ELIZA JOHNSTON (2)
(Sir Robert Seppings, 1852)
by
Don Bradmore
Eliza Johnston arrived in Van Diemen’s Land (VDL) as a convict per Sir Robert Seppings in July 1852.[1] She was twenty-three years old. In the previous year, she had been convicted in her native Scotland of the theft of clothing and sentenced to transportation for seven years. That had not been her first offence. In fact, she had been convicted of shoplifting three times previously, for the last of which, five years earlier, she had narrowly avoided transportation and had served two years in prison. She was not so fortunate when convicted for the fourth time. Despite these offences, however, it is difficult to think of her as bad person. Rather, her convict documents suggest that she was simply an immature and silly young girl. In VDL, she was a well-behaved prisoner and, within three years of her arrival, had been granted a ticket of leave. In 1855, she married a former convict, Joseph Bateman, and was never in trouble with the law again. By 1865, she had given birth to four children. Sadly, she passed away soon after the birth of her last child. She was only thirty-seven.
This is Eliza’s story:
At Limerick, Ireland, in early 1850, Bridget Kenny was convicted of larceny and sentenced to transportation for seven years.[1] She was twenty when she arrived in Van Diemen’s Land (VDL) later that year. While most of the 13,500 (approx.) females transported between 1812 and 1853 eventually realised that there were better opportunities for success and happiness in their new land than they could ever have hoped to find in the countries from which they had been banished, Bridget appears to have been unable to adapt to her new circumstances. Almost continually in trouble with the law throughout her life, she was gaoled several times for new offences. When she died in her seventies in 1907, it could have been said of her that she had lived an unfortunate life. She, however, might have considered herself to have been very lucky indeed – in one respect, at least. When, in 1854, a Supreme Court jury in Hobart had acquitted her of the murder of her illegitimate child, the judge had told her that never in his life had he witnessed so narrow an escape.
This is her story:
Ann Bass, also known as Ann King, arrived in Van Diemen’s Land (VDL) as a convict in August 1817.[1] Although there is some doubt about her exact age at that time, she is thought to have been in her early twenties. Two years earlier, she had been convicted in Dublin, Ireland, of the theft of money from a man in a public house and sentenced to transportation for seven years. Two months after her arrival in VDL, she married John Gwynn, a twenty-eight year old free settler, but there are indications that their life together was not a happy one. Little else is known about her. She passed away of natural causes at Sorell, Tasmania, in 1854. She was fifty-eight years old. Her death certificate described her as a ‘labourer’s wife’. In most respects, her story is unremarkable; like many of the 13,500 (approx.) women who were transported to VDL between 1813 and 1853, she served her time as a prisoner and then disappeared from the pages of history. However, what makes Ann’s story different from the stories of others is the severe and unusual punishment to which she was subjected when, soon after her arrival in VDL, she was charged with ‘behaving in a riotous and disorderly manner to her mistress and attempting to quit her place without leave’.
[1] Conduct record (as Ann King): CON40/1/5, image 226; indent CON13/1/1, image 82; Police No: 3; FCRC ID: 4501.
Jones (or Nowlan) aged 18, first came to the attention of the general public when this report appeared in The Australian [Sydney] on 5 December 1834:
On Sunday last a barbarous murder was committed at Wilberforce [about thirty-eight miles (sixty kilometres) north-west of Sydney], by a female named Elizabeth NOWLAN, on the person of one Charles MULLINS, with whom she cohabited. ... A Coroner's Inquest sat on the body [and] returned a verdict of wilful murder against Elizabeth Nowlan. She was committed to prison on the Coroner's Warrant.
In the first week of February 1835, Nowlan was tried for the murder of Mullins before Mr. Justice BURTON and a military jury in the Supreme Court, Sydney. In the dock with her were Susannah DAVIDSON and William REYNOLDS, both of whom had been present at the sly-grog shop when Mullins was killed and had also been charged with his murder.
Read more: Elizabeth Jones, ‘The Morning Star of Liverpool’
Elizabeth Jennings became a servant to Miss Bromley, accompanying her between Sydney and Hobart Town. Elizabeth's life in Van Diemen's Land was not a happy one; according to her husband's Will she was 'afflicted in her mind'. She died, at the age of 81, at the New Norfolk Asylum on 12 June 1876. In the story of Elizabeth Jennings, Don Bradmore looks into inconsistencies in various historical records.
