{"id":17617,"date":"2020-10-01T16:41:21","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T06:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.phototimetunnel.com\/?p=17617"},"modified":"2023-09-15T08:47:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T22:47:58","slug":"in-the-tracks-of-tom-pritchell-bush-horseman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phototimetunnel.com\/in-the-tracks-of-tom-pritchell-bush-horseman","title":{"rendered":"In the tracks of Tom Pritchell, bush horseman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
My mother was adopted, so our family tree is a bit complicated. On her side, the biological family branch was at a dead end for a long time, until a late-life DNA test by my mother unearthed some results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the adoptive side, though, it’s an interesting set of branches that I’ve recently started to follow. My main interest has been to establish the facts – if I can – about the Aboriginal heritage of my adoptive grandfather, Jack Pritchell. This has been talked about in our family for many years, but I’ve never been able to clarify the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a few days intensive work on Trove<\/a> and Ancestry<\/a>, and bearing in mind some titbits of information gleaned over the years from various relatives, I’ve managed to narrow things down a lot. And in the process I’ve been introduced to some remarkable characters, of whom one of my favourites is my grandfather’s uncle, Tom Pritchell. Tom Pritchell was copiously memorialised by a 1930s newspaper correspondent who had worked with him as a stockman on a cattle station north of Gloucester, NSW, and the articles now digitized on Trove paint a vivid picture of extraordinary characters in an interesting place and time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To set the scene, the documented story of the Pritchells in NSW begins with a pair of convicts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One, by the name of Robert Fields, was born around about 1790 in Milford Port, Somersetshire, England. He was sentenced to death in August 1815 for stealing silver plate, but the sentence was moderated to transportation for life. He came to New South Wales aboard the ship Ocean<\/em>, arriving in January 1816. He was pardoned on July 10, 1834 and died on June 1, 1869, at Port Macquarie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other was Robert Pe(t)chell, born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1817, convicted of horse-theft on January 3, 1839 and transported to Australia on the convict ship Parkfield<\/em>, departing on May 13, 1839.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n