Kiwis Have Convict Heritage Linked to 1830s Whaling Family

Thousands Of Kiwis Have Convict Heritage Linked to 1830s Whaling Family

An estimated 100,000 Australians and New Zealanders are descended from just one, little-known shipload of women convicts who travelled from England to New South Wales in the first decade of the nineteenth century.

The 101 women who arrived in Sydney on the ship Friends in 1811 are the subjects of a new history, ‘The Girl Who Stole Stockings’, just released on both sides of the Tasman.

The girl of the title is Susannah Noon, who had been convicted of stealing stockings worth 10 shillings in Colchester at the age of about twelve.

After she gained her freedom, and 26 years after she arrived in New South Wales, Susannah came on to live in New Zealand with another former convict whom she had married though he had been transported for bigamy. They settled in a shore-based whaling station in Port Underwood, just south of the Marlborough Sounds, several years ahead of the arrival of the first organised colonists across Cook Strait at Port Nicholson.

It is estimated there at least 5000 to 7000 descendants of Susannah alone in New Zealand today. Descendants of other women on theFriends also later settled here.

The book is the result of research undertaken over seven years by Auckland-based author Elsbeth Hardie. Unlike other transports, virtually no records of the Friends’ voyage remain. In their absence, Ms Hardie had to plough through early court records, colonial files and family history accounts to find out what happened to the Friends women after they landed.

“New South Wales was operating like an open prison at the time under Governor Lachlan Macquarie,” says Ms Hardie. “Women were assigned to work in the homes of settlers, administrators and army officers. After a period of good behaviour they could go off and work on their own account, even before the end of their sentences.”

The women could also marry straight away and Susannah was one of the first Friends’ women to marry just six weeks after her arrival. She remained in that marriage for 12 years until her husband’s death. It was her second husband, Samuel Cave, who brought her to live in New Zealand at the end of 1837 to live in a whaling station.

“With Susannah’s move to Port Underwood her story was that of New Zealand’s early shore-based whaling industry. As part of the roller coaster ride that was Susannah’s life, the book also outlines her role in the events that led to the fight at the Wairau between the New Zealand Company and Te Rauparaha and his followers.”

Ms Hardie says Susannah may well have been the first emancipated convict from across the Tasman to settle in the South Island, but that was difficult to verify.

Susannah Noon was one of the youngest convicts on board the Friends, but there were also at least 15 younger children on the ship, born to their convict mothers either before they were convicted or while they were in gaol awaiting transportation. At least 125 more children were born to the women in New South Wales.

Information about all of the people who were on board the Friends has been put on a website as part of the book publishing project.

‘The Girl Who Stole Stockings’, published by Australian Teachers of Media Inc. (ATOM), is available at leading booksellers, RRP $39.99, and can be ordered online at www.friendsconvictship.com

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