Date of Conviction: 17/03/1838

Age at Conviction: 23

Crime Convicted of: Robbery

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

Sentence Length: 10 Years

Ship Transported on: John Renwick

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 25/04/1838

Arrival Date: 27/08/1838

Biography: Walking home from work one evening in March 1838, 16 year old clerk William Nevatt was stopped in Market Street, Lancaster by Alice Tipping, aged 23. She grabbed him by the collar before snatching his watch, a gift from his grandfather from his pocket. After a brief struggle Alice ran and William chased her around the corner into Sun Street where he tried to get his watch back. William was then threatened with being ‘stabbed through’ if he persisted into trying to retrieve the watch from her. Crying out ‘thief’ the police came out from the police station on the street and arrested Alice.Trying to say that the watch was payment for an ‘improper’ transaction did not impress anyone, especially a watch personalised with the initials of both William and his grandfather.

Alice found herself at the bar of the castle’s Assizes the following week. She was reminded of her previous convictions and that she had escaped a death sentence thanks to recent changes in the law but would still be sent off to Australia for ten years. Three weeks later she left Lancaster Castle in the company of two male prisoners, also bound for the hulks. Just one calendar month after the events on Sun Street, Alice was aboard the ship John Renwick on a four month voyage to Sydney.

Initially placed in the female factory, two years after arriving, in 1840, Alice applied to marry Thomas Hill (ship- Planter) but the request was refused as he was already married. Alice then worked as a laundress, receiving her ticket of leave in 1845 at Parramatta and she married the same year to convict, Charles Nelson (ship- Shipley) at St John’s.

Alice’s new husband died after just two years of marriage in 1847, perhaps explaining why she repeatedly ended up back behind bars between 1847 and 1850 for drunkenness and vagrancy ending with a final four month sentence with hard labour for theft of tools. She was described as 5ft 1 tall with a ruddy complexion, brown hair, grey eyes and a scar on her right cheek. She was tattooed with a man and a flag on her left arm. In 1853 Alice was in trouble again twice for drinking and locked up for one then two days.

No further records have been found of her at this time.