Ann Marsh

71

Robin Sharkey on 30th January 2026

A story of Ann’s extensive business life in Sydney appears on the website of a Sydney coin dealer named Coinworks. See https://coinworks.com.au (a coin dealer’s site). The author has included Ann because she issued promissory notes in her own name from 1812 and 1813 and two of these are reproduced on the website by Coinworks. Like much that is already stated on this Convict Records website, references and sources are not given. ********************************************

71

Robin Sharkey on 30th January 2026

Correction for typo above – ‘baby Ann baptised in Buckland Brewer on 16 August’ is 1767, not 1867. On the surname ‘Marshall’ This website is not intended as a genealogical database or genealogical research site. However sometimes unsupported statements or suppositions that appear then get repeated. These need to be corrected or clarified. For Ann Marsh, I Frazier has introduced an unsupported statement that the surname could be Marshall. Searching in the Family Search website run by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints under Search/ Records for Ann Marsh B 16 /8/1767 brings up the original document for the baptism of Ann Marsh on 16 August 1767 at Buckland Brewer in Devon, with parents John Marsh and Mary. All family trees on the Family Search site that have been attached to Ann state that her father is “John Marshall”. Many state he is born in Buckland Brewer in 1731. Some attach a record for her father as being John Marshall, baptised at Northam, in Devon, on 16 Dec 1731, father Thomas Marshall, mother Mary. Northam is 8 miles north of Buckland Brewer. No sources are given, or any explanation made, linking this John Marshall to being the father of Ann Marsh. The many sources listed for John Marsh in these family trees are simply a marriage record of John MARSH to Mary Andrew on 3rd June 1754, and all the baptisms of this pair’s children’s in which the father is recorded as Marsh. There are no sources linking any John ‘Marshall’ baptism to being the same person as John ‘Marsh’ the father of the Ann baptised in 1767. ****************************************

71

Robin Sharkey on 30th January 2026

Re statement (P. Hands, and I Frazier, about Ann’s birth at Buckland Brewer, Devon (near Bideford). Research on Ann’s origins appear on a public Wordpress website for “Buckland Brewer History Group”. Under the page “People” is a subpage for Ann Marsh, convict. (as at 30/01/2026) Importantly, the site creator makes clear that there is no specific evidence to link convict Ann to being the same baby Ann baptised in Buckland Brewer on 16 August 1867. (This would mean, as examples - no known statement by convict Ann herself, or reported to authorities, that she was born at Buckland Brewer, or that she was born around that date). The site author notes that there is only the fact that the woman tried at the age of 21 at the March 1789 Devon Assizes has the same name and is the right age to be the baby baptised at Buckland Brewer on 16 /08/’67 (So this would mean she would be turning 22 after March 1789 and before 16 August 1789). It appears that a lot of the first contribution to this page made above made by P. Hands has been taken from that website without attribution. The Buckland Brewer History site, which shows a lot of research work, does not make any statement that the family’s name was Marshall. The site has many public comments, most from descendants of Ann Marsh. I hope this helps clarify fact from assumptions. ******************************

4

Darcy Geale on 13th December 2021

"Ancestry,com suggests Ann (Marsh) may have been surnamed (Marshall)" - could you please validate details? The references to being born on Buckland Brewer - could you please validate the source material?

75

iain Frazier on 26th October 2019

I was expecting to contribute much to this site, but have actually found details to learn. I can add these few embellishments though & a list of references. Ancestry,com suggests Ann (Marsh) may have been surnamed (Marshall). Michael Flynn tells us Richard (Alley/Halley) was a naval surgeon employed in 1789 by William (Richards) contractor on LADY JULIANA female transport. Later activity is that he returned to UK on SIRIUS/WAAKSAMHEID in 1791 & came again to Australia on East India Company ship ROYAL ADMIRAL as naval agent/surgeon in 1792. A quote from Barbara Hall's book is 'her stint on shelves of the orlop was brief, for she had caught the eye of Surgeon (Alley) & was soon spirited away to his cubbyhole at the far end of the sickbirth' In 1791 she shared a hut with Ann (Flavell) who stole babies things food etc and received 25lashes with cart's sic tail. She then lived with John (Irving/Irwin/Irvine) convict 7yrs from LADY PENRHYN, a surgeon, at his 30acre farm in Parramatta. At this time she seems to have used the surname (Mash) In 1793 she commenced 'Mash's Boat' Parramatta Passage Boat (passengers & goods). Ann's boat was the private ferry-MARIA 'Mash's Boat' (yawl boat or wherrie, picture avaiilable in Daniel Hardy's book). She also sold the Kings Head Tavern in 1810. She was buried at St Phillips Sydney. Recorded as Ann (Massh) in 1822 muster. William (Chapman) has an entry on this website Robert (Flannagan) has an entry on this website John (Irving) has an entry on this website.

54

Phil Hands on 8th April 2017

Ann Mash or Marsh, born on July 16th 1767 in Buckland Brewer, Devon, UK., was the sixth of the seven children of John Marsh and Mary Andrew, a family of four sons and three daughters. Her mother, Mary Andrew, born March 17th 1731, was the daughter of John Andrew and Mary Morrice, both of whom were born in the early 1700's, and who married in Buckland Brewer on August 3rd 1728. John Marsh and Mary Andrew were married, also in Buckland Brewer, on June 3rd 1754. With another young woman, Mary Edwards, Ann was charged at the Assizes held at the Castle of Exeter in Devon on March 16th 1789, with stealing a bushel of wheat, the property of William Welland. Ann was then about 21 years of age. While both women were found guilty, they received different sentences, Mary Edwards, believed to be married, being fined six shillings and given six months hard labour, while Ann, a single woman, was sentenced to seven years' "beyond the seas", to the infant colony known as Botany Bay, and in due course, joined the 226 other women (of which 5 died during the voyage), and six of their children on the 'Lady Juliana', a ten year old Whitby built ship, which finally sailed from Plymouth on July 29th 1789. Arrived on 3rd June 1790. This was the first convict ship to arrive in New South Wales after the First Fleet, and was chartered by the East India Company to continue on to China for tea, leaving the colony on July 25, 1790. During the voyage every man on board took a 'wife' from among the convicts, women being realists probably saw a willing acceptance better than a rape!. Ann's 'partner' was no less than the kindly and thoughtful ship's surgeon, Richard Alley. He fathered a child by Ann Marsh, baptised Charlotte Maria Alley on June 5, 1791, some twelve months after the Juliana's arrival in Sydney Harbour, on June 3, 1790, (one day short of twelve months after leaving the Thames). Charlotte only lived a few days after her baptism, and Ann had to mourn her death alone, as Richard Alley had sailed to England in March, 1791. He returned to the colony in October, 1792, on the East India Company ship Royal Admiral , in the dual role of Naval Agent and Ship's Surgeon, but there is no record of his resuming his earlier role of Ann's partner and protector. Ann - and all the single women in the colony - needed a protector, and she lived with John Irving/Irwin/Irvine, a First Fleet convict, who was the first convict to obtain an absolute pardon in 1790. John, tried in Lincoln in 1784 for stealing, and sentenced to seven years' transportation, came to the colony on the Lady Penrhyn as ship's surgeon, and had been to Norfolk Island with King, where his medical expertise was highly regarded . On his return to Sydney in 1792, Irving was appointed as assistant surgeon at Parramatta, and had 30 acres of land granted to him, roughly in the area known as Irving Street, Parramatta. John and Ann had a son, John Irving, born on January 17, 1796, some four months after John's death in September, 1795. The title to John's land went to Ann, his common law wife, and she held it until 1798, when she sold "Irving's Farm", as it was known, to one Richard Fitzgerald, who resold it in 1799 to William Wilkinson, and he in turn sold the farm in 1810 to George Palmer. Details of these transactions were obtained from the historical officer at the Lands Titles Office in Sydney - there were no registrations of these sales, as they appear to have been private transactions amongst the parties concerned. A single woman with a young child, Ann desperately needed a protector, and in November, 1796, she married Robert Flannagan, an Irish convict, born circa 1767, tried at Armagh, and transported per Boddingtons in 1793, the NSW marriage registration being #1796/365/3A, St. John's Church, Parramatta. 1796 p. 6 No 21 Robert Flannigan of the parish of Parramatta and Ann Marsh married in this Church by permission of His Excellency Governor Hunter this twenty seventh day of Nov in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety six by me Samuel Marsden. Robert Flanagan and Ann Marsh both signed their names in the register in the presence of [struck through] Grant and Ann Blady who both signed their names Two daughters were born to Ann and Robert, the latter absconding for the second time, but successfully on his second effort in mid-1798. Ann then lived with William Chapman, (per Pitt in 1792), and had six children to him. The two Flannagan children were known as Chapman, but John, Ann's son to John Irving, kept his father's name. Apart from bearing this large family, from the 1790's Ann also managed a small goods and passenger boat service from Sydney to Parramatta, employing men to handle the boat, which probably had small sails supplemented by oars. She also assisted Chapman in various business activities - a bakery, a butchery and a general store, and after his death, from 1811 she held a wine and spirit licence for the King's Head Tavern, a replica of which has been built as part of Old Sydney Town. Ann was literate, and her firm and well-written signature exists on documents with the early Bank of New South Wales (which started trading in 1817). She had her share of good times and bad days, and two of the latter have been recorded. On May 24th 1802, Ann Marsh was "convicted of selling spirits without a license on the Sabbath, and bribing a Constable to say she had only half-a-gallon in her house when she had eight gallons. Exclusive of the forfeiture of the spirits and the bribe of five pounds, she incurred the different Penalties amounting to twenty pounds sterling, which has been levied on her effects. This example, it is hoped, will deter others from incurring similar losses. It is the Governor's express Orders that no Spirits are even to be given by any person, or sold by any licensed person, upon the Sabbath", (Historical Records of Australia). On the same day, an amount of fifteen pounds was recorded by the Reverend Samuel Marsden as having been received from Mr Smith on account of Ann Marsh - presumably part of her fine. The Sydney Gazette of May 8th 1803, mentions that..."yesterday afternoon, the Passage Boat belonging to Mrs. Ann Mash was brought to opposite the Magazine, for landing, contrary to General Orders, which specify that no boat shall land in any part of the harbour but at the Public Wharfs, (sic), and receiving on board 2 bags of sugar, 1 chest of tea and 6 pieces of calico; all which were ordered to be detained; but the boat to proceed in her usual employ till further orders". A week later, the Gazette says: "The articles mentioned in our last week's paper to have been taken out of the passage boat and detained, were restored to the owners, upon a compensation being made to the owners for the trouble they had been at". In the Gazette issue of July 17th 1803, appears the following: NOTICE :- Ann Mash, licensed proprietor of a passage boat, particularly requests, that places and parcels may be paid for, agreeable to the rates of charge specified in His Excellency's General Order of 6th inst., before the boat quits the wharf either at Sydney or Parramatta. Ann had a lucky escape from death in mid 1810. William Chapman inserted an account of her accident in the Sydney Gazette of June 2, 1810:- "A report having reached me that an accident which occurred to Mrs Chapman on Thursday morning last was occasioned by the mistake of one of the young men who dispenses medicine at the General Hospital; as I am ignorant of the source from whence the report could have arisen, and of the motives why it has been so industriously circulated, I feel myself called upon to give the following explanation to the public:- Mrs. C. being desirous to take salts, told her daughter to weigh one ounce from a paper containing a quantity which had been for some time in the house; but there being a paper of sugar of lead which I had for the purposer of adding paint to in order to expedite the drying of it, the girl unfortunately took the latter. It was dissolved and swallowed, when Mrs. C. discovered by the different taste that it was not salts which she had taken. Immediate application was made to the Gentlemen of the General Hospital, and I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude for their exertions in the preservation of her life." William Chapman died on June 15th 1810, leaving Ann with nine children under the age of fourteen years. All survived and did well for themselves in both the young colonies of New South Wales and New Zealand. The Sydney Rocks Information Centre shows a letter written by Ann in 1811 to the governor's secretary, in which she pleads that, as a busy mother of 10 children, (yes, she had given birth to 10, but the eldest, Charlotte Alley, died shortly after birth, so this was a small and easily forgiven exaggeration!), she is finding it difficult to cope with all her work, and Ann pleads for a man from the next boat from Europe to be assigned to her. Two weeks after William Chapman's death, on June 30th 1810, an advertisement appeared in the Sydney Gazette:- "Taken from alongside the Edwin schooner, on the night of the 18th inst., a boat about 20 ft long and 7 ft. in the beam. Whosever shall give information whereby she may be recovered, will receive twenty shillings for their trouble from Mrs. Chapman, Kings Head, High Street, Sydney". Her youngest child, James, had to be placed in the Sydney Orphan School for a while, with the note "father dead, mother poor". Ann was finding life tough going without her strong and able partner, William Chapman. An adventurous and busy life came to an end when Ann died on March 7th 1823, her age given as 54 years.