Joseph Carey was the son of Edward and Rachel Carey. Born at Sibsey, Lincolnshire in 1831.  He and his younger brother Henry Carey, along with his half-sister Mary Ann Bland, were brought up by their mother and stepfather Thomas Bland.  His     father had died in 1835 and his mother re-married in 1837.

Thomas Bland, appears to have not treated the two boys very well, and they both left home as soon as they could. Joseph went to Frithville, and lodged with the Pridgeon family.  They had a daughter Dinah, who Joseph may have married. (no marriage has been found for them as yet).  In 1855 they had a son Edward who died in infancy.
In 1857 they had another son, Edward (my great grandfather).

By 1859 they were living at Sibsey Northlands.  In March of that year William     Stevenson was found dead in a drain, at Stickney Westhouses, about a mile and a half from Northlands. The morning, Stevenson`s  body was found, Henry Carey    visited Joseph in Northlands.  Later that day Henry was arrested for the murder of William Stevenson.

Spilsby House of Correction

Early one morning in May 1860, Joseph and another man called Henry Howden, were in a cart, near  Boston cemetery when they were stopped by Police Constable Bates of the county constabulary. The cart contained something bulky. Bates found some sacks of wheat in the cart and, as neither men could give an expanation for them, he attempted to take both men into custody. There then followed a violent struggle and Joseph got away. The following morning he was seen by two policemen near Mount Pleasant bridge at Frithville. A lengthy chase followed and once again Joseph escaped, this time by swimming across a drain. However his luck was running out, and he was later apprehended just as he was entering Boston.

At the Quarter Sessions held at Spilsby on the 10th July 1860, Joseph Carey and Henry Howden were found guilty of stealing forty seven stones of wheat, the      property of John Thompson of Frithville. Joseph  was sentenced to three years penal servitude and Henry Howden was given nine months hard labour at Louth. Joseph served his sentence at Portland Prison, in Dorset.

This was not the end of Joseph`s criminal deeds. On the 25th October 1864 he was    convicted again, for stealing eight stone of wool locks, the property of Joseph    Caudwell of Frithville. This time he was sentenced to seven years penal servitude.  He was first sent to the prison at Lincoln, then on the 19th December 1864 he was sent to Wakefield Prison. He was transferred to Chatham Prison on the 10th October 1865, were he staid until the 27th March, 1867. He was then sent by rail to Sheerness where he boarded the Norwood, which set sail for Portsmouth and Portland on the 28th March 1867. Picking up more convicts on the way. 

On the 18th April 1867, the Norwood left Portland, for Western Australia.  They    arrived of the Fremantle on the the 13th July 1867.  Around 5 p.m. the pilot, a man called Jacklin came aboard and the ship dropped anchor at 6.30 p.m.  At 9.45 a.m. on the 14th July, guards from Fremantle Prison came aboard. At 1.00 p.m. all the       prisoners were disembarked.

Joseph (convict No. 9400) spent just over a year at the very large and daunting prison at Fremantle.  Built by the convicts in 1855, it was finally closed in 1991, and is now Western Australia`s premier cultural heritage site.

On the 22nd October 1868, Joseph got his Ticket of Leave and on the 3rd  January 1872 he got his Certificate of Freedom.  He later had a small holding in the Chittering Valley, about sixty miles north of Perth. In 1883 he married a widow called Eliza Lousia King (daughter of William and Lucy Glover). Their wedding was at Chittering church, a small plain building with a with a corrugated tin roof .

In 1885 they had a son, and they called him Joseph. The marriage appears not to have been a good one. Joseph become senile in his old age and was admitted to the hospital for the insane at Claremont, Perth, where he died on the 7th December 1910.

Fremantle Prison