Family Tree

of Trudy Mae COWLEY

This page last updated:  02-Mar-2004

Abodes     Baptism     Birth     Burial     Census     Children     Death     Education     Events     Freedom     Marriage     Provision     Siblings     Transportation     Trial

Abodes

In the 1800 Settlers' Muster Book (List 3), Elizabeth is listed as living at Sydney and being off the stores because she was living with John JATION? [question mark appears in entry in Baxter (1988)]. 

In 1806, Elizabeth appears in Marsden's Female Muster as a concubine, living at Sydney.  Other researchers have stated she was living with Thomas ROSE, baker, but the Elizabeth RILEY who was living with Thomas ROSE (and working for Captain ROWLY) was the convict transported per Nile, not our Elizabeth RILEY transported per Lady Juliana.

In 1811 and 1814, according the general muster of New South Wales, Elizabeth was still living in Sydney.

Elizabeth is not recorded as Elizabeth RILEY in the 1822 general muster, but she is listed again in the 1823-1825 general muster as living with her daughter Catharine RILEY at Pitt St, Sydney.

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Children

In the 1814 General Muster for New South Wales, Elizabeth is listed as a widow with one child on the stores (though she is listed as being off the stores).  Thus, it seems Elizabeth had another child some time between 1806 and 1814 as she is listed in Marsden's Female Muster of 1806 without children and was now on her own.  However, Elizabeth would have been over 42 years of age when the child was born!  She may not have been married, simply living with the father, considering she was listed as a concubine in the 1806 muster. 

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Death

Since Elizabeth was listed in the 1823-1825 General Muster for New South Wales but not in the 1828 census, she most probably died circa 1826 in Sydney.  If so, she would have been aged about 62 years.  It was likely she was still living with her daughter Catharine in Pitt St, Sydney at the time of her death.

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Events

In March 1794, Elizabeth and Catharine returned to Sydney to give evidence at the trial of James ROBBS, a private in the New South Wales Corps.  

James ROBBS, who had been stationed at Norfolk Island, was arrested and charged with having sexually assaulted Catharine, Elizabeth’s daughter.  The charge had to be heard in Sydney as it was a capital offence.  David COLLINS, the Judge Advocate at Sydney, found there was insufficient evidence for a conviction.

It appears, that after the trial, Elizabeth and Catharine stayed in Sydney.  However, due to difficult handwriting and clerical error, it is difficult to confirm Elizabeth’s movements in the 1800-1802 and 1806 musters when she was housekeeper or de facto wife of an unidentified man.

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Freedom

There is no record on the Colonial Secretary's Register of Conditional Pardons (1791-1825) of Elizabeth receiving a conditional pardon, though she would have been due to receive hers in 1806.

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Transportation

On 4 April 1789, Elizabeth was embarked on the Lady Juliana transport.  She was 25 years old.  She was allowed to take with her a daughter, Catharine RILEY, who was between 3 and 7 years old.  

The Lady Juliana sailed from Portsmouth on 29 July 1789, six months prior to the rest of the second fleet (apart from the storeship Guardian).  It took her 309 days to reach Port Jackson, arriving on 3 June 1790.  The Lady Juliana transported 226 female convicts, of which only five died on the voyage.  Elizabeth’s daughter, Catharine, was not the only child on board.

Two months after landing at Sydney Cove, Elizabeth and Catharine were among 194 convicts sent to Norfolk Island on board the Surprise.  Another ancestor, Esther THORNTON, was also transported per Lady Juliana and then sent to Norfolk Island per Surprise.

Elizabeth and Catherine returned to Sydney in March 1794.

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Trial

In March 1789 at the Kent Assizes held at Maidstone, Elizabeth was tried along with three other spinsters (Mary BARNES, Catherine CLARKE and Ann BRYANT) for theft of 10 yards of muslin to the value of £3 from the shop of James LANCE, in St Paul’s parish, Deptford on 25 August 1788.  A second charge involved the theft of four yards of check linen cloth to the value of six shillings from the shop of George MORSS. 

The jury found all four guilty of stealing, but only to the value of four shillings sixpence, thus sparing them the death penalty.  They each incurred a sentence of 7 years transportation. Elizabeth was aged 25 years.

Colleen McCullough refers to their crime in her novel, Morgan's Run, based on the life of Richard MORGAN.  In the following excerpt, Catherine CLARKE is speaking to her husband-to-be, Richard MORGAN - Elizabeth is referred to as Betty.

... So I went to the manor at St Paul Deptford as cook's maid.'
     'How long were ye there?'
     'Until I - I was arrested.  Three months.'
     'How did ye come to be arrested?'
     'The manor had four below-stairs maidservants - Betty, Annie, Mary and me.  Mary and I were the same age, Annie was sixteen, and Betty five-and-twenty.  The master and mistress were called up to London very suddenly and Mr and Mrs Hobson got drunk on the port.  Cook locked herself in her garret.  It was Betty's birthday, and she said we should all walk to the shops for an outing.  I had never been to the shops before.'
     Oh, this was awful!  He sat there like the Master at the workhouse, a figure of age and authority, listening to this silly story with no expression on his face.  It was a silly story - too silly to tell at the Kent assizes, had anybody asked.  No one had.
     'Did ye never go abroad from the workhouse, Kitty?'
     'No, never.'
     'Surely ye had a day off sometimes at the St Paul Deptford manor?'
     'I had a half-day once a week, but never with one of the other girls, so I used to walk into the fields.  I would rather have gone to the fields on Betty's birthday, but she mocked me for a rustic because I had never been into a shop, so I went with them.'
     'Were ye tempted in a shop?  Is that it?'
     'I suppose it must have been like that,' she said doubtfully.  'Betty brought a bottle of gin with her and we drank it as we went along.  I do not remember the shops, or going into them - just men shouting, the bailiffs locking us up.'
     'What did ye steal?'
     'Muslin in one shop, they said at the trial, and checkered linen in another.  I do not know why we stole either - the dresses we wore were of the same sort of stuff.  Four and sixpence the ten yards of muslin, the jury determined, though the shopkeeper kept roaring that it was worth three guineas.  They did not charge us with the theft of the linen.'
     'Were ye in the habit of drinking gin?'
     'No, I had never tasted it before.  Nor had Mary or Annie.'  She shuddered.  'I will never drink it again, that I know.'
     'Did ye all get transported?'
     'Yes, for seven years.  We were all on Lady Juliana almost as soon as the assizes were over.  I suppose the others are here somewhere.  It is just that I was so seasick - everybody loses patience with me, so they did not wait.  And it was dark in Surprize.'
     He got up abruptly and walked around the table, put his hand on her shoulder and rubbed it.  ' 'Tis all right, Kitty, we will not speak of it again.  Ye're a child, as only English parish charity can make a child out of a young woman.'

Obviously, this is a fictionalised account of what happened, even though Colleen McCullough has based the events in her novel on extensive research, using original documents, it is difficult to know what in the above account is fact and what is fiction.

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I am willing to provide source details upon request.