Thomas Herbert Boykett 1853

William with his wife Mary Ann, and 10-month-old son William Herbert.
Charles with his wife, who was delivered of a son on the voyage.
John Herbert, who was single.

My dear Bunn,

I know I have been guilty of neglecting in not writing to you sooner, I had intended to do so months ago, but one thing and another has prevented me. Then the mail to England go very irregularly so that a letter one writes today may lie in the post office her for four or five weeks. However I promise to be a better correspondent in future. You know I was always a bad one. And by the way my dear Fellow, you were not much better. I can hardly realize the fact that you are the Antipodes of this place, say some 1700 miles off. I think of you, and my English friends generally just as if they were some little way in the Bush, and a few hours gallop would carry me to you.

I am thankful for this feeling, for there are so many in England whom I tenderly regard that the thought of there being an impassable barrier to our meeting again would be, indeed, distressing. I will now give you a little account of out voyage.

We left Southampton at 8 am on Sunday 15th May 1853; on the following day we sighted the distant points of Cornwell, and never again saw land, (except a Rock called the Island of Amsterdam) until we marked the Australian shores, which we sailed along several hundred miles. On 15th August, for the first time since we left England we cast anchor.

That was about 7 miles from Port Adelaide. The next day William and I hired a boat to take us to the nearest beach we walked through bush and scrub over a peninsular. In the evening the vessel was towed into Port and we all met again. We were nine in family when we left England and ten when we reached Adelaide, Charles wife having been confined of a boy on board.

During out passage we had all varieties of weather, but against these we had prepared by taking with us all sorts of clothing.

The vessel proved by a remarkably fast sailor, but she was too lightly ballast, and was not well stowed. This made her roll fearfully in heavy weather. I had many a fall on deck, one dislocated my elbow but it soon got right again. Our Captain was a thorough seaman. But severe with his men. Everything, herein, had gone on comfortable until we were off Madagascar, when one night, just as I got into my berth, I heard a great noise on the poop as of men struggling, and heavy weight falling. Several of us went on deck, where the Captain, and Chief Mate were found to be in mortal combat. It was very stormy and very dark night. Longhorn's were quickly produced and the mate was hand cuffed and irons were put on his feet, but he was so powerful that it took half a dozen persons to subdue him.

The crew refused to interfere in any way. They stood sullen by. My three sons and other passengers armed themselves and formed a patrol on the deck for the night. I protected the Chief cabin, lying down with my double-barreled gun and bush knife by my side. Mine being one of the stern cabins I had full view of cuddy and forecastle, so far as the lamp would show them, and could easily have picked off any mutineer who showed himself. However the night passed without any further disturbance. Next morning we saw that most of the sailors had prepared themselves for a fight. Whereupon 18 passengers armed to the teeth, with the Captain at their head, commanded them to surrender their weapons. This they did in a surly manner. They appeared to know that the slightest resistance would be followed by instant death. It was no joke to them to stand within 6 feet of the muzzles of nineteen brace of pistols. Happily the men gave us no further cause for anxiety, but in the vessel coming into port they all ran away.

We had 3 stewards, all of proved to be drunkards, the first was sent to the forecastle, the second had delirium tremors, and the third was put into confinement. So during the last month of the voyage we were obliged to help ourselves as best we could. Shortly after we left England I was appointed chairman of the passengers. Of course, in so long a voyage and with so many people, my position was sometimes trying enough, but by courtesy, gentleness and firmness, I managed very well. I believe there was not a single instance in which my council was disregarded or my decision questioned. And it was gratifying to me when the vessel dropped anchor to be feted on board and to receive the thanks of the Captain and the passengers.

Well now, consider us landed. We are at Port Adelaide. Our feet for the first time tread land described as "flowing with milk and honey". A desolate place indeed is Port Adelaide. There is a row of houses on one side, most of them one story and built of wood resting on piles driven into the swamp. Men, women and children of all nations, ages and languages wend their way knee deep in mud through the narrow causeway. For the first time you see a native tribe. They are on the banks of a morass. They have made shelters of sticks, ferns, twigs and the fires are blazing within. The women wrapped in dirty blankets with their piccaninnies in their backs are gathering and cooking garbage in holes made in the ground.

The men are dressed in the most comical fashion. That fellow yonder wears a lady's straw bonnet with a green veil, a soldier's redcoat and a chemise, which does not fall low enough to hide his black brawny thigh. That other fellow has noting but a blanket on him, which opens with every gust of wind, he has now had a pipe and some tobacco given ham by some New Comer and about to enjoy his siesta on the side of the ditch.

The young and even ancient maidens, have landed from the vessel in their best, that they may enjoy the shore; their best - how carefully preserved - how often looked at during the voyage; how many Cabins of Councils have been had to determine whether Miss A. looks best in white, red and Miss B. in yellow or green; they are knee deep in mud. Half a dozen busman gallop past and consternation; the ruin. That love of a bonnet, that be-au-ti-ful dress. The mud drops fall thick as autumn leaves. But where are the flocks of amorous swains who were to greet their arrival and sue for them in marriage.

Alas not at Port Adelaide, and so they go back to sleep on board for a night or two, restore their damage fabrics and write letters home to say how much they have been deceived, and how greatly they are disappointed. Pretty Dears; twelve months roughing it here will teach them better to trust to silks and gaiety, or even good looks alone, for getting husbands in South Australia.

I determined not to stay at a hotel, but at once to get some shelter in the shape of a private house for my whole tribe. In this I found my great difficulty, in the city of Adelaide nothing could be had. John and I were the party sent in search. It was curious to us the first night we slept in the city to find the sort of accommodation provided for us at one of the best Inns in the place. We had asked for beds, which were promised and after an early meal we were shown into an adjoining room, in which were about thirty beds, each capable of holding only one person. Of these about one half were already occupied. The remainder we were told would be turned into presently. Conversation continued, doors slammed-people went in and out all night long. : Gold"-3 pound-19-6"-"Ballerat"-"Bendigo" etc. etc. -these were the sounds without interruption.

The next morning John and I seeing a beautiful hill about 2 miles off (North Adelaide) walked there early and before we had breakfast had taken a three roomed house (the only one to let in this place) at twelve shillings a week. The same evening the rest of the family came to us with some mattresses and blankets and there we all pigged for fourteen days before we could get our goods cleared from the ship on account of the want of labor and even at last we were obliged to get our boxes out of the hold and to load them in the drags ourselves. However we met with kind neighbors, who helped us according to their means. One lent a chair, another a table, a third a kettle and so on.

During the first two or three weeks of our landing the weather was exquisite, although it was about the end of Winter here it was warmer and more enjoyable than an English May or June in the most favored parts of England. Indeed I think an untravelled Englishman could scarcely form an idea of the perfect beauty of a fine winters day in South Australia. Not a cloud, not a haze flits under the deep blue sky. There is no wind, but a fullness of balmy air. Flowers and vegetables in their prime. The peach, the apricot, the almond, the orange, the lemon, the citron, are all bursting into blossoming beauty and filling the air with there fragrance, whilst the birds of a hundred kind and most gorgeous plumage, flit by on every side. I have seen many such days here. Perhaps I might say that seven or eight months out of the eleven I have in the Colony have been of this description. But those few weeks I began referring to were followed by intense cold, of floods, and of rain. On Christmas Day (which is our midsummer) it rained in torrents and we were obliged to have large logs burning all day and for many days both before and after.

This was immediately succeeded by insufferable heat suffocating dust. In January within forty-eight hours, the thermometer varied from 60 to 110. I could neither walk, talk, sit or sleep. Sleep indeed; the atmosphere was filled with flies and mosquitoes. It was the same more or less with all my family. People who have the appliances provided against these changes by taking houses at the seaside to which they may resort when any sudden variation of the wind towards the north indicates that the air will come from the burning forests of the vast interior. They also, as far as possible, build their houses so as to enable them to live in the rooms, south or north according to the state of atmosphere. Many have under ground rooms made and fitted up expressly for retiring to on burning and dusty days.

But to resume my narrative. I had suffered so much from the voyage, as well as from the labor and responsibilities which precede it, that I was incapable of any mental exertion for many weeks after our arrival. Not only was there a want of vigor, but even ordinary serenity had gone. In a word I could not think. The mind had been over taxed and the only restorations were rest and leisure.

My sons, meantime's who have arrived full of health and hope, found that their most profitable course would be to resume their English occupations. Charles got a situation as a clerk to Mr. Wright the Municipal Architect and Surveyor in the colony at a salary of 5 pound per week, William a clerkship in the law at 3 pound-10-0 per week. John a situation in the Government Survey office at 2 pound -5-0 per week.

A legal gentleman, who knew me by English newspapers reports, offered me the management of his business at 7 pound-0-0 per week, which I accepted for two months. At the end of that time I was called to the bar and commenced practice. Charles had become a partner with Mr. Wright under the firm of "Wright and Boykett".

William was called to the Bar last week. John remains and intends to remain in the service of the Colonial Government. So you see all that was said by my sons before they left home about going into the bush and living in tents and feeding on kangaroo and the rest of the things which make up the imaginings of young men in the Old Country who are about to venture on a new one, have, in our case proved mere imaginings. Yet very many who came here a few short years ago, without a shilling, have become substantial freeholders. But they were men born and used to privation and labor-farmers, servants, blacksmiths, carpenters, and so forth.

Getting hired in Adelaide by a Labor Agent here, they were sent by the coach drags, or tramped, one, two, three hundred miles in to the interior, and the savings of their labor enabled them to speedily buy land-say an eighty section or two at from 1 pound -0-0 to 1 pound-5-0 per acre. Their leisure enabled them to bring their ground into cultivation by degrees, until they could withdraw from servitude and settle in their freeholds. This has been the case especially with men having large number of children. I think it may safely be said that a healthy child, whether it boy or girl, of five or six year old, on a farm here, may earn twice the amount of it's clothing and food.

As to our residences. I have a good brick cottage at North Adelaide consisting of four rooms on a floor with outbuildings, at seventeen shillings per week (all rents here are weekly). My sisters and John reside with me. William continues to live in the cottage we took on landing. Charles lives at his branch place of business at the Port. I write this from my office, which is the busiest part of the city. Here I conduct a quiet practice during five to six hours of the day, included my attendance at the courts when sitting, which is all I wish for when I left England. It is sufficient to reconcile me to the loss of society and many comforts of the Old Country, (although I often feel the want of the first actually) that I object of our Emigration by the Prospects offered to my sons of doing better here that they were likely to do at home. I am too old to make a fortune here and indeed, I have no desire to do so.

Dickens has written a book called "The Battle of Life", I have fought that battle and although I may not repose under Laurels, perhaps the Cypress does not weep over me.

Upon the whole I would say with regard to this magnificent colony, this future great empire, that it is the very place for immigration from England of men of mental power, bodily vigor, and mortal character. Thousands such are now pining in England who might make fortunes rapidly. On the other hand mere clerks-white kidded and handed young gentle men, more fond of the company and indolence, would find this place a very purgatory. Even the best of the men among us think nothing of cleaning their own boots and grooming their own horses. The fact is, labor is too dear to enable you to indulge in servants to any extent. You could not get a good man servant for less than three pounds a week, boarding and lodging out, nor a good woman for less than ten or fifteen shillings a week with board and lodging in the house. Since I have been here I have seen hundreds of young men just after they have landed, walking about the streets dressed as London Dandies. What has become of them? Such as had the means returned to England, others are in the bush as shepherds or worse still, breaking stones on the Government raids.

And I have seen hundreds of young woman too who, just landed in English finery and full of bright hopes which fallacious descriptions engendered, have had just become seamstresses or house servants, or perhaps fallen still lower. They commit a crime against society, a crime against humanity, a crime against this Colony, who, by any means whatsoever induce such classes as I have just referred to, to come here; whilst they act with wisdom and common sense who advise laboring, strong nerved and hard men to settle among us. Many of such thousands with their wives and children could be absorbed in our population every year for a century to come; men who would speedily exchange poverty for affluence, who would be the Founders of Families, and whose broad acres would afford plenty for all. I have never seen a beggar, or heard of a case of want of the necessaries of life in the colony.

This city is a quiet place. The police and municipal regulations are admirable. So safe is property felt to be that but few of us lock our doors and property of all sorts is left exposed in the yards and gardens. The progress of the colony and of the City in particular, has been wonderful. Only 18 years ago the site of the city was a morass. The great building from which I write, this is erected where a huge gum tree stood, under which rude justice was administered in the early days of the colony, and one of the overhanging boughs of which many a criminal has been hung.

The streets, the warehouses, the public buildings, the squares, the equipages-I will add the attention paid to the courtesies and amenities of life-astonish me. But few are rich and none are poor; we have neither haughtier nor servility-I have not traveled much in the colony, but from what I have seen and heard I think the state of religion and morals is at least, as high as in England. Certainly in proportion to the respective population, there are many places of worship, and more preachers, here than at home.

Education is a difficult matter in many places, but in Towns and moderately populated localities there is no deficiency of either Teachers or Scholars. Of course I do not speak of education of a high order but there are colleges and schools in which it is said the classics and mathematics are taught by very competent men. I know of many schools in which a good sound English education including drawing and land surveying is given on moderate terms.

The City of Adelaide is built in the basin of a vast amphitheater formed of hills covered with timber of the growth of centuries. In the heats of the summer these woods, with the grass and undergrowth are generally on fire. On a dark night the spectacle is magnificent. I have seen blazes raging over a surface of forty or fifty miles, but the forest still remains. The extreme bareness of the soil prevents the heat reaching the sap of the trees. The bark and the boughs, the underwood, the grass, are burnt.

But winter and spring repair the havoc and prepare fuel for the next summertime's conflagration. When the fires rage fiercely and the wind sets in the direction of the city, the atmosphere is dreadfully oppressive. All the windows and doors are closed, the rooms darkened, the floors watered. Then it is that the mosquitoes and flies settle upon you for a sumptuous repast. On such evenings as there I have ridden to Glenelg, a village on the western coast about eight miles distant and although my face had been protected by the finest gauze, I have been marked as with smallpox, or measles.

The number of Freeholders in this colony is amazing, I think it may be safely said that nine out of ten live in houses of their own and that four farmers out of every five are proprietors of the soil they cultivate. To be sure an English farmer would hardly think the hovels many of our farmers live in, good enough for his cows or pigs. You will see a man ride into town on a horse worth 100 pound or 120 pound. For many years his face has been unconscious of a razor. He wears a blue jersey. A handkerchief of many colors hangs loosely round his neck. Velveteen or canvass trousers, high boots undefiled by blacking, and a pair of spurs completes his costume. He has come to town to bid at a land sale; he buys one, two, three eighty-acre sections. He calls on his lawyer and, leaves the purchase money. He has a spree in town whilst his horses rests and then away he is to his house in the bush.

Now that mans house consists of three low rooms. There are windows certainly, but the place of glass is supplied by cotton. Furniture indeed; a few three legged stools a wooden table and half a dozen shake downs is pretty all you find there.

But I have filled my paper, please forward this to you farther as soon as you have read this, with my kindest regards to him, William, Hatty and all the rest. And the same to you and your family,

I am affectionately
T.H. Boykett

William Boykett died 17/12/1875 at Smythdale, aged 47.
Mary Ann who married again just two months before her death to Henry Maynard, died 6/10/1877.
William Boykett was a correspondent and reporter for the "Ballarat Star" and his obituary states formerly solicitor.
Charles was an architect who came to Melbourne to live with his family.
John stayed in Adelaide and it is from him that the East Malvern cousins arise, also Alan Jenkins from Adelaide………..

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