Thomas Brooks was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England on 12 June 1793. He was transported to Australia for life on the Grenada (1819). After committing another offence, he was sentenced to death, which was respited to transportation for life. Brooks arrived at the Moreton Bay penal settlement in 1825. Following its closure in 1839, he chose to remain in the district, where he worked for the Petrie family. Brooks died at the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum on Stradbroke Island in 1878. He is now well-known as the subject of six chapters ghost-written by ‘Jack Bushman’ that appeared under the title ‘Passages from the life of a “Lifer”’ in the Moreton Bay Courier in April 1859.
Thomas Brooks, a collier (miner), was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England on 12 June 1793. His parents, Thomas Brook [sic] and Elizabeth Thornton, were married at Bingley, in the borough of Bradford, on 16 September 1790. They had at least eight children, all baptised in Bingley, including Thomas Brook Junr [sic], baptised on 22 September 1793.
Brooks was convicted at the Lancaster Assizes on 15 August 1818 and transported to New South Wales for life on the Grenada (1819). Brooks, along with John Goff and Joseph Banks, were sentenced to death in 1825 following their convictions in the New South Wales Supreme Court for ‘Stealing and putting in fear’ at Port Macquarie. However, Brooks’ sentence was commuted and he was sent to the Moreton Bay penal station. Following the closure of the station in May 1839, Brooks opted to remain at Moreton Bay and was employed as a government bullock driver. He was granted a ticket of leave for Moreton Bay in 1843 and a conditional pardon on 15 March 1852.
Brooks is now well-known as the subject of six chapters ghost-written by ‘Jack Bushman’ that appeared under the title ‘Passages from the life of a “Lifer”’ in the Moreton Bay Courier in April 1859. In ‘Passages’, Brooks describes the brutal treatment of convicts at the Moreton Bay penal settlement, during which he witnessed the ‘screams…of men enduring mortal agony’ while being lashed, as well as enduring his own floggings where he had his ‘back torn with those hellish thongs until you felt as if your life was departing’. He concluded, however, that despite spending ‘twenty-one years as a slave, and six years as a ticket-of-leave man’, he was content with ‘plenty of work’, his ‘bark umpie [humpy]’, a ‘quiet pipe’ and his Aboriginal ‘gin’, Susey.
In July 1866, seven years after ‘Passages’ was published, Brooks was first admitted to the Benevolent Asylum at Dunwich on Stradbroke Island, staying for several months. He described himself as a labourer and named his parents as Thomas Brooks, a miner, and Betsy Thornton. No wife or children were listed. Brooks was admitted to the asylum again in September 1869 for about five months. Another ten years passed before Brooks’ employer, John Petrie, wrote to the NSW Colonial Secretary in May 1878 seeking Brooks’ readmission to Dunwich. The 88-year-old was admitted and died one month later, in June 1878, of ‘Senile Decay’.
Citation: Jan Richardson, ‘‘Thomas Brooks (1793 – 1878)’, Harry Gentle Resource Centre, Griffith University, 2024, https://harrygentle.griffith.edu.au/life-stories/thomas-brooks/.
Archival Resources
Borthwick Institute for Archives (UK)
Bishop's Transcripts, Marriage, Thomas Brook and Elizabeth Thornton, 16 Sep 1790.
Borthwick Institute for Archives (UK)
Bishop's Transcripts, Baptism, Thomas Brook [sic], 22 Sep 1793.
Indent of the Grenada 1 (1819), NRS 12188, Item 4/4006, Microfiche 642.
Chronological Register of Convicts at Moreton Bay, p. 3, Prisoner No. 18, Item ID ITM869689.
Ticket of leave, Thomas Brooke [sic], No. 43/2021, 1843, Item 4/4179, Reel 949.
Conditional Pardon, Thomas Brooke [sic], No. 52/106, 15 Mar 1852, Item 4/4474, Reel 795, pp. 79-80.
Admission Register – Males [Dunwich], Thomas Brooks, No. 69, 23 July 1866, Item ID ITM9518.
Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages
Death registration, Thomas Brooks, d. 12 Jun 1878, Reg. No. 1878/C/1015.
Books
Ian Duffield, ‘Problematic passages: “Jack Bushman’s” convict narrative’
In Representing Convicts: New Perspectives on Convict Forced Labour Migration, Ian Duffield and James Bradley (eds), London and Washington: Leicester University Press, pp. 20-42.
Raymond Evans and William Thorpe, 'In search of “Jack Bushman”'
In Chain Letters: Narrating Convict Lives, Lucy Frost and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart (eds), Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press.
Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, The search for the invisible man
In Chain Letters: Narrating Convict Lives, Lucy Frost and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart (eds), Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press.
Artie Rentoul, Island of a Million Tears: HIstory of the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum 1866-1946
Capalaba, Qld: Inspire Publishing.
Michael R. Wolger, Sound and fury in colonial Australia: The search for the convict voice, 1800-1840
PhD thesis, University of Sydney.
Journals
The search for the convict voice. Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, Tasmanian Historical Studies, Vol 6 (1), 1998, pp. 75-89.
Newspapers
Principal Superintendent's Office, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 14 Oct 1824, p. 4.
Criminal Court. (Wednesday.), The Australian, 8 Dec 1825, p. 4.
Supreme Criminal Court, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 8 Dec 1825, p. 3.
Government Gazette Notices, New South Wales Government Gazette, 18 Aug 1843, p. 1064.
Conditional Pardons, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 Jun 1852, p. 3.
Passages from the life of a "lifer" [Chapter I], Moreton Bay Courier, 2 Apr 1859, p. 4.
Passages from the life of a "lifer" [Chapter II], Moreton Bay Courier, 9 Apr 1859, p. 4.
Passages from the life of a "lifer" [Chapter III], Moreton Bay Courier, 16 Apr 1859, p. 4.
Passages from the life of a "lifer" [Chapter IV], Moreton Bay Courier, 23 Apr 1859, p. 4.
Passages from the life of a "lifer" [Chapters V and VI], Moreton Bay Courier, 30 Apr 1859, p. 4.
Miscellanea, Telegraph [Brisbane], 26 Jun 1878, p. 2.
Online Resources
Convict Records of Australia, Thomas Brooke [sic] per Grenada (1819).
Digital Panopticon, Thomas Brooke [sic] per Grenada (1819), Record ID btr87523.
