Elizabeth Barnes

16

JJames on 16th November 2025

*********************** MONTEVIDEO Elizabeth Barnes and the other convict women on board “Lady Shore’ were taken by the mutineers to Montevideo in Uruguay on the southern coast of South America. Here they were put into local households for a time. But eventually all were transferred across the river to Buenos Ayres to live in a compound called “La Residencia”, overseen by an order of nuns. BUENOS AYRES Living in La Residencia in Buenos Ayres was a form of imprisonment, although the women could go, with accompaniment, to the market, or to bathe. They were medically cared for by an Irish doctor named Michael O’Gorman who’d lived in Buenos Aires for twenty years. The women could leave La Residencia if a matron or family sponsored them into their own home. Over time the women remained in households, or were released having shown suitable behaviour, or were married. But to leave La Residencia to marry, they had to convert to Catholicism which was the only faith recognised by the Spanish. The convicts’ names were known by a Spanish version of their names (e.g. Catherine to ‘Katerina”), or to something phonetically similar, or to names that were interpretively equivalent (e.g ‘White’ became ‘Blanco’). PERSONAL LIFE Elizabeth Barnes in Buenos Aires was called Luisa Banes. Of all the young women on the ship, Elizabeth Barnes was said to be the most beautiful [per Hardie p. 92, taken from Mendez Avellaneda p. 123]. It seems Elizabeth became a Catholic because a “Luisa Banes” baptised her child, Carlos Bernabe Fyfe, in Montevideo Catholic Cathedral in June 1799. The father was recorded as Charles Fyfe, who’d been the surgeon on the ship Lady Shore. The baby was recorded in the church register as being a ‘natural’ child of the pair, indicating the parents were not married. However it was reported, or recorded, that the parents had married, as found by Mendez Avellaneda in his research [Avellaneda, pages 44, 76, and 89-90; and p. 124, Appendix 12]. Yet it seems Luisa Banes and Charles Fyfe didn't stay together. This is because Elizabeth Barnes was recorded as living in La Residencia in 1800. But she later left the compound “to marry a local Frenchman who worked as a scribe on a ship” (per Hardie, p.131 research of Mendez Avellaneda p. 124, Appendix 12;). Charles Fyfe, the father of her child, left South America. He was probably the same Charles Fyfe who became physician to the British and American trading establishments at Cadiz in Spain (since Cadiz was an important destination for Spanish ships from Montevideo). This Charles Fyfe had then gone to London before announcing his intention to practise as a physician in Ipswich, England [per ‘Ipswich journal’, 30 July 1808, and p 149 Hardie book].

71

Robin Sharkey on 7th November 2025

ELIZABETH BARNES was aged 23 years when tried and found guilty at the Old Bailey on Wednesday 17 February 1796. Her crime was stealing, on the 19th of January 1796, quite a few clothing items in Thomas Sheffield’s dwelling house. The items were: • a man’s cloth coat (valued at 50s) • a muslin waistcoat, and a pair of brown velveret breeches, (each valued at 10s) • a linen gown (10s) • a dimity petticoat (5s), • a muslin apron and a muslin handkerchief (both valued at 2s) • and a white calico bed-gown at 1 shilling. Thomas Sheffield gave evidence. He was a lamp-lighter. He’d engaged Elizabeth to look after his wife and child who were ill with fever. The child died but his wife recovered, and so he told Elizabeth on the Sunday (17th Jan), after the child died, that she’d have to leave but she could stay till she got herself a place. On Tuesday 19 January his wife went out to find some ground to bury the child, and he went out about 4:30pm to do his work, telling Elizabeth he’d be back at 7pm. On return they found the house locked and the key left next door by Elizabeth. His box upstairs, left by him locked, had been broken into and his things were missing. His wife Ann Sheffield said in her evidence that her box had been locked and the women’s clothing listed missing from it. On Wednesday 20 January Mr Sheffield went to the constable, James Hall. On Saturday 23 January, the constable found Elizabeth at the Four Swans Ian, Bishopsgate-street. She was wearing his wife’s missing clothes. She told the constable she’d pawned the coat with Mr. Parker in Grub-street; and the waistcoat and breeches with Mr. Crouch in Fore-street. She’d changed into these clothes in the Sheffields’ house and left her own on the floor. Elizabeth’s defence was that the wife had desired her “to put her cloaths on, and go out and walk the streets, and bring her in some money; and if I did not, she would turn me out of the house directly”. She claimed the wife had the pawn money. The wife denied this. Elizabeth Barnes was found guilty of stealing and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. The crime was committed on 19 January 1796, she was arrested on 23rd January, the trial was on 17th February 1796, on 11 March 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. REMOVAL from NEWGATE PRISON to CONVICT SHIP 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). Another woman tried on the same day, 17 February, was Ann Lemon who was also put on the “Lady Shore”. 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. “ (Hampshire Chronicle, 22 April 1797). Semple was aged 38 and Launcelot Knowles was aged 65 years. LADY SHORE SAILS In later testimony it seems the Lady Shore transport finally left the coast of England from Falmouth at Cornwall, in early August, 1797, headed for Botany Bay. However, part of the NSW Corps on board included some Frenchmen who'd been taken prisoner in England. Having being condemned to death, they were reprieved to serve as soldiers at Botany Bay. While the ship was at Portsmouth, these men formed a plan to seize the ship when out to sea. The male convict, Major Semple, learned of this and informed the ship's captain, Captain Wilcox. He 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 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' desire.” Belfast Newsletter 4 August 1798 The Lady Shore Finally left English land at Falmouth, on the Cornwall coast, in early August, 1797. 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. They overpowered the Second Mate, who was murdered, when did the captain so badly that he died after several days, put 29 soldiers, wives, children and the convict Semple, into a longboat and sent it off to sea, and then proceeded with everyone else on board to Montevideo (Uruguay). According to testimony given by the convict Launcelot Knowles, and three soldiers who were taken off Cadiz seven years later Spanish ships captured by the English, and who were being returned to England by the Spanish, the female convicts had integrated into life in South America as described at the top of this page under the description of the ship. This information was reported in several British newspapers including Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh, Scotland), Thursday, January 3, 1805.

338

Penny-Lyn Beale on 2nd August 2023

Middlesex, England, Criminal Registers. Name Elizabeth Barnes [Eliza Barnes] Age 23 [born abt 1773] Born; Kensington. Committed for trial; 25 January 1796 Trial; 23 Feb 1796 - Middlesex, England Sentence Transportation Age; 23 years. Height; 5 ft 3 in. Dark Complexion, dark hair Status; Spinster Offence; Stealing in the dwelling house of Tho. Sheffield Sent to New South Wales per Lady Shore 1796 - 17 Feb. From the Proceedings of the Old Baily. Tried at Old Bailey, London. Accused of theft from a specified place (feloniously stealing, on the 19th of January, a man's cloth coat, value 50s. a muslin waistcoat, value 10s. a pair of brown velvet breeches, value 10s. a linen gown, value 10s. a dimity petticoat, value 5s. a muslin apron, value 2s. a muslin handkerchief, value 2s. and a white calico bed-gown, value 1s. the property of Thomas Sheffield , in his dwelling-house). Found guilty (theft under 40s).