Date of Conviction: 13/01/1801

Age at Conviction: 31

Crime Convicted of: Theft

Court Convicted at: Lancaster Quarter Sessions (held at Lancaster Castle)

Sentence Length: 7 Years

Ship Transported on: Nile

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 21/06/1801

Arrival Date: 14/12/1801

Biography: The Storrs family lived at Melling, a Lune Valley village. Documents show the family were in poverty and had been removed from nearby parishes for becoming a burden on the ratepayers. Times were clearly hard enough for Mary Storrs, age 52 and her adult children Ellen (Eleanor), 30 and Edward, 18 who stole milk. All three were arrested and sent to the Quarter Sessions at Lancaster Castle in October 1800. Found guilty, the family were each sentenced to 7 years transportation.

The family awaited the long journey to the south coast in the gaol at Lancaster Castle. Ellen was sent first in May 1801 along with two young Manchester women; she was given £2 and 13 shillings to buy clothes and provisions for her new life and was put aboard the Nile, a ship which travelled in convoy with two other male convict ships.

Next to go was Mary in September 1802, she was sent along with a number of other prisoners and put aboard the Glatton which transported both male and female convicts, her journey to Australia via Rio de Janeiro also took six months, arriving in March 1803.

Edward was the last to leave Lancaster. In April 1803, he was sent to the prison hulks moored at Woolwich where he was held onboard the Retribution. A different turn of fate though meant he was offered a pardon in January 1804 on condition he served in the army.

In Australia, Ellen soon found herself pregnant to free convict John Gost/Guest (ship- William & Ann), having a child she named after her brother, Edward. No marriage took place between Ellen and John as John died either shortly before or after Edward’s birth. By 1805, Ellen, now a washerwoman had begun a common law relationship with John Holmes (ship- Gorgon), a carpenter and now free, former convict who she raised her son with. She received her certificate of freedom in Feb 1811. The years passed, relatively peacefully but by 1815 John and Ellen had separated and he had sold his house and livestock on Upper Castlereagh Street to Eleanor. In January 1826, Ellen posted in the paper that John was trying to sell the house and livestock which was legally hers and that she would take anyone to court who tried to buy her property. Ellen died the same year, aged 58 in November 1826.

Ellen’s mother Mary married farmer George Gamble or Gambling in 1818 when she was around 70, living to the incredible age of 92.