Absolute Pardon
Michael Gorman, 1832
Convict constable Michael Gorman earned this Absolute Pardon in 1830/1832, for his service in the capture of the notorious bushranger John Donohoe. An Irish convict who became one of Australia’s most famous bushrangers, Donohoe is popularly known as ‘Bold Jack Donohoe’ or "The Wild Colonial Boy".
Absolute Pardons like this granted complete freedom to the convict recipient, and they were usually reserved for those who had shown exceptionally good behaviour. In 1830 Michael Gorman, the owner of this pardon, was on duty as a constable in the area of Bringelly (south-west Sydney), in a group of two other constables and six mounted police. They had been trawling the bush for a fortnight, searching for Donohoe and his gang and finally spotted the bushrangers at the bank of a creek. When Donohoe saw them, he took his hat off, waved it three times, and shouted abuse at the police. Not long after, he was shot and killed. His body was brought back to Sydney, and held in the dead house of the Rum Hospital next to Hyde Park Barracks.
Gorman arrived in the colony in 1820 on the Shipley (3) with a 14 year sentence. Between 1822 and 1825 he worked in Rose’s road party clearing land for Samuel Marsden’s estate, and later at Bringelly, where he lived after receiving his Ticket of Leave in 1829.
The bushrangers then got each behind a tree… one of the policemen fired… I now levelled my piece [gun], which went off at the same moment with those discharged by two of the robbers… one of the soldiers named Mucklestone, fired, and I instantly saw the man now stated to be Donohoe fall…
Michael Gorman, quoted in Sydney Gazette, 7 September 1830, 3.
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Objects
These convict-era objects and archaeological artefacts found at Hyde Park Barracks and The Mint (Rum Hospital) are among the rarest and most personal artefacts to have survived from Australia’s early convict period
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Convict Sydney
Free Pardon
Drawn up at Government House, Sydney, on 30 December 1846, and signed and sealed by Governor Charles Fitzroy, this document granted a free pardon to convict Joseph Taylor
Convict Sydney
Clock-winding crank
This sturdy crank was used for many years to wind the Hyde Park Barracks clock
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Hack barrow
Convict brickmakers working at the Brickfields (now Haymarket) used hack barrows like this one, stacking 20 or 30 wet bricks on the timber palings along the top, for transporting them from the moulding table to the ‘hack’ yard for drying
Convict Sydney
Cupping glasses & scarificator
These cupping glasses are of the type that was used in the treatment of convict patients at the General ‘Rum’ Hospital
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Certificate of Freedom
Certificates of Freedom had to be carried at all times and shown to the appropriate authorities on demand
Convict Sydney
Brass stamp
Between 1830 and 1848, the superintendent’s office operated from the Hyde Park Barracks, where this stamp was most likely used, on official documents and ledgers
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What was convict assignment?
‘Assignment’ meant that a convict worked for a private landowner
Convict Sydney
Absolute Pardon
It must have been a proud moment for John Onion, when he received this Absolute Pardon document in 1835
Convict Sydney
Cooking cauldron
The watery stew eaten by convicts at Hyde Park Barracks was boiled in giant communal cast iron pots
