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Black Anderson: A Story of the South Coast – Part 2c

A long revision of one of the South Coast’s most disreputable historical characters

What was going on at Albany between January 1835 and December 1836

Continued from Part 2b

Cheyne, Albany and the root of James Stirling’s Swan River quest.

**Above:** Portraits of the (London) textiles and (Scottish) coalfields businessman, Andrew Stirling 1751-1823 (left), and his 5th son, James 1791-1865. The Stirling family were Navy men down their mother’s side and landowners and businessmen on their father’s. James Stirling was the second son to enter the Royal Navy under the patronage of their mother’s older brother, Charles. Images: Andrew – from Pamela Statham Drew’s biography, *James Stirling*, and James – drawn from the public internet domain.

Okay, before we go on to the four Anderson related court-cases of 1835 and 1836, we need to lay the groundwork beneath them as far as the town is concerned.

When we left off at the end of 1834 Cheyne had brought a settler collective from the Buffalo (Henry Townsend), Gem (Gordon & Sinclair), Jolly Rambler (R. H. Maddocks) and James Pattison (et al) together at his cottage for the purposes of petitioning the Colonial Secretary in London. The door to that position, however, had become something of a revolving one. The incumbent Secretary had changed five times since Stirling began campaigning for the colony in December 1826, the latest switch occurring just five months prior, so it’s likely Cheyne’s group didn’t know in particular who they were appealing to. A scenario in keeping with the general state of affairs vis-a-vis the troubled colony.

Cheyne was exasperated on multiple fronts and desperate to get things moving. Already, he was into his fourth year at the Sound and the best chance yet to kick-start the economy was withering before his eyes. The petition begged that Albany be reinstated as a convict depot in order that prisoners carry out essential road works, even though the idea was a breach of the social and economic precept upon which the colony was established. It might have taken a year, at best, if the plan worked, but it was more the impetus to try something than lean back and do nothing at all.

On the surface of things, Cheyne’s tactic had little to no chance of success. However, despite the urgency he was clearly trying to address, it begs the question as to why he thought it might. The answer to that lies in the frustration he felt toward the town’s agricultural prospects, but also with Stirling’s fundamental motivations for commencing the colony and the fact that Albany was not, originally, part of it.

Black Anderson: A Story of the South Coast – Part 2b

A 2022/3 Revision of one of the South Coast’s most disreputable historical characters

Anderson and the ‘second wave’ at the South Coast

1833-1835

Part 2 (a,b&c) of this challenging post is dedicated to John Robertson and the publication of Sealed Souls, his insightful and highly informative compendium of narrative chapters and exhaustive supporting glossaries which tell the story of sealing along Australia’s southern coastline. Robertson’s work is the result of more than twenty years researching and compiling information relative to the people and boats engaged in the industry and how they came to impact our particular coast over twenty tumultuous years; 1820 to 1840. Among the many rogue characters described, Robertson contends the identity of Black Anderson comprises three aliases. The third, John William Anderson, bringing the life story of an anomalous Indian servant turned criminal sailor and sealer to a murderous close. But there is another possibility, and it was while considering Robertson’s proposal it occurred to me, we only know so much about Anderson because that’s all there is. This post, built upon and inspired by the work of Robertson, is an attempt to show that John William ‘Black’ Anderson may have been James Anderson, assumed to be one of three men aboard the emigration ship ‘James Pattison’ which arrived at Albany during the month of June 1834.

Note: This post assumes James Anderson, Robert Brianson and Isaac Winterbourne formed part of the crew aboard the James Pattison sailing from London via Portsmouth and the Cape Colony to King George Sound and the Swan River, during 1834. No known official passenger or crew list pertaining to this voyage is in existence. The premise is based on the entries of all three men in the Erickson Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians which itself appears to have made the assumptions based upon the men’s names appearing in the Spencer Albany Census of 1836 along with surrounding documentation relating to the men and events recorded at Albany between 1835 and 1837. In an attempt to show the men could have been aboard, this post necessarily takes an IF, THEN approach. IF Anderson was aboard the James Pattison, THEN the following occurred.

Continued from Part 2a

While official infant Albany was grappling with its James Pattison influx, so unofficial Albany must have spied off its opportunity.

On shore, settlers and their servants, aided by the ship’s crew, will have laboured to unload their chattels and set them down somewhere convenient. The settlers will have walked about, scratching their heads beneath the bleak and blustering sky – yet thinking, as the place was sold to them as being climatically akin to Italy, how mild in fact it was – as they searched the ground said to be York Street for surveyor’s pegs and tried to differentiate the scrub before them from the streets and buildings of their imagined future. Those who brought surviving livestock ashore will have found little grass so let the animals roam for whatever they could find, at risk of them uprooting or trampling unfenced gardens, such as they were. The existing community, which included a band of sealers headed by John Pavey/Williams/Andrews, will have been watching closely, perhaps even availing of work unloading the ship.

During winter Albany’s weather bandies between howling icy squalls and a seemingly impossible calm, between irregular barrages of stiff wind and grey driving rain, and admittedly Italianesque spells of warm sunshine bookended by sunrises and sunsets that graduate in gorgeous hues right across the sky. Once they acquired their land legs again, presumably on one of those clearer, calmer days, the settlers will have climbed the hills to gaze out over the water and then back to the inland ranges and agreed to a man the spectacle was bonafide; scenic indeed. Yet reality would have bit hard too as they pondered how they were to go about replicating the only way of life they knew in a place where they were the only ones who knew anything about it. Acknowledging the Aboriginal presence they were surrounded by, the settlers will have realised how few and isolated they were, and knowing the ship with their obvious leader aboard would soon set sail for the capital, how difficult the prospect of building that future by themselves was going to be. The only immediate remedy to that anxiety was work; the task of housing themselves first, and this, as Captain Bateman said, set them ‘very busy making shelter for their families’ the best way they could.

Black Anderson: A Story of the South Coast – Part 2a

A 2022/3 Revision of one of the South Coast’s most disreputable historical characters

Earliest Maritime Albany

1831-1834

Above: King George Sound has always held a majestic vista. Ship’s captains were able to glean fair impression of the places they were due to visit from the charts they worked, and King George Sound promised much, indeed tended to exceed expectation when those exalted features finally loomed large and real. Over the years 1830 to 1890, for many sailors aboard those ships the imagery was too good to pass up and they jumped. Image: 1. Cropped section of 1837 map of Western Australia drawn by the Surveyor General, J.S. Roe. 2. Breaksea Island, Michaelmas Island and King George Sound. Source: 1. Discoveries in Western Australia at Trove 2. LocationsHub Website. Placed by Screenwest.

Parts 2a & 2b of this challenging post are dedicated to John Robertson and the publication of Sealed Souls, his insightful and highly informative compendium of narrative chapters and exhaustive supporting glossaries which tell the story of sealing along Australia’s southern coastline. Robertson’s work is the result of more than twenty years researching and compiling information relative to the people and boats engaged in the industry and how they came to impact our particular coast over twenty tumultuous years; 1820 to 1840. Among the many rogue characters described, Robertson contends the identity of Black Anderson comprises three aliases. The third, John William Anderson, bringing the life story of an anomalous Indian servant turned sailor to a murderous close. But there is another possibility, and it was while considering Robertson’s proposal it occurred to me, we only know so much about Anderson because that’s all there is. This post, built upon and inspired by the work of Robertson, is an attempt to show that John William ‘Black’ Anderson may have been James Anderson, long time assumed (but not yet proven) to be one of three men aboard the emigration ship ‘James Pattison’ which arrived at Albany during the month of June 1834.

Note: This post assumes James Anderson, Robert Brianson and Isaac Winterbourne formed part of the crew aboard the James Pattison sailing of February 1834. No known official passenger or crew list pertaining to this voyage is in existence, the premise is based on the entries of all three men in the Erickson Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians which itself appears to have made the assumptions based on the men’s names appearing in the Spencer Albany Census of 1836 and surrounding documentation relating to the men and their involvement in events recorded at Albany between 1835 and 1837. In an attempt to show the men could have been aboard, this post necessarily takes an IF, THEN approach. IF Anderson was aboard the James Pattison in June 1834, THEN the following occurred.

Introduction

In the mid-1830s Albany was mostly a ramshackle scatter of bell tents, other crude canvas shelters and under-construction huts and houses, strung about a scrubby shore that sometimes looked dismal and sometimes wonderful, bright and as rich in opportunity as any oceanic waterfront anywhere in the world. Especially to anyone looking for a brand-new start.

Charts of our South Coast may have had a habit of raising eyebrows, and initial impressions of King George Sound most often exceeded expectation, but to those aboard incoming ships notions of a lively town burgeoning somewhere amongst its many recesses were soon put to rest. Albany suggested more but was in reality an underpopulated, underserviced entity where hopeful settlers quickly found themselves querying the validity of the colonial promise they’d been sold. During the mid 1830’s it was very early days at Albany. There wasn’t even a landing to tie up at, you had to wade ashore through the weedy shallows, luggage and whatever else on your shoulders.

John Bailey Pavey (1797-1882) by Campbell (Jock) Beer

John Bailey Pavey, also known as John/Jack Williams, John Andrews and John Williams Andrews was a mariner, sealer, whaler and Plantagenet pioneer. A key figure of Albany’s original criminal fringe he was a man of considerable, and dangerous, prowess. Pavey resided at or near Albany between 1834 and his death in 1882.

With Thanks

Following is a verbatim copy of Jock Beer’s 2009 family research project John Bailey Pavey. This work lifted the lid on Albany’s ‘second wave’ sealing fraternity of the mid 1830s. It pre-dates John Robertson’s outstanding Sealed Souls narrative and compilation by more than 10 years. I have sung about Beer’s work for some time and it remains an absolutely essential element of the building literature surrounding the role of Albany’s mariner brigade subsequent to departure of the NSW military contingent and set-up of the new free settlement from April 1831. Robertson’s Sealed Souls is a compendium of the entire sealing era (both waves) as it related to the coast between Albany and Cape Arid and makes gigantic contribution to our overall understanding of what occurred during that 40-plus year period, where-as Beer’s John Bailey Pavey is entirely focussed on the life and times of this one particular character. Pavey arrived into Albany waters with a number of other sealers including the equally notorious Robert Gamble and Black Anderson, allowing Beer to throw invaluable light on associations between all three. As John Bailey Pavey forms an integral part of the research underpinning the current Black Anderson series here at The View. . . and is not available for purchase, Jock has given pemission for the work to be copied and presented here. A hard copy of John Bailey Pavey by Campbell (Jock) Beer is lodged with Albany Library’s ‘Albany History Collection‘. What follows below is an unedited, word-for-word, copy.

Black Anderson: A Story of the South Coast – Part 1

A 2022/23 revision of one of the South Coast’s most disreputable historical characters

Introduction, Contemporary Assessment and Historiography

Above: The identity of ‘John William ‘Black Jack’ Anderson and the story of his arrival along Western Australia’s South Coast is slowly being pieced together. Long a figure of intrigue and mystery, Anderson was perhaps the most hostile and cruel of Albany’s fringe-dwelling sealer community. Post military era, he and his contemporaries came to use Albany town as its commercial base once the economy took hold. This image, popularly used to depict Anderson over the years, has been modified and adapted to an emerging narrative he was not Negro, but of South Asian origin. Image: Colour-modified graphic depiction of an Indian origin ‘Black Jack’ Anderson commissioned specifically for Robertson’s Sealed Souls. Inspired by an alternative image created by Norman Aisbett of The West Australian Magazine, published in a 1974 article titled “The Once And Only Pirate” by Alex Harris. Source: Sealed Souls – Self Published 2022 – Page 91.

Introduction

The South Coast’s history conscious have always been aware of their relationship with the dissolute sealing gangs which ranged Australia’s southern littoral from around 1800 to around 1840. The practise of hunting fur seals spread from New Zealand and the Bass Strait all the way to King George Sound, indeed in isolation as far as the Swan River, years before the administrative wheels of the western-most colony were set in motion. In this post, in the wake of another important book launch, we examine how our interest in this subject has evolved over the last 180 years, what’s missing, and where we are now in terms of understanding who Black Jack Anderson was and how he fits in to the reality of actual events.

Stories of the sealers who exploited our section of coast are as awful as those belonging to other sections, most notably Northern Tasmania; Morninton Peninsula and Portland Bay in Victoria; Cape Jervis near Adelaide, and Port Lincoln, on the opposite side of South Australia’s Spencer Gulf. Which is to say, the prevelance and menace of these gangs and their alpha leaders impacted widely and continuously, providing good reason why the stories survived through generations as lore, why academics and artists alike continue to be seduced by them, and why I am once again setting my fingers to the keyboard with the same subject in mind.

Campbell Taylor and the Cape Arid Connection – 3 (c)

Bob Gamble, John Bailey Pavey & Black Jack Anderson Above: The story of Truganini, perhaps Australia’s best known female Aboriginal ancestor, extends through her sisters and other women like her, via Kangaroo Island, all the way to King George’s Sound. Cartoon image by Chris Grosz, taken from the politics, society and culture magazine The …