Mary Bailey

Level 72

Robin Sharkey on 19th November 2025

MARY BAILEY’S LIFE IN BUENOS AYRES Mary Bailey recognised early that it would be in her own best interests to become a Catholic, or at least she’d got herself publicly baptised in the Catholic faith. She claimed in the baptism record that she had been born in Ireland (but the English Criminal Register for 1796 recorded that she was a native of Derby). Mary Bailey had been a prostitute in London, although that fact would have been kept from the Spanish. It seemed she worked as a prostitute around the docks of Buenos Aires. In 1804 she was living with Samuel Pyott in the port area of Buenos Aires. Pyott had been a NSW Corps soldier who joined the mutiny on Lady Shore. In 1804 he was working as a master boot maker. Mary was about 11 years older than him. [from research of Mendez Avellaneda, p.118.] Mary and Pyott came up with the idea of robbing a Portuguese sailor who Pyott had met in the street. The sailor was cashed up , having received his pay. He was invited, together with a shipmate, to Mary and Sam Pyott’s home for food and a gathering. At least four women from the Lady Shore also lived in the area – they did work as prostitutes: Lucy Whitehouse, Sarah Clarke, Susanna Johnstone and Elizabeth Nugent. These four were invited to join Mary, Sam, and the Portuguese sailor along with a shipmate. [Hardie, p 134] They got the sailor drunk and Mary shooed everyone else out of the lodgings, to sleep with him However, he woke up. A struggle ensued. The sailor fought off Sam, and then Mary became very angry and scratched him and tore out his hair. The Portuguese produced/ a knife and stabbed Sam Pyott, who died. At the judicial proceedings where the sailor was charged with murder, Mary and the other women's evidence that they made their money by repairing stockings and offering accommodation to travellers. They were not believed. The sailor was found guilty of murder anyway. [Hardie, p 135] In the same year, Mary assisted an ex-shipmate to get out of La Resiencia. [Hardie, p 133]. She sponsored Esther Round – who was about 60 years old and remained Protestant – to come and liver with her as a companion. When Mary went into Warwick jail charged with her crime, Esther had already been there, convicted, for a year,. She’d escaped the death sentence for coining (but her Two male companions had not). Mary and Esther had the shared experience of Warwick Jail, but regardless, Mary must have had some kindness in her to help Esther as she did. She also had some level of credibility with the Spanish to be able to sponsor Esther out of La Residencia. [Hardie, p 133]. Perhaps they did not know about the prostitution.

Level 72

Robin Sharkey on 18th November 2025

Regarding the Mutiny, it was the Chief Mate who was killed on watch. The Captain. died as above. [Murchison, Drummond & Black,Nat Archives, HO 42/44/27 Folio 85] The Second Mate was NOT murdered. His name was Murchison and he went in the longboat with his convict girl, Jane Barry. [Black, John 'An Authentic Narrative etc' pub 1798, Appendix 1]

Level 72

Robin Sharkey on 8th November 2025

MARY’s CRIME In 1796, on 16 march, Robert Aitken went to Mary Bailey’s lodgings and slept with her there (his testimony). He woke a little after 6am and Mary was gone, and so were all his clothes. She’d pawned them to a pawnbroker named John Fellows who had the clothes but he claimed not to remember who the woman was who’d pawned them. The clothes were a man's cloth coat (value 20s), a mersella waistcoat (10s), a man's hat (10s), a pair of men's French boots ( 5s), a neck handkerchief (6d), a pair of men's leather gloves, value 3d. She also took from Aitken two iron keys (4d) a base metal seal (1d) and a pen-knife, value 2d. A night or two afterwards, Mary was tracked down by her victim and he took her to the Constable in St Giles’s Watchhouse. She had on her person a written duplicate for pawning the waistcoat, breeches and handkerchief which the pawnbroker recognised as being his writing. She admitted to selling the two keys to a shopkeeper of an old iron shop – Aitken’s keys to his landlord’s rooms. The iron shopman said he bought them from her on 17 March. Mary had no lawyer and said in her defence that “He came into my room, and said he had been robbed of a guinea and a half by another woman; he asked me to let him stay all night, and he would let me pawn his things; he gave me one half-guinea, and said, it would be no object in the morning.” AT her trial on 6th April 1796, she was found guilty of stealing goods valued at 39s (just under the 40s value of the death sentence) and sentenced to 7 years’ transportation. NEWGATE She would remain in Newgate Prison for another year. On 11 March 1797. she was taken from Newgate prison to go to the ship at Woolwich. By April It had moved down to Portsmouth with its full load of convicts, soldiers and ship’s men. On Saturday 11th March 1797, “thirty-five female convicts and one male (Major Semple) were removed from Newgate, and delivered on board the ship Lady Shore, lying off Woolwich, bound for New South Wales”. (Norfolk Chronicle, Sat 18 March 1797, p.4). LADY SHORE DEPARTURE The Newgate Prison women were on the ship at Woolwich for five weeks before it moved from Woolwich to Portsmouth on 15 April 1797. In mid-April 1797, Mr. Black, the purser of the vessel, “received government dispatches and immediately set off to Portsmouth to join the Lady Shore. The ship has now on board 110 men women and children belonging to the New South Wales Corps, and 70* convicts, only two of which are males viz major Semple and Knowles. “ (per Hampshire Chronicle, 22 April 1797). Semple was aged 38 and Launcelot Knowles was aged 65 years. * 69 Convicts are listed on the ‘Convicts Transported’ manifest for Lady Shore in Home Office Records, 1779-1871, Fonds HO/Series HO 11/File 1/ AJCP Reel No 87. Since two only are male then 67 convicts are female. LADY SHORE SAILS The Lady Shore transport finally departed Portsmouth on 22 April 1797, headed for Botany Bay. However, part of the NSW Corps on board the ship included eight or so Frenchmen who'd been taken prisoner in England. Having being condemned to death, they were then reprieved to serve as soldiers at Botany Bay. While ‘Lady Shore’ was at Portsmouth, these men formed a plan to seize the ship when out to sea. This was reported in Belfast Newsletter 4 August 1798 as being information that came from the purser, Mr Black, writing back to England. Mr Black said the male convict, Major Semple, had learned of the mutiny plan and informed the ship's captain, Captain Wilcox, who complained to the Transport Board of the danger of proceeding to sea with such men while they had arms in their hands. The Colonel of the regiment of the NSW Corps was sent to investigate “but he, perhaps hesitating to give credit to Semple, and from the Benevolence of his own heart entertaining a better opinion of his men than they deserved, overruled Captain Wilcox’s desire.” (per Belfast Newsletter 4 August 1798) MUTINY On 1st August, when the ship was about four days off the coast of South America, the French, with the aid of several Irish soldiers on board, mutinied. [per ‘The Naval History of Great Britain’ by William James, at p.1797] They murdered the Second Mate, who was on watch, the Chief Mate was killed in his cabin, and one of the Frenchmen stabbed and wounded the captain so badly with a bayonet that he died on the third day. The mutineers put 29 soldiers and ship officers (including Mr Black the purser), wives, children and the convict Semple, into a longboat and sent it off. The mutineers then proceeded to Montevideo (Uruguay) with the remainder on board – who were the convict women plus old Launcelot Knowles, the surgeon Mr Fyfe, and the marines of the NSW Corps. According to a letter from Mr Black to his father in England, the longboat made it to land at Rio Grande on the south coast of Brazil. Black and the convict Semple made their way north overland and by boat to Rio de Janiero. Various other officers had made their way back to England by November 1799 when two of the French mutineers, having been captured as prisoners at sea, were found guilty of the murder of the captain of Lady Shore and were hanged on 23 Dec 1799. DISCOVERY OF FOUR BRITISH MEN Seven years later four Spanish ships were captured by the English off Cadiz. On board one of these was the convict Launcelot Knowles (now aged about 72) and on another were three of the NSW Corps soldiers. The men said they’d come from Buenos Ayres and the Spanish were letting them go to England (they were to have been released at Cadiz to find an English ship). FATE OF FEMALE CONVICTS According to their testimony the 67 female convicts had integrated into life in South America as described at the top of this page under the description of the ship. That wording comes from the men’s testimony and is reported in several British newspapers for example: ‘Caledonian Mercury’ of Thursday, 3 Jan, 1805 and ‘Freemans Journal’, Thursday, 3 Jan 1805, p.4 Given that Mary Bailey had slept with her victim to steal his clothes, she may have been one of the women of whom it was reported: “behaved in a very loose and disorderly manner, and were in consequence taken into custody, and carried before the Governor who committed them to prison at Buenos Ayres where they reformed and agreed to profess the Roman Catholic Religion.”

Level 338

Penny-Lyn Beale on 2nd August 2023

UK Criminal Registers - Criminal Entry Records. Ship; Lady Shore No; 28 Trial; 6 April 1796 Age; 31 years. [born abt. 1762] Place of Transportation; Beyond the Seas.