Chapter 1: Convict Origins
Family histories often trace their beginnings to journeys of hope. Yet for many Australians, the deeper roots lie in journeys made not by choice but by force. My family’s earliest roots in Australia began not with fortune seekers or free settlers, but with convicts. Between 1788 and 1868, more than 160,000 men, women, and children were transported to the Australian colonies, condemned often for minor offences committed in desperate circumstances. Among them were Hannah Brown and Thomas Marslin, whose separate journeys to the shores of New South Wales reflected the harsh realities of convict Australia. Their stories, unearthed from official documents, form the first chapter of this family history.
Life in England — Poverty, Crime, and Punishment
Hannah Brown was born around 1795 in the small rural setting near Mayden Croft, Hertford, England. Her father, John Brown, was then 23, and her mother, Mary S. Street, was 19. Mayden Croft was a quiet rural setting—fields, hedgerows, and a scattering of cottages where life moved to the rhythms of the land and the seasons. Though John’s family had roots in Essex, he was born in Cripplegate, London, and baptised in Kingsland, Herefordshire, in 1772. Mary’s family hailed from Suffolk, though she was born in Latton, a village near London. Their rural backgrounds, followed by their urban upbringings, mirror a growing pattern of families transitioning from countryside to city life—a trend that defined much of this period in England.
Before they married on 17 April 1801 in Stepney, London, a district already overcrowded and increasingly working class, John and Mary had welcomed three children: Melicent (1794–1876), Hannah (probably born in 1795), and John (1799–1850). On the eastern fringes of London, Stepney was already becoming crowded and chaotic—a far cry from where the Browns had begun. The family probably lived in a single rented room, perhaps even sharing with another family. We can only imagine the strain of raising three young children in such cramped quarters, with little privacy and few comforts. A shared privy served entire streets, and residents fetched water from communal taps. Bathing would have required trips to a public bathhouse, and cooking was often done over open fires in poorly ventilated spaces or on the streets. These were not homes of choice but of necessity. For Mary, the daily burden of feeding and clothing her children in such conditions would have been physically and emotionally wearing. As the principal wage-earner, John would have done his best to provide for his family, but wages were meagre and employment uncertain.
This shift from rural life to the city marked a fundamental transformation in how English families lived and worked. The growth of factories, the rise of mass production, and the early spread of railways brought new jobs and wealth, but only to a select few. For people like the Browns, life often meant long hours, insecure employment, and the daily struggle to raise children. These sweeping changes were not just a distant episode of English history, or the stuff of later stories by Charles Dickens or Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl, but they were the lived experiences of my ancestors.
The new urban life that accompanied the Industrial Revolution transformed the nature of children’s work. In rural communities, children contributed to the household economy by helping with farm chores, tending animals, or assisting in family trades. Industrialisation introduced a harsher reality: factory work that was often dangerous, monotonous, and far removed from the relative protections of home life. Economic necessity meant families like the Browns had little real choice—children had to work. Some were scavengers, crawling beneath heavy equipment to retrieve waste cotton, while others worked as doffers, replacing full bobbins with empty ones on spinning frames. The hours were long, the work physically punishing, and injuries were common.
It is hard to picture what daily life might have been like for my great-great-great-grandmother, Hannah Brown. She likely woke early in a cramped, dimly lit room shared with her parents and siblings. If there was one, breakfast may have been a bowl of porridge made with oats and water—simple, cheap, and just enough to see her through the morning. Factory children were expected to perform repetitive, often dangerous tasks under the watch of overseers. The hours were long and exhausting, the air thick with dust and noise. She might have returned home to a thin stew of vegetables with just a scrap of meat, or a bacon bone added for flavour. And yet, amid this hardship, there may have been moments of relief, games played in the narrow streets, laughter shared with siblings. We can only wonder what she hoped for, what small joys she held onto in a life that offered so few.
Industrial England was undergoing rapid urbanisation, but living conditions lagged far behind. Casual work was unreliable, wages were meagre, and support for the poor was scarce. In cities like London, the burden of feeding and clothing a growing family was heavy. Hannah’s father, Thomas, was likely still working in the textile trade, where employment was precarious and pay meagre. Her mother, Mary, had recently given birth to two more daughters, Mary in 1812 and Maria in 1813, which limited her ability to earn an income. Hannah had one older sister and a younger brother, who were probably already working. By 1813, Hannah Brown was 18 years old and on the cusp of adulthood. Like many young women in her position, she may have worked in a textile mill or garment workshop, taken on domestic service in a middle-class household, found employment as a washerwoman or laundress, assisted as a nursemaid or child-minder, or sold goods on the street to help support her family. Her support would have been welcomed. The pressures were relentless for young people like Hannah, and the choices were painfully limited. In these circumstances, she made a fateful decision that would entangle her in the criminal justice system and alter the course of her life. She stole.
On 14 July 1813, Hannah Brown stood before Justice Gibbs at the Old Bailey, charged with two counts of theft. The courtroom, one of the busiest in Britain, was noisy, crowded and intimidating. Hundreds of cases were heard each year under its roof, many in rapid succession, with the accused ushered in and out with grim efficiency. Murderers, forgers, pickpockets, prostitutes, and petty thieves all passed through its doors—some to transportation, others to the gallows. The atmosphere was tense, as the scales of justice weighed matters of life and death. As it was applied, the law was blind to class, unmoved by poverty, and devoid of compassion.
Hannah was charged with stealing four yards of muslin (a lightweight cotton fabric) from a shop in Holborn, a shawl from a drapers, and a yard of lace. None of the items were extravagant, but the legal threshold for capital punishment had been met. Stealing goods worth more than five shillings from a shop was defined as a capital offence under what was known as the Bloody Code, a body of laws that imposed the death penalty for more than 200 crimes. These offences ranged from serious crimes like murder and treason to seemingly trivial acts such as being out at night with a blackened face (seen as a prelude to thieving), cutting down trees, or being judged a malicious child under the age of fourteen. The system made little distinction between desperate need and deliberate theft. Teenagers like Hannah were regularly caught in the wide net cast by a legal code that criminalised the poor in the name of deterrence.
The court transcript gives us a rare glimpse into Hannah’s character. She stood in the dock alongside Sarah Deering, her alleged accomplice, both charged with the thefts. When asked about the muslin, Hannah replied, “I took it myself.” We do not know how she said it—quietly, defiantly, or with resignation. But she did not name Sarah. Whether out of loyalty, fear, or resolve, Hannah took full responsibility. In the eyes of the court, it was all they needed to hear. Deering was acquitted of the capital charge. Hannah was not.
The jury formally found her guilty of “stealing privately in a shop,” but attached to their verdict a recommendation of mercy “on account of the smallness of the property.” Justice Gibbs had no power to alter the sentence. By law, he was required to issue the penalty of death. But he made note of the jury’s plea for clemency, and the case was passed on for review.
What followed was a kind of legal limbo. Hannah remained in prison for several months, likely in the women’s quarters of Newgate Gaol, awaiting the outcome of her request for a reprieve. She would have heard from others that most death sentences were commuted, but there were always exceptions. Between 1800 and 1820, 68 women were executed in England and Wales, and a further 47 in Scotland, many for crimes linked to poverty, desperation, or social stigma. For women like Hannah, there was no certainty that mercy would prevail, and without it, she risked a sentence to be hanged by the neck until dead.
In November, her sentence was commuted. Rather than be led to execution, she would be transported to New South Wales for life. And so, Hannah Brown was removed from everything she had ever known. Her punishment, though not unusual, was final in its own way. She would never see her family again. She was confined to Middlesex Gaol, and within its notorious walls, Hannah waited for transportation to the wrong side of the world.
Textile workers, including many children, played a central role in the burgeoning industrial economy of the early 19th century. Child workers like Hannah Brown faced harsh conditions, long hours, and significant risks while operating spinning frames and other machinery in textile mills.
The women’s section of Newgate Prison, early 19th century. Overcrowded and unsanitary, these facilities offered little protection or privacy. Hannah Brown would likely have been held in similar conditions before her transportation to New South Wales.***
Thomas was born on 27 April 1792 in Surrey, England, to Robert Marslem (or a similarly spelled surname) and Ann[i]. No further records of his parents have been located, and no known evidence has yet emerged of siblings. Like many born into modest rural families at the time, Thomas likely entered the workforce in childhood. From what can be inferred about his later employment, he may have worked as a stable hand or groom, acquiring the physical strength, patience, and skill needed to care for horses. His daily tasks would have included feeding, grooming, and watering the horses, cleaning out the stables, and maintaining the equipment. Horses were indispensable to the workings of 18th and early 19th-century England, used for farming, industry, urban transport, and the military. Thomas’s work was of real value to the communities he served.
Although Thomas’s childhood unfolded in the countryside, the old ways of English agricultural life were under growing strain. Enclosure of common lands, the erosion of cottage industries like spinning and weaving that once supplemented rural incomes, and the expansion of wage labour left many families struggling to adapt. For labourers like Thomas, employment was often seasonal, wages unreliable, and the threat of displacement never far away. In this context, his work with horses may have offered a small degree of security, but it was unlikely to shield him from the broader economic uncertainties facing the rural poor.
Records only give us a glimpse of Thomas’s circumstances before his arrest, but by his mid-twenties, he likely lived precariously. Against this backdrop of uncertainty, Thomas was convicted on 13 August 1817 at the Surrey Assizes, held in Croydon. The charge was felony larceny—specifically, the theft of garments from local bleaching grounds. Bleaching grounds were open fields where newly washed or treated fabrics were laid out to dry and whiten in the sun, making them vulnerable to theft. While the crime may seem minor by modern standards, theft of goods left in such spaces (common in the textile trade) was taken seriously.
The punishment handed down—a life sentence of transportation to New South Wales—was severe but not unusual for the period. Before departing England, Thomas was held aboard the prison hulk Bellerophon, moored in the Thames at Woolwich. Originally a warship, the Bellerophon had been repurposed as a floating prison when Britain’s gaols were overcrowded and transportation to America had ceased. These hulks quickly became notorious for their foul conditions, symbolising the penal system’s failings. Public anxiety and outrage about their presence—and the lack of apparent alternatives—contributed to the reintroduction of transportation to Australia. This decision served a dual purpose: it removed convicts from Britain’s overcrowded prisons and provided a source of labour vital to building and sustaining the colony. To this end, the Glory was commissioned to carry another group of convicts, with Thomas among them.
Voyages to Australia
Between 1788 and 1868, transportation to Australia was both a judicial sentence and a deliberate instrument of British imperial policy. After the loss of the American colonies as a destination for convicted prisoners, British policymakers turned to Australia to relieve overcrowded prisons and to secure territorial claims in the Pacific. In parliamentary debate, the legal reformer Sir Samuel Romilly—an opponent of transportation on humanitarian grounds—described it as “a convenient method of sweeping from the country the most depraved and wretched part of the population.” His view was not, however, widely shared. For many, it was simply a case of good riddance.
The system, formalised with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, evolved, but outcomes varied widely. Under Governor Arthur Phillip’s competent leadership, there was minimal loss of life. In contrast, the Second Fleet became notorious. Entrusted to private contractors—many of them former slave traders—its ships were operated for profit, with payment awarded based on the number of convicts embarked, not the number who survived. Conditions were horrific. Nearly a third of the male prisoners perished due to neglect, disease, and deliberate cruelty. The scandal prompted public outrage and exposed the brutal indifference at the heart of the system.
In the following decades, transportation became more regulated, but it never ceased to be a feared and stigmatising punishment. Of the approximately 160,000 convicts transported to Australia during this period, about 25,000 were women who were seen as essential to establishing a permanent settlement in New South Wales. Hannah Brown and Thomas Marslin were among them: transported under different circumstances, yet both conscripted to serve the needs of an expanding empire.
***
Hannah Brown was transported to Botany Bay aboard the Broxbornebury, a convict ship that set sail from London on 22 February 1814. The ship carried 120 female convicts, passengers, cargo, and merchandise. Thomas Pitcher Jr. commanded the vessel, with Colin McLachlan as the surgeon superintendent. The Broxbornebury was a substantial three-decker merchant ship launched at Gravesend in 1812. Measuring over 130 feet in length and weighing 709 tons, she was copper-sheathed and rated A1—a classification reserved for ships of the highest standard. With three tall masts and ample space between decks, she was purpose-built for long-haul voyages. Though her design made her well-suited to extended voyages, conditions aboard remained cramped and austere. As the Broxbornebury pulled away from the London docks, Hannah must have known she would never see her family again.
In A Cargo of Women, Babette Smith, the historian, offers insight into the broader experiences of convicts like Hannah Brown. She argues that these women were not simply prisoners, but part of a broader plan to establish a permanent society in New South Wales. Earlier views had portrayed female convicts in narrow terms—immoral or unfortunate—but more recent commentators, including Grace Karskens, have argued that many women became integral to the colony by taking on work as domestic servants, raising families and starting businesses.
The vagaries of fate played a crucial role in the lives of convicts transported to New South Wales. Beyond the inherent dangers of 19th-century sea travel, the character and competence of the captain, surgeon, and crew shaped much of the experience. Surgeon’s Journals from the period offer glimpses into the routines, health conditions, and occasional disciplinary actions during these long sea voyages. Disease remained the most feared threat, particularly typhus and dysentery, which could spread rapidly in crowded quarters. The Surry, a convict ship that departed England just weeks before Hannah’s, carried 200 male prisoners and was ravaged by typhus, a highly infectious disease transmitted by lice. At least 46 men died, including the ship’s surgeon. The episode served as a grim reminder of how quickly a voyage could descend into tragedy.
Yet in contrast to some voyages, the Broxbornebury was comparatively safe. Of the 120 female convicts on board, only one is recorded as having died, a remarkably low mortality rate for the period. This may have been due to a competent surgeon, the regular issue of watered-down lemon juice to prevent scurvy, or simple good fortune. Even so, the women endured overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Surgeon’s Journals from the period offer glimpses into the routines, health conditions, and occasional disciplinary actions during these long sea voyages. Their diet consisted mainly of salted meat and hard biscuits (dry, hard, long-lasting ship’s rations, often infested with weevils) with limited access to fresh water. An observer noted that they were “exceedingly poorly clothed, having little more than a few rags to cover them,” many were already in fragile health before the journey began. Malnutrition and scurvy were common, and abuse from the crew was not unheard of. Although Elizabeth Fry had begun advocating for better supervision, hygiene, and resources for female prisoners by this time, her reforms were inconsistently applied. They did not always translate into improved conditions at sea. Each of the 156 days must have felt endless for Hannah as she grappled with fear and homesickness.
Despite these hardships, Hannah may have found strength in the relationships and other bonds of solidarity formed below decks. Together, the women may have shared conversations about their families, fears, and hopes, offering one another the emotional support needed to endure the monotony and uncertainty of the voyage. Some may have forged friendships that continued after disembarkation; others may have formed more intimate attachments—an aspect of shipboard life noted in some historical records, though largely undocumented. Still under twenty, Hannah must have felt the pangs of loneliness deeply. Yet these women, like Hannah, were not passive victims. Many demonstrated small acts of defiance—resisting exploitation, negotiating with crew, or preserving their dignity through companionship, humour, or shared routines. Surgeon-superintendent reports from similar voyages note cases where women challenged unfair treatment or cared for the ill among them. Hannah, too, may have been stronger than she realised.
As the Broxbornebury entered the magnificent harbour of Port Jackson in July 1814, Hannah’s emotions must have been bittersweet. The long, arduous journey had finally ended, and she had survived. She was beginning life in a new land that would become home to her, her descendants, and thousands more like her.
***
In 1818, at 26, Thomas Maslin found himself aboard the convict ship Glory, bound for the distant and unfamiliar colony of New South Wales. The vessel, a 400-ton merchantman launched in 1811, had previously served in the West Indies trade. Now fitted out for convict transport, it embarked from England under the command of Captain Edward Pounder, with 170 male convicts on board. It departed England in May 1818. Thomas was among those sentenced to transportation for life. A detachment of 28 soldiers from the 87th Regiment of Foot provided security during the voyage, and some free settlers also sailed.
For Thomas, who had already spent months confined aboard the Bellerophon, the transition to the Glory would have brought no significant relief. Though some convicts might have been assigned tasks such as maintaining the ship or assisting with sails, most spent their days in confinement below deck, where cramped and unsanitary conditions prevailed. The air was foul, thick with the stench of unwashed bodies, waste, and damp timber. Rats and lice were common, and illness was a constant threat. Yet there may have been small consolations—brief moments of camaraderie, a dry patch of deck, or an untroubled night’s sleep. The Glory was spared such an outbreak of illnesses that had plagued other voyages, likely due in part to the efforts of the ship’s surgeon, William Evans, who enforced basic hygiene measures, monitored provisions, and maintained discipline throughout the voyage. His diligence—and perhaps a measure of good fortune—meant that despite the hardships, the Glory completed its journey without losing a single convict.
Thomas’s journey on the Glory ended on 14 September 1818. Hannah Brown had stepped ashore four years earlier. Their paths were soon to cross.
Prison hulks, like the one depicted here, were repurposed ships used to house prisoners in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, intended to relieve pressure on overcrowded land-based prisons. Conditions on these floating jails were often harsher and more unsanitary than those in traditional gaols such as Newgate, Coldbath Fields, or Clerkenwell.
The ship illustrated here is similar in appearance to the convict transport vessels used in the early 19th century. These ships were typically crowded, with cramped below-deck spaces where prisoners were confined for months at sea. Though not an image of the Glory or the Broxbornebury, it reflects the general structure and scale of the ships that carried convicts like Thomas Maslin and Hannah Brown to New South Wales.
Sydney Town in the Macquarie era, as it may have appeared when Thomas Maslin and Hannah Brown arrived in the colony. The harbour dominated the landscape, and while a few stone buildings had begun to appear, the settlement remained sparse, rough-edged, and heavily reliant on convict labour.