The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women (38 page)

The red cedar forests seemed the ideal place for William to find work, since loggers had founded the community of Lismore. He’d earned the right to buy land, and his family needed a place to call their own. They’d spent too many years living under canvas. It was time for William to put down his pick and sharpen his ax. Huge fortunes were being made from timber stands along the Richmond River, and finding a good tree to fell was certainly easier than searching for a deeply entrenched gold nugget. It would be a long journey up to the Gold Coast, but the children were older now, and the solitude of the rain forest seemed preferable to the strife at the diggings. William purchased a sawmill, and Agnes gave birth to two more children: Caroline in 1858 and Joseph in 1860.

The fervor of gold fever had subsided by Christmas 1869, when Agnes and William sat on the veranda looking out on their grandchildren with pride and delight. Life on the frontier was still rough and the world was changing around them. Agricultural development had taken over the “Big Scrub.” The forests had been cleared, and the rich stands of red cedar were nearly depleted. Springing up in their place was a new generation of children who knew nothing of their grandparents’ past.

Agnes McMillan’s journey had taken her from the murky industrial wasteland along the Glasgow wynds to the subtropical Richmond River Valley, dense with palm trees, leafy ferns, waterfall gorges, and wild orchids. Nestled in a remote timber settlement, with more ducks and black swans than people, the wilderness provided her family with everything they needed. Streams plentiful with eel, cod, bream, lobster, and perch fed a growing brood, which now included seven grandchildren. Wild game from the bush—plover, quail, and scrub turkey—also topped their cedar table, readily adorned with bowls of raspberries and wild bananas. The former street urchin could never have dreamed of the holiday feast that now lay before her. Gone were the days of singing for pennies on the Green or making choices between starving and stealing.

Though she’d followed a separate path and settled more than a thousand miles from her beloved Janet, Agnes never lost sight of the unflinching loyalty that had sustained them through their tumultuous coming of age. The two Scottish lasses had been through it all: the drudgery and filth of the wool mills, the degradation inside Newgate, a terrifying and treacherous sea journey, and finally the prison where Janet suffered the loss of little William. They would still endure tragedy from time to time.

In 1853, the year transportation ended in Van Diemen’s Land, there was little triumph for Janet. Within ten days in October, she lost two sons, eight-year-old James and three-year-old Arthur, victims of scarlet fever. By Christmas 1869, the now-greying redhead had given birth thirteen times, buried three children, witnessed the marriage of her two oldest sons, and welcomed into the world at least one grandchild. Her son William celebrated his heritage when he and his wife, Dinah, christened eleven of their twelve children with the middle name Freeman. With a touch of humor and perhaps a bit of irreverence toward British rule, they named their ninth child Charles Napoleon (Warrior) Bailey.

Ludlow, too, had relied on an unshakable bond, hers between mother and daughter. It had carried them from a Christmas inside Newgate Prison through their journey to a land “beyond the seas.” Though she’d been forced to suffer a five-year separation from Arabella in Van Die-men’s Land, Ludlow now heard the sound of laughter, from three generations, echo through the ironbark forest in Sandhurst, Victoria. Mother and child had arrived in Van Diemen’s Land with nothing, but by 1869, both owned property in a thriving township stirring with commerce from banks, hotels, watchmakers, grocers, music halls, and a bowling alley.
⁴¹
After the miners’ rights were won, Arabella’s husband, Isaac, continued to work the diggings, while his expanded family settled down in a quiet country cottage just outside Bendigo proper. With Ludlow by her side, Arabella gave birth to five more children: four girls and a boy.

At age thirty-seven, Arabella became a widow in 1867, when Isaac passed away at age sixty-three. Twelve years later, she wed a widower named John Oliver. Her grandchildren, like many in Sandhurst, still found specks of gold in the dirt after a hard rainfall. Arabella lived to age eighty-eight, enjoying life as the matriarch of four generations and remembered in her 1918 obituary as “a well known and highly esteemed resident of the Golden Square district.”
⁴²

Pursuing ordinary lives twelve thousand miles from their homeland, Arabella, Ludlow, Agnes, and Janet helped shape an emerging culture with traits born of their extraordinary past. With iron wills forged in a crucible of greed, injustice, punishment, and prejudice, these survivors refused to be broken. When transportation ended, convict women and men constituted about 40 percent of Australia’s English-speaking population.

Bold women sent to a wild land against their will—Agnes McMillan, Janet Houston, Ludlow Tedder, and twenty-five thousand others—wove the rich tapestry for a nation’s future. Whether Irish, English, or Scottish, it didn’t matter where they were from or why they were transported. The winds of change had blown away much of the past. Under the Southern Cross, healing had begun. They were all Australians now.

APPENDIX 1

Agnes McMillan

Description List (
Westmoreland
, AOT CON 19-1-14 p. 438)

Transcription provided by Female Factory Research Group

Conduct Record

PoLICE No. 253

Millan Mc Agnes

Westmoreland 3 December 1836

Ayr Court of Justiciary 3rd May 1836 7 years

Transported for theft, habit, repute and previous convictions.

Gaol Report: twice before convicted, bad character, single.

Stated this Offence: robbing a shop; tried with Houstan on board, [previous convictions] once for Housebreaking 18 months, once 60 days for theft; 3 years on the town; single. Surgeon’s Report: bad.

22 March 1837 (Donahoo) Absent without leave & insolent - Crime Class 3 months & not again assigned in Town (PS*)

3 November 1837 (Parker) Disobedience of orders - 2 months Crime Class (HBT) Hobart vide Lieutenant Governor’s decision 11 November 1837

8 September 1838 (Sweet) Refusing to return to her service - cell 10 days on bread & water & returned to her service (PS)

28 September 1838 (Harvey) Out after hours - cell on bread & water 6 days & returned to her service (PS)

8 October 1838 (Harvey) Absent without leave & taking 2 young children with her - Crime Class 1 month, first 6 days on bread & water (PS)

7 December 1838 (Palmer) Absenting herself without leave - hard labour at the wash tub for 2 months sleeping in a cell at night (PS)

25 February 1839 (Evans) Absenting herself without leave - 7 days cells on bread & water (RCG)

3 April 1839 (Ross) Absent without leave - returned to Government & not to be assigned in any township (WHB)

17 June 1839 (Amos) Absent without leave - 2 months in the Crime Class, Female House of Correction Hobart & recommended to be assigned in the Interior (BB & JH)

13 October 1840 (Walker) Insolence - 14 days solitary confinement (JW)

30 March 1842 (Nursery Liverpool Street) Absent without leave and representing herself to be free - 4 months hard labour in the House of Correction (WG)

22 February 1843 (McDonald) Absent 2 nights and a day without leave - 3 months at the wash tub (PS)

Free Certificate No. 388 1843

2.4.39 Richmond office 28.7.40 Richmond 4.8.40 Oatlands office 24.4.43 Police Superintendent

*These are the initials of the sentencing magistrate, which in this case is the Principal Superintendent. Agnes was imprisoned at Cascades Female Factory on each occasion.

Transcription provided by Female Factory Research Group. Reference: AOT, CON40-1-8 p.9

Description List (
William Miles
, AOT CON 18-1-21 p. 76)

APPENDIX 2

Janet Houston

Description List (
Westmoreland
, AOT CON 19/1/14 p. 415)

Conduct Record

PoLICE No. 284

Houstan Janet [name misspelled in record]

Westmoreland 3 Dec 1836

Ayr Court of Justiciary 3 May 1836 7 years

Transported for Theft habit repute and previous conviction. Gaol report, bad character before convicted twice. Single Stated this offence, Theft stealing money at Ayr, 4 times convicted for Theft, 60 days twice, 6 months twice, four years on the Town, single, Surgeon’s report, orderly

Aug. 12, 1837 Mrs. Ray/disobedience of orders. Cell on bread and water 3 days returned to service / P.S.

July 24, 1838 Ray /Insolence to her Mistress. returned to the factory for country assignment / P.S.

Nov 7, 1838 Rev W. Orton / Absent all night without leave Rep@ / W.G. (Rev Joseph Orton is Chairman of the district, Institute of Wesleyan Ministers)

Nov 14, 1838 Orton/ Absent all night without leave and found in a disorderly house Sentence - working cells for one month, first six days on bread and water thru assignment in country/ P.S.

Dec 20, 1838 Ratcliffe / Disorderly conduct

March 23, 1840 Misconduct

Aug 2nd, 1841 Misconduct living in a state of adultery with a free man / being advanced in pregnancy / 12 Months Labor Female House of Correction

March 17, 1842 Misconduct 6 days of solitary

May 3, 1843 - Free Certificate #339

Reference: AOT, CON 40-1-6 p.9

APPENDIX 3

Ludlow Tedder

Description List (
Hindostan
, AOT CON 19/1/13 p. 299)

Transcription provided by Female Factory Research Group.

Conduct Record

POLICE No. 151

Tedder Ludlow

Hindostan 11 September 1839

Central Criminal Court 17 December 1838 10 years

Transported for larceny. Gaol Report: poor connexions. Surgeon’s Report: the most attentive & best behaved on board doing duty as nurse; widow & 5 children. Stated this Offence: stealing plate from my master Mr F Kenneth, Keppel Street on Banister; widow & 5 children.

22 June 1842 (Nursery, Liverpool Street) Misconduct in taking advantage of her situation as nurse in the Hospital at the House of Correction to obtain articles & money for the purpose of clandestinely delivering the same to “Eliza Morgan,” a prisoner of the crown then in confinement, the articles having been obtained from Mr Smith in Elizabeth Street - 12 months hard labour in the House of Correction and to be placed in the separate working cells until the Lieutenant Governor shall be pleased to consider her case (PS)

Confirmed this female was placed in a situation of great trust under promised indulgence of the Principal Superintendent considering her to be a fit subject, to be placed under this sentence to separate confinement vide Lieutenant Governor’s decision 23 June 1842.

Ticket of Leave 15 May 1844

Conditional Pardon for Australian Colonies recommended 27 May 1845

Approved 22nd May 1846

Certificate of Freedom 21 December 1848

28.4.42 Principal Superintendent office 25.6.42 Principal Superintendent office 8.6.43 Superintendent 13/2/44 Morven 29.2.44 Principal Superintendent 8/3/45 Launceston

Transcription provided by Female Factory Research Group. Reference: AOT, CON 40-1-10 p. 113