Date of Conviction: 16/08/1826

Age at Conviction: 27

Crime Convicted of: Riot/Machine Breaking

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

Sentence Length: Life

Ship Transported on: Harmony

Where Arrived: Sydney Cove, New South Wales

Departure Date: 12/05/1827

Arrival Date: 27/09/1827

Biography: Mary Hindle is one of the most well known of the Lancastrian female convicts as along with Ann Entwistle (who she was possibly familiar with as a neighbour or co-worker) they were part of the Lancashire mill riots. During the riots at the Helmshore mills, Mary went looking for her daughter who was watching in the crowds; Mary was either an innocent bystander or at the most, a supporter but was not actively involved in the riot and machine breaking. A spy in the crowd had cut fabric off her skirt to prove she had been at the riot, and the judge, apparently wanting to clamp down on the loom breakers sentenced her to death. Petitions were sent for clemency from Mary’s vicar and William Turner, the mill owner and her employer, the death sentence was reprieved but she was transported for life

Mary had been married to George Hindle who stayed in Haslingden with their daughter and they wrote letters to each other for years to follow which were discovered in a family bible in recent times. Onboard ship, Mary spent several days in the hospital with chest pains which she had also been suffering from in jail; this was possibly a chest infection though also probably worsened by anxiety; she was bled and given blisters as well as antimony and nitrous solutions.

In the colony, Mary was a laundress. She got a ticket of leave in 1831 (and a reward for 3 years service with a Mrs Nicholson) and again in 1835. She was described as 5ft 2 tall with brown hair, hazel eyes, a fair complexion, though with a little pox pitting and with a brown mark on the side of her chin. After 1835 things went downhill for Mary as she increasingly turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism. She absconded from the female factory in 1835 and was recaptured and served time in jail in January 1836 for it. In 1840 she absconded from her employer and the following year in 1841 committed suicide whilst at the Parramatta General (Colonial) Hospital, the coroner declaring ‘suicide whilst intemperate’. Mary was buried at St John’s Cemetery under the surname ‘handle’ or ‘holden hindle’.