Convict love token from William Brain, 1838

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Type: Convict love tokens
Materials: Metal - non specific
Collection: Timothy Millett collection
Accession number: 2008.0039.0196

Description

A convict love token, made up of a coin, engraved on both sides with stippled text and designs. One side features a design of a man in chains standing on a shoreline with a ship sailing in the distance. Text inscribed on a stone below the ship reads 'Wm Brain'. The other side features the text 'When this you / see think of / me when I / am far away / Wm BRAIN / aut 21 1838 / AGED 21' with an ornate scroll border.

William Brain, 21, was tried and convicted at the Warwick August Assizes for housebreaking. He was sentenced to 10 years' transportation. He appears to have spent a year on the hulks before sailing on the Barossa (Captain Austin) on 31 July 1839. On arrival in Sydney on 10 December 1939 it was noted that 'The Barossa has brought out 334 male convicts, who appear to be in a very healthy state. During the passage two adults and one infant died.' Brain was granted a ticket of leave in 1844, and was allowed to stay in Newcastle, north of Sydney, where the previous year he had married Maria Byrne, a convict who had arrived on the Isabella. He died in Newcastle in 1903, aged 89.

About the collection

The Timothy Millett collection comprises 307 convict love tokens dating from 1762 to 1856, and seven contemporary documents relating to the criminal justice system including: recommendations to commute the death sentences of Hester Sampson and Thomas Hayes to life transportation; a calendar of prisoners awaiting trial in the goals of Durham, Newcastle and Northumberland; a request to the Middlesex assizes for rewards to be paid; a printed copy of George Skene's last speech prior to execution; a printed broadside listing prisoners in Dorchester jail awaiting transportation; and a 60 page handwritten account of the life of Thomas Jones, who was transported twice and finally hanged at Winchester Prison in 1856. Convict love tokens, typically made from smoothed-down coins and engraved or stippled with a message, derive from traditional sailors' farewells. The production of these 'leaden hearts' rose as criminal indictments increased in Britain, with the majority produced during the 1820s and 1830s. As mementos made by or for convicts facing transportation (or death) to leave behind for their loved ones, the tokens provide a poignant, personal insight into the transportation system.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 4:48:07 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2026-10-16. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.