Joseph CHAMBERS was born in 1802 in Maghera, Derry, Ireland.^{1 2} He was a weaver, soldier, policeman, labourer.^{3 4} He married Ann SHAW on 5 Oct 1829 in St Laurence's Church, Chorley, Lancashire.^{5 6} He died on 11 Feb 1860 in Sydney.^{1 7 8 9 10} 1860/250 V18608255 122B Heart disease. Joseph was buried on 12 Feb 1860 in Camperdown, Newtown.^{8 9 11 12} North wall, Number 1511. Plot No. 186, commencing from eastern corner. SAG NO. 1514.

Joseph Chambers was a Northern Irishman who joined the British army at an early age, was stationed at Jamaica with his regiment, and eventually came to Australia as a "Redcoat". He was discharged in Australia, lived at the Rocks in Sydney, and his headstone can be found at Camperdown Cemetery. He was born in 1802 at Maghera, Derry, Ireland, Married Ann Shaw in 1829 and had 8 children with her.

According to his headstone, he was a member of the 50th.Regiment of Foot, his Death Certificate indicating wrongly that he was formerly a soldier in 51st Regiment. He has been confirmed as on payroll of the 50th Regiment. (on their 1st. tour of Australia, 1833-1842), along with a George Chambers (no relationship established).

He probably arrived in Australia on the ship 'Roslin Castle', 15/9/1834, from London.

After arriving in Australia some of the 50th Regiment worked at Illawarra (May 1835-Aug 1837), according to a website on "the Illawarra Stockade". A website about another soldier who joined the 50th Regt in 1820 gives some information on their previous activities. The regiment was stationed in Jamaica in 1819. After moving there men, women and children suffered from repeated attacks of yellow fever. According to Sykes and Tulloch's research, quoted by the South African Military History Journal "In 1819 the 50th Regiment had arrived in March and the 93rd three months later, both being stationed at Up-Park Camp, just two miles north of Kingston. Towards the end of June the first signs of the pestilence appeared and then it reached an unprecedented intensity during July and August, such being the ravages that one half of each Regiment's personnel died from this disease". In 1827 the regiment left Jamaica and went home to England. By 1828 it was transferred to postings in Lancashire. This fits in with Joseph's marriage in Lancashire in 1829. In 1833 a directive was issued regarding transferring to NSW. All detachments first moved to Chatham. The main body of troops arrived mid 1834, having been convict escorts in detachments. In Australia regimental headquarters were established at Windsor. The regiment then moved to Wynyard Barracks, Sydney in about June 1837.

The following information is from Joseph's Soldiers Papers; a collection of his military records on discharge to pension. The Regimental Board (probably in Sydney) sat on 21/1/1841, the copy was received (probably in London) on 13/6/41, and the pension was approved on 25/9/41.

[No. 155, Joseph Chambers, Private

Born Maghera Parish, town of Maghera, County of Derry

Enlisted 7/2/20

Attested for 50th Regt. on 10/2/20 at Armagh, age 18 (Newry District) - bounty 3 pounds British. Received 2/6d. on attestation.

Description: 5ft.6ins.and 3/4 height, fair complexion, blue eyes, fair hair

Gave trade as a weaver. Approved 11/2/20 -"A fine young lad likely to grow? up well".

7/2/20 - 24/6/26 Private

25/6/26 - 8/8/26 Corporal

9/8/26 - 31/12/28 Private

7/1/29 - 31/1/41 Private

Total Service 20 years 359 days

Served West Indies 3/2/21 - 8/3/27

New South Wales 16/9/34 onwards

Remainder -at home-

Character - conduct has been -good-. Wears 2 distinguishing badges since 30/10/38

Surgeon-s report 7/1/41 Sydney:

"Joseph Chambers aged 39 years. All his ?, no trade, middle stature. Light complexion pitted with smallpox. Never had the venereal disease. Service 21 years, upwards of 6 of which he served in Jamaica, and suffered there with intermittent and remittent fevers and opthalmia. During the treatment of which he took Mercury a. salvator? "In the last 5 years this man has suffered from chronic cough and rheumatic pains over which the medical means have exerted but temporary influence. He is recommended unfit for further service in which and by which his disability has been contracted". Conduct in hospital good."

Description on discharge:

39 years, 5 ft.7,1/4ins., fair hair blue eyes, fair complexion. Trade a weaver.

Approved 25/9/41]

Joseph was awarded a military pension 25/8/1841 from 50th Regiment. According to the Inquest report of his death, it was 1 shilling per diem (per day). The regiment was transferred to India in 1841.

Despite his medical discharge from the Army he then joined the city police force as a constable for about 10 years. The Sydney police force was in disarray, having developed from a group of ex-convicts, with meagre pay and hostility from the populace. "The police for the most part are not content with wearing their staff of office, but carry with them large sticks, of every fashion and variety, very much, doubtless In their opinion, to add to their dignity and importance. The unseemly swagger with which they are often carried has a very different effect on the minds of the public. We do not think that any body of men In Sydney can furnish so unique and handsome a collection of walking sticks, canes, and shel-lalahs as our police force." The article that criticised the police went on to say that their sticks wore often used where words might have secured law and order. "Hard luck for the Sydney citizen who argued the point with a constable who carried a shelllalah!" Living in The Rocks we might assume that Joseph's duties encompassed the area. "The Rocks had a notorious reputation for trouble and violence stretching back to its colonial beginnings as a penal colony and early trading port. The "pushes" of the Rocks were particularly notable. Law and order were kept by mounted police or "troopers", in combination with ordinary police, who could be picked out in a crowd by their bell-topper hat, black coat and white duck trousers. The mounted police wore a military uniform similar to the regular 13th Light Dragoons. Police control of the Rocks during the mid-19th century was achieved with the Water Police in George Street, a single constable in Harrington Street, a station house in Cumberland Street, and, more to keep a watchful eye on Millers Point, a station at government ground cornered at Kent and Argyle Streets". In 1844 when Joseph was probably in the force the police establishment included 65 constables as reported by Tegg's Almanac. According to 'Policing The Rocks', "In 1844, the citizens of Sydney had a public meeting requesting the increase of police numbers. One of the points they raised was that from Dawes Point to Pitt Street there was 'scarcely any property that was not committed to the protection of private watchmen and the reason was there were not enough policemen'. 'They believed the numbers of ex-convicts from Van Diemens Land and Norfolk Island moving into the city made an increase in police numbers a necessity. There had also been two horrendous murders in The Rocks that year."

A policeman's lot is never a happy one and the 2 indications of Joseph Chambers' lot (if indeed it is our J.C.) are from contemporary newspapers. One mentions him in relation to arresting drunkards and another where a magistrate, and the newspaper, criticises him and the police for being over-zealous.

After discharge from the police force he worked as a labourer at Breillat's flour mill for about 5 years, according to "The Empire" newspaper. The steam-driven flour mill was on Cockle Bay in the area of Sussex St., Margaret Place, and Napoleon Street. The mill was originally built and owned by a French General and convict Francois Girard who sold it to Breillat in 1841. According to the Daily Telegraph "To serve his mill with raw materials, Girard built a wharf and a road connecting the mill on Sussex St to Margaret St. It became known as Napoleon Lane, in honour of Girard’s hero the emperor, and later Napoleon St. In 1900, after bubonic plague swept through Sydney’s waterfront, Robert Hickson was appointed to clean up the area. Building was resumed and land reclaimed along Cockle Bay to create what became known as Hickson Rd. Napoleon St was again widened but to this day meets Hickson Rd rather than Sussex St, as it did originally. All trace of Girard’s buildings have gone". Part of the area has also been archeologically excavated, providing original map details. It appears to have been subsumed by the modern development of Barangaroo. Joseph died whilst working at the mill, most probably of a heart attack, the report of the inquest saying "On Saturday morning, a man named Joseph Chambers, in the employ or Mr. T. C. Breillat, fell down dead. He was formerly a soldier, subsequently a policeman, and for the last five years he has been employed as a labourer at the flour mills of Mr.Breilliat. At 6 o'clock on the morning of Saturday he went to work in his usual good health; for an hour and a half he was occupied in guiding a rope that was hauling up bags of flour from a lower loft. At about half-past seven, without being at all injured by the rope or machinery he tell backwards, and immediately expired. The City Coroner held an inquest upon the body during the afternoon of the same day. The evidence, however, elicited no further information respecting this melancholy occurrence; the verdict then returned was " Died from the visitation of God”. In seeking to find Joseph's death place it has been impossible to find the exact location of the mill today even though historical maps can pinpoint it.

As for the family's living arrangements, after leaving the Army where presumably the family lived in Married men's quarters, NSW Electoral rolls finds a Joseph Chambers in a dwelling-house in George St. in 1842-3, and a Joseph Chambers, in a dwelling, Castlereagh St. He was living at Brown Bear Lane at the death of his 15 year-old daughter Margaret Amelia in 1856. Brown Bear Lane became Little Essex Street. The Brown Bear Inn was at the corner of Little Essex and Princes Streets in The Rocks and believed to have been destroyed for the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and/or the Bradfield Highway. A mural has been painted at the bottom of where Little Essex Street was, of a view up the Lane to the "Ocean Wave" Hotel. "The engraving depicts a section of lower George Street showing 'E. Chambers' 'Brown Bear', which was a notorious pub in The Rocks. The pub bequeathed its name to a laneway. This laneway later became Little Essex Street and then was consumed totally during numerous rebuildings of the area". Various relevant sketches, maps of the area are available in 2 books about the area. Most inhabitants of the street were listed as "waterman", and soap and candle manufacturers; the 1857 Cox & Co. Directory has a Joseph Chambers, labourer, still living at No. 54 Brown Bear Lane. A compilation of early family names from the Sydney Assessment Rolls, indicating relevant addresses has been made, including the Chambers family, but no definite addresses can be confirmed until Ann Chambers' death at Castlereagh street.

The death notice in the "Empire" newspaper also indicated that Joseph died suddenly, leaving a "a wife and eight children to deplore their bereavement." One daughter had died in 1856 and one was married by the time of his death. "Geelong papers please copy" indicated a Victorian relative, and his married daughter Ann lived in Geelong.

Joseph died in 1860 and was buried at Camperdown cemetery in the same grave as daughter Amelia and wife Ann who passed away in 1870. The Burial Butt for Camperdown Cemetery for Joseph describes his death as due to "Decline of Years"^{3,9,10,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35}.

Ann SHAW was born c. 1814 in Maghera, Derry, Ireland/Manchester, England.¹ Also calculated acc. to death cert. Ann died on 11 Nov 1870 in 287 Castlereagh St. Sydney, NSW.^{1 7 8 9} 1870/1211 Pleural pneumonia. Ann was buried on 12 Nov 1870 in St. Stephens Camperdown.¹¹ headstone SAG NO. 1514.

Ann Shaw was probably born in 1814 in Maghera, Derry, Ireland. Although her death certificate, informed by her son-in-law says Manchester, England. She was married in 1829 to Joseph Chambers in Chorley, Lancashire where Joseph was a soldier. Ann was 15 years of age at marriage according to the death certificate. She and joseph had 8 children, one born in Australian waters and the rest in Sydney.

In the birth of some of her daughters, her name was given as "Maria"

According to her death certificate in 1870, 6 male children, 1 female were still alive . However this should be 6 female, 1 male still alive. Also 1 male, 3 female deceased by 1870, but only 1 female found so far.

Alexander Crighton was named in the death certificate as informant and son-in-law. Address same as death address, Castlereagh St. The Sydney morning Herald had the death at 'son-in-law's residence 287 Castlereagh Street'. Likewise the funeral from that address. Ann was buried at Camperdown cemetery in the same grave as husband Joseph and daughter Amelia.^36,37

Ann SHAW and Joseph CHAMBERS had the following children: