Convict Love Token - 1838 - William Brain
William Brain, 21, was tried and convicted at the Warwick August Assizes for housebreaking. He was sentenced to 10 years' transportation. He appears to have spent a year on the hulks before sailing on the Barossa on 31 July 1839. He was granted a ticket of leave in 1844, and was allowed to stay in Newcastle, north of Sydney, where the previous year he had married Maria Byrne, a convict who had arrived on the Isabella. He died in Newcastle in 1903, aged 89.
Transcription
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Token with an ornate stippled border of swirls and flourishes, and stippled text:
When this you
see think of
me when I
am far away
Wm BRAIN
Engraved into the lower half of the border are the words:
aut | AGED. 21 | 22 1838
Front
Token engraved with the stippled image of a man in chains and a ship sailing in the background. In the sky is the sun, moon and several birds. To the man’s right is a rock-like shape, on which is engraved:
Wm
Brain
Diameter
36.0 mm
Copyright: National Museum of Australia
