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In which we wonder whether James broke the law before being sent off to Australia
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For the first two decades of Squire’s life, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of information left to us. It seems he was the eldest of three children – he had a brother five years younger than him named Timothy and a sister, Mary, who was 10 years younger. There was, apparently, an elder brother also named Timothy who was born in 1751 – three years before Squire, but we can assume he probably died as a baby, hence the second Timothy. Either that or his parents were really lacking in imagination when it came to coming up with names for their kids.
Squire doesn’t make any real appearance on the radar until 1774. This is when, according to one story, he runs out of a freshly-ransacked house with some unspecified loot in hand. As he leaves, he runs straight into the fuzz, who arrest him. But, luckily for Squire, he left by the front door which opened onto the highway, so he was charged with highway robbery rather than the more serious charge of stealing.
Now look, this tale may well be true but, to me, it sounds decidedly dodgy. I could find not a shred of contemporary evidence, no charge sheet, no mention of a court appearance. It may well be that the paperwork for this case sits in a dusty box in some suburban British library. But I don’t have the cash – or enough leave points built up with the wife – to fly to Britain to ferret around for something that may or may not be there.
It is telling, however, that no secondary source I have seen quotes directly from this charge sheet. Instead, every reference to this event I found – even those published in books – seems to be using the same original source which contains not a whit of contemporary evidence.
What makes me skeptical is the idea that Squire got off lightly by being charged with highway robbery rather than stealing.
My reading of this period leads me to conclude highway robbery was far from the lesser of the two charges. Indeed there was a time when both it and stealing were punishable by death (which isn’t saying much. In the late 1770s the British would kill criminals for all sorts of things. If cars were around in those days it’s likely drivers who failed to use their indicators when turning would be strung up). Additionally, highway robbery was in itself a serious offence at the time as it was viewed as a restraint on trade and stopped the free flow of the gentry going from town to town to look down upon the peasants. If he was ever charged with something related to the theft, being in possession of stolen goods would seem far more likely as it would see him avoid swinging from the end of a rope.
Incidentally, suggesting that running out the front door and straight into the arms of the cops was a lucky break is bizarre. To me, it seems that if he ran out the back door he would have avoided the cops altogether and got away with whatever was in his hessian sack stencilled with the word “Loot” (okay, so maybe that’s the sort of thing only cartoon crooks use).
Anyway, what apparently happens next is the judge finds Squire guilty (of something or other) and sentences him to seven years’ transportation to America. Squire is somehow able to change that to joining the British Army and serving in America.
This does seem a little curious to me. At the time, sending convicts to America was a no-brainer for the Brits. It was dirt cheap for the government to fling convicts over there. They just paid a merchant with a boat a few pounds per convict and, once the contract was signed and the human cargo handed over, the government’s responsibility – financial or otherwise – was over. After that the merchant would sell the convict’s labour to the US settler with the highest bid.
Compare this to a soldier in the British army, for whom the government needed to cover the ongoing expenses of food, clothing, shelter and transportation. Opting to put Squire in the army rather than in chains seems far and away the more expensive option for the British. Unless they figured he would be so hopeless as a soldier that he’d get shot inside a few weeks and therefore not cost them as much.
I’ve not seen any direct evidence that Squire served in any military, though it does explain later references to him in Australian newspapers of the 1880s as a “former soldier” or a “time-expired soldier” – this pre-transportation period of Squire’s life is the most likely time for him to have served in the military. Also, once in Australia Squire becomes the servant of a lieutenant in the marines, who trusts the convict enough to give him a rifle and protect him while he chats to the Aborigines. To me, that action makes more sense if Squire was a former soldier – the lieutenant may well have seen another military man and felt he could be trusted enough not to shoot him in the back.
Somehow, Squire is able to leave America and return home in 1776 – right around the time when the American revolution is kicking off. That’s where the Americans say to the British “you’re not the boss of me” while the British respond with “check out the globe suckers, we’re the boss of everyone”. Queue much gunfire, chucking of tea into the Boston harbour and George Washington presumably saying “this is our Independence Day” (after all, if anyone has the right to say that, it’s him).
Even though there is a war on Squire manages to get sent home. It is unlikely to be because he was seriously injured in some battle as not one source from the First Fleet onwards makes any mention of Squire missing a limb or having some other serious war injury.
One thing we do know for a fact is Squire has to be back in Britain by 1776 because that’s when the 22-year-old marries Martha Quinton, who is the same age. Precious little is known of her, though if Squire did go to America, presumably he knew her before he left. It appears they were married in Kingston-upon-Thames, the same town in which Squire grew up. So perhaps Quinton grew up there too and they had known each other for years.
They had three children together – John (born in 1778), Sarah (1780) and James (1783). Years later, in the new colony of Sydney, Squire would see fit to recycle the names of his two youngest British-born children when naming those he fathered on Sydney soil.
The family, like many in Britain of the later 1700s, weren’t exactly swimming in cash. Money was certainly tight but, by 1777, according to Mollie Gillen’s book The Founders, Squire was living in Heathen (now Eden) Street in his home town of Kingston-Upon-Thames, which is around 20 kilometres south-west of London
There is some suggestion Squire was managing a hotel in Heathen Street which, if is true, likely means the family was living over the hotel – or very close to it. It could also likely mean Squire was meeting some customers of dubious character, which may have influenced him to make a decision that would split apart his family and, surprisingly, change his life for the better.