GOODMAN, Edward
EDWARD GOODMAN
Per HENRY TANNER 1834
The price for stealing a coat, as a second offence, in 1833 England, was 14 year’s transportation to Sydney Cove. Edward Goodman (alias Goodwin alias Harvey) found this out when he was tried and convicted of the crime on 14th October, 1833 in the Warwick Quarter Sessions. He was held aboard the prison Hulk JUSTITIA, moored at Woolwich, until being confined on the HENRY TANNER for the voyage to Australia. Edward was 23 years old, could read, and is reported to have been a carter and baker prior to his conviction.
On arrival in Sydney, things seemed to have gone reasonably well for Edward and he was assigned, for a time, to William Wilson of the Illawarra. He received his Ticket of Leave in 1841 and his Certificate of Freedom in 1849. However, good fortune is often transient and circumstances frequently unravel unexpectedly. In the same year that he gained his freedom he was again arrested, tried and convicted of ‘stealing a pair of trousers’ and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment in Sydney Gaol.
Thus began a pattern of behavior that would become Edward’s trade – misappropriation of various people’s goods inevitably followed by incarceration in various Jurisdiction’s Gaols:
1849 - Darlinghurst Gaol,
1854 - Bathurst Gaol and Cockatoo Island,
1855 - Goulburn Gaol,
1859 - Berrima Gaol,
1861 - Paramatta Gaol.
and so on …..
It is impossible to say why Edward began, and continued, on his life of thievery, but whatever the original reason for his stealing a coat in Warwickshire his talents did not improve over the years in Sydney – practice does not always make perfect!
Edward Goodman died on 19th July, 1870 in Sydney.