Date of Conviction: 20/01/1796

Age at Conviction: 27

Crime Convicted of: Theft

Court/s Convicted at: Lancaster Quarter Sessions (held at the New Bailey, Salford)

Sentence Length: 7 Years

Ship Transported on: Britannia

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 31/01/1798

Arrival Date: 18/07/1798

Biography: Ann, who had a number of previous convictions had stolen a tea kettle at Manchester. Prior to sailing, a letter from government was sent to the Sheriff of Lancaster requesting these women be provided with two spare shifts, two dozen pairs of stockings, two dozen handkerchiefs and a pair of shoes for the voyage.

Ann is noted on the 1806 muster as wife of William Kempton, a soldier (ship- Admiral Barrington) and already free by servitude. William was a Corporal of the 73rd and 102nd Regiment who had accompanied the Third Fleet of which Ann was part of.

She received her certificate of freedom in March 1810 and immediately following this, the couple married at St Philips, having already been in a common-law relationship for many years. Successive musters in 1818 recorded Ann as a sailor’s wife. By 1821 she was a housekeeper in Sydney. The 1825 muster records Ann as the wife of William Kempton at Sydney. William was landlord of the King George pub and also owned a number of properties on Clarence Street. Ann is recorded for the final time in 1828 as Ann Kempton, now aged 68, (should have been 58), living on Clarence Street, Sydney with her husband. The couple took in a boy called Thomas Blake, whose mother had died when he was around ten. When William remarried in 1831, Thomas shot his adoptive father in the face in retaliation for his loss of the anticipated property he had expected to inherit, severely injuring him. Blake was convicted and sentenced to death, respited to two years penal servitude.

Ann passed away the following year in August 1829, recorded as aged 59. She was buried in the Devonshire Street Cemetery under a memorial stone and was joined four years later by husband William. They were both later re-interred to Bunnerong Cemetery when Devonshire St was redeveloped into the new railway station.

Image of the Kempton’s memorial stone at Devonshire- https://www.austcemindex.com/inscription?id=15619812#images