MARY MARSHALL

Convict, Lady Penrhyn c1757 - 1849

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Died 29 April 1849, aged 93.

Mary Marshall (Senior) was brought from the Clerkenwell Bridewell to Newgate on 4 January 1787 and sentenced at the Old Bailey to seven years transportation on 10 January, for stealing ten linen handkerchiefs from a linen draper in Piccadilly. She was seen fumbling about her coat, and under her apron. She refused to return the goods when approached, but they were seen to drop from her.  She was delivered to Lady Penrhyn, age given as 29 on 26 January 1787.

From the time of landing at Port Jackson, Mary seemed to have lived with Robert Sidaway. Her name was associated with his in various records.

In the colony Mary earned respect and respectability by her own behaviour and by her association with Sidaway.  On 5 October 1806, she was praised by the Sydney Gazette for the loving care given to a retarded orphan girl.  Mary appeared in records from time to time as a witness at weddings.

She lived with Sidaway until his death on 3 October 1806.  She was granted administration of his estate and effects, advertising for debtors and creditors at the end of December 1809, but her petition to be granted his lease in Sydney, on the grounds that she had lived with him for 20 years, was inadmissible by Governor Macquarie. She took a lease on a town lot on Pitt Street on 20 October 1809, where she operated a public house.

When Mary died at Bray Grove, Concord on 29 April 1849, her age was given as 93. 

She was buried in the Sydney Burial Ground, Elizabeth Street, with her friend Frances Mintz who had died in 1828.

Note: This information, which appears on the grave stone of Mary Marshall at the First Fleet Memorial Garden at Matraville, is based on research by Molly Gillen.