The first mention of Wiseman after his arrival was in a list of prisoners granted their tickets-of-leave (a kind of parole) in 1810, followed in February 1812 by an Absolute Pardon.

I scratched out a little tally on my notepad, adding up how long he’d been a convict. Six years and six months. Not bad for someone who was to be punished for the term of his natural life—although a long stretch for stealing some timber.

Over the next twenty-five years Wiseman produced a mass of documents, mostly petitions to the governor (whose permission was needed for most things) and business correspondence. I was puzzled, because I’d always got from Mum the idea of him being illiterate. One of the documents explained it: he employed a clerk who lived as part of his household and, according to one account, was ‘in a permanent state of inebriety’.

The documents showed the path from penniless convict to wealthy landowner over a period of ten years. He began with an inn and became the owner of two boats in which he traded up and down the coast. Then his boats went further afield to New Zealand for the lucrative seal trade.

Meanwhile Jane Wiseman was having babies. Between 1806 and 1816 she gave birth to five more children—an average of a baby every two years. I was curious about Jane. Had she come willingly to Australia with Solomon? Or was it a matter of choosing between the streets or the workhouse, and going aboard the Alexander? What was it like for her, caring for a brood of infants in a settlement of hovels and huts?

But my curiosity had nothing to work on. Beyond the record of the children’s births, Jane was mentioned in the documents only once: in a begging petition of 1817 to the Governor she was described as being ‘in an actual state of invalidity’.

No wonder, with five children under ten to care for.

All these records were on microfilm, in tidy clerk’s copperplate. Then I filled out yet another request slip: Promissory Notes 1814/1815, AW47, expecting another white box of microfilm. What came back was a brown folder holding three flimsy slips of paper. They were printed, with spaces where you filled in the blanks. The first was dated October 15, 1814:

Four months after date I promise to repay Alexr Riley Esq, or order the Sum of Three Hundred and Sixty-One pounds, Nine shillings and Five pence Sterling.

Solomon Wiseman.

The signature was a compressed squiggle, a shape like a spring lying on its side. The ink was faded, like those I’d seen at Kew, pale brown on the yellowed old paper. But Wiseman’s hand had held the pen that made those marks. His hand had taken this piece of paper from someone, Alexander Riley perhaps, laid it on the table, steadied it while he inscribed the shape he’d learned, picked it up and given it back to Riley.

I wanted to rush over to the librarian, his head in the card catalogue. Look! I wanted to shout. His signature! He held this piece of paper in his hand!