Convict Ship Mary Anne 1 (2) - 1822
Embarked: 108 women
Voyage: 146 days
Deaths 1
Surgeon's Journal: yes
Previous vessel: Shipley arrived 11 March 1822
Next vessel: Guildford arrived 15 July 1822
Master Henry Warington
Surgeon James Hall
Follow the Female Convict Ship Trail
Convicts and passengers of the Mary Anne identified in the Hunter Valley
Mary Anne was built at Batavia in 1807. This was her second voyage bringing female convicts to New South Wales, the other being in 1816. She was the next convict ship to bring female convicts from England after the Providence.
The women came from counties and cities in England and Scotland - Middlesex, Lancaster, London, Devon, Northumberland, Somerset, Stafford, Norfolk, Warwick, Surry, Cornwall, York, Berks, Chester, Cumberland, Salop, Oxford, Southampton, Hereford, Lincoln, Surrey, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
They were brought into London and perhaps incarcerated in Newgate. Some were taken directly to the ship.
By 1821 Elizabeth Fry and her fellow workers were not only attending Newgate prison in an effort to ameliorate prisoners' hardships but were also visiting convict ships.
Embarking on the Mary Anne
The Mary Anne was visited by Mrs. Pryor a companion of Mrs. Fry in 1821 -Soon after the ladies first visited these ships, the women ceased to be received on board at Deptford ; but the ships were moored for this purpose in a less frequented part of the river, below Woolwich. The mode in which they were brought on board, long continued to be highly objectionable ; they arrived from the country in small parties, at irregular intervals, having been conveyed on the outside of stage coaches, by smacks, or hoys, or any conveyance that offered, under the care of a turnkey ; often have the ladies, when engaged in their interesting occupation, seen a person of this description come alongside in a wherry with a group of unfortunate creatures under his charge wayworn, and ill, or perhaps a solitary outcast brought upon deck, lamenting her misfortunes in the broad dialect of some far distant county - a small bundle of insufficient clothing being frequently the only preparation for the long voyage before her. In some instances, their children, equally destitute as themselves, accompanied them ; in others, their sufferings were increased by sudden separation from their young infants. Often did Mrs. Pryor and her friend and companion, Lydia Irving, quit these scenes, in which they had passed nearly the whole day, not to return to their homes, but to go to Whitehall, to represent such cases, that the necessary letters should be dispatched without the loss of a post, ordering the restoration of these poor nurslings to their mothers, before the ship should sail. In addition to these evils, the women were almost invariably more or less ironed, sometimes cruelly so. On board the Mary Anne, in 1822, Mrs. Pryor complained that " the prisoners from Lancaster Castle arrived, not merely handcuffed, but with heavy irons on their legs, which had occasioned considerable swelling, and in one instance, serious inflammation.' [1]
The women described above who arrived from Lancaster Castle may have included Elizabeth Anderson, Jane Bridge, Mary Campbell, Isabella Hammill, Esther Harrocks, Catherine Hilton, Mary Jackson, Margaret Kinchley, Mary Pimblott, Catherine Quinn, Mary Slater, Matilda Taylor, Elizabeth Whalley, Hannah Whiteley, Catherine Wilson and Elizabeth Worrell. Some of these women had been tried at Lancaster Assizes and sentenced to 14 years transportation for uttering forged notes.
Some of the prisoners were embarked at least a month before the Mary Anne set sail - On Tuesday 27 November 1821 the Mary Anne was lying at Woolwich when prisoner Elizabeth Montague from Oxford, under sentence of transportation for 14 years was embarked. Others came on board later....Tuesday morning (4th December 1821) 40 female convicts were removed from Newgate, and put on board the Mary Anne, lying at the Galleons, below Woolwich, which is destined for New South Wales. The ship takes out 200 and will sail in a few days. [5]....Many of them are banished for life; amongst them the notorious Bill Soames' wife, together with Amey Steele, the young woman who was ordered for execution on Tuesday last. Cadman's wife still remains in Newgate.[7]
A later newspaper gives a little more detail......Yesterday (4th December 1821) morning at half past six, forty-four female convicts were removed from Newgate, under an escort in hackney coaches to Wapping and forwarded in a boat to a receiving ship lying at the Nore, preparatory to their being sent to New South Wales. [6]
The Mary Anne with about 130 female convicts and nearly 70 children, which arrived at the Motherbank on Tuesday, proceeded on her voyage for New South Wales at the same time as the Phoenix which had been detained because of contrary winds. [8]
Free Passengers
Hunter Valley land owners James Phillips and Dr. Francis Moran arrived as passengers. Sophia Wheeler, wife of convict George Wheeler also came free on the Mary Ann.Catherine MacLeod, her daughter Helen and son George arrived as free passengers on the Mary Anne. Catherine was the wife of Gilbert MacLeod who had been transported on the Asia in 1820 for the crime of sedition after becoming involved in the Scottish uprising in 1820.
Departure
The Mary Anne departed Portsmouth on 25 December 1821.[2]Surgeon James Hall
James Hall kept a Medical Journal from 27 October 1821 to 25 May 1822 -I observed many complicated ailments among the women and was often perplexed in endeavouring to give them a name and more so in devising a rational principle of cure. Often times I have been alarmed by symptoms which seemed to denote sudden danger to life; and they were not simple fits of hysteria, but commotions in the nervous system originating in a reciprocal action as it seemed of the uterine system and mind, from ideal or mechanical causes. I found very few females menstruate regularly and learned that the uterine secretion generally ceases whilst the female convicts lie in Newgate, and in other jails, hence from the suppression of this periodical secretion arise many disturbances in the female system. Another cause of disturbances is obstipatio, on some occasions I have had between one and two dozen women in one day complaining of this ailment and in investigating the case I have been surprised by discovering that no evacuations had been made for the space of two weeks. In all such cases reason dictated the use of emollient enemata, but the genuine delicacy of the English female forbad their use, and only in two instances could I persuade those degraded women to submit to its employment.
The case of death that occurred was one that might have been expected so to terminate as the woman had not menstruated for several years and had long laboured under chronic visceral diseases. The immediate cause of death seemed to be a cancerous affection of the stomach.
On the whole I must observe that the women and children enjoyed a high state of health during the voyage owing to a rigid system of cleanliness and good discipline having been maintained.
James Hall was surgeon on the Agamemnon, Brothers in 1824, Mary Anne in 1822 and Georgiana to Tasmania in 1833.
To read an in depth account of James Hall's life and career select King-Hall Connections.
Van Diemen's Land
The Mary Anne sailed via Rio de Janeiro and Van Diemen's Land. Below is a list of nine of the forty-five female convicts who were landed in Van Diemen's Land in 1822. [9]
On arrival in Hobart seven seamen of the Mary Anne were disembarked and incarcerated for mutinous conduct and neglect of duty. The seven men - John Anderson, Henry Linzer, Thomas Dale, Alexander Frazer, John McMurtry, John Price and George Boyce were all later sent to Sydney on the Richmond. Captain Warington made several attempts to have them dealt with particularly George Boyce who attempted to strike at him. They were later discharged from duty.
Port Jackson
The Mary Anne arrived in Port Jackson on 20 May 1822 with the remaining 62 women.All prisoners were disembarked on 23 May 1822 in Sydney in good health
Departure from Sydney
The Mary Anne departed Sydney bound for Batavia on 25th June 1822. Captain Warington saw the Sandbuy Shoals which were two dry sand banks on 29th July 1822 in a transit bearing NNW and SSE of each other which he made in lat 7 45'S., long 117 13 1/4' E by good chronometers. (The India Directory: Or, Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies ... By James Horsburg)Notes and Links
1). Select here to read of the a dispute between surgeon James Hall and Henry Grattan Douglass over convict girl Ann Rumsby (Historical Records of Australia) ; and also The Sun 29 February 19482). 'THE UNFORTUNATES'. PROSTITUTES TRANSPORTED TO VAN DIEMEN'S LAND (Hons) 1822 - 1843 Christine Jessie Leppard BA (Hons)
3). Sarah Fletcher Transported: One woman's life in Colonial Australia By Peter Kelly
4). Hunter Valley convicts / passengers arriving on the Mary Anne in 1822 -
Bryan, Catherine
McCarty, Ellen
Perry, Ellen
Sullivan Mary Ann
References
[1] Memoir of the life of Elizabeth Fry: Volume 1 By Elizabeth Gurney Fry, Katharine Fry, Rachel Elizabeth Cresswell[2] Bateson, Charles, Library of Australian History (1983). The convict ships, 1787-1868 (Australian ed). Library of Australian History, Sydney : pp.344-345, 384
[3] National Archives - Reference: ADM 101/52/1 Description: Medical and surgical journal of the female convict ship Mary Ann for 27 October 1821 to 25 May 1822 by James Hall, Surgeon and Superintendent, during which time the said ship was employed in a voyage to New South Wales
[4] Ancestry.com. UK, Royal Navy Medical Journals, 1817-1857 Original data: Admiralty and predecessors: Office of the Director General of the Medical Department of the Navy and predecessors: Medical Journals (ADM 101, 804 bundles and volumes). . The National Archives. Kew, Richmond, Surrey.
[5] Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, etc (Cambridge, England), Friday, December 07, 1821; pg. 2; Issue 3085. British Library Newspapers, Part V: 1746-1950.
[6] The Salisbury and Winchester Journal (Salisbury, England), Monday, December 10, 1821; pg. 2; Issue 4403. British Library Newspapers, Part III: 1741-1950.
[7] Royal Cornwall Gazette, Falmouth Packet and Plymouth Journal (Truro, England), Saturday, December 15, 1821; Issue 964. British Library Newspapers, Part II: 1800-1900.
[8] The Hampshire Chronicle, etc (Hampshire, Englan8). The Hampshire Chronicle, etc (Hampshire, England), Monday, January 07, 1822; pg. 4; Issue 2486. British Library Newspapers, Part V: 1746-1950
[9] Colonial Secretary's Papers (Ancestry). Series: NRS 937; Reel or Fiche Numbers: Reels 6004-6016
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