict indent. Given the 
uses of this particular victualling list, it was also much more likely that 
the mother would attend the commissariat store to collect rations for a 
child rather than the father so associating the children with the mother's name 
would make more sense and facilitate the smooth functioning of the store.
 
There are nine entries in the "when on stores" column. There are two 
explanations for such notations; either the children came from being 
independent of the government and needed to go back on government assistance 
for some reason, or they were newly born.
 
There are eight entries in the "when off stores" column. There are three 
explanations for such notations; either the child's family became self 
sufficient and no longer needed government assistance, or they left the island, 
or they died. 

Proceed to Muster List

Return to 1801-1810

Return to Home Page

This work is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.