03/06/2026
The Hospital Architect
Part 2/2
In January 1848 the transport ship Marion reached Port Phillip (still part of NSW until 1851) via Van Diemen’s Land. Onboard was a young sailor William Hooke Margrie, born in July 1828 in Bridport, Dorset to George Margrie and his wife Martha née Hooke. He had made an earlier voyage to Gambia but before his second voyage he deserted the ship while it was docked in Plymouth. His family had moved to London shortly before George’s death in 1844 where his mother tried to make ends meet by running a small grocery shop in Bethnal Green.
Within a short time seventeen-year-old William was in London and had acquired two convictions. The second in 1845 rested on the evidence of his mother who said he had stolen his deceased father’s coat. He was charged with larceny and sentenced to seven years in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. There he was classed as ‘incorrigible’ - a serial re-offender who fought with other prisoners.
Transportation of convicts to New South Wales ended in 1842 but was replaced between 1846 and 1850 by a system of exiling prisoners to replace convict labour that was needed in the colonies. Almost 1,500 Parkhurst boys were sent to the Australian colonies. On arrival the ‘exiles’ were free to work for themselves with a ticket of leave in an assigned district until their sentence expired or in some cases were granted a conditional pardon.
Within six months of his arrival Margrie’s forgery exploits appeared in the pages of the Port Phillip Patriot and the Geelong Advertiser where it was reported that he had at least twenty charges of forgery and an equal number of horse stealing crimes to his name. It transpired that on his arrival the Surgeon Superintendent of the Marion Dr Andrews, said Margrie had served as a hospital attendant on the voyage and what he described as a period as an ‘apprentice apothecary’ and it was on this basis that he was hired for £20 pa by Dr David Thomas of Bourke Street, Melbourne. Prescriptions were prepared by the doctor for patients from outlying areas who would pay for the medication on collection. Margrie was to collect the money but was keeping it and telling his employer that it had not been collected – the evidence was a bag that looked like the original prescription. The game was up when one of the doctor’s patients enquired about his prescription.
A warrant was issued for the arrest of the twenty-one-year-old who was known as “The Pebble” and an advertisement cautioned the public – he had a brace of pistols in his possession. He was arrested, convicted of forging his employer’s cheque for £9/16/- and received a three-year sentence with hard labour on the roads. The newspaper noted his casual behaviour, lolling in the dock during the trial.
He was sent from Melbourne via Darlinghurst Gaol to Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour, a designation reserved for repeat offenders. The Argus reported it was “a mere nominal punishment of three years upon the roads. When it is considered that there were at least twenty charges of forgery and an equal number of cases of horse stealing, besides a legion of minor offences against this man, parties resident in the country have a right to complain, of a due regard to their interests not being had in the administration of the law”.
In 1853 his sentence was extended a further year. A ticket of leave was issued in 1854 for Scone and later changed to Muswellbrook.
Margrie’s family life was equally eventful and he married three times. At Muswellbrook where he was described as a road overseer (he had acquired at least three years’ experience on the roads), he married his first wife seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Dickenson. She died in early April 1856 within twelve days of their marriage. Five months later he remarried to Maria Ashburn at Muswellbrook.
In March 1857 he appeared before the Water Police Court in Sydney charged with being illegally at large. He admitted his guilt stating that he had brought money to Sydney on behalf of his father who had a case pending at Maitland court. Had he forgotten his father died in London in 1844? Cancellation of his ticket of leave was recommended.
He made his way from the Hunter region to northern NSW where he was working as a schoolmaster at Gunnedah in 1868 and on the insistence of the Rev Currey, was charged with stealing books from the Council of Education. The charge was later withdrawn with Margrie suing the reverend gentlemen for £20. His wife Maria died the same year at Tamworth, leaving him with six children to rear.
Margrie moved south to Young where, described as a civil engineer, he took up land but subsequently lost it for not abiding by the terms of the Conditional Purchase and for a time resided in Binalong. His third marriage to Alice Hull at Sydney in 1880 produced a further two children while they were living in Yass.
Court appearances were not rare events in his life. There was some poetic justice for Margrie in 1882 when he became the victim of forgery. His servant Mary Jane Close, stole three of his cheques, forged his signature and bought goods at local Yass stores. Found guilty she received two years imprisonment in Yass gaol. He took offence at language that he said Patrick Kelly had uttered and had him charged with using indecent language, but the case was dropped due to mistaken identity.
He bent the truth on numerous occasions, committed forgeries, acquired land and lost it, pocketed his employees’ wages and was declared insolvent in 1862 and again in 1876. A sailor with only some four years of formal education, he had progressively reinvented himself (likely aided by his forgery skills) as an apothecary, road overseer, contractor, civil engineer, clerk of works, architect, schoolteacher, surveyor and finally, council clerk.
The latter led to his imprisonment at Goulburn where he invented another falsehood and didn’t admit to having arrived in Port Phillip on the convict transport ship Marion in 1848. He said he arrived on a far more desirable vessel, the government survey ship, Rattlesnake – which at that time in 1848 was making its way down the eastern coast to Sydney returning from a survey voyage in northern waters near Keppell Island.
Despite his numerous shortcomings he none the less left a legacy in Yass. Two important public buildings - a school and a hospital that continue to serve the community today, but few would know the story of the man behind their construction.
William Hooke Margrie died in Sydney on 1 December 1909 and is buried at Gore Hill Cemetery.
Cheryl Mongan
