Date of Conviction: 15/08/1818

Age at Conviction: 24

Crime Convicted of: Uttering 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: Letitia, a native of County Down, Ireland was tried along with her husband James for uttering a forged £1 note to a Mary Ann Boyer at Liverpool. A journalist recording the trial described Letitia as ‘a woman of more than ordinary good looking, and modest at the bar’. James Waddle was transported on the Baring in 1819.

Letitia was sent to the female factory after arrival but soon assigned to Nicholas Bayley at Parramatta, however she very soon fell pregnant after a liaison with a Thomas Kirkby, resulting in a son, William. By 1822 she was employed as a nurse in the hospital at Parramatta. On 11th January 1822 she was sent to the Factory at Parramatta for having left her employment and assaulted a free woman. On arrival at the Factory it was ordered that she was to have her head shaved and to wear a log until further notice. After this, she was assigned to James Mudie in the Hunter Valley.

Her husband James applied to the Governor to have Letitia and her child join him at Newcastle Penal settlement where he was employed there as a constable and scourger however Letitia declined to join him because of the ‘peculiarities of his employment’. Later that year James was transferred to the new penal settlement at Port Macquarie. Letitia was still assigned to James Mudie in September 1823 when James Mudie and his daughters and large contingent of assigned convicts journeyed to Newcastle. In November 1826, James Mudie applied for Isabella’s son William to be put in the orphan school- at this time she was in jail at Wallis Plains, ‘the father being a prisoner of the crown and resides near Windsor’. He stated that Isabella had been his servant for four years but was recently often drunk and depraved and young William was being looked after by the Mudies. William was admitted (incorrectly as James) in February 1827 and stayed there until he was aged 12, taken by an employer for domestic service.

On 6th September 1827 Letitia was given up by her master at Newcastle, she was sent to the 1st Class of the female factory for reallocation. In the 1828 Census she is assigned to Joseph Wylde at Cabramatta. On the 20th July 1830 she went into Sydney Gaol on her way to Newcastle and service with a Reverend Threlkeld.

In March 1835, Isabella received her certificate of freedom. At this time, now aged 41, her description was taken; she was tall (for the time) at 5ft 5 1/2, with a ruddy complexion, hazel eyes and dark brown hair. She was scarred on her right cheek.

There are no further records for Letitia; it is quite possible she is the 41 year old ‘Lydia Wardle’ who died just months later in August 1835 within the parish of St Philips, Sydney.