Ann Davis

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Robin Sharkey on 7th December 2016

David Collins, in his 'An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales [Volume 1]" wrote of her, at page 103, as she was to be executed: "... acknowledging at that fatal moment which generally gives birth and utterance to truth, that she was about to suffer justly, and that an attempt which she made, when put on her defence, to criminate another person, (a woman whose character was so notorious that she hoped to establish her own credit and innocence upon her infamy,) as well as her plea of pregnancy, were advanced merely for the purpose of saving her life. She died generally reviled and unpitied by the people of her own description. "

60

Eric Harry Daly on 15th January 2013

Ann Davis the wife of William Davis was convicted at the Old Bailey of stealing 8 pairs of stockings the value of 8 shillings on 26 Apr 1786, she was transported for 7 years on the Lady Penrhyn. http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17860426-119-defend1264&div=t17860426-119#highlight The first woman to be hanged in Australia was Ann Davis who was executed on 23 November 1789. She was about 30 years old Ann was found guilty of stealing clothing and goods from the house of convict Robert Sidaway, who co-habituated there with Mary Marshal. Davis was in the habit of calling by and smoking a pipe with them. When they were away on November 14 she gained access through a window. After upsetting a tub of water in the house, she made off with her booty; it was later found in her possession. When the prisoner claimed to be pregnant and thus that she could not be executed, the court ordered a trial by matrons. The jury of matrons was the most important function that women performed in eighteenth century courts "On her condemnation she pleaded pregnancy, and a jury of venerable matrons was empanelled on the spot to examine and pronounce her state, which the forewoman, a grave personage between sixty and seventy years old, did by this short address to the Court “Gentlemen, She is as much with child as I am .”' Sentence was accordingly passed, and she was executed . Sydney Cove. Nov 23 Ann Davis has been hanged, the first woman in the colony to be "turned off" by the executioner. On 23 Nov 1789 James Freeman's (the executioner) worst moment may have come when he killed Ann Davis the first woman executed in Australia. Found drunk a week later he was punished with 100 lashes.