Forgotten First Fleeters 2: John Toulmin

John Toulmin, a young gentleman who sailed with Australia’s First Fleet as a crew member on the Scarborough, has been completely overlooked by historians: his name is even omitted from Mollie Gillen’s definitive Biographical Dictionary. [1] There is no doubt that he was on the Scarborough for that historic voyage, his name appearing in five different sources.

The clearest reference is in the manifest of private trade for the Scarborough when she was loading tea at Whampoa, the port for Canton, on her way home from New South Wales. The manifest lists the articles which the captain and his officers were permitted by the East India Company to take back to England, and John Toulmin is included there as the surgeon. He had purchased four chests of Hyson tea and one chest of whangees (a type of bamboo used for making walking sticks). The mention of a surgeon comes as a surprise, since it has been assumed that none of the First Fleet transports, other than the Lady Penrhyn, carried a surgeon for the crew. [2]

A naval surgeon, Dennis Considen, was assigned to the Scarborough to attend to the convicts and marines throughout the voyage, and Toulmin, no doubt, assisted him.

When the fleet touched at Rio de Janeiro, ‘Mr Tolman’ and Lieutenant Kellow from the Scarborough, went for a walk in the countryside with Lieutenants Faddy and Clark from the Friendship, which establishes that the marine officers regarded him as a gentleman. [3]

And in October 1787, when Lieutenant Clark was seeking to have a complaint of his investigated, he mentioned ‘Mr Tholman Scarborough’ as one of the individuals who might serve on the inquiry. Tholman is named immediately after Dennis Considen and the naval surgeon on the Friendship, Thomas Arndell, suggesting that Clark classed him with the medical officers. [4]

There are no mentions of him while the Scarborough was anchored in Sydney Cove, but that is not surprising, given that the China ships were only there for three months. Six weeks after they sailed, as the Charlotte and the Scarborough were sailing through the mid-Pacific on their way to Canton, John Marshall, the master of the Scarborough, named one of the islands they had encountered, Toulmin’s Island, although confusingly, it was also referred to in some charts as Touching’s Island, probably through an error in transcription. [5]

Toulmin would have had a difficult voyage from Port Jackson to Whampoa, with many of the crew afflicted with scurvy. Several died, including the captain’s brother.

When the ship finally arrived off Portsmouth in May 1789, Marshall sent his surgeon ashore with a packet for the East India Company. The Customs Officers reported that a packet had been landed from the Scarborough and ‘deliver’d to Mr Jno Toulmin the purser’. [6]

Toulmin was clearly on the Scarborough, but was he surgeon or purser? Who was this man and what happened to him? We don’t have answers to all these questions, but the following are some preliminary suggestions based on early research.

No evidence has been found of a surgeon named John Toulmin, but there was a family of surgeons and apothecaries with this surname based at Hackney throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries. It seems a reasonable hypothesis that he was one of them, and if so, then he was probably the son of William Toulmin, a surgeon and apothecary, who had at least two sons who also took up that profession.

The family were non-conformists, and the baptismal records for most of William’s children are missing, but John was probably born in the 1760s and in his early 20s when he joined the Scarborough. He was almost certainly not trained in surgery but might well have assisted his father, in compounding medicines among other things.

Marshall had hired a surgeon to attend to the ship’s company throughout the voyage, but he left because of drunkenness before the fleet sailed. [7] Marshall would have wanted a replacement, and young John Toulmin might have had enough experience for the purpose. He would only be concerned with the 30 or so members of the crew, and he would have the assistance of a naval surgeon.

It is unclear why a purser would have been needed. There was already a steward, Frederick Meredith, on board, and the contractor’s agent, Zachariah Clark, also sailed on the Scarborough, and assisted in distributing the sea provisions. The most likely explanation is that Marshall wanted someone who could perform a variety of tasks, since the 30-man crew would not have kept a surgeon fully engaged. As a young gentleman, Toulmin would have been literate and numerate, and could have assisted in the management of the ship and her human cargo.

The Scarborough was owned by the Hopper family, and one of the extensive Toulmin clan, born around 1780, was given the name George Hopper Toulmin. This might suggest that John Toulmin was appointed to the ship through a family connection.

We are not sure what he did on his return, but a seaman named John Toulmin sailed to New South Wales on HMS Reliance in 1794. He was 28 years of age, so born around 1766, and he came from Hackney. He joined as an able-bodied seaman (abbreviated as Abs in the musters), but was promoted to midshipman, a gentleman’s rank, before they had left English waters. John Hunter, who was the captain of the Reliance, and Henry Waterhouse, the second captain, had both been on the First Fleet, and would have known of Toulmin, if they did not know him personally. [8]

If this was the same man – and it seems likely that it was – he was demoted to Abs again the following year, and then promoted to ‘Corporal’ shortly thereafter, before leaving the ship to join the Crescent in 1797. At this stage, nothing more is known of him.
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[1] Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989.

[2] ‘Manifest of Private Trade’ for the Scarborough, 13 December 1788, British Library (hereafter BL) IOR/G/12/95, p. 52. The journal of the Scarborough also lists their private trade, under their initials, but their ‘quality’ or rank is not stated.

[3] Paul G. Fidlon, et al (eds.), The Journals and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark, 1787-1792, Sydney: Australian Documents Library, 1981, pp. 35-36.

[4] Lt. Ralph Clark to Lt. John Long, 15 October 1787, Paul G. Fidlon, et al (eds.), The Journals and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark, p.254.

[5] ‘A Chart of the Track of the Scarborough on her Homeward Passage. . .’, The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay. . ., London: John Stockdale, 1789, opposite p. 248.

[6] Collector of Customs, Portsmouth, to the Board of Customs, TNA CUST58/19, 28 March [May] 1789, No. 133.

[7] John Easty, ‘A Memorandum of the Transactions of a Voyage from England to Botany Bay in The Scarborough transport Captn Marshall Commander’, November 1786 to May 1793, State Library of NSW (hereafter SLNSW) DLSPENCER 374, 19 March 1787.

[8] Muster book for the Reliance, January 1795 to September 1796, TNA ADM36/13397 & July 1796 to November 1800, ADM36/13398.

Detail of John Marshall's track of the 'Scarborough' in 1788, showing Toulmin's Island, 'Chart of Western Part of the Pacific Ocean. . .', London: Laurie and Whittle, 20 May 1800.