WILLIAM DOVE 

A local newspaper report of the trial of William Dove reads

“On the 24^th November 1830 in the parish of Cawston, George Howes aged 23, Benjamin Leamon aged 22 and William Dove aged 21 went to a farm where there was a threshing machine and told the farmer they wanted to break it up.  The farmer offered to dismantle the machine and promised not to use to again and started to do so, but they smashed the machine anyway.

Several witnesses testified that Dove was the ring leader.  One thought that the others would not have done it unless Dove had urged them.  It was said that he was a stranger to the parish (in fact he had come from the neighbouring parish of Reepham)”

 On 5^th Jan 1831 William Dove, alias Dow was tried at the Norfolk Quarter sessions before William Frere sergeant at law, Edward, Lord Sheffield, John Wayland Esq, John Peter Boileau Esq and others.  He was charged with breaking up a threshing machine, found guilty and sentenced to transportation for seven years.

His gaol report states “good character and connections, protestant

He was illiterate.

He arrived Hobart per “Proteus” on 4^th. August 1831.  His record remained fairly clean

16.08.1833 Hewitt/ Out after hours under suspicious circumstances in Liverpool Street Reprimanded

03.03.1835 Hewitt/10 days at the tread wheel for being drunk and furiously riding his master’s house.  Returned to Government and sent as ploughman and groom in the interior

William Dove was a publican by the time he married 23^rd. March 1838 in Hobart .

He had received permission to marry Sarah Ann Stanhope/Stanforth, the daughter of James Stanhope and Sarah Ann Taylor and had three children by her.

William Dove died 26^th. September 1866.

 NOTE

Sarah Stanhope was the stepdaughter of the infamous Yorkshire highwayman Snowden Dunhill

Snowden himself was transported twice - also transported were his wife, two sons, five sons-in-law, and a stepson.