Charles Ashton, a miner from Becklesfield, arrived in Van Diemen's Land in September 1845 to serve a life sentence for burglary and stealing. Transferred to Norfolk Island, in November the following year, Ashton was charged with 'resisting a constable' and sentenced to four days' solitary confinement.
A preface to an undated, 20th Century promotional flier for Radcliffe's Museum, Port Arthur, uses Charles Ashton's description of his writing 'The Convict's Dream'. He wrote it 'while serving a sentence of twenty years, a part of which was passed in the Model Prison [at Port Arthur] for trying to regain my liberty by absconding and knocking down a constable. I received a sentence of fifty lashes, thirty days solitary confinement on bread and water, with one blanket at night; also twelve months in the light cell and two years in heavy chains thirty-five pounds weight. The whole of this sentence was passed on me by three magistrates.'
