Date of Conviction: 22/10/1821

Age at Conviction: 33

Crime Convicted of: Theft

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

Sentence Length: 7 Years

Ship Transported on: Lord Sidmouth

Where Arrived: Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania)

Departure Date: 11/09/1822

Arrival Date: 10/02/1823

Biography: Ellen, the the wife of George Roberts, a sawyer (wood cutter) of Manchester had stolen money belonging to a James Harvey. In jail at Lancaster, Ellen was described as having been born at Blackburn with a sallow complexion, pitted with smallpox, grey eyes, brown hair turning grey, a middle stature and was very thin. She had been in the New Bayley several times already, with two past convictions for felony. She left Lancaster Castle, the prison cart collecting other female convicts at Preston and arrived at the ship on August 30th.

In Van Diemen’s Land, Ellen was assigned at arrival but a month later she was locked up on bread and water for a week for absconding from her master’s home and being drunk and disorderly. In April she twice repeated this earning her another week inside. In October she was returned to the female factory (presumeably declared unsuitable for her work) and by February 1824 she was demoted to C-class. Despite this she was still being allowed out (to work?) as long as she returned back to the factory at night; though when she ‘came back drunk from a house at Macquarie Point she was again demoted to C class with hard labour. In September that year Ellen was again brought into the factory; this time for assaulting her master- she escaped prosecution only because she had already raised complaints about him. Similar episodes of absenteeism and being drunk and disorderly and return trips to C class then continued sporadically until Ellen gained her certificate of freedom in 1828.

Even after this time, Ellen received a final fine for being drunk in October 1829. Although it’s not certain to be ‘our’ Ellen, a 50 year old (possibly an estimate) Ellen Roberts, a labouring woman, died of suffocation in November 1831 at Glenorchy and was buried in St Davids’ Cemetery Hobart 25th November.