Date of Conviction: 21/03/1818

Age at Conviction: 33

Crime Convicted of: Receiving Stolen Goods

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

Sentence Length: 14 Years

Ship Transported on: Lord Wellington

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 28/05/1819

Arrival Date: 20/01/1820

Biography: Mary was described as a native of Cheshire. She was 5ft 1 tall, fair to ruddy complexion, brown hair with hazel eyes. She had received a quantity of stolen silverware, coats and other articles, the property of William Jones of Liverpool along with a Rose Martin (found not guilty- potentially the same Rose Martin who also escaped transportation with Maria Roberts). The goods had been stolen by Elizabeth Daley who was transported along with Mary on the Lord Wellington. Mary quickly earned herself a ticket of leave in 1821.

It turned out in 1823 that Mary’s husband, David, a mariner on the ship John Bull and who had claimed his wife was innocent and would have ‘shared in her fate’ had arrived in Sydney to find his wife was now co-habiting with a man known to the police as ‘Lincoln Bill’. Feeling aggrieved, he petitioned the governor that Mary and her ‘paramour’ who were illegally at large were apprehended. This does not appear to have been acted upon though and it isn’t clear if David remained or left NSW again. Mary earned a replacement ticket of leave in September 1824 after claiming she had been robbed and by 1825 was noted as a shopkeeper at The Rocks, Sydney. In early 1828, Mary, recorded as a board and lodging house keeper gave evidence as a female tenant was killed by her partner in Mary’s house; Mary unsuccessfully tried to provide aid. Just months later, Mary herself died in May 1828, aged about 43 and was buried in the Devonshire St Cemetery. She was later re-interred at Bunnerong cemetery.