By Christine Leonard

I’ve written a book on my father’s family, the Walls. The story grabbed my attention when I learned about my great-great-grandfather, William Wall, who was transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in 1835 as an 18-year old. He was a groomsman from Norfolk in England, who found himself at 17 years of age, at Horncastle’s annual horse fair in 1834.

During the fair William was enjoying some local ale in the Vine Beer House when a fight broke out. With tables and chairs flying in the back courtyard, large crowd soon gathered. William, trying to get a better view and being pressed from behind, leaned on the shoulders of an older gentleman in front. Suddenly the gentleman grabbed one of William’s hands, shouting accusations of his pocket being ‘picked’.

The gentleman farmer, Mr James Scrooby, had good reason to be concerned about his pockets, as he was carrying 60 pounds in his pocket. In 1834, this was a significant amount of cash. To cut a long story short, (you have to read the book!) William was arrested. After spending nearly one year on a prison hulk, he was transported to the colony Van Diemen’s Land to serve a seven-year sentence.

This was a great COVID-19 project. Writing up the enormous amount of research that was done by my distant cousin, Graham Wall, meant that the scope was always going to be far too big. I knew that, but given all the research done on William, the 19 children he fathered, the two wives, Mary Long, and Eliza Clarke, who he outlived, the pubs and racecourses he built and ran; here was a story that I couldn’t ignore.

Accepting the approach and structure of the book would have limited commercial appeal, I embarked on a journey to self-publish. I called on professionals to design the cover and copy-edit. The book was also printed in Australia (which I’m pleased about) and has been converted to an e-book.

People have been so generous in sharing their ‘Wall family’ stories and photographs, much of which could not go into the book. This led me to take another scary step, creating this website to post additional and informative material that couldn’t fit in the book. The aim was to make these resources widely accessible.