Three months later and Ephraim and Bridget were really finding it hard to stay home. Their area was now Sorell and Prossins Plains. Maybe there was no work in their area and they had to look further afield. Ephraim was now a boss with an offsider, and along with Bridget, they were out of their area without a pass. The judge was not so lenient this time and all three were off to gaol with hard labour. William Toplis was difficult to track down and finally I discovered that he was also registered as William Topley or Toplay. William had carried a lot of lead in his life, 128 pounds of it to be exact. He managed to procure it from the roofs of buildings at Castle Donington in Nottinghamshire. How he removed it and carried it away I am not certain but it must have happened over time. How much lead can you carry home in one go without being noticed? And where do you put it when you get it there?
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| A washing tub at Cascades femake factory |
It seems that Castle Donington is a place, not a Castle though there probably was one there once. They have motels and hotels, buses and bikes, everything the modern tourist could want. They are waiting and anxious for all of us to book a holiday there.
William did not win a holiday to Castle Donington, he won a ten year cruise to Van Diemen’s Land, and now, a side trip to prison and an instruction that he was not to reside in Hobart upon release. Ephraim was off to Ross for three months hard labour out of chains and for Bridget, it was off to trial the stone cells and wash troughs of the female factory at South Hobart.
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| Archealogical dig reveals remains of cells at Cascades. |
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