Agricultural labourers transported to Australia after the 1830s rural riots

Pre-transportation History

254: KIMMER, James
Born:	about 1810	Died:	1895
Also known as:	KIMBER
Family Relationships:
Group:	Wessex (Berks, Dorset, Hunts, Wilts)
Where tried :	Wiltshire County	Native Place:	Milton Lilbourne, Wiltshire
Occupation:	Farm labourer
Crime:	Machine breaking/ demolishing	Sentence:	7 years
Prior Offences:	1	*Hulk:	1348
Order of Loading:	185	Transport:	Eliza, to Van Diemens Land

Post-transportation History

*Police Number:	K0308
Times charged:	2	Times punished:	1
Granted Ticket of Leave:		Date of Pardon:	05 Feb 1836
Type of Pardon:	Free, absolute pardon
Post-sentence History:	Victoria resident
Marriages:	Van Diemens Land, 1839
Place of Death:	Victoria
More Information:	See also Chapters 3, 5 Janet McCalman's Vandemonians has an almost two page commentary on James Kimber (Kimmer per Eliza) and his success in Melbourne. It begins: In 1888, Alexander Sutherland included a modest biography in his grand Victoria and Its Metropolis of a modest pioneer, James Kimber, who was celebrated as being a citizen who had fed the people with his market gardens, orchard and bacon curing. His was a story of hard work and good fortune. He had been working as a gardener in Richmond, and raising his young family, when news of the gold finds disrupted the colony and he joined the first rush. In fifteen months he made (pounds)1500. This he invested in 15 acres (6 hectares) in South Preston, worked it for fifteen years, then let it out on rental. He purchased undeveloped property in Richmond, including half an acre from Dr McCrae in Rotherwood Street, bordering Mulberry Street. There he built Mulberry Cottage, retiring from business around 1878. He invested wisely in both farming and urban land and endowed his four surviving children with a useful inheritance. What Alexander Sutherland did not know, but which James Kimber apparently did not hide from his family, was that on 23 November 1830, as James Kimmer, he had gone to Totteridge farm, which dominated his village at Milton Lilbourne, near Pewsey in Wiltshire, and smashed Richard Litten's new threshing machine. And so it goes on for another page, finishing with He died a 'gentleman', aged eighty-seven, from asthenia after a tram accident. His estate went for probate at nearly (pounds)10,000 comprising land and mortgages, apparently well managed, yet he still signed with a cross. Janet McCalman, Van-Demonians The Repressed History of Colonial Victoria, The Mieugunyah Press, 2021.

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Notes:

*Hulk Numbers
Four figure numbers refer to the York Hulk, others, the Leviathan.  No number means either unknown or not held in a hulk
*Police Number
This is shown when known.  In Van Diemens Land the initial letter was the first letter of the convicts surname.

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