William Harrison Craig was baptised on 9th January 1788 at St. Ann's Manchester, Lancashire, son of Elizabeth and William Marshall Craig. His brother Edward Craig was baptised at the same church on 12 June 1789. (15)

William Marshall Craig was an artist. He began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1788, and moved to London shortly afterwards. He began working as a miniature and portrait painter in 1791- 92, and also produced landscapes in watercolours. He became one of the most celebrated artists of his era. He was drawing master to Princess Charlotte of Wales, miniature painter to the Duke and Duchess of York, and painter in watercolours to Queen Charlotte.(1)  He also excelled as a draughtsman on wood, and as a book illustrator; and he published in 1821 Lectures on Drawing, Painting, and Engraving (2). His works 'Itinerant Traders' can be seen at Spitalfields Life and 'England expects every man to do his duty. Lord Nelson explaining to the Officers the Plan of Attack previous to the Battle of Trafalgar' at  National Maritime Museum, London, Greenwich Hospital collection.

Both Edward and William Harrison Craig were educated and the skills that William Harrison learned from his father were later to afford him a chance at redeeming his unfortunate life.

William Harrison Craig was only twenty years of age when he married  Honora Long Audsley, at St. Pancras Parish Chapel on13 June 1807. One of the witnesses at the ceremony was his brother Edward Craig.(3)  Honora Long Audsley was the eldest daughter of Peter and Ann Audsley and was born on 28th April 1785. She was Baptised at St. Marylebone, Westminster, Co. Middlesex. (4) Peter Audsley was probably an attorney-at-law.

William and Honora's son Edward Augustus was born 11th June 1809 and baptised 23 January 1810 at St. Andrew's, Holborn.

Honora's father Peter died c.1810 and without his support William and Honora were soon in financial difficulty. They turned to petty theft and fraud to cover their debts, however William was soon arrested.

The Bury and Norwich Post of 29th August 1810 reported their crimes: -

A genteel young man, by the name of William Harrison Craig, was on Friday re-examined at Marlborough street office, on a charge of defrauding tradesmen of their goods, and robbing diverse lodgings of plate, linen etc., There were about 20 persons in the office, ready to exhibit charges against the prisoner, but two only were entered into. Mr. Ball, who resides at Kensington, let lodgings to the prisoner, and a woman whom he represented as his wife and a child. He slept there on the 22nd of July, but next morning he left the house, and it was found that the sheets, some silver tea spoons, and a pair of silver tongs, had been taken away. The prisoner said his name was Kennion, a merchant in Finsbury square. The other charge was Mr. Ryder, and was similar to the former - the prisoner having slept one night in the house, and decamped with the plate and light moveables in the morning. About a dozen tailors had furnished the prisoner with clothes; and he paid one of them, Mr. Forbes in Oxford Street, a draft signed Yarmouth; but on presenting it at the bankers in the City, it was found worthless. (5)

William was probably thrown into Newgate prison. He was taken for trial at the Old Bailey on 19th September 1810 and charged with stealing articles from the lodging house of Hannah Ball. His occupation was recorded as tea merchant. He presented an articulate and desperate defence in which some of the previous few months of his life were explained.......

....... Gentlemen of the jury, It is my humble hope and trust, knowing that I am come before a jury of my countrymen, to offer these few observations; although they may appear foreign to the charge, yet they are inseparably connected with the groundwork of my conduct. Gentlemen, I am unfortunately deserted and persecuted, and the persons I mean to allude to are the appointed guardians to my wife and family. In their views they are fulfilling the voice of a dying parent, in persecuting the children. My brother was sent on board a ship at the Nore. I am the husband of the eldest child. I have been insulted by them in the grossest manner, and by them treated with indignation; our quarterly salary was diminished; not having it in my power to have redress from the law, I threatened them with manual punishment. I was plunged into a prison fourteen weeks by their power. I began to think I was to be sent after my unfortunate brother, and the only thing left for me to do, they told me, was by signing a certain deed to our disadvantage. I refused to do it, and at the same time I got bail; I absconded, and was a prey to the greatest distress. This was my fatal epoch; I was unable to appear in public, I was friendless and deserted; my infant son and dying wife made me do acts of the greatest dishonour; nothing but the most imperious necessity prompted me to act as I have done. I have a letter from the honourable Mr. Wilberforce, Member of Parliament, I beg leave to forward it to your Lordship, that you may be satisfied.

Despite his plea and his letter from Mr. Wilberforce, he was found guilty of the crimes and sentenced to seven years transportation beyond the seas. He mentions his dying wife Honora and child Edward Augustus in his plea to the Judge. No further trace can be found of Honora to date, however Edward survived and on 12 April 1830 married Mary Court at St. Mary's Islington, Co. Middlesex. He died in 1861.

Three months later in December 1810 Honora's younger sister Anne married Mr. Beaver, an attorney-at-law of Wakefield. (6)William Craig at this time was incarcerated in Newgate Prison. He remained there for the next six months until 19th March 1811 when he was transferred to the Retribution Hulk moored at Woolwich. (7)

James Hardy Vaux was incarcerated in the Retribution Hulk just twelve months before William Craig was sent there. Hardy Vaux gave an account of first entering the Hulk in his Memoirs....

At four o'clock in the morning, myself and eleven others were conveyed by water on board the Retribution hulk at Woolwich. I had now a new scene of misery to contemplate; and, of all the shocking scenes I had ever beheld, this was the most distressing. There were confined in this floating dungeon nearly six hundred men, most of them double-ironed; and the reader may conceive the horrible effects arising from the continual rattling of chains, the filth and vermin naturally produced by such a crowd of miserable inhabitants, the oaths and execrations constantly heard among them; and above all, from the shocking necessity of associating and communicating more or less with so depraved a set of beings. On arriving on board, we were all immediately stripped, and washed in large tubs of water, then, after putting on each a suit of coarse slop clothing, we were ironed and sent below, our own clothes being taken from us, and detained till we could seel or otherwise dispose of them, as no person is exempted from the obligation to wear the ship dress. On descending the hatchway no conception can be formed of the scene which presented itself. I shall not attempt to describe it; but nothing short of a descent to the infernal regions can be at all worthy of a comparison with it.

James Hardy Vaux was an old hand, having been transported before. Imagine the horror for a gently reared young man such as William Craig. He remained on the Retribution for five months before being transferred to the convict ship Guildford on 14th August 1811.