Date of Conviction: 11/08/1804

Age at Conviction: 37

Crime Convicted of: Theft

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

Sentence Length: 7 Years

Ship Transported on: William Pitt

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 10/08/1805

Arrival Date: 11/04/1806

Biography: In May 1804 mother and daughter Eve (age 37) and Jane Hodgson (age 17) were convicted of breaking into and stealing from the home of Daniel Walling in Silverdale, Lancashire- 3 hams, a part of a flitch of bacon, a hogs cheek and 12 shillings.

The Reverend Robert Housman who would go on to build St Anne’s Chapel on Moor Lane in Lancaster and was a justice of the peace as well as brother in law to the Governor of Lancaster Castle, had them committed there to await trial at the August Assizes.

They were found guilty. Jane was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment with hard labour in Preston’s House of Correction. Eve bearing responsibility was sentenced to 7 years transportation to New South Wales.

After waiting in the castle’s cells for 11 months, Eve, along with nine other convicted women, was put on a cart, shackled to it and driven the 315 miles to Spithead off Portsmouth where she was put aboard the convict ship, the William Pitt for a nine month voyage and a new life in Australia, arriving in April 1806.

As Eve arrived in Australia, back in Silverdale, Jane once again stole some money and in the July Quarter Sessions at the castle was sentenced to the same fate as her mother. Jane was transported onboard the Speke arriving in Nov 1808. Mother and daughter were reunited as both can be seen together on 1811 and 1820 muster rolls. As you had to turn up to these rolls at a given day and time and queue up to give your name, the fact that Eve and Jane appear together in an otherwise unassorted list of thousands of settlers tells us they not only reunited but stayed together for many years. The latest record for now, is an 1822 muster which shows only Jane, still unmarried and now free by servitude, living at Windsor on the outskirts of Sydney.