Ann Williams

71

Robin Sharkey on 18th November 2025

INTO THE LONGBOAT Two weeks after the mutiny occurred, ANN WILLIAMS escaped the ship by getting into a longboat with her boyfriend, McLeod, which was put off to sea by the mutineers. [SEMPLE, Lisle, Autobiography p.275-6] McLeod had probably insisted of the mutineers that Ann be allowed to go with him in the boat. By sending the longboat off, the mutineers were removing the threat of anyone else being able to navigate the ship. They were also removing the unwilling from the ship. 29 people were put into the boat: senior officers from both the ship and the NSW Corp, the ship’s boy, some other soldiers, their wives and children, three convict girlfriends of men on the longboat, and the male convict Semple. Besides Anne, two other convict girlfriends got a place on the longboat. They were Jane Barry (girlfriend of the Second Mate, Simon Murchison) and Mary Offley (girlfriend of Third Mate, Gerard Drummond). [Hardie p.63-64] - The mutineers gave the officers on the longboat a quadrant, but no compass. However, the Second Mate secreted a small pocket compass on him. They were given 4 bags of bread, and three small casks of water. But Mary Offley’s boyfriend, William Lewis, had access to the ships stores because he was the Steward, and had secretly obtained 2 cheeses, 2 hams, some pieces of boiled beef and a 5 gallon cake of rum. [Above para is from Joint Statement of Murchison (2nd Mate), Drummond (3rd Mate), and Black (Purser), Nat Archives, HO 42/44/27, folio 85] They were pushed off from the ship about 6:30pm so they wouldn’t be seen by any English ships. Purser Black had got a look at the charts by means of a subterfuge, and knew their position. He and other officers decided to head to Rio Grande. The longboat encountered dreadfully stormy, rough and gale-like conditions. Many were dreadfully seasick. Several of the men constantly bailed water, and Purser Black, and officers Murchison & Drummond undertook management of the boat [SEMPLE, Lisle, Autobiography p.275-6]. For more details see Hardie, pp66-68. After 46 hours the longboat arrived in the harbour of Rio Grande, a Portuguese town, with no loss of life, but with everyone exhausted. ****************** MOVING ONWARD The longboat passengers were well treated in Rio Grande but they all wanted to get to Rio de Janeiro. Bad weather and then lack of wind prevented them leaving in September. Eventually most of them took berths on four ships and could eventually leave when the wind arrived in early–mid October. They arrived at Rio de Janiero in November. Purser John Black was worried that it would take at least eight months - too long - to reach England if they went with the merchant fleet that was preparing for its voyage home. Instead, Black got a job as navigator on the former transport ship ‘Indispensable’ bound on a whaling voyage for the Cape of Good Hope. Anne Williams and her soldier, Pte James McLeod, also departed on Indispensable’ in early January 1798. They arrived in April 1798. [ per SEMPLE, Lisle, The Life of .. Autobiography p.275-6]. Once they arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, nothing further is known about Anne & James.

71

Robin Sharkey on 18th November 2025

ON BOARD LADY SHORE After being loaded on to the Lady Shore by mid March 1797, the women convicts (and the two male convicts) were at anchor at different English ports until final departure on 7 June. They sailed to Portsmouth, where provisions, more soldiers and officers in the NSW Corps, and more naval officers were taken on board. It was here that the first stirrings of rebellion were felt from Frenchmen on board, who’d first been taken as prisoners of war, and then pressed into service in the NSW Corps. After a week there, the ship moved to Torbay with a protecting convoy of merchant ships, but suffered some storm damage. This caused them to sail round to Falmouth for another three weeks. Finally, they left on 7th June 1797. ANN WILLIAMS as Soldier’s Girl Many of the sailors, soldiers, and some of the officers, began relationships with the convict women on board. Some probably even started while the ship was still in England. The captain turned a blind eye, as was often done on voyages with convict women. Ensign Minchin, the most senior Officer of the NSW Corps (who had his wife on board), was offended and complained to the captain, who moved the women forward on the lower deck, and put a guard on the forward hatchway quarters. No sailor was to go there unless as part of his duties. So the women simply went to the men’s sleeping quarters or the officers’ cabins instead. The Captain’s action contributed to some resentment against him by his men. [Hardie, p40-41] ANN WILLIAMS partnered up with a soldier, JAMES McLEOD, as his girlfriend. ******************

71

Robin Sharkey on 18th November 2025

Ann Williams was a 22 year old Welshwoman when she was initially sentenced to death at the Old Bailey sessions starting 19 February 1794 . She had stolen a purse containing fourteen guineas (way beyond the 39 shilling lowest value that triggered the death sentence). Her death sentence was commuted to transportation for life. After three years waiting in Newgate Prison, on 11 March 1797 she was finally loaded on to the transport ship Lady Shore. OVERVIEW: The Lady Shore would be taken over by mutineering soldiers when it was eight weeks at sea, and the Captain and first mate killed. But Ann was lucky. She had been taken into a relationship on board the ship by a young soldier, James McLeod. A fortnight after the mutiny, she was set off on the ocean in a longboat with McLeod and 27 other people. Everyone remaining on board was under control of the mutineers, and their ship was sailed to Montevideo on the Southern American coast. After two days the people on the longboat arrived at Rio Grande and were able to move onwards to Rio de Janiero. From there, in January 1798, Ann Williams & James McLeod left for the Cape of Good Hope and were not heard of again. ******************* ENLISH CRIME On Saturday 1st February 1794, Ann William’s path crossed with Mrs Mary Harris as the two were walking through a London park. Mrs Harris learned that Ann was Welsh and came from a part of Wales that she, Mary Harris, wished to talk about. She invited Ann, a stranger, to call on her. Mrs Harris and her husband lived in York Street in the parish of St Margaret’s in a private house (not their own), and Ann turned up at the Harris’s lodgings the very next day. John Harris, the husband, was a Bow Street officer. He was about to go to work as Ann arrived, at about a quarter to 5 o’clock. He left, leaving his wife alone with her. Mrs Harris seems to have been a kindly person. She gave the girl bread and cheese. Then she went out to buy “a pint of beer to treat her with”. It seems this was when Ann went through the chest of drawers and stole the box with the purse and 14 guineas. Ann stayed quite a long time with Mrs Harris, till about 8 or 9pm. The next morning, Sunday, Mrs Harris discovered the disappearance of her husband’s canvas purse, which she’d made herself, and which she kept in a little box in her chest of drawers. She went to her husband who was on his way to church and he enlisted the help of a fellow Bow Street officer to track Ann down. She was found in a house in Queen’s Square, Pimlico where Mr & Mrs Davis lived. The other officer began searching her, and “she readily pulled her pocket outside of her petticoats”. But she “said she would not be searched about her bosom, or bubbies, by him, or any man, she would be searched by a woman, accordingly Mrs. Davis, the person who was in the room went to search her bosom, and there she found a little pocket-book.” Ann said in Welsh to Mrs Davis “For God’s sake, save me if you can”, but Mrs Davis replied in English that she would not conceal Ann’s roguery. Mrs Davis threw a pocket book on the ground with the Harris’s purse in it. But it only held just over ten guineas, not the whole fourteen. Mrs Davis and Ann knew each other, since Ann used to visit her as a fellow Welshwoman. On the evening that the purse was stolen Ann appeared at Mrs Davis’s door. She hadn’t visited for about two months. She told Mrs Davis she had got married, to a lawyer from the Temple (i.e. one of the Inns of Court). She had two bundles with her and said she was going to Wales, and asked if Mrs Davis wanted any message sent – Mrs Davis did not. It was bad luck for Ann that she was still at Mrs Davis’s house the next afternoon when the Bow Street officers arrived for her. First, Mrs Davis was concerned for Ann that she might be robbed of her bundles. Then, Mrs Davis couldn’t find Ann a coach; then the night watchman told Ann to stay at the house so he could escort her later in the night to get the 4 a.m. coach to Bristol. But they were half an hour late when they got to the coach’s departure point at the White Horse Cellar in the early hours, and she had missed the coach. So Ann used some of the guineas to buy a ticket on a much later coach that would depart the afternoon of that day, at 5:30pm. She’d had rough and anxious night. So she returned to the Davis house to rest, and was there found by the officers in the afternoon. She claimed she had been given the money by Mrs Harris to take with her to Wales for some of the Harris’s friends. Mrs Harris denied this. Ann was found guilty. Since her theft was well over 39 shillings, she received the death sentence, which was commuted.