John Boultbee

Who was John Boultbee?

John Boultbee was born at Bunny, Nottinghamshire, England. He was the ninth and youngest son of Sarah Elizabeth Lane and her husband, Joseph Boultbee, minor Nottinghamshire gentry. A wanderer from boyhood, he was always impatient for new horizons.

By 1816 John Boultbee was bound for Brazil. He was in Barbados in 1818, intending to be a planter, but left after four months, sickened by the cruelties of slavery. He emigrated to Van Diemen's Land with his brother Edwin in 1823, and dreamed of reaching that 'second Elysium', Tahiti. The reality was the hard life of a sealer. so after two years and considerable privations in Bass Strait, in March 1826 he sailed for southern New Zealand. By March 1828 he was back in Port Jackson, toiling at ship ballasting and fish-curing. He went to the new Swan River settlement in Western Australia in 1829, and then in January 1833 joined a whaler bound for Timor. After visits to the Philippines and Singapore, he arrived at Ceylon in May 1834, remaining there until his death, probably in 1854. He compiled his 'Journal of a rambler', an account of his life from 1817 to 1834, in Ceylon about 1835.