It Was February 1791
The Bible story of the Prodigal Son always carried special meaning for me, as it taught of reconciliation, and hope. There was also a story of jealousy, as the elder brother felt put out at the return of his younger, wayward sibling.
The part of the story that strikes me now that I have a few years under my belt, and have children and grandchildren of my own, is that of the Father in the story, looking out every day in hope wondering if his boy was coming home today.
I got thinking about that story today as I heard that my kids are getting organized to make the trip home from Adelaide in South Australia to Bathurst in NSW for Easter, a distance of 1200km (about 746miles) and 12 – 13 hours traveling time by road.
Getting home from work this morning I was greeted by my very excited wife who was already planning things to do, menus and the rest. I’m excited too of course, my concern is the travel on holiday weekend roads! Once I digested this piece of news though, I started thinking about another time, long ago, and about another girl…
It was early in 1791. Betty stood in chains and trepidation as she waited to board…
The “Third Fleet” as it was known, was getting ready to depart from England, with ships coming from Plymouth, Portsmouth and Cork in Ireland to join the fleet, which would then take between 143 and 203 days to reach New South Wales, Australia.
Over 2,000 convicts were being transported by the fleet of ships, along with officials for the colony, military personnel, crew and desperately needed provisions for the colony itself. (The fledgling colony of NSW was struggling to become self sufficient, with coastal soils not yielding much in the way of crops. A way across the Blue Mountains to the vast interior of the continent wouldn’t be found until 1813).
News still hadn’t fully filtered back to England about the 2nd Fleet, now also known as the “Death Fleet”, which had departed for Sydney the year before. Up to 40% of the prisoners on that fleet had died in this terrible export business that had evolved over the past few years.
It was February, 1791. William and Elizabeth were brokenhearted.
Knowing that they would probably never see their beloved daughter Betty again, they were beside themselves. They couldn’t afford to travel to see her off, and probably wouldn’t be able to see her if they did. Grief at losing someone to death was hard enough, but losing them forever when they are still alive? How do they handle a situation like this?
Betty boarded the MaryAnne, destined for a new life in a new, unknown land. She probably wouldn’t have taken this trip if she had the choice, but maybe she had chosen it when she had first decided to steal from her employer… petty theft that would maybe carry a light, or suspended sentence in a later day and age carried a virtual life sentence in 18th century England.
The ship departed Portsmouth on February 16th, 1791, and arrived in Sydney July 9th, 1791. The MaryAnne was the first of 11 ships to arrive in Sydney from that fleet in 1791.
Betty was born in Wiltshire, England, in January, 1770. She died in what is now the city of Penrith, west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia on Saturday, June 24th, 1837.
Circumstances were kinder to Betty in Australia.
She married well, and become part of a well known family in NSW, with many people, including this writer, proud to be able trace their ancestry back to her. As I wrote in an earlier post, a massive social and political engineering experiment was underway as Britain sought to colonise a new continent before her competitors, while seeking to solve social and economic problems at home.
Betty and her compatriots, sentenced to an average of 7 years in a new land, were caught up in this experiment, and the vast majority were never able to return to their homeland!