James Meehan was sentenced at 26 for his role in an uprising against British rule in Ireland and arrived in Australia in 1800 as a convict servant to English explorer Charles Grimes. Through talent and persistence he rose to become Acting Surveyor General of the New South Wales colony, working under five governors from 1800 to 1822.
Patrick Howard's account of his great-grandparents — Stephen Howard and Ellen Lydon — both transported to Van Diemen's Land in the 1840s and united in Hobart Town.

