Transportation To Australia For Life
For his part in the Chartist march on Newport he was sentenced on 16 January 1840 with the verdict of 'guilty of high treason' - sentencing to death by hanging, drawing,and quartering.
But his sentence was commuted and he was transported for life to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania, Australia), arriving at the colony on the last day of June 1840. In 1848 he described the terrible treatment handed out in the colony, ‘Many have I known, though guilty of the offence for which they suffered, commit murder in order to expire on the gallows rather than endure the punishment’. Once there he made plans to escape, but remained.
He was given a conditional pardon in 1854 allowing him to live anywhere outside of the UK. He decided to remain in Tasmania, and brought his wife and family out from Wales to Australia. He discovered coal on the island and made a considerable fortune from it, so founding the Tasmanian coal trade.
He died a prosperous man at Launceston, Tasmania on 8 May 1874.
Read more about this topic: Zephaniah Williams
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