| Ann Marsh |
| Written by Judy Williams Her decendent |
| With another young woman Mary Edwards, Ann was charged at the Assizes held at the Castle of Exeter in Devon on March 6th 1789, with stealing a bushel of wheat, the property of William Welland. Ann was then about 21 years of age. While both woment were found guilty, they received different sentences, Mary Edwards believed to be married, being fined six shillings and given six month hard labour, while Ann a single women, was sentenced to seven years "behond the sea" to the infant colony known as Botany Bay, and in due course joined the 229 other women and six of their children on the "Lady Juliana", a ten year old Whitby built ship of 401 tons burthen which finally sailed from Plymouth on July 29th 1789, arriving in Port Jackson on June 3rd 1790. This the first convict ship to arrive in New South Wales after the First Fleet, and was chartered by the East India Company to continue on to China for tea, leaving the colony on July 25th 1790. The Voyage from England to Port Jackson took 309 days, and finve of the women died before reaching their destination. Incidentally of all the "crimes" of the female convicts of the Second Fleet, there was only once case of stolen wheat!! In our early colonial records, Ann is known by both "Mash" and "Marsh". |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Ann Mash or Marsh, born on july 16th, 1767 in Buckland Brewer Devon, UK, was the sixth of the seven children of John Marsh and Mary Andrews, a fair-sized family of four sons and three daughters. Her mother, Mary Andrew, born March 17th, 1731, was the daughter of John Andrew and Mary Morrice, both of whom were born in the early 1700's, and who married in Buckland Brewer on August 3rd, 1728. John Marsh and Mary Andrew were married, also in Buckland Brewer on June 3rd 1754. Numerous family births and marriages are to be found in the Latter Day Saints records, with Ann's siblings, grand parents, and even further back to her four times great grand father, on Nicholas Voscombe, born about 1604 in Devon's Buckland Brewer, where her family apparently lived for many generations. |
 |
| View of Exeter |
 |
| Richard's requested that government approval be given for one-quarter of pound of tea, three pounds of brown sugar and four pounds of additional bread to be given three times a week to each mess of six women, and two pounds of soap per month. As some of the women were pregnant, a supply of child bed linen, flanned and other suitable items were also put on board. Sadly, the logbook of the Lady Juliana has not survived and we are indebted to a slim volume published in 1822, for details of the Juliana's voyage and passengers. This was the autobiography of John Nicol, the Juliana's steward and because of the passage of time between the years described and the book's publication, may possible have contained some slips of memory or embroideries. Nonetheless, his reminiscences are colourful and interesting and have been found to be reasonably accurate. Nicol asserted that "when we were fairly out to sea, every man on board took a wife from among the convicts, they nothing loath". Generally, women are realists, and they probably saw a willilng acceptance better than a rape!Ann's partner was no less than the kindly and thoughtful ship's surgeon, Richard Alley. He fathered a child by Ann Marsh, baptised Charlotte Maria Alley on June 5th 1791, some twelve months after the Juliana's arrival in Sydney Harbour, on June 3rd 1790, (one day short of twelve months after leaving the Thames). Early colonial records being somewhat scant of detail, we don't know Charlotte's date of birth, only the dates of her baptism and burial. Charlotte only lived a few days after her baptism, and Ann had to mourn her death alone, as Richard Alley had sailed to England in March 1791. He returned to the colony in October 1792, on the East India Company ship Royal Admiral, in the dual role of Naval Agent and Ship's Surgeon, but there is no record of his resuming his earlier role of Ann's partner and protector. Ann - and all the single women in the colony -needed a protector, and she lived with John Irving/Irwin/Irvine, a First Fleet convict who was the first convict to obtain an absolution pardon in 1790. John, tried in Lincoln in 1784 for stealing, and sentenced to weven years transportatoin, came to the clony on the Lady Penrhyn as ship's surgeon, and had been to Norfolk Island with King, where his medical expertise was highly regarded. On his return to Sydney in 1792, Irving was appointed as assistant surgeon at Parramatta, and had 30 acres of land granted to him, roughly in the area known as Irving Street, Parramatta. John and Ann had a son, John Irving, born on Janurary 17th 1796, some four months after John's death in September, 1795. The title of John's land went to Ann, his common law wife, and she held it until 1798, when she sold "Irving's Farm", as it was known, to one Richard Fitzgerald, who resold it in 1799 to William Wilkinson, and he in turn sold the farm in 1810 to George Palmer. Details of these transactions were obtained from the histroical officer at the Lands Titles Office in Sydney - there were no registrations of these sales, as they appear to have been private transactions amongst the partied concerned. |
| It is quite possible - and indeed probable, but not proven, alas - that Ann and Robert Flanagan lived on the Parramatta land which Ann inherited from her first Australian partner, John Irving. The date of the sale of this land conicides with Robert Flanagan's bid for freedom in 1798. With three young children, and no man to supporter her, Ann most likely sold the land to acquire capital with which to rear and feed her youngsters. Soon, Ann once more a single woman, lived with William Chapman, (per Pitt in 1792), and had six children to him, being recorded in both 1800 and 1806 musters as "co-habiting with Chapman". The two Flanagan children were known as Chapman but John, Ann's son to John Irving, kept his fathers name. Apart from bearing this large family, from the 1790's Ann also managed a small goods and passenger boat service from Sydney to Parramatta, employing men to handle the boat, which probably had small sails supplemented by oars. According to an advertisement, "most excellent nutton pyes" were available each day at noon, and sausages could be made to order. When did this busy women ever stop! She also assisted Chapman in various business activities - a bakery, a butchery and a general store, and after his death in 1810, from 1811 Governer Macquarie transferred to her the wine and spirit licence previously granted to William Chapman for the King's Head Tavern, a replica of which has been built as part of Old Sydney Town. Ann was literate, and her firm and well-written signature exists on documents with the early Bank of New South Wales. She had her share of good times and bad days, and two of the latter have been recorded. On May 24 1802, Ann Marsh was "convicted of selling spirits without a license on the Sabbath, and bribing a Constable to say she had only half-a-gallon in her house when she had eight gallons. Exclusive of the forteiture of the spirits and the bribe of five pounds, she incurred the different penalties amounting to twenty pounds sterling, which has been levied on her efforts. This exampe, it is hoped, will deter others from incurring similar losses. It is the Governmor's express orders that no spirits are even to be given by any person or sold by any licensed person, upon the Sabbath" (Historical Records of Australia). On the same day, an amount of fifteen pounds was recorded by the Reverend Samuel Marsden as having been received from Mr Smith on account of Ann Marsh - presumably part of her fine. |
| Sydney Heads |
| The government contractor, William Richards junior, employed Captain Aiken and his crew. Also on board was Lieutenant Thomas Edgar, R.N., who as the Naval Agent had to ensure that the terms of the contract were being fulfilled and that the convicts were properly cared for. The ship's sergeon was one Richard Alley, who appears to have taken pains to see that the women were as comfortable as possible. Alley agreed to the women's request for some tea and sugar in lieu of part of ther meat ration, and also suggested that they be fiven a supply of soap. |
| A single woman with a young child, Ann desperatly needed a protector and in November 1796, she married Robert Flanagan, an Irish convict, born circa 1767, twice tried at Armagh for highway robbery, acquitted for lack of evidence the first time, but convicted and transported per Boddingtons in 1793, the NSW marriage registration being #1796/365/3A, at St.John's Church Parramatta. Two daughters were born to Ann and Robert, the latter absconding for the second time, but successfully, on his second effort in mid - 1798. |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|