ELIZABETH (BRUCE) FLEXMORE - LADY PENRHYN

- this story is under review by Membership Team

Elizabeth Bruce was baptised at St George's, Stepney, London, in 1757. She was a hawker selling soap on the streets of Wapping when she stole three linen tablecloths, value 15 shillings and two aprons, value five shillings, from a laundry basket. She was tried at the Old Bailey in January 1787 and sentenced to seven years transportation.

She was 29 years old when put on board Lady Penrhyn for the voyage to Botany Bay. Two months after her arrival she married convict John Anderson, and in October they were sent to Norfolk Island, where John became a settler and Elizabeth bore him three children, William, Daniel and John. Around 1796, John Anderson disappeared from her life.

Elizabeth found a new protector in Francis Flexmore, a convict who had arrived in the colony on Neptune. Two sons, George and Francis, were born to this union. When the settlement on Norfolk Island was being closed down, Elizabeth, her husband and the five children were transferred to Van Diemen's Land, arriving on City of Edinburgh on 2 October 1808. The Flexmore family lived at Glenfern, Kempton, for many years and were successful farmers.

Francis and Elizabeth died in the same year, 1835, and were buried in St Mary's Church Cemetery at Kempton. Their headstone is lying horizonal at ground level and is now legible only to a dedicated archeologist.

In 1988 the Fellowship dedicated a memorial plaque to Elizabeth, fixed to her headstone.

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