Jane Moorhead arrived in Van Diemen’s Land (VDL) aboard Blackfriar on 29 May 1851.[1] She was thirty years old and single. On 25 February 1850, she had been found guilty of arson in Ireland and sentenced to transportation for fifteen years. Although she committed relatively few offences in the colony, the crime for which she was transported as well as her subsequent conduct suggest that she harboured a deep sense of hostility and resentment. During the early years of her servitude, she was gaoled twice for threatening violence against people with whom she worked. Her most serious offence, however, occurred in late 1864 - nine years after she had been granted a conditional pardon – when she was convicted of manslaughter in the Supreme Court at Hobart and sentenced to another six years in prison. After her release, she moved to a quiet country town in the neighbouring colony of Victoria where she passed away at the age of sixty-four in 1885.
[1] Conduct Record: CON41-1-30, image 179; Description List: CON19-1-9, image 150; Indent: CON15-1-7, images 50, 51; Police No:254; FCRC ID:2863
