Mary Wade: The Littlest Convict

While today’s kids are excited about Sugar Plum fairies and Santa Claus, the ideas of ten year old Mary Wade must have been vastly different. At Christmastime in 1789, Mary was the youngest convict aboard a ship sure for Australia: considered one of 2 hundred and fifty or so women, half way to a wierd land. Their female convict ship The Lady Juliana, part of the Second Fleet, had set sail from Portsmouth in July.

Months earlier Mary, (born in England in 1778), had been arrested and located guilty of stealing one other child’s clothes. Her death sentence, commuted to transportation for all times, was bitter sweet. Mary had escaped the gallows however would never see her household again. She spent the spring of 1789 in horrendous situations at Newgate Prison. Mary was considered one of fifty ladies fed bread and water in a cell that had neither beds nor toilets. However, once aboard https://hillstohawkesbury.com.au/mary-wade-littlest-convict/ , her scenario improved. All convicts had been moderately fed and given heat beds. Only five women and two youngsters died in the course of the eleven month voyage and the situation of those who arrived in the colony in 1790, had improved.

To relieve the strain on Sydney Cove, Governor Phillip despatched many new arrivals together with Mary, to a spot described by Captain Cook as, ‘a Paradise’ – Norfolk Island. There, at age fourteen, Mary gave birth to a daughter. She had two more children with emancipated Irish transportee, Teague Harrigan and by 1806, the family was residing in a tent on the banks of the Tank stream in Sydney. Harrigan joined a whaling ship but by no means returned.

By 1809, Mary had married and set up house close to the Hawkesbury River with convict Jonathan Brooker. Emancipated circa 1812, the pair took ownership of a thirty acre farm in Airds, Campbelltown and lived fortunately till Harrigan’s demise in 1833. Twenty six years later in 1859, eighty 12 months previous Mary died at residence. She had given start to twenty one youngsters. In her lifetime, her family had grown to include five generations and over 300 descendants. Now, Mary’s descendants quantity in the tens of hundreds, including Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia.

At Christmastime in 1789, ten year previous convict Mary Wade was dealing with an unsure future. Today, she is acknowledged as considered one of Australia’s founding moms.

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Pub: 06 Jul 2023 13:19 UTC
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