Sarah Dancer

71

Robin Sharkey on 16th November 2025

IN SOUTH AMERICA When the ship sailed into the harbour of Montevideo on 27th August 1797, the Spanish administrators treated everyone on board as prisoners of war while investigations were undertaken. Since there was nowhere to confine the convict women they were taken into local households temporarily. Those placed in wealthier homes had an easier time, since these families already had servants and slaves. But many women found themselves working in homes as unpaid labour. ( letter from Mary Clarke published in ‘General Evening Post’, London, 17 May 1798 as ‘The Lady Shore’) and 1804 evidence of convict Knowles, published in newspaper ‘Belfast Newsletter, Friday, January 04, 1805; Page: Eventually all the women were transferred across the river to Buenos Ayres to live in a compound called “La Residencia”, overseen by an order of nuns. *********************** LIFE IN BUENOS AYRES Living in La Residencia in Buenos Ayres was a form of imprisonment, although the women could be accompanied 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 in order to marry, they had to convert to Catholicism which was the only faith recognised by the Spanish. Sarah Dancer did marry, so she must have become a Catholic. To mention marriage was an Irishman who was himself resident in Buenos Aires. (From ‘The Passage of the Damned’ by Elsbeth Hardie, published 2019, at page 131). Sarah's friend, Elizabeth Hill, also married an Irishman. His name was Alexander Williams and they married in 1799. He was a smithie on board the Lady Shore who had been known as William Jacks (name per Thomas Millard’s list of men on board, published Daily Mail, 10 May 2012).

71

Robin Sharkey on 9th November 2025

PROCEEDINGS OF THE OLD BAILEY SITTINGS COMMENCING ON 16TH SEPTEMBER 1795. SARAH DANCER was aged 18 and said at trial she “worked at childrens’ pump making”. Pumps were probably children’s shoes. ELIZABETH HILL was aged 19 and married since she was referred to in the trial as Mrs Hill. She said she “lived in service” i.e she was a live-in servant. THE GIRLS VISIT THE HABERDASHER’S Sarah and Elizabeth were taken into custody on 20 July 1795 for, that day, having stolen several items out of a haberdasher’s shop on St George Row. The shop was owned by Mrs Tidd who lived in the City-road, facing the French Hospital, and ran a linen draper's and haberdasher's from her house. She did not know the two prisoners. They’d gone into the shop together, looked at things, and Mrs Elizabeth Hill asked about handkerchiefs. The haberdasher showed her some out of a box that she put on the counter. There was an agreement to buy a muslin handkerchief with a downpayment of 11 shillings that Mrs Hill would bring back to her. The two young women had been followed by Mr Algar who’d seen them go past his house. He suspected these two of having recently stolen some stockings from him. As soon as they left the shop he stuck his head in and asked the haberdasher if she’d lost anything and she realised that two items were missing from the front window. THE CHASE Algar chased after the girls, calling ‘Stop thief’, and caught them up on, or next to, (evidence varied) St George’s Row. He told them they’d robbed a gentlewoman, and then he noticed a white bundle lying in the field adjacent. Another man, a goldsmith, was standing on St George’s Row as the two women ran toward him with Algar in pursuit. They’d gone around the corner and he claimed to have seen one of the women – he didn’t know which one - throw a bundle over some pales (i.e. fence palings) into the field. Robert Pearce was a plumber and glazier on his way to do a job. He was also a part-time officer. He had seen Mr Algar running down the street and enquired of someone in the street what the matter was. He went another way and saw the two women in the field next to St George’s row. He saw Algar come up to them. Elizabeth Hill swore at Algar, and made a blow at him; and Sarah Dancer started crying. Pearce, too, saw something white lying in the field about 80 yards away. He arrested the two women in his role as constable. After Algar and the constable returned the girls to Mrs Tidd’s shop, Algar went and picked up the ‘package’ or bundle of things. But this had been lying there in the field for about ten minutes before he did so. When Mrs Tidd was shown the items she realised more was stolen than just the dimity cloth and handkerchief from her front window. The other items had come out of the box that she’d put on the counter when showing the young women the handkerchiefs. DEFENCE The two women pointed out that they’d gone willingly back to Mrs Tidd’s shop with the officer. Elizabeth Hill said she’d submitted to going into a passageway to have some of her own clothing removed and be examined. She also claimed another woman had come into the shop while they were present, thereby attempting to cast doubt on them being the only possible thieves. Mrs Tidd claimed the items were no more than six months old. The consequent meaning of this was that the items would not have depreciated much in the time since she’d bought them. She placed a value of £2 14s 8d on all the items, claiming that was her selling price. This value was well over the forty shillings value which triggered the death penalty. Mrs Tidd apparently made no attempt to reduce the value in order to save the girls’ lives to just get them transported instead. The women were, unfortunately, not defended. A lawyer could have made much of the fact that there was a ten-minute break between the girls tossing something over and the things being picked up. For example: How could it be proved these were the same things tossed over? Had someone interfered with the items? Was it a different package entirely? Had the real thief taken the opportunity to switch the two packets? And a lawyer might also have gone hard on the goldsmith, challenging him as to what he could actually see given his distance away and the fact that the girls went around a corner before throwing the bundle. However, Sarah and Elizabeth were not defended: • And they were found guilty. • And the value of Mrs Tidd’s items was not able to be lessened in any way. • And they were given the death sentence. However, they were obviously reprieved from death, to be punished by transportation instead. IMPRISONMENT Sarah and Elizabeth were together in Newgate Prison (next to the Old Bailey) for eighteen months waiting for transportation. They were 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 the women had been a month on board at Woolwich, the Lady Shore sailed down to Portsmouth, arriving on 15 April 1797. It left for New South Wales a week later on 22 April. MUTINY On 1st August, when the ship was about four days off the coast of South America, the French prisoners-turned-NSW Corps solders aboard mutinied, aided by several Irish soldiers. [per ‘The Naval History of Great Britain’ by William James, at p.1797]. Twenty-nine people were sent off in a longboat. [For more detail of what happened during and after see entries for other convict women – Jane Cartwight, Jane Barry] The rest on board, including all the convict women, were under the control of the mutineers who sailed the boat to Montevideo in Uruguay. There, the women’s fates were as described at the top of the page for the ship Lady Shore. Hopefully both Sarah and Elizabeth were among those who married and hopefully adjusted to life in a totally foreign place making it their new home.

338

Penny-Lyn Beale on 2nd August 2023

1795 - 15 September 1795 Tried at Old Bailey, London (ob*). Accused of shoplifting (feloniously stealing, on the 22d of july, eight yards of dimity, value 1l. one yard and a half of cambrick, value 1l. a yard of muslin, value 3s. a muslin handkerchief, value 2s. a linen handkerchief, value 2s. a woman's linen cap with a lace edging, value 9s. the goods of elizabeth tidd , widow, privately in her shop, stealg. a piece of dimity etc eliz tidds.). Found guilty. Sentenced to death. Sentence outcome was transported. Sentence respited 6th November 1795, Age 18.