Ann Fitzpatrick’s story is of a life of courage and resilience.[1] She arrived as a convict in Van Diemen’s Land (VDL), alone and unsupported, at the tender age of fifteen in 1846 and died in New Zealand, happy and successful, at eighty in 1911. In the intervening years, she gave birth to at least seven children - two of whom died in shockingly tragic circumstances in childhood - and outlived two husbands. After serving her time as a prisoner in VDL, she left the colony and made a new life for herself as the proprietor of a popular boarding house at Invercargill, New Zealand. At the time of her death, she was mourned as a respected pioneer settler of that town and one of its oldest inhabitants. It is unlikely that many, if any, of her friends and acquaintances knew of her convict past.
[1] Conduct record: CON41-1-10, image 49; description list: CON19/1/5, image 180; indent: CON15/1/3, image 320.
