Date of Conviction: 29/03/1823

Age at Conviction: 47

Crime Convicted of: Burglary

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

Sentence Length: Life

Ship Transported on: Grenada (1)

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 25/09/1824

Arrival Date: 23/01/1825

Biography: Mary and her daughters, also Mary, and Ellen, were all charged with burgling Richard Donovan’s house at Liverpool, stealing 10 sovereigns, large amounts of clothing and shoes, bedding and other articles along with Jane Miller and Ellen Meadows. Mary and daughter Mary were both found guilty- Mary senior was sentenced to death, commuted to life transportation and Mary junior- seven years but Ellen was acquitted and left to return to Liverpool where Mary’s son and the girls’ brother John remained.

Just four months later, Mary’s daughter Ellen was convicted at Liverpool Borough Quarter Sessions of theft of clothing with a group of other young people including her son John and was sent to Lancaster Castle, reuniting the family in jail. Whilst in jail, a description of Mary “The Elder” was taken, she was described as “a formidable lady- 5ft 8” and “over 6ft in stockings, a giant”. Mary was a widow, her husband Thomas had passed away just two weeks before Ellen’s birth and she had raised her family alone.

Mary’s daughters were to be transported without her, she would not have known for at least a year that her daughter Mary had died from grief and heart failure from their separation whilst aboard the ship, Brothers and her youngest daughter Ellen had arrived safely in Van Diemen’s Land. Now 48 (recorded as 52), she was probably unlikely to have been transported due to her age but a year after her daughters had sailed, she personally asked to be sent to New South Wales with a note saying “she is a strong healthy woman and wishes to go abroad”. John, her son, was sent to the hulk ‘Captivity’ and after five years, was eventually granted a free pardon in 1828.

Mary, on arrival was described as originally from Brigham, Cumberland, 5 ft 8 1/2, hazel eyes, black to grey hair- well behaved on the way out and had acted as galley cook. She was assigned as a house and dairy maid to Commander William Ogilvie and his wife who had also sailed and met Mary on the Grenada, becoming friends (and whose son Edward named her the ‘giant in her stockings’). Mary must have soon discovered the news of her daughters and began petitioning within months, via Mr Ogilvie for her surviving daughter Ellen to be allowed to sail from Van Diemen’s Land to New South Wales to join her.

She wrote in her own hand (before knowing Mary junior’s fate and possibly also son John’s remaining in England) “and that I may once again have the happiness of meeting my unfortunate children and it will make amends for all my grief and by your kindness extending towards me, your humble petitioner you will ever have the prayers of me and my children who will ever be in duty bound to pray for your goodness now kind sir trusting you will have communication on me and my poor children

Ellen received permission to go and join her there though Ellen’s employers decided they could not spare her but relented in January 1827. In August 1827, Ellen finally sailed on the ‘Governor Ready’ to join her mother at the Hunter’s River on the Merton estate and also went into service with the Ogilvies.

The following year the 1828 census shows Mary now in service for Hannibal H MacArthur at Vineyard Cottage (Rydalmere) with Ellen still with the Ogilvies where she would marry the following year. Mary became a grandmother in 1831. Mary lived and worked with (and was most likely assigned to) her daughter and son-in-law at Jerrys Plains in the Hunter Valley as a licensed victualler and passed away there in October 1851, aged 76. She may have been buried at the Old Anglican Cemetery there.