Jane Grigg

71

Robin Sharkey on 16th November 2025

*********************** REMOVAL TO 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 tin order to marry, they had to convert to Catholicism which was the only faith recognised by the Spanish. The convicts’ were known by a Spanish version of their names (e.g. Catherine became ‘Katerina”), or by something phonetically or transliteratively similar, or by names that were interpretively equivalent (e.g ‘White’ became ‘Blanco’). PERSONAL LIFE Jane Grigg became known as Grick, probably Juana Grick. At the beginning of 1801 she gave birth in Buenos Aires to her first child, fathered by John Wolfe who was one of the German mutineers on board the ship. (Wolfe tried for 8 years to join the army in the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, but was unsuccessful - (Hardie, p 152). By 1804 Grigg had produced a second child with a different father. While the women stayed in La Residencia they had been medically cared for by Dr Michael O’Gorman, who was an Irish doctor living in Buenos Aires for the past 20 years. By the end of 1804, when she was aged about 25, Jane Grigg was living under the protection of Dr O’Gorman since she was living in the O’Gorman family home, along with two other convict women (one being Elizabeth Ricketts, then aged about 29). DAUGHTER FRANCISCA About 1808, Jane gave birth to her third child, a daughter she named Francisca, who was the result of her live-in relationship with an English merchant named James Jackson. However, at about the age of three years, Francisca was taken in by Jane Grigg’s former shipmate Mary Clarke. It is unclear which of the two Mary Clarkes from on board the Lady Shore was raising Francisca, but this particular one was at that time attached to an American man named Thomas Taylor, who was a resident in Buenos Aires from about 1810. About this time Mary Clarke began leasing an inn near the port, and it became popular with local Englishmen and visiting ones. Over time Mary Clark's inn evolved into a more sophisticated hotel, and she became financially successful. She sold the hotel lease in 1822 when Thomas Taylor died. Francisca was raised to adulthood by Mary Clarke, and then married a man whom Clarke “considered too grasping”. Francisca was disinherited by Clarke when he began pushing for her to be a larger beneficiary of Clarke’s wealth. TWO MORE Jane Grigg had two more children after Francisca, (i.e after 1811), making a total of five. Each of the five had a different father (Hardie, p 136) Source of the above information: ‘The Passage of the Damned’ by Elsbeth Hardie, published 2019, esp ‘La Residenzia’, pp 86-90; ‘Lives of the Convict Women’ pp 135-136; Francisca’s falling out in ‘Darwin’s Mary Clarke’ p 144, from Mendez Avellaneda, p 238-264.

71

Robin Sharkey on 16th November 2025

*********** CORRECTION – JANE GRIGG NOT IN LONGBOAT Jane Grigg was NOT the girlfriend of a ship’s officer who went into the longboat. This woman was JANE BARRY – see entry for Jane Barry. SOURCE of INFORMATION: Documents held by the ship’s carpenter Thomas Millard had been kept in his American family for 200 years until auctioned by Sotheby’s in May 2012. Their existence was not publicly known until then. The documents included the logbook from the Lady Shore. A copy of a few pages of the logbook was published in London’s ‘Daily Mail’ newspaper on 10 May 2012. This included the start of a list of the convict women on board. This list recorded: “ no 21. Jane “Berry” 2 d mates girl went in the Long boat”. This is Jane Barry. No 20 listed immediately above her was Jane Grigg. ****************************** JANE GRIGG’S FATE JANE GRIGG remained on the Lady Shore and was on board when the mutineers sailed the ship into the harbour of Montevideo on 27th August 1797. The Spanish administrators were wary of the French mutineers’ claims and treated them as prisoners of war while investigations were undertaken. Since there was nowhere to confine the convict women they were taken into local households for a time, as though they were billets. 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.

71

Robin Sharkey on 9th November 2025

JANE GRIGG was only 16 years old when she was found guilty at the Old Bailey of stealing a pewter quart pot with its leather strap on 3rd July 1795. It was purely a theft of opportunity, she having walked past it unattended at the time, but she was unfortunately being watched by someone the whole time. A Carpenter and joiner surnamed Brown was at the house called the sign of the Barn, kept by Mr. Huggings, and was looking through the window when he saw two women coming along. One of them was Jane Griggs with a tub in her hand. Brown watched Jane pass by the end of Hunt's-court, see this quart pot and strap at the end of the court, and come back and take it, putting it under her cloak. Brown went out and apprehended her. She said she had not got the pot, and Brown, with others, “went to move her, and it dropped from under her clothes”. The pot was owned by Stephen Noad who lived nearby. He kept a ‘house’ under the sign of the Coach and Horses, in St. Martin's-lane. In evidence he said he knew nothing about Jane Griggs taking the pewter pot, but he had detected her taking the pail out of the Coach and Horses yard about ten days before she stole the pewter pot. JANE’S DEFENCE: She said she “ took the pot for a drop of water at St. Martin's pump, it was just by the pump.” “Question: How came you to conceal it? - I was going by and I see it.” The quart pot was of a value of 13 pence, and the leather strap value was 2 pence. She was found GUILTY of theft and sentenced to SEVEN YYEARS transportation. IMPRISONMENT Jane was kept in Newgate Prison (next to the Old Bailey) for one year and eight months after her apprehension, waiting to be transported. 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). Lady Shore laid a month at Woolwich with the Newgate women and perhaps women arriving from other counties. The ship then headed to Portsmouth where it arrived on 15th April 1797. While at Portsmouth the Captain was told of a mutiny plan by the French men on board who’d been captured as prisoners and were being pressed into service in the NSW Corps. The captain was worried, and complained to the Transport Board about the danger of proceeding to sea with such men having arms in their hands. 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) LADY SHORE SAILING On 1st August, when the ship was about four days off the coast of South America, the French mutinied, aided by several Irish soldiers. They murdered the Second Mate who was on watch, the Chief Mate was killed in his cabin, and the captain was bayonetted so badly that he died on the third day. But 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. JANE GRIGG S WAS ONE OF THE “WIVES” PUT INTO THE LONGBOAT. She was then, two years after her trial, aged 18 years. This is recorded by the ship’s carpenter, THOMAS MILLARD, who kept a diary of his voyage the whole time, together with lists of the ship’s crew, the convict women, and those who had mutinied.vNext to Jane’s name on his list, Thomas Millard had written: “Mates Girl went in the Long boat” He does not record which of the Mates had claimed Jane, but the First mate had been killed. The Second Mate was Simon Minchin, and he was back in England by November 1799. The third Mate was Garried (?) Drummond. Jane was very lucky. She avoided the fate of the other convict women who were imprisoned when the mutineers reached Montevideo in Uruguay, and were made to be unpaid servants to Spanish matrons, or further imprisoned for bad behaviour. According to a letter from the ship’s purser Mr Black, who was on the longboat, written to his father in England, the longboat had been left with oars and they made it to Rio Grande on the south coast of Brazil. From there, the 29 who’d been sent adrift made their own ways back to England.

221

D Wong on 19th June 2021

Jane was 5'1" tall, grey eyes, brown hair, fair complexion, single.

221

D Wong on 19th June 2021

28th October 1795 Reference Number: t17951028-24 JANE GRIGG (Aged 16) JANE GRIGG was indicted for feloniously stealing, on the 3d of July, a pewter quart pot, value 13d. a leather strap, value 2d. the goods of Stephen Noad. 7 years.