Another newspaper article much earlier than the last, this time in the South Bourke Standard for the 11th September 1863 mentions James again:
"Hawthorn Police Court, Tuesday September 8th
WAGES James Rigmaiden v Thomas Billing; work and labour 7s 6d. The plaintiff deposed that he was in the defendant's employ for a week at 8s a week and he had only received 6d. The defendant deposed that he only agreed to give the plaintiff what he was worth and he was not worth his food. He had offered him 3s a week. Verdict for 5s 6d and 2s 6d costs"
The judges were P O'Brien JP and W H Pettet JP.
Strangely enough, on the same day, there was a case against Thomas Herbert Power (in his absence) for letting two of his horses stray for which he was fined 2s 6d and 2s 6d costs.
Thomas Herbert Power just happened to be the father of James Rigmaiden's cousin through marriage, Herbert Power. I will be writing about the Rigmaiden descendants in Australia via the Hammill, Cunningham and Power families in a later post.
South Bourke was an electoral region east of Melbourne, Victoria, abolished in 1889.
Hawthorn is a suburb of Melbourne and according to Wikipedia:
"The area was first settled in the late 1830s. The Boroondara Roads Board, the first municipal authority, was set up in the 1850s and covered a remarkably similar area to the present City of Boroondara. Boroondara is an aboriginal word reputed to mean place of shade. However, the Hawthorn Roads Board and the Kew Roads Board split from the rest of Boroondara in 1860. The HRB evolved into the Town of Hawthorn and the City of Hawthorn. The state government amalgamated the Cities of Camberwell, Hawthorn and Kew in 1994 to form the City of Boroondara.
The name Hawthorn, gazetted in 1840 as "Hawthorne", is thought to have originated from a conversation involving Charles La Trobe, who commented that the native shrubs looked like flowering Hawthorn bushes. Alternatively the name may originate with the bluestone house, so named, and built by James Denham St Pinnock (see Australian DNB), which stands to this day.[2]
The region is generally regarded to be one of Melbourne's surviving bastions of post-Gold Rush expansion and today, one of Melbourne's most affluent and influential suburbs. Land values in the region are among the country's highest, with streets such as Hawthorn Grove, in the prestigious Grace Park Estate, straddling the suburb's northern boundary and Yarra Park's Coppin Grove in the west, located closer to theYarra River have been arguably the most sort after with properties commanding prices to match. Interestingly, there is also a considerable amount of student accommodation, due mainly to the presence of Swinburne University. This is located in the Hawthorn East and Auburnareas"
Back in James's day the estates referred to above would have been in their infancy.
Further mentions of James again in 1871, both in the newspaper The Argus (of Melbourne):
"Police: City Court, 31st March
MINOR OFFENCES: ....... James Rigmaiden who had been found standing naked except for his breeches in Carlton Gardens, was fined 40s or a month's imprisonment ....."
According to Wikipedia "The Carlton Gardens is a World Heritage Site located on the northeastern edge of the Central Business District in the suburb of Carlton, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The 26 hectare (64 acre) site contains the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne Museum and Imax Cinema, tennis courts and an award winning children's playground. The rectangular site is bound by Victoria Street, Rathdowne Street, Carlton Street, and Nicholson Street. From the Exhibition building the gardens gently slope down to the southwest and northeast. According to the World Heritage listing theRoyal Exhibition Buildings and Carlton Gardens are "of historical, architectural, aesthetic, social and scientific (botanical) significance to the State of Victoria."
The gardens are an outstanding example of Victorian landscape design with sweeping lawns and varied European and Australian tree plantings consisting of deciduous English oaks, White Poplar, Plane trees, Elms, Conifers, Cedars, Turkey Oaks, Araucarias and evergreens such as Moreton Bay Figs, combined with flower beds of annuals and shrubs. A network of tree lined paths provide formal avenues for highlighting the fountains and architecture of the Exhibition building. This includes the grand allee of plane trees that lead to the exhibition building. Two small ornamental lakes adorn the southern section of the park. The northern section contains the Museum, tennis courts, maintenance depot and curator's cottage, and the children's playground designed as a Victorian maze."
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Aerial photo of the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne and Carlton Gardens |
"Police, City Court, 4th May
FELONIOUS INTENT: James Rigmaiden who, at four o'clock in the morning, had taken the boots off a drunken man in Bourke Street was sentenced to three months imprisonment"
According to Wikipedia again: "Bourke Street is one of Melbourne's best known streets. Historically been regarded as Melbourne's "second street", with the main street being Collins Street and "busier than Bourke Street" is a popular catchphrase. Bourke Street has traditionally been Melbourne's entertainment hub. In its heyday it was the location of many of Melbourne's theatres, cinemas as well as a major retail shopping precinct. Today the street remains an entertainment hub best known as the location of the Bourke Street Mall, Melbourne's main pedestrian mall and one of the city's main tourist destinations.
Bourke Street is named for Sir Richard Bourke, the Governor of New South Wales (and thus, of Melbourne as well) in 1837 during the drafting of the Hoddle Grid."
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Painting of Bourke Street in 1886 by Tom Roberts |
And that is the last recorded event I have for James.
I contacted a genealogist in Australia to look into the prison records but she could not find anything to confirm whether he served his sentence as the prison record books for the period were missing. She did find out that in court he claimed to have arrived in Australia via the ship The Eastern Empire, but on looking into this further his name did not appear in the ships' crew or passenger list. I did find that there was more than one ship with that name; including one that had been shipping horses to troops in India.
I hope that the last record of him is not a prison conviction.