Date of Conviction: 29/03/1823

Age at Conviction: 47

Crime Convicted of: Uttering

Court Convicted at: Lancaster Assizes (held at Lancaster Castle)

Sentence Length: Life

Ship Transported on: Brothers

Where Arrived: Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania)

Departure Date: 20/11/1823

Arrival Date: 15/04/1824

Biography: Bridget Coffee or Shevelin had had a death sentence reprieved. She had uttered a forged sovereign at Liverpool having been convicted of the same before. She was described as a ‘very old offender’ in a convict muster and appears to have been a career criminal.

Bridget was part of the group that Elizabeth Fry recorded in her memoirs… ‘Eleven women from Lancaster were sent to the ship ‘iron-hooped round their legs and arms, and chained to each other. The complaints of these women were very mournful, they were not allowed to get up or down from the coach without the whole being dragged together; some of them had children to carry, they received no help, or alleviation to their suffering.’

The ship’s report stated that she had simply been ‘good’. However a few months after arrival she was found drunk and disorderly and neglecting her duties and was sent to C-class in the female factory. She then had a clear run until 1831 when she used threatening and abusive language towards the district constable, only the day after Bridget’s own husband [no record found] had entered into a £50 bond to keep the peace towards his wife. Things settled down though after a final telling off in 1834 for failing to attend the muster and in 1836, Bridget received a conditional pardon.