Elizabeth Needham

Level 75

iain Frazier on 16th July 2024

Family connections for Elizabeth (Needham) are: NEEDHAM Elizabeth (Gore) daughter of ??? (Gore) a coachman involved with Royal Household was born about 1762 & became a needle worker making childbed linen; she is said to have been fostered into that part of the Royal household. She married firstly (1of5) Henry (Needham) at St Georges Hanover Square London on 11 2 1782. She was tried firstly for shoplifting, in company with her baby on 23/4 7 1783, muslin of Thomas (Jeremy) at Middlesex & sentenced humanely to 6months gaol (with her child). She was tried secondly for theft of silk stockings at Old Bailey on 19 7 1786 & sentenced to 7years; here she claimed to be working as servant to performer in Bond St. She was held at Middlesex Gaol Delivery & arrived in NSW as a convict on 22 1 1788 after a journey of 12months on First Fleet ship LADY PENRHYN.>>> [Some details taken from this Website] Henry (Needham) was a journeyman butcher at Oxford Market.] Elizabeth (Gore) & Henry (Needham) produced perhaps 1child:] 1.??? (Needham)] was born about 1783. He/he is not recorded in Smees records as arriving in Australia & no reference to a life in Australia has been found. .. >>>Elizabeth (Gore/Needham) was assaulted by Private Thomas (Bramwell) at Port Jackson at Port Jackson on 9 2 1788-seemingly a second relationship (2of5).>>> Thomas (Bramwell) was born in 1753. He arrived in NSW as a marine private on 22 1 1788 after a journey of 12months on First Fleet ship LADY PENRHYN also. He was moved to Norfolk Island on 26 7 1791, recorded as being discharged as a marine in October 1791 at Sydney, departing on 26 10 1791 & arriving on Norfolk Island on 29 11 1791. In November 1791 he was granted 60acres on Norfolk Island. He joined the NSW Corps on 25 3 1793 at Sydney as private. In 1798 he was detached to (Johnston)s company & was discharged on 27 7 1798. On 31 5 1799 he was granted 150acres at Bankstown which he sold. He died in 1815 age about about58 at Parramatta. .. Elizabeth (Gore/Needham) & Thomas (Bramwell seem to have produced 1child:) 1.William Dennis Thomas (Snailham) was born in 1788 & baptised on 1/31 8 1788 at St Phillips CofE Sydney. He died on 17 2 1788 age<1 & was buried at St Phillips CofE Sydney-note disparity in dates - & that he is recorded arriving on Norfolk Island with his mother on 4 10 1794. .. >>>Elizabeth (Gore/Needham) married thirdly (3of5) William (Snailham) on 17 2 1788 at St Phillips CofE Sydney & produced 2children. She provided needlework for Mrs (McArthur-Governors wife). In August 1794 she was living near The Chapel of Sydney corner Hunter & Bligh streets. She arrived on Norfolk Island on 4 10 1794 with her son William Dennis Thomas. She was granted 40acres at Bulanaming in 1796.>>> William (Snaleham/Snailham) was born about 1766. He was tried separately for burglary & stealing, on 27 3 1784, linen sheets etc of Thomas (Jackson) & silk gown etc of Thomas (Goodrick) at Old Bailey on 24 4 1784, sentenced to 7years, held at Middlesex Gaol Delivery & arrived in NSW as a convict on 22 1 1788 after a voyage of 12months on First Fleet ship SCARBOROUGH. He was granted 30acres at Mulgrave Place Hawkesbury in November 1794, which he sold in 1800. He died in 1794 age27. [Some details taken from this Website] .. >>>Elizabeth (Gore/Needham) had a fourth relationship (4of5) with John (Driver) from about 1796 & produced 5children. She is recorded as Free by Servitude in 1797. She operated the Wheatsheaf public house from 1787 to 1799 in Sydney. She returned to England with her family (Driver) in 1799 (a trading trip?) (where she was recorded at her wedding to John (Driver) as a returning emancipist} & returned to Port Jackson, with permission to be free settlers, in December 1801 on Fleet ship MINORCA. From about 1803 she seems to have jointly operated John (Driver)s warehouse & store in Chapel Row (Castlereagh St). She held a publicans licence from 1803-1809. In 1806 she was recorded with three male and two female children-1of whom may be the child born in England. I HAVE 3MALE 4FEMALEIn 1808 she contributed her own money to support Governor (McArthur)s planned trip to UK against (Bligh) which was aborted. She received the property of her husband after he died in 1810. She visited England in 1819 on SURREY to visit family & to trade (with letters of introduction), returning on 24 9 1820 on SURREY with possible government assistance. She returned to England again in 1824 on MIDAS bearing an introduction from Mrs (McArthur-Governors wife) to (McArtur)s son & dignitaries of the Royal household, arriving on 31 12 1824 after a stormy passage. She died at the Star and Garter Tavern Portsmouth on 3 1 1825 age about62 mother of 9known children & was buried at St Thomas Cathedral Portsmouth. John (Driver), perhaps son of John (Driver) & Hester (Harris), was born about 1772 at Dursley Gloucestershire & baptised on 15 7 1773 at Berkley; he became a cordwainer/shoemaker. He was tried for assault & theft, at Dursley on 6 12 1787, of silver watch at Gloucester Quarter Sessions on 15 1 1788, sentenced to 7years for theft only, held at Gloucester Castle Gaol & hulk DUNKIRK from 24 6 1788 at Portsmouth & arrived in NSW as a convict on 26 6 1790 after a voyage of 6month on Fleet ship NEPTUNE; a voyage noted for extreme brutality of prisoners with a high death rate. His sentence expired in December 1794 & he became a retail trader-very succesfully. He returned to England in 1799 with his family, visiting & trading trip?, where he may have married Elizabeth (Gore), & returned to Port Jackson, with permisiion to be free settlers, in December 1801 on MINORCA. He owned a warehouse & store in Chapel Row (Castlereagh St) which he operated with Elizabeth in the 1800s. He held a publicans licence from 1803-1809. About 1808 he supported th Rum Rebellion against Governor (Bligh). He was granted 200acres at Cabramatta. He, an innkeeper, died on 23 2/1 3 1810 age38 at Chapel Row & was buried at St Phillips CofE Sydney; he left his property to his wife. [Some details taken from this Website] .. >>>Elizabeth (Gore/Driver) was recorded as a returning emancipist when she married fifthly Henry (Marr dealer his first marriage) on 29/30 10 1810 at St Phillips CofE Sydney. She visited England in 1819 on SURREY to visit family & to trade (with letters of introduction), returning on 24 9 1820 on SURREY with possible government assistance. She returned to England again in 1824 on MIDAS bearing an introduction from Mrs (McArthur-Governors wife) to (McArtur)s son & dignitaries of the Royal household, arriving on 31 12 1824 after a stormy passage. She died at the Star and Garter Tavern Portsmouth on 3 1 1825 age about62 mother of 9known children & was buried at St Thomas Cathedral Portsmouth. Henry (Marr) was born about 1770/8. He was tried as a pickpocket stealing leather pocket book, on 3 5 1798, of George (Warrington) at Old Bailey on 9 1 1799, sentenced to 7years, held at Middlesex Gaol Delivery & arrived in NSW as a convict on 20 11 1800 after a voyage of 8months on ROYAL ADMIRAL. He is recorded in 1828 Free by Servitude merchant with his wife at Castlereagh St Sydney with 1,300acres. >>> [Some details taken from this Website] References: Craig James Smee 'Births and Baptisms Marriages and Defacto Relationships Deaths and Burials New South Wales 1788-1830' ..a complete listing from church & other records in the early colony. Irene Schaffer & Thelma McKay 'Exiled Three Times Over! Profiles of Norfolk Islanders Exiled in Van Diemens Land 1807-1813' James Hugh Donohoe 'Norfolk Island 1788-1813-The People and Their Families' Reg Wright 'Forgotten Generation of Norfolk Island & Van Diemens Land' Pamela Statham 'A Colonial Regiment-New Sources Relating to the New South Wales Corps-1789-1810'

Level 10

Merilyn Pedrick on 19th January 2013

Elizabeth Needham Shoplifting 23rd July 1783 567. ELIZABETH NEEDHAM was indicted for feloniously stealing, on the 24th of July last, twenty-seven yards of muslin, value 10 l. the property of Thomas Jeremy , privily in his shop . GEORGE PERCIVAL sworn. I live with Mr. Jeremy, he is a linen-draper ; on the 24th of July, about seven o'clock in the evening, the prisoner at the bar, with a child, came to our shop, she had got a little piece of muslin in her hand, which she desired I would match for her, I shewed her the nearest we had, and she bought a little bit of it, she bought likewise some other things, during the time she was buying the articles, she behaved, as I thought, very suspiciously, getting up several times, and then sitting down, and then moving the child about, the last time she rather alarmed me, she had her apron and her cloak all round the child, and a greater bundle than the child could make, I saw her take nothing, I followed her, determining to search her, I brought her back and searched her, and found these two pieces of muslin under the child in her apron. (The muslin produced and deposed to by the shop mark.) Court. Can you swear that these were in the house at the time the prisoner was there? - Yes, my Lord, the muslin I opened to shew her, which she wanted to match, was of the same kind. PRISONER's DEFENCE. Sir, I had no cloak, nor the gentleman never searched me, for I gave it him out of my hand; he said, young woman, you have a bit of lawn, and I said, have I, and I gave it him directly, my husband is a journeyman butcher, in Oxford-market, and has six shillings a week. GUILTY . To the value of 4 s. 10 d. Court to Prisoner. The offence of which you have been found guilty, is, by the mercy of the Jury, reduced to what is called single felony, that is, it does not effect your life, but if they had gone to the extent that the evidences have proved, and that the law have impowered them to go, they might have affected your life; your prosecutor likewise has intimated a wish, that you should not undergo the extent of the law to its severity, and it is not desired that you should be transported for seven years: In hopes therefore, that the mercy of the Court and Jury will not be thrown away on you, the Court think it proper, that you should be sent to the house of correction for six months , and then discharged: As your husband does not appear, and you have a child in your arms, the Court do this out of humanity; as you and your child will there be taken care of. Prisoner. My child is almost starved already. Tried by the first Middlesex Jury before Mr. DEPUTY RECORDER. This was her first offence. Three years later she was sentenced to transportation for 7 years (see below) "The Founders of Australia" by Mollie Gillen". NEEDHAM, Elizabeth (c1761-1825) Elizabeth Needham, said to be the wife of Henry Needham, was sentenced at the Old Bailey on 19 July 1786 to seven years transportation for theft of two pairs of silk stockings. The marriage of an Elizabeth Gore to Henry Needham at St. George's, Hanover Square, London is recorded on 11 February 1782. In court she said she was servant to a perfumer in Bond Street, and challenged, said it was Grafter, which was also disproved. A petition for pardon was refused. "She told a long idle story about a ring given to [a colleague] by her father, who she said was a coachman to Lady Charlotte Finch, on account of which [the colleague] was to give her the stockings and a pair of buckles." Brought back to the shop on suspicion, the stockings fell from her. "She behaved ill and made a disturbance" in the house. Aged 25, she was embarked on Lady Penrhyn on 9 January 1787. Bowes wrote that she was a needleworker, maker of childbed linen. The service of Elizabeth's father in the household of Lady Charlotte Finch was no help to her in avoiding sentence of transportation, but she would benefit greatly in later years. Lady Charlotte Finch, whose husband was the Rt. Hon. William Finch, vice chamberlain to the household of George III, was governess to the royal children from 1762 when the eldest son George (later George IV) was born, and to the later infant princes and princesses (she died in 1813, aged 88). Elizabeth was to have quite a remarkable life in NSW, due not only to her own initiative, but also to sponsorship by the Finch family. It began, perhaps unpromisingly, when at Port Jackson on 9 February 1788 she was assaulted by Private Thomas Bramwell because she refused to go into the woods with him. She was, according to Bowes, "a most infamous hussy wt. whom he had had connections while on board". On 17 February immediately after landing, she married William Snailham, both signing the register, and a son was baptised on 1 August (possibly by Bramwell, named William Dennis Thomas). A daughter Ann was baptised on 25 October 1791 and a daughter Charlotte, born 25 June 1794, was baptised on 10 August. In November that year Snailham was granted 30 acres at Mulgrave Place, this grant noted in 1800 as having been sold to Lieutenant Anthony Fenn Kemp. Snailham had apparently died or left the colony. In August 1794 Elizabeth was living next door but one to the chapel at Sydney. On 15 September 1796 a grant of 40 acres at Bulanaming was issued to Elizabeth in her own name of Needham. On 16 July the following year a daughter by John Driver (possibly per "Neptune" 1790) was baptised Mary. In September 1798 she was operating a public house in Sydney, the Wheatsheaf, the licence of which was renewed a year later.She returned to England with Driver soon afterwards. They obtained permission to go back to the colony as free settlers and arrived at Port Jackson by "Minorca" in December 1801. John Driver ran a warehouse and store in Chapel Row (later Castlereagh Street) and with her husband Elizabeth seems to have operated this business from at least as early as 1803. Elizabeth and John held publican's licences 1803-09. She was recorded with three male and two female children in 1806. Two sons Richard (1803) and Charles (1806) were born at Sydney. When he died in February 1810, Driver's will left his property to his wife Elizabeth "to whom I have been married ten[?] years on the 29th of May." On 30 October 1810 Elizabeth married Henry Marr, a successful Sydney dealer and publican, who had arrived as a convict per "Royal Admiral" in 1800. In 1824 when she was making one of several return visits to England, Elizabeth Macarthur (wife of Captain John Macarthur formerly of the NSW Corps) wrote to her son in England enclosing a letter she had received from Elizabeth Marr and urged that her son receive a visit from her. "She is very desirous to see you... I shall therefore briefly tell you who she is, & sketch her character. She is the foster sister of the present Earl of Winchelsea [sid, the 8th Earl of Winchelsea, son of Lady Charlotte Finch], by whom she is still patronised, her mother and father were very many years servants in the family of the late Lady Charlotte Finch... "[she] was born in the family, - brought up in it and remained until some unhappy occurrence led her astray... She came at the first settlement with Governor Phillip. I remember her well at my first arrival, I used to occasionally employ her in needle work. She was then rather pretty... & good tempered". Mrs Macarthur mentioned Elizabeth's first husband (Snailham), and went on "Her second husband named Driver by whom she had several children, also died, and she married a very decent tradesman, named Henry Marr, a clever person, and one of the steadiest retail dealers in Sydney, this is the third trip the old lady has made to England". It was grief after the death of her two daughters and a recent letter from "the Earl" (explained Mrs Macarthur) that had induced her to make the current visit to England by "Midas". Whether or not Lord Winchilsea thought of Elizabeth as a foster sister, he did intervene in May 1819 to suggest land grants to her and her daughter Mary: Governor Lachlan Macquarie responded on 12 July that year by recommending Elizabeth to Earl Bathurst when she visited England by "Surry" in 1819 "Mrs Marr, one of the oldest inhabitants of this Colony, a very well behaved woman, industrious and useful. She had long kept a Shop at Sydney, and carries on in conjunction with her Husband, very advantageous Trade for the Town of Sydney. Having saved a little Money, She is now going Home... to see her friends in England, intending to return again to this Country with a useful Investment of Goods". Macquarie requested a return passage be arranged for her in about six months time. She returned by "Surry" on 24 September 1820. Elizabeth's position of favour with Mrs Macarthur makes very obvious her reasons for contributing £30 (in her own name as Elizabeth Driver) towards support for Macarthur's expenses in his plan to go to England in 1808 to present to the authorities "the very heavy grievances under which the Inhabitants of these Settlements" had suffered from Governor William Bligh's administration. In the event Macarthur did not go to England at that time. Henry Marr's establishment in 1825 (operated, it was said, for the past 30 years) was reported as "the first retail warehouse of any importance in the Colony in Chapel Row... called "Universal Warehouse". There is no doubt that Elizabeth Needham was an enterprising and competent businesswoman, her success not far short of what the better known Mary Reibey (Royal Admiral 1792) had achieved in the colony. Her visit to England by "Midas" in 1824 was to be her last: she died at the Star and Garter Tavern, Portsmouth, on 3 January 1825, three days after arrival, following what had been a stormy passage in which the passengers had suffered severe privations. Her husband Henry Marr, who remarried, held much property in the Sydney area, and his will included bequests to some of the Driver family. He died on 31 August 1835, aged given as 65.