Date of Conviction: 21/03/1818

Age at Conviction: 24

Crime Convicted of: Possession of Forged Notes

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 (nee Ashton) had uttered two forged £1 notes to a William Hindley at Manchester. Also convicted at the same time as Mary was her husband George Steele (also written as Steer) who had been found a few months before Mary with a large number of forged notes in his possession. He arrived several months ahead of her in Van Diemen’s Land on (ship- General Stewart). The couple had originally been married in Manchester Cathedral in September 1814.

Mary too, was sent on to Hobart, soon after arrival on the Castle Forbes. Mary initially lived with her husband but by October of 1820, George placed an advert stating that Mary had absconded from him along with £50’s worth of his property and he would not be held responsible for any debts she incurred and furthermore would seek to prosecute anyone harbouring her. The next month a John Purnell (ship- Coromandel) was acquitted of fraudulently acquiring a box belonging to George Steele. This box potentially contained the property that Mary had taken with her.

In October 1823, Mary was charged with living adulterously with John in Hobart resulting in her being sent to the female factory. John went down to the police yard to give them his thoughts, resulting in him receiving 25 lashes. The case between Mary, George and John still rumbled on in 1827 with the magistrates admitting the case had been terribly handled- George and Mary had previously signed a formal separation agreement in 1822. The police had attempted to stake out John’s house at Tea Tree Brush (north of Hobart) and could see nothing improper and incredibly it turned out that George had ‘sold’ his wife for 80 bushels of wheat- an unofficial form of divorce at that time! The value being very roughly about £22 or about £2000 modern equivalent, going off wheat prices of the time. Furthermore, it is the only instance recorded amongst the Lancastrian convict women of the custom of ‘wife-selling’. They also discovered that the adultery had been ‘overlooked’ by Alfred Thrupp, poundkeeper and constable, who Mary was assigned to and on whose land John farmed.

Mary received a ticket of leave in 1828. The charges against her regarding her relationship with John were finally dropped in 1830 but not before also refusing John a huge grant of land because of their past history. By this stage they had moved back to Hobart town and following this decision, decided to leave the colony. John made a brief trip to Sydney in May 1831 before the house on Macquarie Street was sold and he left in January 1832 as crew (he was a seaman by profession) on board the brig ‘David Owen’. Mary left three days later as a servant to Mr & Mrs William H Hamilton Esq onboard the Eliza. John arrived back at Gravesend on the 1st June and Mary on the 25th. There is possible evidence that John was robbed of £20 by two prostitutes whilst he awaited Mary’s arrival on the infamous Ratcliffe Highway in London’s East End involving a court case but after that there is no definite trace of them.