Australian miners

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 24. Chapters: Australian gold prospectors, Moondyne Joe, John George Gough, Percy Black, David Carnegie, Paddy Webb, Robert Champion de Crespigny, James Esmond, Edward Heitmann, Mark Cutifani, William Parry, Jean-Paul Turcaud, Thomas Hiscock, Richard Buzacott, James Nash, John Holman, Paddy Hannan, Bernhardt Holtermann, Pat Mackie, Arthur Wellesley Bayley, Harry Anstey, Lewis Hubert Lasseter, James Benn Bradshaw, Henry Wildman, Lyndhurst Giblin, Ernest Cowan, John Lutey, John McDonald, Gabriel Read, John Connelly, Russian Jack, Tom Cue, William Ford. Excerpt: Joseph Bolitho Johns (c. 1826-August 13, 1900), better known as Moondyne Joe, was Western Australia's best known bushranger. Little is known of Joseph Johns's early life. Born in Cornwall, England around 1826 and raised as a Roman Catholic, he was the third of six children of blacksmith Thomas Johns and his wife Mary. It is likely that he contracted smallpox in his youth, as later records describe him as "pockmarked". His father died some time between 1832 and 1841, and Johns and his three brothers took work as copper miners. In 1841 the family was living at Illogan, Cornwall, but by 1848 Johns had migrated to Wales, taking work as an iron ore miner, probably at the Clydach Iron Works. On 15 November 1848, Johns and an associate named John Williams were arrested near Chepstow for "... stealing from the house of Richard Price, three loaves of bread, one piece of bacon, several cheeses, and other goods". Arraigned at the Brecon Assizes on charges of burglary and stealing, the pair pleaded not guilty. On 23 March they were tried at the Lent Assizes before Sir William Erle. Newspaper reports of the trial suggest that the pair gave an unexpectedly spirited defence, but Johns was abrasive and "contravened the conventions of court procedure". The men were convicted and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. Edgar (1990) observes that in several other cases brought before the same judge that day, guilty pleas to very similar charges resulted in sentences ranging from three weeks to three months. Johns and Williams would have spent the next seven months working on a government work party in the local area, before being transferred to Millbank Prison. On 1 January 1850, they were transferred to Pentonville Prison to serve their mandatory six months of solitary confinement. The pair were transferred to Dartmoor Prison on 21 October 1851, but shortly afterwards Johns was transferred to the Woolwich prison hulk Justitia, probably for disciplinary reasons. When the Justitia was