Ann Daly

71

Robin Sharkey on 19th April 2019

Ann Daly was transported for 7 years from Ireland on the convict ship “Marquis Cornwallis” after being tried in Dublin in June 1794 for stealing. She departed over a year later in August 1795, and arrived at Sydney, NSW in February 1796. Although on arrival she was recorded on a list of 31 women sent to the Female Factory at Parramatta upon disembarkation on 12 February 1796 (per log book of ship's Captain, Michael Hogan) she is one of the seven women from the ship whose names do not appear on the Female Factory Records. After her arrival she was forwarded to Norfolk Island, as were several of the women convicts arriving then, including her Dublin jail-mate, Elizabeth Jackson who had been tried in Dublin at the same Quarter Sessions as Ann. Ann Daly was vicious in the crime she committed, but as the judge at her trial remarked, she was tried for only a lesser crime (stealing money) than the one she could have been tried for (presumably highway robbery or violent assault). NEWSPAPER REPORT OF IRISH CRIME: Freemans Journal, Saturday 21 June 1794, p.4. “Ann Daly was indicted for feloniously taking 3l 8s 3d “Bridget Ormsby swore that on the evening of 10th June [1794] between nine and ten o’clock she was met by the prisoner Ann Daly and Eleanor Stone, in Cole’s Lane, that she only knew them by sight as they lived near her, but she had no acquaintance with them; that the prisoner on seeing her come up seized her by the throat, and put her hand in her pocket and took out the money, and Eleanor Stone assisted her, that when she got the 3 guineas she went away, that Rose Molloy was present and in company with [Bridget Ormsby] when the prisoner seized her by the throat, that she swore against them the next day. The money so taken from her was the property of her husband. “Rose Molloy says she saw the prisoner [Ann Daly] on said night of the 10th, [Daly] came up to [Bridget Ormsby] and seized her by the throat; Witness Molloy] says she saw the [victim, Ormsby] to the door, but she did not then complain to her that she had lost her money; she remained with [Ormsby[ but a few minutes after the scuffle, and during [that] time … [Ormsby] appeared very. much agitated from the abuse she received from the prisoner. “The Recorder, after stating the evidence, informed the Jury that if they believed the witnesses produced they ought to find the prisoner guilty; that the prisoner might have been, on such evidence, convicted of an offence of a higher nature. The Jury without hesitation found her guilty and she was sentenced to be transported for seven years.” _______________________