Hannah Whiteley

341

Maureen Withey on 9th May 2023

COLONIAL SECRETARY’S OFFICE, Feb. 25, 1835. THE Period for which the undermentioned persons were transported expiring at the date placed after their respective names, certificates of their freedom may be obtained then, or at any subsequent period, upon application at the Muster Master’s Office, Hobart Town, or that of a Police Magistrate in the interior: — Per ship Mary Ann.— Sarah Stanley, 16th March, 1835; Isabella Hammill, 24th March 1835; Catherine Hilton, 24th March 1835; Hannah Whitely, 24th March 1835; Prudence Davis, 29th March 1835; Maria Stevenson, 29th March 1835; Ann Williams, 29th March 1835; Launceston Advertiser, 5 March 1835.

341

Maureen Withey on 29th April 2023

Colonial Secretary Index. WHITELEY, Hannah. Per "Mary Anne", 1822 1822 Jun 5 On list of convicts disembarked at Hobart from the "Mary Anne" (Reel 6009; 4/3505 p.385) -------------------------------------------------------------------- List of 45 Female convicts disembarked at Hobart Town from ship Mary Anne. Hannah Whiteley, tried Lancaster Assizes, 24 Mar 1821, 14 years.

47

Naomi Parsons on 10th January 2023

Hannah had uttered a £1 forged note to a James Houghton at Liverpool. She was recorded as saying she was born at Bishop Monkton, Yorkshire and was 25 years of age. She had a fair complexion, grey eyes, broad face, sandy hair, was stout made, had a scar on her wrist and a blue mark on the 3rd joint little finger right hand. She was a dressmaker. Hannah was transported to London in November 1821, boarding on the 21st of that month. Reformer Mrs. Pryor, close associate of Elizabeth Fry complained that "the prisoners from Lancaster Castle arrived, not merely handcuffed, but with heavy irons on their legs, which had occasioned considerable swelling, and in one instance, serious inflammation". Onboard, ship surgeon James Hall wrote she was, “A woman of plausible manners, a pretender of Religion, and was employed as schoolmistress; has been found to be a vile dissembler, prostitute, and connected in the infamy of Rachael Chamberlain and Sarah Fletcher; fond of writing letters for bad purposes”. Within weeks of arrival, Hannah was jailed in solitary confinement for a week on bread and water for absconding from her master, Mr Ogilvie's premises. Hannah married David Lane (arrived as a sailor onboard Indefatigable) on the 21st May 1823. In March 1829, Hannah received a telling off for being drunk and disorderly in the Jolly Sailor pub. In the September of that same year she was jailed for 4 weeks with hard labour for again being found drunk and disorderly in a 'house of ill-fame' belonging to William Fraser before being returned to her husband. Their home at Pitt Water was attacked and looted by a local group of Aboriginal people with Hannah hiding in the attic with a scythe in 1830. David, her husband, was convicted of receiving stolen cattle in 1833, taken by his employees and given his own 14 year sentence. Hannah was implicated but there seems not enough evidence to have charged her too. The cattle had been hurried butchered and salted with the hides tanned and in payment of a debt the Lanes owned. David was given a ticket of leave in 1840 and a conditional pardon in 1843. Hannah received a conditional pardon on the 1st May 1833 and her certificate of freedom 21st March 1835. Hannah died from dropsy (heart failure) aged around 55 on the 20th February 1848 at Hobart.

341

Maureen Withey on 19th June 2021

Lancaster Assizes. Bank Prosecutions. — This morning the Grand Jury brought into Court forty true bills which they had found against prisoners charged with offences against the Bank of England; and a little after one o’clock twenty-one prisoners were arraigned at the bar, all of them, except one, on two indictments; the one charging the offence of uttering, which is capital, and the other limiting it to unlawful possession, which subjects the party to the term of transportation for fourteen years, The following twelve persons accepted the mercy of the Directors of the Bank of England, and, pleaded to the minor offence, were severally acquitted upon the charge which affected their lives; George Cowen, 30, Catherine Quinn, 42, Hugh Hammill, 49, Isabella Hammill, 34, Margaret Kelly, Mary Burns, 42, Mary Pimblott, 34, Margaret Penryhn, 20 , Hannah Whiteley, 25, Catherine Hilton, 20, Thomas Entwistle, 40, and Richard Ridings, aged 61. Mr. Justice Bayley, after a short address to the prisoners, in which he pointed out the mischiefs which arose to society from the dissemination of forged notes, and the necessity of checking offences so dangerous a nature, sentenced each of the prisoners to transported for the term fourteen years. Westmorland Gazette, 7 Apr 1821.