Date of Conviction: 31/08/1816

Age at Conviction: 28

Crime Convicted of: Possession of Forged Notes

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

Sentence Length: 14 Years

Ship Transported on: Friendship (2)

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 03/07/1817

Arrival Date: 14/01/1818

Biography: Sarah, born in Leeds, had been caught in possession of three forged £1 notes at Manchester. She travelled with her son, Benjamin. Her husband, Arthur had already been transported that year (ship- Ocean 2). Both worked in the shoe making trade. Partial notes from the ship’s surgeon described her as “mutinous, (?) seditious and bad disposed woman” .

Sarah had only been reunited with her husband for a few months in Sydney when he died. Sarah had a ticket of leave by 1822 and married Richard Vickers (ship- Ocean 1) at Sydney in 1823 who she had been living with and following the premature deaths of two babies in 1819 and 1821 in 1824, they had a child, James who died in 1827 and a daughter, Susannah who survived childhood.

The next year, in 1828, Sarah’s husband Richard died. Sarah also received a three month sentence in the female factory for being in possession of a stolen watch. That same year, Sarah, in the service of Mrs Greenaway at Upper Pitt St, requested to marry George Pickering (ship- Marquis of Huntley). The request notes that Sarah, a widow, and her two children had been left property by her previous husband. Both Sarah and George attended the Scots Church together and lived in the same neighbourhood. Both their respective mistresses approved of their marriage and said they would retain them in their service after. However, a later note refuses the permission as George still had a wife and family back in England, Sarah had previously had a ticket of leave cancelled and that year had received a two week sentence at the female factory for being ‘illegally at large’. In 1829, both Sarah and George received custodial sentences for him stealing cloth from his employer to give to her. George’s employer, followed George to Sarah’s house, walked in and entered into an altercation with Sarah.Nonetheless, George and Sarah had a child, Sarah Anne in 1830. However, they were still not given permission to live together.

Sarah gained her certificate of freedom in September 1830. In it, she was described as a shoe binder, 5ft tall, a fair, freckled face, slightly pock marked with hazel eyes and sandy hair.

In 1831, Sarah and George again applied to be married but were refused for the same reason as before. However, the following year they were finally married as George’s wife back in England had died and they had another child, George Thomas the same year. Sarah had convicts of her own assigned to her as a housemaid and bar maids at Pitt St this year, suggesting she ran a beer house or inn but was having problems with them both in 1833 and 1834 with them absconding.

Sarah died at her home on Pitt St on the 13th November 1838, ‘after a long lingering illness, much regretted by her circle of friends’. She was buried at the Devonshire St Cemetery. Her husband George finally gained permission to come and live at Sydney with his two children who had been in the care of their half brother Benjamin and Susannah with friends. Her daughters were left money in the will to enable them to have an education.

Sarah’s remains were later re-interred at Bunnerong Cemetery, later merged with Botany Cemetery and now called the Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park.