Date of Conviction: 13/01/1787

Age at Conviction: 22

Crime Convicted of: Theft

Court Convicted at: Lancaster Quarter Sessions (held at unknown location, Manchester)

Sentence Length: 7 Years

Ship Transported on: Charlotte

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 13/05/1787

Arrival Date: 22/01/1788

Biography: Ellen (nee Redchester, born at Aldborough near Ripon), stole 6 pieces of fustian, yellow canvas and white filleting out of a cart at Manchester along with her husband William Frazer which belonged to a James Leigh. Ellen had completed the first section of the journey on the Prince of Wales before being transferred to the Charlotte to join her husband.

They stayed together in the colony and went on to have more two sons there; her eldest, John, was the second colonist to be born in New South Wales. William, Ellen’s husband, was a blacksmith, known for his hard working and hard drinking. After his death in 1791 from alcohol, Ellen was granted 45 acres of land to farm at Concord and she is believed to be the first woman to own land in the colony of New South Wales. In the years following William’s death between 1797 and 1806, Ellen lived and had a further five children with soldier William Morgan who farmed the neighbouring lands though they later separated she later lived with Thomas Humphries, an Irish political prisoner who had been assigned to her from c.1800.

When she died at age 76 (or 83 according to the newspapers) in 1840, her death was reported thus- “At her residence at Concord, on Wednesday the 18th instant, Mrs. Eleanor Frazer, aged 83 years. Mrs. Frazer was a “first fleeter”, having arrived on the formation of the colony. Her intellect was unimpaired to the last, and she had a perfect recollection of the “first deeds” in New South Wales. She remembered Commodore de La Perouse, and used to describe the dress worn by the persons forming the expedition under his command. Her remains were interred with those of her eldest son John (who was the second person born in the colony) in Liverpool Church-yard [now the Pioneer Memorial Park], to which place the corpse was followed by a long train of children, grand and great grand children, belonging to the deceased.”