Letters of Richard Dillingham, Convict

Summary

Letters from convicts in Australia are rare. A few for this county have already been published. These were brought to my notice in 1963 by Mary Bamford at the Luton Secondary Technical School, and are published by permission of her parents.

Richard Dillingham was born at Flitwick in 1811, the son of a labourer, and grew up to be a ploughman, He attended no school except Sunday school, and could not write. He survived the smallpox, though it left his face pock-marked, and he grew into an oval-faced, dark-complexioned, brown-haired, grey-eyed, stoutmade lad of 5ft 7in. He had several brothers and sisters—Joseph, James, Harriet, Betsy, Anne and Nancy; and a sweetheart, Elizabeth Faine, who had moved to Flitwick from Eversholt.

The background against which village lads of this time grew up was one of war, low wages, high prices, growing population, and enclosure (Flitwick was enclosed in 1808). A fair was one of the few occasions for merrymaking and perhaps rowdyism—a Bedford woman diarist in 1832 wrote “I braved the fair”. Unfortunately Richard Dillingham had formed a friendship with another Flitwick lad who had served three terms in goal, Daniel Deacon. On 27 June 1831 they went to Ampthill fair, probably had too much to drink, and on the way back (perhaps on an impulse) broke into the house of John Farmer at Steppingley and stole a box, 6d., a drawer, 6d., 2 printed books, 6d., a guitar, 4s., a violin, 10s., and 5 pewter plates, 2s. The theft appears senseless, firstly by the nature of the articles stolen, and secondly because the lads were immediately detected, and the next day committed by a local justice to stand their trial at the Bedford summer assizes. Here they received the legal sentence of death, but (as almost always happened with the death sentence) it was commuted to transportation for life.

The lads were first taken to the hulks at Woolwich where, on the Thames about 11 miles downstream from London bridge, prisoners awaiting transportation were held until ships were available to take them to the penal colonies.