Date of Conviction: 20/03/1820

Age at Conviction: 27

Crime Convicted of: Uttering Forged Notes

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

Sentence Length: 14 Years

Ship Transported on: Morley

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 17/05/1820

Arrival Date: 30/09/1820

Biography: Along with Elizabeth Evans and Elizabeth Tod, Margaret had paid and put off ten forged notes for £1 each to John Linacre at Liverpool. She left Lancaster Castle along with both Elizabeths and nine other convict women at the end of April 1820 and arrived on board ship on the 28th that month. Elizabeth Tod would remain at Millbank, later to be pardoned, reoffend and be sent in 1828. Ship surgeon Thomas Reid described the Lancaster women as displaying ‘riotous conduct and mischievous behaviour’. Interestingly, before departure, on the 12th May, Margaret, Elizabeth Evans and other ‘bank criminals’ were given a payment of £5 by the Bank of England solicitor and on the 15th, Lancashire magistrate Rev. Hornby visited the ship to enquire into alleged abuses the women had received whilst in Lancaster Castle.

Less than a year after arrival, Margaret applied for permission to marry free convict Charles Pickever (ship- Anne) in July 1821, she had been in the female factory since arrival. They married in December that year at St Mary’s Sydney (not 1831 as incorrectly listed). In 1822 they appear on the muster as husband and wife and lived on Pitt street, having convicts assigned to them and were shopkeepers. In 1828, they were living on King Street. Charles passed away in 1830 and the following year in April, a widowed Margaret remarried Henry McDermott at the Scots Kirk Sydney before Margaret purchased a cottage and land on Cambridge Street for £170, signing with an ‘x’. Henry McDermott was a sergeant in the 39th Regiment who became a wine and spirit merchant and went on to become a landowner, mayor and politician.

Over the next few years between 1831 and 33 they jointly sold the cottage and other land around Cambridge, Kent and Castlereagh Streets and Henry bought land and a large cottage ‘Ornee’ at Surry Hills which was given to Margaret in trust during her lifetime. However, the cottage in the Surry Hills was sold in 1836 due to the failing health of the proprietor (inferring Margaret) and she passed away 31 August that year, aged around 43. She was buried in the Devonshire Street Cemetery, later re-interred at Bunnerong and Henry remarried in 1837.