Jane Cartwright

71

Robin Sharkey on 9th November 2025

Jane Cartwright, aged 28, was tried on 16 Sept 1795 in the Old Bailey. She was found guilty of feloniously stealing a watch from a man named TIPPOO SAIB. Mr Saib said he lived at Westminster, in Great George Street, servant to Lord MacDonald who, he advised, was brother of the Lord Chief Baron. Mr Saib’s employer, Lord Macdonald, was the Scottish head of the powerful Clan Macdonald, also a peer, and Lord of the Isles, whose baronial home was in the north western Scottish Isles. The Lord Chief Baron was his younger brother Alexander, the most senior judge (Baron) of the Exchequer who lived in London and who’d been two years in the head role of the Court of Exchequer. Lord Macdonald lived in Scotland, and Great George St would have been his London townhouse. Saib’s credibility would have been immediately enhanced by the fact that he worked in the household of a peer, and one with the closest family ties to a senior English judge. The crime occurred on 15 August. His employer, Lord MacDonald, in fact died on 12 September 1795, four days before the trial started, and Saib’s new master was then his 21-year-old son, the new Lord Macdonald. Of course accused Jane, and victim Mr Saib, had two different stories. Jane said that, having met Mr Saib on the street, he’d propositioned her (for sex), and then threatened her for saying no. Tippoo Saib said he was on his way back home to George Street, and Jane fell in with him, and she had asked him “to go with her”, implying nothing more than walk along with her to George Street, Westminster. VICTIM’S STORY Saib told the court next that: “I was come to our own door, and was ringing at the bell, standing at the door, and she came aside of me, and I found her hand in my waistcoat pocket, and I put my hand to pull out my watch, and I missed my watch; I ran after her along George-street.” He then met one of the watchmen William Roper, asked if he’d just seen a woman going past, and complained of being pickpocketed. The watchman had seen the woman go by a minute before. They caught up with her in the street. JANE’S STORY Jane said she was a poor unfortunate girl, just going home along George Street. She came across Saib who asked her to “take me along with you for a walking stick?” She said no, he persisted, she asked him “what compliment will you make me?” “He said, he had some things of his fellow servant's about him, and he gave me eight-pence halfpenny, and he unbuttoned his things, and wanted to be very rude, and he wanted sadly to prevail with me to go along with him to his master's kitchen.” Jane claimed she said she would not, and left but he came after her claiming she’d got his watch. She said he picked up the watch, asked again “Will you go home with me” and when she refused he said he would “have my revenge of you one way or the other”. Then he met with the night patrol and accused her, “there is that b-ch has robbed me of my watch”. Although Saib had the watch, they took her to the watch-house. THE WATCHMAN’S STORY William Roper the Watchman appeared to know both the victim and the accused. Court: “Look at Tippoo Saib. Do you know him? – Answer: Yes, perfectly.” And in relating his evidence the watchman had used Jane’s name in the street: “I said, Jane, you must go to the watch-house to be searched,” and in the street she had called him Roper. It’s possible then, being known to the watchman, that Jane was a street walker. She told him she hadn’t seen the watch, or got it. His evidence was then: “I said, Jane, you must go to the watch-house to be searched. She stooped down and dropped the watch by the side of us; Roper, says she, there lays the watch, take it up and say no more about it. I did not see it go out of her hand, but she said, there it lays, take it up and say no more about it. The prosecutor [Saib] took it up himself.” In answer to a question whether Saib was sober, the watchman said he spoke and acted as though sober. The watchman’s evidence was that Jane had dropped the watch by the side of them. Yet he also said he did not see the watch go out of Jane’s hand. How could he know Jane had dropped the watch by the side of them if he had not seen her do it? Saib might have dropped the watch by the side of them in order to frame her. Jane had no lawyer to pick up on these possibly contradictory statements, and Saib had made a point that he worked in an aristocratic household, reinforcing his own honourableness. Jane was found guilty of stealing, and sentenced to 7 years transportation. IMPRISONMENT Jane was in Newgate Prison (next to the Old Bailey) for eighteen months waiting for transportation. She was finally moved out “on Saturday 11th March 1797 [when] 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). After a month on board at Woolwich, Lady Shore left Woolwich, arriving at Portsmouth on 15 April 1797. “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. ***************************************** LADY SHORE SAILS 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’d then been 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. The younger male convict, Major Semple, learned of the mutiny plan and informed the ship's captain. He, Captain Wilcox, complained to the Transport Board about the danger of proceeding to sea with such men with arms in their hands. [ per ‘Belfast Newsletter’ 4 August 1798, being information from the purser, Mr Black, later writing back to England]. 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) And Lady Shore departed Portsmouth on 22 April 1797, headed for Botany Bay with mutinous men on board. MUTINY On 1st August, when the ship was about four days off the coast of South America, the French mutinied, aided by several Irish soldiers. [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. 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. Everyone else was left on board the Lady Shore. The mutineers sailed the ship to Montevideo (Uruguay) with the convict women, plus elderly convict Launcelot Knowles, the surgeon Mr Fyfe, and the marines of the NSW Corps. For the next seven years, nothing was known about the fate of the convict women, or the other people who’d been left on board. DISCOVERY OF FOUR BRITISH MEN But seven years later, in late 1804, 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 ship 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 shipto take them home). 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 ********************* Fate of the people in the longboat – Having landed at Rio Grande on the coast of Brazil, Black and the convict Semple then 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. In Nov 1799 these officers gave evidence at a trial of two of the French mutineers, who had been captured as prisoners at sea and sent to England. The two mutineers were found guilty of murdering Captain Wilcox, and were hanged on 23 Dec 1799.

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Penny-Lyn Beale on 2nd August 2023

UK Criminal Registers - Criminal Entry Records. Ship; Lady Shore No; 19 Trial; 16 September 1795 Age; 28 years. [born abt. 1769] Place of Transportation; Beyond the Seas.