Date of Conviction: 21/03/1812

Age at Conviction: 42

Crime Convicted of: Uttering Forged Notes

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

Sentence Length: Life

Ship Transported on: Emu and then Broxbornebury

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 11/11/1812

Arrival Date: 28/07/1814

Biography: Martha, from Edgworth near Bolton was charged with uttering at Bolton a forged £1 bank note to draper Joshua Lever in payment for fabric. Her daughter in law Ann Entwistle was also tried for her role in the crime the following year. The death sentence was reprieved on condition of being transported for life. Martha was married and had a large family.

Like all the women onboard the Emu, Martha was repatriated back to Woolwich after the ship had been captured at Cape Verde. The women were later put onboard the Broxbornebury which transported them to Australia, collectively resulting in the longest duration voyage for a convict. On the Broxbornebury, Martha was reunited with daughter in law Ann again.

Martha worked as a nurse at the Castle Hill asylum (where she was described as ‘very useful’) and despite being given the opportunity in 1815 to go to the Derwent River in Van Diemen’s Land with her daughter in law to rejoin her son Edward who had been convicted of horse stealing and transported in 1812, couldn’t face going to sea again. Instead she politely requested could she have more clothing as all her possessions had been lost at sea on the Emu.

In 1825, she remarried Thomas Carpenter (ship- Fortune), a prisoner at Port Macquarie and it was here she passed away in February 1828.