Date of Conviction: 20/03/1813

Age at Conviction: 34

Crime Convicted of: Uttering Forged Notes

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

Sentence Length: Life

Ship Transported on: Wanstead

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 01/08/1813

Arrival Date: 09/01/1814

Biography: Martha (along with Elizabeth Dewhurst) was charged with having uttered to James Platt, at Salford, three forged 2 pound Bank of England notes and received a death sentence, later commuted to transportation for life. She was married and left behind five children. Whilst waiting for the ship to set sail, she (or an amanuensis) sent a petition to the Bank of England for financial help.

“Worthey Sir I have to inform you that I am now on board of the Ship Going to Botaney Bay and I have not trouble you yet so I hope your Goodness will be kind enough to think of me now I shall be humbly oblidge to you as I have 5 small Children to Leave behind me and myself very much distressed for Cloaths indeed I was taken at Manchester and tryed at Lancaster Likewise Last March assizes and not any thing of bad notes found on me so I hope your Goodness will not forget me I am Sir your Most Humble Servant Martha Hughes.”

Upon arrival, Martha was sent to the Parramatta female factory then by January 1815, she was sent to Newcastle for a year onboard the Estramina. In 1816 she was listed as a widow and in 1817 is in the female factory. In 1818 she is a housekeeper, elaborated on in 1819 as a servant at Hawkesbury. In 1820 and 21, Martha was in the female factory but this same year saught permission to marry John Farrell (ship- Fortune) in the Sydney Roman Catholic Church which was granted. By 1825, Martha is now married and can be seen as the wife of hatter, John Farrell at Sydney. They appear together on the 1828 census at Macquarie Street along with their 4 four children (possibly a combination of children from previous relationships or that they began their family a number of years prior to marriage) and have a substantial amount of land. In October 1829 Martha was sent to the factory once again for 6 weeks for being illegally at large.

Martha died, aged 71 in May 1849, still at Macquarie St- noted in the newspaper as the ‘beloved wife of John Farrell’, and was buried, with a headstone, in the Devonshire St Cemetery. Her husband, granddaughter, daughter Hannah and a son in law would later be buried with her.