Henry Savery was a convict

Convictism in Australia

During the late 18th and 19th centuries, large numbers of convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government. One of the primary reasons for the British settlement of Australia was the establishment of a penal colony to alleviate pressure on their...

 transported to Port Arthur, Tasmania

Port Arthur, Tasmania

Port Arthur is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula, in Tasmania, Australia. Port Arthur is one of Australia's most significant heritage areas and the open air museum is officially Tasmania's top tourist attraction. It is located approximately 60 km south east of...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

's first novelist. It is generally agreed that his writing is more important for its historical value than its literary merit.

Early Life in England

Henry Savery was born in Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 into the family of a well to do banker. Little else is known of his early years. He married Eliza Elliott Oliver, daughter of a London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 business man and their only son was born in 1816. His attempts to earn a living were unsuccessful, a sugar-refining business being declared bankrupt in 1819 and proprietorship of the newspaper The Bristol Observer lasting only a little over two years. But his return to sugar-refining ended in catastrophe.

Probably because he could not admit having overextended the firm's commitments to his partner, he began trading in forged bills of credit which eventually amounted to over £30,000. His partner called the authorities when he absconded with £1500 and he was arrested on 9 December, having jumped from the boat that was to take him to America. While in prison his behaviour was so erratic that his trial had to be postponed. But on 2 April 1825 he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to hang on the 22nd of the same month ref. Through influential friends this was commuted to transportation, only a day before his execution was due. Sometime in August he departed England for the last time on the ship Medway with 171 other convicts.

Transported to Van Diemens Land

Arriving in Hobart, Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...

 at the end of 1825 Savery was retained in government service and worked for the Colonial Treasurer, an appointment which raised a few eyebrows. In 1828 his wife and son came to the colony and arguments between them culminated in his attempted suicide. There had been rumours about Eliza's conduct with the colony's Attorney General, her chaperone, during the journey from England. But equally she may have been angered that his letters to her had exaggerated his position in the colony. Soon after he was imprisoned for debt and Eliza took their son back England within three months. This was the last they were to see of each other.

In prison he wrote a series of sketches of activities and personages in the colony. These were published in the Colonial Times and, after settling a libel suit, collected in the book The Hermit of Van Diemen's Land (1829). This occurred under the pseudonym 'Simon Stukeley' as a convict could be sent to the far worse Macquarie Harbour

Macquarie Harbour

Macquarie Harbour is a large, shallow, but navigable by shallow draft vessels inlet on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia.-History:James Kelly wrote in his narrative "First Discovery of Port Davey and Macquarie Harbour" how he sailed from Hobart in a small open five-oared whaleboat to discover...

 for being published. Indeed it is only through a note in his publisher's (one Henry Melville) own copy of the book that we know of Savery's authorship at all. It is assumed that he wrote his novel during this imprisonment and the ensuing assignment to a private household, which was on condition that he not carry on his own business.

At any event Quintus Servinton: A Tale founded upon Incidents of Real Occurrence was published anonymously in 1831 to reasonably good reviews from the colonial press. His authorship became a public secret and was even mentioned in a reference for his ticket of leave which was granted in 1832. Unfortunately his relative freedom was quickly revoked because of his writing, in this case for the paper The Tasmanian. Then, farcically, the suspension was suspended when it turned out to be a pretext for tarring the reputation of Governor Arthur

George Arthur

Lieutenant-General Sir George Arthur, 1st Baronet KCH PC was Lieutenant Governor of British Honduras , Van Diemen's Land and Upper Canada . He also served as Governor of Bombay .-Early life:George Arthur was born in Plymouth, England...

. Savery's illegal authorship was thereafter quietly ignored.

His final years are murky, though it is known that he gained a provisional pardon and was able to rent a farm. But he fell into debt again and possibly alcoholism

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

. By 1839 he was refused a convict servant. Towards the end of 1840 he was caught at his old tricks and charged with forging bills. Brought before the magistrate who had chaperoned his wife, he was again sentenced to transportation. He was imprisoned at Port Arthur

Port Arthur, Tasmania

Port Arthur is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula, in Tasmania, Australia. Port Arthur is one of Australia's most significant heritage areas and the open air museum is officially Tasmania's top tourist attraction. It is located approximately 60 km south east of...

where, early in 1842, he died possibly after slitting his own throat. He was buried on the Isle of the Dead just off the coast of the prison. As noted above, posterity has not been altogether kind to his attempts at self-invention.

External links

• Quintus Servinton Online edition of the above
• Quintus Servinton Print on demand of the above
• Australia's First Two Novels: origins and backgrounds by E. Morris Miller Online edition of the above