Alfred David Owens, grandson of Samuel and Sarah Owens, with his two sons Frank (Francis Joseph) and John Edmund Owens c.1910

Rosewood History
Calvert Pioneers

Samuel and Sarah “Sally” OWENS

By Rosemary Owens (edited by Jane Schy)
Published 22nd July 2025

I have taken these details from a book I produced for a family reunion some years back.

The need to discover and understand the resilience and the struggles of our ancestors has provided me with a profound sense of connection and strength. During this research I have managed to connect with a few long-lost relatives and to discover some well-hidden family secrets. My journey has taken me back to England and Wales where I have been lucky enough to have walked in the footsteps of Samuel and Sarah aka Sally Owens. It has also enriched my understanding of both English and Australian History. I can verify this research with the relevant certificates and documents.

Reflecting on the convicts transported to New South Wales between 1788 and 1850 reveals a complex story of harsh conditions, forced labour and a struggle for survival. Samuel’s and Sarah’s lives must have been drastically altered by the brutal realities of penal transportation. Their success in the colony, no doubt, would have depended heavily on the luck of their assigned master and the nature of their crime. Fortunately, Samuel Owens and Sarah Williams were two of the luckier ones as they were able to find a path to a new and better life while others like them faced extreme hardship and punishment.

A Tale of Two Convicts 

Samuel Owens, also shown as Owen, was born in Shropshire around 1801, that is according to his convict records. On making a study of the birth and baptismal records in his homeland, there are so many persons listed with that name that it is impossible to pinpoint any one entry to be his so, as I cannot prove any one of these to be correct, I will not surmise.

It was only twenty years later that Samuel would fall foul of the law, and was arrested and tried for robbery at the Warwick Assize on 31st March 1821. The verdict found him guilty of robbery, sentenced him to death, and later he was given a reprieve to be sent to the Colony of New South Wales for the “term of his natural life”. The severity of his sentence would indicate the seriousness of the crime he committed.

Phillip Parker King

Samuel arrived on our shores aboard the Mary 2 in January 1822 and on 28th January he was assigned to Captain Philip Parker King at Parramatta. The Convict Musters of 1822 have him listed as a Government Servant to Mrs. King and he was later that same year, transferred to Dr. James Bowman of Sydney. In 1824, Capt. King became a shareholder in the Australian Agricultural Company and was appointed to the Advisory Committee, together with John MacArthur, his son James, and his son-in-law Dr. James Bowman. Dr. Bowman was described by Governor Macquarie as assiduous and humane in his attention to the convicts and for his mild, gentleman-like manners and accomplishments.

Bowman held extensive lands in the Hunter Region, but he remained living in Sydney where he appointed Samuel Owens as one of his convict overseers working on his vast holdings at St. Patrick’s Plains and his other properties in the Hunter Valley. On the 12th of January 1826, the Governor appointed Samuel to be an Honorary Constable. This can be seen in a notice published in The Australian, 12th January 1826, page 1. 

Samuel had an altercation with the local Aboriginal tribes in the Hunter Valley.

[Reference: Original Documents on Aborigines and Law, 1797-1840 – Original Document 21 – S. Owen complaining of Jackass and other natives: 28th March 1827]

Falbrook
Hunters River to witness:  Samuel Owen, Mary 2 [sic?]
Deponent, an Overseer for Dr Bowman Sworn Stateth:
That on Friday morning last as deponent was returning from Wallumby Brook looking for Cattle when he fell in with fifteen black natives who immediately surrounded him – Jackass (the man who has done so much mischief about Dr. Bowman’s) was one of them, who asked Dept if he was the big constable – Dept said yes- Jackass then drew out his Waddie & flourished it at Dept, but Dept kept him out of reach with a musket – the other natives stood round but did not offer any violence – Jackass did not happen to have a spear – all the others had – While Jackass was menacing Dept, Cobborn Mary (wife to Bit of Bread) came up & began to chatter in their own language with the greatest violence, walking round & round deponent, & beating the ground with a pointed stick she had in her hands – she fairly frothed at the mouth – at length the blacks went away & Mary remained behind. When Jackass got a little way off, he said never mind he would find another opportunity to kill deponent – Cobborn Mary told deponent that the blacks were going to kill deponent, but that she had prevented them: & then strongly advised deponent never to go into the Bush where the blackfellows were for they were determined to kill him.
Sworn before me this 28th March 1827   (No 21)
Samuel Owen “X”  his mark

Another convict, Sarah Williams, was also assigned to Dr. James Bowman, and in May 1827 Samuel Owens applied for permission to marry her. It was granted and they did so on 29th of July that same year. The marriage record shows that the ceremony was performed at Dr. Bowman’s Farm, in the Parish of St. Patrick’s Plains by Rev. P. Wilkinson, Chaplin. Both parties signed their names with an x indicating that neither of them could write. William Mayberry and John Squire were witnesses to the marriage.

There is not much on record regarding Sarah Williams. She was born in Denbighshire, Wales around 1806. She was tried and convicted for shoplifting a piece of ribbon at Lancaster, Liverpool Quarter Sessions and Manchester Assize on 17th July 1826, along with two other girls. Sarah was handed down a sentence of “Seven years transportation to the Colony of New South Wales”. The Manchester Courier, dated 5th August 1826, shows the sentences handed down at the Lancashire Assize for July that year. We cannot be sure of Sarah’s identity. It seems she may have been Sarah Edwards although she was arrested, transported and married as Williams.

Sarah Williams, a country house servant, arrived per the convict ship Grenada on 23rd January 1827, having spent 118 days at sea. The ship’s surgeon, Alexander Nisbet, states in his medical journal which he kept while on board the Grenada, that Sarah Williams was his sixth patient to be treated. She had suffered a good deal from sea sickness and with bowels for which she has an occasional purgation. Complains tonight of headache with some pyrexia and pain in the lower part of the belly arising, as she says from retention of urine or the urine being drawn off by the catheter it gave immediate relief, although a very small quantity came away. She was hospitalised for six days.

After disembarking, Sarah was assigned immediately to Dr. James Bowman. Samuel must have been a fast mover for he married her within six months of her arrival.

Thanks to the convict records we have a good description of these convict ancestors. Samuel is described as having been 5ft 10ins tall, of light complexion with brown hair and blue eyes. Sarah was 5ft ½ in tall, of fair complexion with light brown hair, grey eyes with a scar above her right eye.

Sam was awarded his Ticket of Leave 10th June 1829 by the bench at St Patrick Plains. Sarah received her Certificate of Freedom 29th July 1833.

During their years in the Hunter Valley our convicts produced five children (Eliza Jane, Edmund, Samuel, Robert, Ellen). The region at that time was experiencing rapid agricultural expansion and it seems the Owens family moved around. At one point, we find them in the employ of Archibald Bell on his farm at Wybong.

Samuel was responsible for the regular convict muster. He would escort them over land from Scone to Newcastle, and in doing so he found a short cut across the mountains which became known as Owens Gap. It is still shown on modern maps of the Hunter Valley and is well signed.

Samuel and Sarah had another daughter Maria, who was born in 1840 at Maitland, as stated on her marriage certificate of 1861.

Sam also worked for Archibald’s brother, James Thomas Bell of Belmont Estate, North Richmond when the Owens family moved north to the Moreton Bay district.

Life In Moreton Bay

Following the opening up of the Moreton district on 4th May 1842, we find another daughter Eliza Jane Laidley Owens was born there in April 1843. Eliza would have been named for her sister Eliza Jane who was born in the Hunter Valley in 1829, and died there in 1830 at only six months of age. Oral history tells us that Samuel Owens bought sheep overland for Mr. Bell who had a station at Laidley Plains. Sam was employed as overseer and settled his family there, hence the second Eliza had ‘Laidley’ added to her name.

William John Best Gray, better known as Young Billy Gray, came overland to Brisbane at this time with his parents and sisters. In his later years, around 1903, he was to write of his memories about the old times and early settlement. It is within these papers that I found mention of Samuel Owens.

Billy was the grandson of transported convicts and his father William had also served time at Moreton Bay. After his release, William Snr. returned to Windsor on the Hawkesbury River, and many years later decided to take his family and follow the first wave of settlers to the Darling Downs. Billy, in 1903, writes that they left Windsor in November 1842, in the middle of the month and arrived in Brisbane the first week of March 1843. He was about 10½ years old. This puts him and his siblings at the same ages as the children of Samuel and Sarah Owens. There is no doubt in my mind that these two families would have been known to each other and my guess is that they did travel together in the same group of settlers. After spending some years at Ipswich, the Gray family moved to Leyburn on the Darling Downs where Billy became a carrier.                

Billy soon became the undisputed ‘King of the Teamsters,’ carrying loads of wool to the boats at Ipswich and Brisbane, with the return loads bringing grog, station supplies, building materials and other necessary supplies for the settlers who were beginning to take up land further west to Roma and beyond. The carriers were all very well known to each other and kept in constant touch throughout their travels. They related weather conditions and the news of the times as they met up and camped together along the bush roads. Sam’s and Sarah’s son Edmund Owens later became a carrier between Ipswich and Roma, following his criminal life around Rosewood. No doubt the two men would have shared many a time between them since their childhood days. Billy Gray states – I have travelled from 1843 all over the Downs as a Carrier, and I believe I knew every man on the Darling Downs, whether he was a Shearer or Shepherd or Bullock Driver, and their masters too, and they one and all knew me.

According to Billy Gray (in his own words) – In the early forties, Samuel Owens started up the first Mail Coach Run between Brisbane and the hotel in Gatton, which was kept by Mr. Walter Smith. Samuel appointed as his driver a man called Richard Lovell, a former convict, who had come overland with him working as a bullock driver. After a brief time, the coach run ceased. According to Gray it was due to the bad roads or some other cause of which I know nothing about. Gray goes on to say, Samuel and Sarah went over the Little Liverpool Range and built a public house sixteen miles from Ipswich, at a place then known as the Old Man’s Waterhole on the Ipswich Road. 

It is here at Old Man’s Waterhole that we find the Owens family when they took up land in the Rosewood area near Ipswich (later became Alfred/Calvert). Sarah becomes known as ‘Sally.’ Sally used to run her cattle in open woodland along the banks of Western Creek, and the area became known as Sally Owens Plain.

Samuel was given approval to open a wayside inn called the ‘Woolpack Inn’ at Old Man’s Waterhole. He was granted his liquor license No. 0515 dated 29th August 1844. His license was renewed in 1845. The cost of a liquor license was about thirty pounds.

On 30th June 1846, Sarah Owens was granted the license for the Woolpack Inn, but in 1847, 1848, and 1849 Samuel’s name appears on the licenses. On 16th April 1849, Samuel received a caution for allowing unruly behaviour at his establishment. The unruly behaviour was due to his son Edmund, who was to cause much disruption and heartache in his family and throughout the district due to his criminal behaviour in the years to come.

Times were tough in the Colony during the 1840’s with a credit squeeze and drought. Insolvency was rife and many a business was ruined. Samuel Owens was a regular visitor to Sydney to face insolvency courts, but he seemed to bounce back each time. He appears in newspaper reports showing his business deals.

An enterprising person, Samuel ran an illicit still in the Rosewood Scrub at Sally Owens Plain. Being an ideal spot for this institution, he made whisky and rum there in hundreds of gallons. Likewise, he killed cattle and boiled them down for tallow. He took this tallow to Ipswich in large casks, but with only about six inches of tallow in the inside of the casks, the rest of the space was occupied by kegs of raw spirit! This was engineered so cleverly that there was never any discovery.

On 20th April 1850, Samuel’s application for renewal of his license was declined. Despite this, his son, Edmund (Ned) Owens, took over the Woolpack Inn and it flourished for several more years.

Edmund was in and out of the courts for most of his life. Everything from petty theft to rape, but somehow he managed to get himself acquitted. He and his brother Samuel junior were described in the Moreton Bay Courier during 1858 as a set of thieving, robbing, bloody wretches.

Sally Owens is well noted in the history of the Rosewood Scrub. On Friday 8th June 1866, an article appeared in the column “News & Notes” by a Sydney Man – Sure, it’s now about eighteen years since I had a chance of penetrating so far ‘into the bowels of the land’ as Little Liverpool, or took a sound nap on one of Mrs. Sally Owens soft feather beds, or ‘slithered’ down the muddy banks of Laidley Creek.

On 7th February 1855, Samuel bought five lots of land in the Parish of Jeebropilly in the Moreton District and Edmund Owens bought one in the same Parish on 1st December 1856, followed by four further selections in the Parish of Alfred on 13th August 1857.

While on a return trip from Sydney on 17th January 1857, while at sea in Moreton Bay aboard the “Boomerang” steamer, Samuel Owens met his Maker. His demise was caused by ‘an over-indulgence of alcohol’ as was the conclusion of the inquest into his death. That old time distiller of Sally Owens Plains was laid to rest in the southwest corner of the Old Church of England Burial Ground which was to become the Paddington Cemetery. Today he rests under the Suncorp Stadium.

Samuel left a Will naming his wife Sarah Owens as his beneficiary.

Sarah remarried one Joseph Stubbs on 19th December 1860 in Ipswich, giving her father’s name as Uriah Edwards. This marriage to Joseph Stubbs was recorded, but sadly Sarah passed away in the Ipswich hospital shortly before their first wedding anniversary on 4th December 1861. She is buried in an unmarked grave in the Pioneer Section of the Ipswich Cemetery. She in turn left a will naming her son Samuel Owens as her beneficiary.

Her daughter, Eliza Jane Laidley Owens married twice, and she named her mother as Sarah “Edwards” on each occasion. So, I have concluded that Sarah may have been married before she was arrested and transported or could have been posing as Williams to avoid disgrace. This would have made her, when she married Samuel Owens, Sarah Williams formerly Edwards. Also, her father’s christian name “Uriah”, provided at he time of her second marriage to Joseph Stubbs, is an unusual name and one of her grandsons was so named.

The Owens family remained in the Ipswich area until the early 1860’s.

Edmund Owens moved on to Roma where he died in 1900 leaving three surviving sons, his wife and five other children having predeceased him. His youngest son, Alfred, was the only one of his family to have left descendants who now live in Toowoomba and its surrounds.

I do not know what became of Samuel Owens Junior.

Robert Owens died 28th February 1856 at age twenty-one and is thought to be buried in Marburg.

Ellen Owens married George Mark and died 19th July 1859 in Ipswich.

Maria aka Margaret Maria Owens married 3 times. Firstly to George Wilson in 1861at Warwick, then Joseph Tolley in 1873 at Armidale, and lastly to Alonza Edgar Graham in 1880 at Wagga Wagga. She died in 1924 in New South Wales.

Eliza Jane Laidley Owens married first to Mark Pitt. This marriage was conducted in Warwick on 10th January 1861 and produced a daughter, Alice and a son William. Her second marriage was to a John McKinlay – there were no children.

Samuel’s branch of the Owens family spans seven generations in Australia.

Research has revealed how the choices of our ancestors echo through time and affect the present. Understanding our heritage is crucial to forging our own path and to embracing our identity. I would encourage others to consider their own family’s history and the legacies they may inherit. Our identity is a tapestry woven from both triumphs and failures of previous generations.

Direct line of Descendancy from Samuel and Sarah Owens to Geoffrey Neil Owens

Samuel and Sarah Owens left many descendants through my husband’s (Geoffrey aka Jack Owens) branch of the family. His father (Francis aka Frank Owens) produced nine children including four sons, all of whom have sons and grandsons, so the Owens name has been carried on. The youngest descendant to date is Samuel James Owens who was born in 2014. – Rosemary Owen’s née Evans, July 2025.