Henry Hopwood

Henry Hopwood (18131 January 1869) was an English convict who established the town of Echuca in Victoria, Australia. Early life Hopwood was born in Bolton le Moors, Lancashire on the 21 May 1813. He was the youngest son of Henry Hopwood, a muslin manufacturer, and Mary Kelly. He was arrested in 1834 for receiving stolen rolls of silk, and sentenced to 14 years' transportation to Van Diemen's Land, a British colony in Australia (later renamed Tasmania). A persuasive and manipulative character, within a year of arriving in the colony, Hopwood had been appointed as a police constable. However, he often found himself in trouble, mainly due to dalliances with women, and in 1839, he was sentenced to two years' servitude at the Port Arthur penal settlement for 'aiding and abetting the abduction of his master's daughter'. He was eventually released and, in 1846, granted a full pardon after having served 12 years of his original sentence. During his time as a convict, Henry met Marth Bolton, a free woman formerly of Liverpool, Lancashire and with her had a daughter, Alice Bolton Hopwood, born on the 4 January 1844 at Morven, Tasmania. Echuca