A small number – probably fewer than 120 - of the 13,500 (approx.) females who were transported to Van Diemens Land (VDL) between 1812 and 1853 were convicted in one of the other Australian colonies. Rosannah CAVANAGH was one such. She was convicted in New South Wales (NSW) and arrived in VDL per Abercrombie on 16 April 1841. She was twenty-three years old.
Cavanagh (seen also as Rosanna CAVANAGH, Rosannah CAVENAH, Rosanna CAVANNAH and similar variants) was born at Liverpool, about sixteen miles (26 kms) west of Sydney in 1818. There, she lived with her Irish-born mother, Mary Ann ATTWOOD and her step-father, James ATTWOOD, a farmer. Both were former convicts. Mary Ann Attwood had been eighteen when she arrived in NSW (as Mary Ann PRENDERGAST) aboard Experiment II to serve a seven year sentence in 1809. English-born James Attwood had been sentenced to transportation for life and had arrived on Lady Castlereagh in 1818.
Read more of Rosannah Cavanagh's story.
