Richard Ridge: Convict, Trader and Bailiff in Early Colonial NSW

 "What did bailiffs do in early colonial Australia?" That's what my book 'Richard Ridge: Convict, Trader and Bailiff in Early Colonial NSW' aimed to explore.

Not that it was easy to uncover this story of a bailiff in NSW in the early 1800s. How did he get this job? From 1788 the position was a quasi-military role but, although Richard Ridge was the cousin of a Viscountess when he was born in Oxfordshire in 1766, in 1791 he arrived in the penal colony of NSW as a convict.

Literate and numerate, once free, he earned money by carting goods, surviving the clutches of the NSW Corps and their cronies. Countless hours spent trolling through the colony’s civil court transactions revealed his active trading activities.

Along the way he managed to win the respect of some powerful men in Sydney. By 1807 he was employed as the bailiff, an officer of the court, spending much time on horseback, delivering writs and seizing assets of debtors, as ordered by the court. This tough position exposed him to financial risks, and also physical risk from disgruntled debtors.

Richard’s boss was the Provost Marshal, William Gore, who’d arrived in Sydney with Governor Bligh in August 1806. In that role, Gore enforced the arrest of John Macarthur. Richard became caught up in the upheaval leading to the Rum Rebellion by the NSW Corps in January 1808, and its aftermath. The book places a big focus on explaining this period from the day-to-day perspective of Richard and his boss. 

Later came the legal battles between Governor Macquarie and Sydney’s unimpressive bunch of lawyers, also impacting Richard’s employment.

At the Hawkesbury, where Richard settled, he endured relentless floods. As a constable in the 1820s he dealt with men competing for land in the newly-opened wilderness area along the Colo River.

Richard was a protector type, one of the interesting insights into his character which emerged from the research into his life. He rescued three damsels in distress: Mary Cunningham/Carroll, Jane Poole and Margaret Forrester. His two daughters born to Mary and Jane were raised by their feminist mothers; he was a protective parent of his eleven children with his young wife Margaret.

Richard Ridge was ‘ridgy-didge’, Australian slang for a genuine, straightforward person. He triumphed over incredible adversity during his busy, challenging and adventurous life, fully told in his story 'Richard Ridge: Convict, Trader and Bailiff in Early Colonial NSW', available HERE.