Alonzo Johnson

Alonzo Johnson was a travelling actor described in nineteenth-century records as a “strolling player” and a comedian. In 1844 he was prosecuted in Newcastle for sex with another man and sentenced to death. That sentence was commuted to transportation for life.

He arrived at Norfolk Island in 1845 and was transferred to Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania, in 1847. After roughly twenty years within the convict system, he received a conditional pardon in December 1865. Historian Rictor Norton identifies a probable record of his death in Hobart on 4 June 1892.