Date of Conviction: 10/04/1826

Age at Conviction: 17

Crime Convicted of: Theft

Court Convicted at: Lancaster Quarter Sessions (held at the New Bailey, Salford)

Sentence Length: 7 Years

Ship Transported on: Grenada (2)

Where Arrived: Sydney Cove, New South Wales

Departure Date: 01/09/1826

Arrival Date: 23/01/1827

Biography: Susannah stole £3 at Manchester. She was a native of Manchester and had brown hair, a fresh complexion though pitted with smallpox and had a scar on her left cheek. She had a tattoo with the initials ‘WD’ on her left arm and was described as ‘slender made’. She had worked on a brick croft. Susannah has already been convicted of three previous felonies.

Within two months of arrival, Susannah was sent to the first class of the female factory as ‘unfit for service’ (she had been designated a house servant). She was soon back in the factory that year (for six months) for absconding from service and was there during the 1828 census. In 1830, Susannah married Charles Wilson (ship- Adamant) at St James Church in Sydney, the married was given permission by Mrs Winn, Susannah’s employer. In 1831 she was sent to the factory for a month. She more commonly called herself Susan around this time.

Susannah received her certificate of freedom in April 1833. Now aged 24, she was described again, this time as 5ft 1, fair and pock-pitted, sandy brown hair and hazel eyes, and with another tattoo- 7 blue dots on the back of her left hand and scars inside the top forefingers of both hands. That same year, her husband Charles submitted a warning in the papers that Susannah had absconded and was not to be harboured or trusted and he would not be responsible for any debts she incurred. She had to sit in the stocks for 2 hours for being drunk in 1834. Interestingly, Susannah printed a letter in the January 1835 newspaper, telling constables that she had lost her certificate of freedom the preceding year and to molest her ‘at their peril’ as she was planning a move into the interior to reside. She gives a full description of herself with similar details as before, including her 7 dots on her left hand. The move appears not to have happened though as later that year she was sent for trial. From this time on, Susannah only uses her maiden name, suggesting her marriage had failed.

In 1836, she was again sent to the female factory for 3 months and was in Sydney jail on remand for most of the latter part of the year for stealing from a dwelling house though this case was eventually discharged in May as she had not been tried in a timely manner and the punishment would have equalled the time she had already been held for. In the latter part of 1836, Susannah was again sent to the female factory for 12 months for keeping a house of ill repute.

There are one or two further reports of Susannah through the 1840s, with a drunk and disorderly case and another where she was attacked with a glass but it is not clear what happened to her, long term.