Date of Conviction: 19/07/1815

Age at Conviction: 20

Crime Convicted of: Theft

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

Sentence Length: 7 Years

Ship Transported on: Lord Melville

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 29/08/1816

Arrival Date: 24/02/1817

Biography: Margaret was a single woman and a weaver from Manchester. She had stolen £25 of bank notes belonging to a Charles Lee. She had previously been imprisoned for the theft of clothing. Along with Sarah Halliwell and Susan Brown– the three women planned an escape attempt through the roof of the dungeon tower- it was quickly thwarted when Sarah confessed the plan to the Governor and Susan was discovered with many escape tools hidden on her person. They left the castle for Sheerness on the 8th July.

In 1818, Margaret was in Parramatta and in 1820, in the female factory but by January 1822, she was given permission to marry Augustus Caesar (his names occasionally reversed ), a free Black settler, born at the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town/Cape Colony) and possibly previously enslaved, on ship- Lynx and they married in August at St Philips. The 1825 muster lists the couple living at King Street, incorrectly listing her husband as Julius Caesar. She was now free by servitude. The 1828 census lists the couple as shopkeepers, still on King Street at its junction with York Street. An advert from the period shows they retailed women’s clothing and haberdashery items as well as homewares and preserved goods. By the 1830s they had their own assigned convicts. However, by 1834, the marriage had gone sour as Margaret’s husband issued a warning in the newspapers that he would not be held accountable for her and she should not be given any credit and it appears they separated- Augustus later having children with another woman. She was given half the estate but sold it in 1835 for £700. In 1840, Margaret went to the court to successfully claim that the sale of their business and land on York Street was half hers.