Ticket of leave

This scrap of paper is one of just two remaining Western Australian tickets of leave which permitted convicts to travel for work. It belonged to a fellow by the name of Ben ‘Taffy’ Jones, who was convicted of cabbage theft and, in 1867, of wilful murder. Jones’ death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was condemned to the Australian colony aboard the last convict transport to arrive from England to Western Australia. Jones would have carried the ticket of leave with him as he travelled for work across the State. He drowned in 1897, his body found washed up on a beach in Geraldton. A newspaper article at the time of his death recorded that he “invariably spent his money in drink” and was last seen drinking in town when he seemed “all right”. He was aged 66 when he died alone and so far from his wife and child in their homeland.