{"id":7,"date":"2022-01-22T09:24:09","date_gmt":"2022-01-22T09:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/?page_id=7"},"modified":"2023-01-16T22:08:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T22:08:35","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/","title":{"rendered":"About this website"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When researching my family tree, I came across Jack Kirby (my 5x great uncle).\u00a0Jack was born in 1761 in Blean, Kent, and in 1789 having been sentenced to transportation to Australia for seven years, wrote a pamphlet in which he confessed to all his crimes. This\u00a0pamphlet provides an intriguing insight into life in the late 18th century.<\/p>\n

Whilst reading it though, I got the impression of a young man who had fallen into thievery and found he could make an easy living out of it. Jack didn\u2019t come across as an evil person – more of a lovable rogue.<\/p>\n

So, 250 years later, I decided to find out more about Jack, his family, and the other residents of Blean from whom he stole or whose house he broke into.. Here I present what I have discovered.<\/p>\n

Part 1<\/strong>\u00a0is JACK\u2019S STORY<\/strong><\/a>, written in the 1st<\/sup> person, which I have taken directly from his original pamphlet. His story will make you both laugh and cry. It is reproduced in the left-hand columns<\/strong>, so if you just want to read it straight through, you can do so.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also highlighted in the original text (in bold<\/strong>) items of interest, which I\u2019ve explained in some notes on the right-hand columns<\/strong>. These include definitions of words and terms no longer in common use as well information about the legal system in place at that time.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also added short life stories of some of the people mentioned in Jack\u2019s story; these appear in shaded light blue boxes. \u00a0In 1801 the population of Blean was 287, hence Jack knew the names of those he stole from, in fact he probably had a close everyday relationship with many of them. Many of the families had lived in the Blean area for generations so they inter-married. (I\u2019ve capitalized surnames when they refer to other families mentioned in Jack\u2019s text.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also included some press cuttings from the Kentish Gazette which confirm the dates and events around the trial proceedings.<\/p>\n

Part 2<\/strong>\u00a0explains WHAT HAPPENED TO JACK<\/strong><\/a> after his story as written up in the pamphlet ends. Here I present what was likely to have happened to Jack after his sentence to transportation, and his time on board the convict ship.<\/p>\n

Part 3<\/strong> is my research into WHAT HAPPENED TO JACK\u2019S FAMILY<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>after his transportation – that is, his mother, brothers and sister. I have focused on the family of his brother, Joseph, from whom I am descended, and have unearthed some fascinating family stories and photos.<\/p>\n

Jane Hart,\u00a0January 2022,\u00a0jane@janehart.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When researching my family tree, I came across Jack Kirby (my 5x great uncle).\u00a0Jack was born in 1761 in Blean, Kent, and in 1789 having been sentenced to transportation to Australia for seven years, wrote a pamphlet in which he confessed to all his crimes. This\u00a0pamphlet provides an intriguing insight into life in the late […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":887,"href":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions\/887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/janehart.com\/jackkirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}