A Penny to Remember
George stuffed the spoon into one pocket and the drumstick into the other and clambered up the shelves to the little window…
When George is sentenced to seven years’ hard labour in Van Diemen’s Land his only thoughts are of his sister Hannah. What can he give her to remember him when he is so far away?
The How and Why of A Penny to Remember
A Penny to Remember is one of the titles in the National Museum’s series of historical fiction, Making Tracks. Making Tracks takes young readers on a fictional journey through some fascinating Australian stories, inspired by objects from the National Museum of Australia’s collection.
I was seriously pleased when the National Museum approached me to write a story for the Making Tracks series especially when I discovered my ‘object’ was to be a convict Love Token.
One example of a convict love token
My great-great-great-grandfather, John Mills, was a teenage convict so it was exciting to be able to use details from his story to make A Penny to Remember more personal. Just like George, the boy that I invented to help me tell the story of a convict love token, my ancestor had been sentenced to seven years hard labour for stealing a goose and silver spoon. Unlike George, my grandfather had been a member of a gang called ‘The Wickwar Gang’. In many ways his story was too complicated to turn into a short novel. Because George’s story needed to fit into the length of the ‘Making Tracks’ series, I didn’t want too much detail to take away from the important process of telling the story of how George came to make a love token for his sister, Hannah.
Peter Bray, who did the terrifically detailed illustrations for A Penny to Remember, also had a convict in his family. Between 1788 and 1850, the English sent over 162,000 convicts out to Australia so many Australians can find a convict in their family tree.
John Mills brewery which he built in Melbourne after he had served his time as a convict in Tasmania
Emma Mills, my great-great granny and daughter of my convict ancestor
Convict Love Tokens: The Leaden Hearts the Convicts Left Behind
I loved visiting Tasmania last year and it was good to look at Hobart again through fresh eyes, to see it as a place where so many stories from Australian history really started. As I walked through the tiny winding streets behind Salamanca Place I wondered about my grandfather and his young wife. I named Hannah in A Penny to Remember in honour of my great-great-great-grandmother. She was a free settler when she arrived in Hobart but she was also just a teenager who couldn’t write her own name and signed her wedding certificate with a simple X.
Not long after they were married, John and Hannah crossed Bass Strait and settled in Melbourne. Their only child, Emma, was born in their pub in Flinders Lane. When she grew up she had six children and as the generations went on, those two teenagers who had built new lives for themselves in the colonies acquired hundreds of descendants.
In choosing the decoration that George would carve into his love token, I studied designs from a book that documented the history of how they were made, Convict Love Tokens: The Leaden Hearts the Convicts Left Behind by Michelle Field, edited by Timothy Millet. In that book I found a picture of a coin carved by a convict called William Maddox.
Like my character George, William Maddox had carved a coin for his sister. I think what makes convict love tokens special is we know they were made with so much feeling. So much love and longing went into the making of those simple messages that even as the centuries pass, we can still feel the strength of the emotions that they represent.
What the critics wrote about A Penny To Remember
Coming Soon!
Links
The National Museum of Australia has a huge website packed full of great information and a special interactive section that focuses on the Making Tracks series:
www.nma.gov.au/makingtracks
If you think you might have a convict ancestor in your family you can track them down through research. Even if you don’t have a convict in your family tree, you can find out heaps more about convicts in Australia at the following site:
http://www.convictcentral.com
Many of the original convict love tokens are held in museums and private collections in England. You can see one of the ones left in England at the British Museum:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/cm/l/love_token.aspx