‘The Indifferent Characters of Many of the Females’: Mary Leeche and Colonial Controversy in the 1830s

By Alexander Cameron-Smith

Supported by a Create NSW Arts and Cultural Grant – Old Parramattans & Female Factory

A dual-publication with St. John’s Online

Lucy Leeche was laid to rest on 30 November 1834.[1] She had been just two days old when she died at the Parramatta Female Factory Hospital.[2] Her mother, twenty-year-old Mary Leeche, died a couple of days later, also at the Hospital, and was buried on the third of December.[3] It was not uncommon for convict women to care for their children at the Factory before they were transferred to one of the Orphan Schools, but Mary was listed as a free immigrant in the St. John’s Burial Register. Beyond this trace, there are few other records of their lives and deaths in New South Wales. In this sense, they were no less marginal in colonial society, and less visible to posterity, than some convict women. They ironically remain silhouettes against the backdrop of two public controversies.

Mary had arrived in Cadi (Sydney), Cadigal Country in late October 1834 aboard the David Scott, one of several chartered vessels that brought single women to Australia as free immigrants between 1832 and 1836.[4] In a time when New South Wales free society was highly sensitive to issues of status and respectability, the scheme aimed to ease moral anxiety about the gender imbalance in the colonies and supply domestic labour for pastoral expansion. It instead provoked outrage in both colonial and English newspapers, which accused the London-based organisers of either deceiving innocent women with misleading impressions of the colonies or dumping prostitutes on the streets of Cadi (Sydney) and Parramatta in Burramattagal Country.^[5] The women brought to New South Wales, whose own voices are rarely found in the historical sources, were thus portrayed in the abstract, as either paragons of virtue, poor victims of temptation, or already wicked and beyond redemption. Yet Mary cannot speak for herself now and what kind of work she found, if any, and who cared about her in her brief time in New South Wales are unclear.

At the same time, many blamed the David Scott for introducing a highly contagious disease, which erupted into an epidemic across New South Wales. It spread through families and institutions before being carried to ‘Van Diemen’s Land,’ that is Lutruwita (Tasmania), and Aotearoa (New Zealand), where it reportedly caused significant mortality amongst Tangata Whenua/Māori.^[6] Army surgeons and private practitioners generally agreed that the disease was measles, but a minority publicly contested this diagnosis and described criticism of the David Scott’s surgeon as slander.^[7] The epidemic did not prompt a government response, but some local medical practitioners argued that it was proof that contagious diseases endemic to an urbanising Britain could be introduced to the Australian colonies. As assisted immigration increased in the 1830s, colonial authorities came to share this fear of diseases, typically associated with the urban poverty, and began quarantining immigrant vessels with greater frequency.^[8] Whether the disease was measles or scarlet fever is unclear to this day, highlighting the pitfalls of historical diagnosis. The colonial government did not collect statistics about morbidity, mortality, or cause of death until the 1860s, so information about the 1834–35 epidemic is entirely anecdotal.^[9] As the disease spread amongst children and whole family groups it also struck the St. Philip’s Infant School. Measles or scarlet fever could similarly have affected crowded Parramatta institutions like the Female Factory and the Female Orphan School, which saw unusually high mortality in 1835.^[10] Yet we cannot know whether the Leeches or the children of the Orphan School were lost to this epidemic because they left so little behind. Their short lives are thus poignant reminders of the silences and lost experiences of the past.

Virtue, Vice, and Victimhood: Female Immigrants in Colonial Society

Mary Leeche was one of thousands of single women sent to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, Lutruwita (Tasmania) between 1832 and 1836 by the Committee for Promoting the Emigration of Females to the Australian Colonies. The Committee, a ‘semi-charitable’ organisation otherwise known as the London Emigration Committee, was separate from the Colonial Office but instrumental in the early phase of assisted immigration.^[11] Drawing on funds from the sale of Crown land, the professed aim of the scheme was to provide domestic servants and correct the ‘grievous disparity between the Sexes and the state of morals obviously arising from such a state of society.’^[12] Whilst some women travelled with their families, the majority embarked unaccompanied. The Emigration Committee required character references from parish clergy but initially relied on shipowners to oversee the selection of migrants, a system later acknowledged to have given shipowners an interest in maximising passengers at the expense of careful selection.^[13] The Committee later made an effort to personally interview women when they applied from around London and hired a single agent, ship owner and contractor John Marshall, to handle selection further afield.^[14] Ideally supposed to attract women suited for domestic labour from across rural England, most ultimately came from charitable institutions in London and other towns.^[15]

Whilst the moral character of the immigrants prompted a great deal of anxiety in New South Wales, the colonial government also criticised the scheme for failing to provide the sorts of domestic labour needed to support pastoral expansion:

Milliners and Dressmakers without funds are already too numerous, and there is hardly any demand for a description of upper female Servants, too refined for hard-work, and who are very often candidates for Emigration. Those women, who are willing to go into the country and understand the management of a dairy and the various female avocations about a farm, are the most wanted and would be most readily employed.^[16]

Like many assisted immigrants who came to Australia in later years, the women rarely ventured beyond Cadi (Sydney), Parramatta or other emerging townships.^[17] It was difficult to find satisfactory employment for all because, according to Governor Bourke, of ‘the disinclination of the Women to go far into the Country.’^[18]

The David Scott departed from Gravesend on the Thames on 10 July 1834 and arrived at Warrane (Sydney Cove), Cadigal Country on 25 October 1834, carrying 247 single young women and a number of family groups. The Committee provided accommodation for emigrant women in London prior to embarkation and paid for extra clothing for those who were destitute.^[19] Positive reports in English newspapers emphasised the quality and quantity of provisions on the David Scott and, in a subsequent published response to criticism, Marshall stressed that there were only three deaths during the voyage, due to old-age and pre-existing illness.^[20] In Sydney, newspapers reported that the government had set aside space in the General Hospital and ‘Mr. Barton’s Bazaar’ for temporary accommodation and that a Committee of Ladies greeted the women and helped them find employment.^[21]

Assisted female immigration was already the subject of moral panic and colonial resentment when the David Scott arrived. Governor Bourke judged the women on the Layton, which arrived in December 1833, to be ‘of very indifferent character,’ reporting that ‘an almost unlimited intercourse existed between the seamen and a great number of the female passengers during the voyage.’^[22] The Ladies Committee had on this occasion refused to help because they could ‘be expected to appear as the Patronesses of Prostitutes.’^[23]

The David Scott raised similar concerns. Bourke informed the Colonial Secretary that while most of the passengers were ‘highly respectable,’ about one sixth were ‘low and profligate’ women.[24] ‘The Ship,’ he wrote, ‘presented a great scene of disorder and immorality, as I am informed, during the whole of the voyage.’^[25] Newspapers reported accounts of ‘disgusting profligacy’ during the voyage: ‘In the David Scott there are many well-behaved women … [but] if what we hear is correct, there has been more unblushing debauchery in this ship than in any other which has yet visited the colony.’^[26] The Colonist, the mouthpiece of the Reverend John Dunmore Lang, was especially sensational, claiming that 120 of the women were of ‘disreputable character’ plucked from the ‘metropolitan depravity and pollution’ of London:

on riding to Parramatta the other day, along with a gentleman who knew some of them by sight, two of them were pointed out to us tricked up in tawdry finery, and standing at the doors of public houses of very questionable character by the way-side—for what purpose we leave our readers to determine.^[27]

The Colonist kept up its invective, which varied between condemnation of the women themselves and the corrupting influence of both the system and colonial society. The streets were ‘swarming with free prostitutes’ it declared, suggesting that ‘these women have been the cause of a vast increase of crime.’^[28] The occasional glimpses we get of specific migrants from the David Scott would have reinforced the reputation of these immigrants in the minds of contemporary readers. Mary Ann Williams was charged with absconding from her employment, whilst Mary Driscoll was tried for trying to smuggle spirits into a gaol.^[29] Police arrested one unnamed woman for drunkenness in the Domain, where she was found ‘lying on the ground in a most indecent way,’ surrounded by a group of men.^[30]

If colonial discourse sometimes portrayed migrant women as inveterate prostitutes, it also developed a narrative in which innocent young women were victims of colonial degradation.^[31] ‘The temptations to which female virtue is exposed, in this colonial capital,’ opined The Colonist, ‘are such as would make any man of the least reflection shrink back with horror from the serious responsibility of either enabling or encouraging unprotected females to cast themselves upon the world in a state of society so overcharged with depravity.’^[32] In giving evidence to the inquiry, the treasurer C. D. Riddell elaborated a similar narrative of corruption:

it would be impossible to avoid contamination on board the ships. The berths of these females are mostly open to each other, and amongst the two or three hundred females of about seventeen years of age, with all the temptation held out to them by the sailors, it is hardly possible but that some cases of prostitution must occur in so long a voyage. They are separated for ever from their friends, their parents, and guardians, and this that moral restraint is moved which so greatly trends, in the female mind, to the maintenance of virtuous habits. … I would recur to the fact that those families consisting of young females, accompanied by their relatives, have almost universally turned out well.^[33]

One English newspaper report on the David Scott’s departure had emphasised efforts to ‘preserve the strict delicacy and separation of the sexes throughout the voyage.’[34] Other evidence suggests, however, that gendered segregation was not as strict as that of later assisted migrant voyages, which took advantage of a higher proportion of married couples to keep single men and women separate.^[35]

Although critical reports like this centred on the character of the women, others highlighted poor planning by the Committee and misconduct by those it employed to supervise the voyages. The Sydney Monitor claimed that the Superintendent of the David Scott, Royal Navy Lt. Sampson Marshall, dragged ‘some of the women out of their berths by the hair of their heads.’[36] Governor Bourke similarly criticised Lt. Marshall for ‘the indiscreet haste with which [he] … stigmatized the character of the whole body of female Emigrants under his charge, by which a prejudice was at first excited against them.’^[37] The Monitor also attacked the ‘dishonest way in which the poor girls are entrapped to come out here’:

By the most false as well as the most ridiculous representations, they are promised husbands of property very soon, and until that desirable consummation, high wages are held out as being certain to be attained by them. The best servants among them are of course the most dissatisfied because they find that the wages here though nominally as high as they are at home, are really less.^[38]

The Colonist likewise claimed that many immigrant women became ‘dispirited’ after learning the reality of colonial life: ‘We have even been told that there are no fewer than fifteen unmarried female emigrants confined at present in the Lunatic Asylum, in consequence of mental aberration, induced by this and other causes.’^[39] At least one woman from the David Scott experienced the trauma of sexual assault.^[40] The experience of migrating to a distant colony alone and indefinitely separated from family must have been a distressing experience for many, but one can only imagine what a young woman like Mary Leeche might have felt while she was here.

Some contemporary observers felt that the evils of assisted female immigration had been exaggerated, though their defence of the scheme maintained the assumption that women were either virtuous or immoral. Colonial Secretary Alexander McLeay told an inquiry that he believed ‘the Females by the ‘David Scott’ to be the best of those from England, notwithstanding some unfounded reports to the contrary.’^[41] The Emigration Committee’s agent and sole shipping contractor, John Marshall, who had been accused of profiteering, defended himself against The Colonist and The Times in London in a pair of published pamphlets.^[42] He pointed to testimony from model migrant families, such as the Croakers, as evidence of his own integrity.^[43] He also reproduced a letter from one Ann Loomes, purportedly the ‘wife of a poor man of industrious character,’ to her brother James. Loomes gave a glowing report of her employer, rations, and accommodation on a property 40 miles from Cadi (Sydney). “‘Tell all inquiren [sic] friends we are in the land of plenty,” where clothing and shoes were cheap, wages high, and opportunities abounded for blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and carpenters.'”^[44] Loomes does not appear on the David Scott’s passenger list, however, raising the possibility that Marshall fabricated the letter, a distinct possibility in light of concerns that bad publicity about the scheme appeared to be deterring respectable migrants.^[45]

Mary Leeche was therefore surrounded by conventional images and narratives concerning virtue and vice amongst immigrant women, but we know very little about the real her. One source lists her occupation as ‘laundress,’ but there is no indication that she found much work in New South Wales.[46] Pregnant convicts and free immigrants often had to continue working until delivery without a period of confinement.[47] Given that Mary arrived pregnant, at a time when female migration was already controversial, it is quite possible that authorities thought it would be hard to secure employment for her and sent her straight to the Female Factory Hospital. In the absence of more sources one can only think about what her life might have been like through sympathetic imagination, without accepting the moral categories and judgements imposed on women like her by contemporary colonial society. Mary left England in July, arrived in Cadi (Sydney) in October and gave birth to Lucy in late November 1834, which indicates she was probably pregnant before departure. One can imagine any number of ways she became pregnant as a single woman in this period. Whether she had any living relatives is unknown, but she may have seen emigration and marriage to a settler as a way to remake herself or to maintain respectable status for herself and her family. In any case, the emotional and material challenges of emigration to New South Wales must have been enormous for a pregnant single woman of nineteen years. The Emigration Committee stated after the arrival of the David Scott that it had taken “utmost care and caution in sanctioning” the migration of “females of virtuous and industrious habits,” but that it could not completely prevent “cases of deception.”[48] It would be unfair to judge Mary according to the strictures surrounding migrant women, yet it seems that she either managed to conceal her pregnancy from the Emigration Committee or they were less concerned to impose their moral criteria than they claimed. In fact, it is unknown whether the Committee directly interviewed her or whether she managed to secure a character reference from a local clergyman. Posters advertising the immigration scheme and newspaper reports on it had emphasised the opportunity for well-paid work and marriage for free immigrants, which might have appealed to a young woman such as her.[49]

Contested Diseases, Obscure Spaces, and Unspoken Sickness

Lucy’s very short life and Mary’s death soon after suggests some kind of complication in childbirth, but we do not know whether Lucy was premature, the duration of labour, or whether Mary suffered from sepsis because no sources record the cause of death.^[50] Information on maternal and infant health and mortality is extremely fragmentary before the 1850s, when registration of births, deaths and marriages in the colonies became more consistent.[51] Authorities sometimes investigated the causes of such infant deaths, but no inquiry seems to have been held for the Leeches.^[52] The Female Factory hospital was intended to serve only convict women, but free women described as paupers were using it often by 1826. In the 1830s, as the only lying-in institution in the colony, it was formally open to all women, but the sources from this period are scanty.^[53] Attendance by a surgeon was not consistent until the government mandated regular visits after the death of Mary Ann Hamilton in 1826.^[54] Childbirth was a women’s affair for the most part and generally took place at home, with assistance from family members or midwives, so the fact that Mary Leeche used the hospital suggests limited social support from friends or an employer.^[55] Colonial surgeons generally looked down on midwives as untrained and dangerous, yet also recognised their necessity and in fact proposed the Female Factory hospital as a site for midwifery training in 1838.^[56] Midwives employed at the Female Factory in the 1830s did receive salaries, but their training is unclear and they sometimes sought additional private practice in Parramatta, Burramattagal Country.^[57] In any case, the kind of assistance either surgeon or midwife could, or were willing to, provide was very limited.^[58] Drinking, smoking and infectious diseases likely had major impacts on the health of newborns and complications in childbirth.^[59] The only information available on infectious disease morbidity at the Factory hospital covers just a few months in 1826 and 1829, and suggests a preponderance of illnesses related to poor nutrition, crowding, and bad hygiene.^[60] Occasional returns from the Factory show between 14 and 22 hospital in-patients.^[61] All this creates an impression of neglect, including amongst the free women who used the hospital, though it is also the case that mortality in female factories in the colonies were relatively low in the context of the period.^[62]

The obscurity of maternal and infant health and sickness at the Female Factory in this period is all the more striking when we remember that Mary and Lucy Leeche died whilst an epidemic of uncertain identity and proportion was erupting in the colony. Most colonists lauded Australia’s environment as healthy, noting its open spaces, air, and sun, and its freedom from the infectious diseases that were endemic to England’s increasingly urbanised society.[63] At the same time, the increasing frequency and speed of maritime travel prompted anxiety about the potential introduction of such diseases. In 1828–29, an epidemic of a disease resembling whooping cough, attributed to a guard’s family on the convict transport Morley, broke out in New South Wales, killing Governor Darling’s own son.^[64] In 1831, the Stirling Castle, chartered by Reverend John Dunmore Lang to bring Scottish immigrants, was rumoured to be carrying measles, ‘to the great consternation of parents and heads of families.’^[65] The rumour proved to be false, though the ship’s surgeon reported that ‘no particle of the measles had existed among the passengers since the month of July, when one child died of that disorder.’^[66] ‘The measles are to be dreaded in any climate,’ wrote The Sydney Gazette, ‘but especially in such an [sic] one as this … The extreme precaution taken by the Authorities cannot be too highly commended … We trust the officers of the Customs will on all occasions enquire carefully into the health of vessels entering the harbour.’^[67] This reference to ‘particles’ illustrates how the idea of contagion was prominent in medical thought at the time and anticipates the way colonial authorities embraced quarantine as a key health policy in the mid-1830s.^[68]

Newspapers began reporting on a new outbreak in Cadi (Sydney) in late December 1834, weeks after Lucy and Mary Leeche’s deaths, and soon blamed the David Scott for introducing it.^[69] Army surgeons were the first to diagnose the disease as measles, which became the consensus. An editorial in The Australian claimed that measles had been present on the David Scott when it left England and singled out the ship’s surgeon, Joseph Docker, whose journal is lost, for failing to report it.^[70] In a letter reprinted in one of John Marshall’s published pamphlets, the ship’s Superintendent, Lt. Sampson Marshall, acknowledged that there had been cases on board, but insisted that they were mild and that the “‘health and appearance of all were much improved by the voyage.'”^[71]

Some private practitioners quickly challenged this diagnosis. William Bland, who had previously served as a Royal Navy surgeon, initially denied the army surgeons’ opinion, though was later reported to have changed his mind.^[72] The most trenchant dissent came from one Charles Smith. The Colonist printed an excerpt from A Dictionary of Medicine by Alexander Macaulay, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, which described measles as producing shivering, fever and vomiting, followed by the appearance of skin eruptions, first around the head and neck before spreading down the body in semi-circular patches of red dots.^[73] Smith latched on to this authoritative text and insisted that symptoms amongst the many cases he had seen were, whilst very similar, subtly different. In fact, Smith’s is one of the more detailed clinical descriptions available:

I have in every case examined minutely for the circular dots, either distinct or in patches, as exist in measles, but not found them, nor have I seen any intervening portion of cuticle retains its natural colour, which is a prominent characteristic of measles… beneath the cuticle, were innumerable points or specks, associated with minute papulae – in some concreting into a uniform florid blush over the face, breast, back and thighs, in others florid blotches continuous, and also irregular.^[74]

Smith also denied that the disease was contagious: ‘The disease to every well-informed practitioner, must be admitted to have been produced by atmospheric variations.’^[75] Indeed, the idea of contagion and the practice of quarantine remained highly controversial for decades. In Europe, especially Britain, many objected to quarantine as both an illiberal interruption of commerce and for being ineffective against diseases they thought arose from local environmental conditions, poor individual hygiene, and immoral habits.^[76] By the late 1830s, however, Australian colonial authorities regularly quarantined immigrant ships, prompting extensive debate in newspapers about the justice of quarantine and the moral character of the immigrants.^[77]

Despite Smith’s efforts, measles remained the conventional diagnosis in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, Lutruwita (Tasmania).^[78] An anonymous correspondent in The Colonist, nicknamed ‘Medicus’ and possibly William Bland, provided their own clinical details and critiqued Smith’s diagnostic rigidity:

The scientific observer will be prepared to expect modifications and shades of difference, the result of difference of climate, in it, the same as in almost every other description of disease; nor will he presume to decide, from the want of perfect identity between trivial and unessential symptoms, or the anomalous character of a few individual cases, that the disease is not strictly entitled to that designation which its chief leading character confers upon it.^[79]

In contrast to earlier fears that the Australian climate might produce a more severe form of measles, some observers attributed the reported mildness of symptoms to ‘our superior climate.’^[80] Others, however, argued that the outbreak undermined the ‘fancied incompatibility of the climate of Australia, with the existence or propagation of the common epidemic disorders of Europe, … the era is probably not very far distant, when these latter will take permanent possession of our shores.’^[81] Within a few years of this outbreak, immigrant ships were arriving with typhus and by the 1850s there were more regular outbreaks of measles.^[82]

All we know about the number of cases, where they occurred, and how many deaths resulted from the outbreak come from isolated anecdotes. ‘Medicus’ called for more regular and extensive collection of information on cases, symptoms and mortality in order to support ‘medico-statistical inquiries’ in the future, but this did not happen until the 1860s and 1870s.^[83] In newspaper reports and correspondence, there are vague reports of the epidemic ‘raging’ in different parts of the colony, including Bathurst and Campbelltown, where ‘scarcely any one is free from its attacks.’^[84] Peter Mann Hosking reported that he had seen nine cases in one family.^[85] Charles Smith claimed to have seen between 72 and 76 cases at his practice.^[86] In January 1835, an inquest into the death of a Māori domestic servant, ‘Betty White,’ heard that she had died of measles.^[87] The daughter of settler James Wemyss died that same month.^[88] Several other sources recorded deaths from measles as late as September 1835, including the young son of an army captain and the adult daughter of the late Surgeon Thomas Arndell.^[89] There were also reports of measles having caused significant mortality amongst Aboriginal communities, including those living near Lancelot Threlkeld’s mission at Lake Macquarie.^[90]

While the disease appeared to be mild it was especially prevalent among children, making it ‘an important object of domestic attention.’^[91] The Sydney Gazette reported in April 1835 that measles was still widespread and that ‘the younger branches of almost every family have been visited with this disorder.’^[92] As noted earlier, of the few deaths attributed to measles many were children of respectable settlers. The sources available for the history of this epidemic thus draw attention to the private domestic sphere. The way such outbreaks might have affected unmarried women on the fringes of colonial society or children who lived in institutions is much more obscure. We do not know what kind of employment or living arrangements Mary Leeche found in New South Wales. It is likewise impossible to tell whether Mary and Lucy Leeche suffered from measles due to the absence of systematic public health records. The fact that we cannot know is thus a reminder of the forgotten and neglected spaces and people in colonial society. In another anecdotal trace, The Sydney Gazette reported in December 1834 that 40–50 out of 80 pupils at St. Philip’s Infant School had contracted measles.^[93] The crowded institutions at Parramatta must have been similarly vulnerable to outbreaks of contagious disease, but there was no public commentary on measles or scarlet fever having struck the Female Factory or the Female Orphan School at that time. The scanty quality of information available seems to reflect a policy of opacity. In December 1836, Colonial Secretary Charles Grant reminded Governor Bourke that his department had not received a thorough report on the Factory since February 1829 and that the number of inmates, at 646, had become very crowded again.[94] What information does exist on the work of the Factory Hospital and health conditions at the Orphan Schools comes via occasional reports by missionaries or isolated coronial inquests into the deaths of convict women.[95] As a free woman, the government seems to have cared less about Mary Leeche. The St. John’s Burial Register shows that a relatively high number of children at the Orphan School died in 1835, including many clustered in April and May. Some visitors claimed that children at the Orphan Schools often suffered from congenital health problems resulting from their mothers’ alcoholism, smoking, or venereal disease, which could have made them more vulnerable to severe infections.[96] As in the case of Lucy and Mary Leeche, the causes of death of the girls were not recorded nor were they deemed worthy of investigation.^[97]

It seems unlikely that measles played a role in the death of the Leeches, whilst it is impossible to definitively attribute any deaths at the Female Orphan School to it. Dysentery, influenza, complications in birth and accidents in early infancy far outweighed any other cause of child mortality. Whooping cough, measles, and other infectious diseases introduced from Britain might have contributed to an increase in infant mortality between 1820 and 1840, but it remains difficult to say exactly how Lucy and Mary Leeche died and risky to pin down which disease it was that spread through the colony in 1834–35.^[98] Conceptions of disease in this period were fluid and diagnosis a politically contested act. The absence of public health records also highlights how obscure the life and death of marginal people like Mary Leeche and the children of the Orphan School were, even in the eyes of the colonial state and society.

Conclusion

The final resting places of Mary Leeche and her infant daughter in the parish of St. John’s are unmarked. Their lives were also largely unmarked in the sources that are left to us. Mary came to New South Wales alongside hundreds of free immigrant women on the David Scott. It is that status as a free woman that makes her less visible than some convict women, who were the subjects of extensive government surveillance and public scrutiny in the crime sections of colonial newspapers.[99] She was part of a cohort of poor immigrant women who provoked very public outrage that tells us very little about who they really were and what they truly felt. That their arrival coincided with an epidemic that was so minimally documented further illustrates the limited attention given to the women and children who occupied social and physical spaces like the Factory Hospital and the Orphan Schools. On one level, it is a striking reminder of how little information states and corporations produced about some colonial populations at this time, in contrast to the volume of data generated in the present day. On another, it also highlights the moral hierarchies and the degrees of neglect shaping colonial society.

CITE THIS

Alexander Cameron-Smith, “The Indifferent Characters of Many of the Females”: Mary Leeche and Colonial Controversy in the 1830s,” St. John’s Online, (2021), https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/mary-leeche/, accessed [insert current date]

Acknowledgements

Biographical selection, assignment, research assistance, editing & multimedia: Michaela Ann Cameron.

References

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• Biographical Database of Australia (https://www.bda-online.org.au/)
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• John Marshall, A Refutation of the Slanders and Wilful Misrepresentations Published at Sydney, by Dr. Lang, in the ‘Colonist’ Newspaper, Belonging to Him, (London: George Eccles, 1835).
• Parish Burial Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia.
• Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923).

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• Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982).
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• J. W. Donovan, “Measles in Australia and New Zealand, 1834–1835,” The Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 1, No. 5, (1970): 5–10.
• Peter J. Dowling, [PhD Diss.], ““A Great Deal of Sickness”: Introduced Diseases Among the Aboriginal People of Colonial Southeast Australia 1788–1900,” (Canberra: Australian National University, 1997).
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• A. J. Hammerton, “‘Without Natural Protectors’: Female Emigration to Australia, 1832–36,” Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 16, No. 65, (1975): 539–66.
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NOTES

[1] The quotation featured in the title of the essay is from E. G. Stanley, Colonial Secretary, to Governor Richard Bourke, 8 April 1834, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 405. “Burial of LUCY LEECHE; 30 November 1834; Aged 2 Days; Quality: Free Woman’s Child; Remarks: Factory,” Parish Burial Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia.

[2] “Burial of LUCY LEECHE; 30 November 1834; Aged 2 Days; Quality: Free Woman’s Child; Remarks: Factory,” Parish Burial Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia.

[3] “Burial of MARY LEECHE; 3 December 1834; Aged 20 years; Ship’s Name: David Scott; Quality or Profession: Free Woman; Remarks: Factory,” Parish Burial Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia.

[4] “David Scott 1834, Arrival 30 October 1834,” New South Wales Government, Persons on Early Migrant Ships (Fair Copy), Series: 5310; Reel: 1296, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).

[5] A. J. Hammerton, “‘Without Natural Protectors’: Female Emigration to Australia, 1832–36,” Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 16, No. 65, (1975): 539–66; Robin F. Haines, Emigration and the Labouring Poor: Australian Recruitment in Britain and Ireland, 1831–60, (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1997), pp. 82–3.

[6] J. W. Donovan, “Measles in Australia and New Zealand, 1834–1835,” The Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 1, No. 5, (1970): 5–10.

[7] J. W. Donovan, “Measles in Australia and New Zealand, 1834–1835,” The Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 1, No. 5, (1970): 6.

[8] Katherine Foxhall, “Fever, Immigration, and Quarantine in New South Wales, 1837–1840,” Social History of Medicine, Vol. 24, No. 3, (2011): 627; See also, Katherine Foxhall, Health, Medicine, and the Sea: Australian Voyages c. 1815–1860, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012).

[9] J. H. L. Cumpston, The History of Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever, Measles, and Whooping Cough, (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1927), p. 204; J. W. Donovan, “Measles in Australia and New Zealand, 1834–1835,” The Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 1, No. 5, (1970): 5–10; Peter J. Dowling, [PhD Diss.], ““A Great Deal of Sickness”: Introduced Diseases Among the Aboriginal People of Colonial Southeast Australia 1788–1900,” (Canberra: Australian National University, 1997), p. 227; F. B. Smith, Illness in Colonial Australia, (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011), pp. 21–2; Beverley J. Paterson, Martyn D. Kirk, A. Scott Cameron, Catherine D’Este, David N. Durrheim, “Historical Data and Modern Methods Reveal Insights in Measles Epidemiology: A Retrospective Close Cohort Study,” BMJ Open, Vol. 3, No. 1, (2013).

[10] Parish Burial Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia.

[11] Robin F. Haines, Emigration and the Labouring Poor: Australian Recruitment in Britain and Ireland, 1831–60, (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1997), p. 80.

[12] Edward Forster, London Emigration Committee, to Undersecretary Robert William Hay, Colonial Office, 30 December 1834, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 670.

[13] E. G. Stanley to Governor Bourke, 26 July 1833, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 173.

[14] A. J. Hammerton, “‘Without Natural Protectors’: Female Emigration to Australia, 1832–36,” Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 16, No. 65, (1975): 546–7.

[15] A. J. Hammerton, “‘Without Natural Protectors’: Female Emigration to Australia, 1832–36,” Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 16, No. 65, (1975): 540–3. See also Sampson Marshall’s testimony, “Immigration. Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Committee of Immigration,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842),  Thursday 17 September 1835, p. 2.

[16] Governor Bourke to Thomas Spring Rice, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, 3 February 1835, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), pp. 659-60.

[17] Lisa Ford and David Andrew Roberts, “Expansion, 1820–1850,” in Alison Bashford and Stuart MacIntyre (eds.), Cambridge History of Australia, Vol. I, (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 135.

[18] Governor Bourke to F. J. Robinson, Viscount Goderich, Colonial Secretary, 24 September 1832, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I, Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVI, 1831–1832, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 758.

[19] Robin F. Haines, Emigration and the Labouring Poor: Australian Recruitment in Britain and Ireland, 1831–60, (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1997), p. 83.

[20] London Evening Standard, 11 July 1834, p. 3; Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, 31 July 1834, p. 3; John Marshall, A Refutation of the Slanders and Wilful Misrepresentations Published at Sydney, by Dr. Lang, in the ‘Colonist’ Newspaper, Belonging to Him, (London: George Eccles, 1835), pp. 11–12.

[21] “Domestic Intelligence,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Thursday 30 October 1834, p. 1; “Domestic Intelligence,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Friday 31 October 1834, p. 2; “Female Emigrants,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Friday 31 October 1834, p. 3; “Female Emigrants by the David Scott,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Saturday 1 November 1834, p. 2.

[22] Governor Bourke to Stanley, 21 January 1834, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), pp. 343–4.

[23] Governor Bourke to Secretary of State, 8 May 1835, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), pp. 725–6.

[24] Governor Bourke to T. Spring Rice, 3 February 1835, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 658

[25] Governor Bourke to T. Spring Rice, 3 February 1835, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 659.

[26] “The extraordinary scene of disgusting profligacy…,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Thursday 30 October 1834, p. 2.

[27] “Colonial Politics. The Emigration-Job,” The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 – 1840), Thursday 8 January 1835, p. 2.

[28] “Female Emigration (From the True Colonist),” The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 – 1840), Thursday 3 March 1836, p. 4.

[29] “Accidents, Offences, &c,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 22 December 1834, p. 2; “Police Incidents,” Supplement to The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 29 December 1834, p. 1.

[30] “Police Report, Tuesday, December 2,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Thursday 4 December 1834, p. 2.

[31] A. J. Hammerton, “‘Without Natural Protectors’: Female Emigration to Australia, 1832–36,” Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 16, No. 65, (1975): 551.

[32] “Colonial Politics. Emigration—And No Job,” The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 – 1840), Thursday 15 January 1835, p. 1.

[33] “Immigration. Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee of Immigration,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Thursday 20 August 1835, p. 2.

[34] “Female Emigration to Australia,” London Evening Standard, 11 July 1834, p. 3.

[35] Cindy McCreery and Kirsten McKenzie, “The Australian Colonies in a Maritime World”, in Alison Bashford and Stuart MacIntyre (eds.), Cambridge History of Australia, Vol. I, (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 572.

[36] “The Female Emigrants by the “David Scott,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 5 November 1834, p. 2.

[37] Governor Bourke to Thomas Spring Rice, 3 February 1835, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 659.

[38] “The Female Emigrants by the “David Scott,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 5 November 1834, p. 2.

[39] “Colonial Politics. Emigration—And No Job,” The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 – 1840), Thursday 15 January 1835, p. 1.

[40] “On Sunday afternoon…,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 19 November 1834, p. 3.

[41] “Immigration. Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee of Immigration. 18 May 1835,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 17 August 1835, p. 2.

[42] John Marshall, A Refutation of the Slanders and Wilful Misrepresentations Published at Sydney, by Dr. Lang, in the ‘Colonist’ Newspaper, Belonging to Him, (London: George Eccles, 1835).

[43] John Marshall, A Refutation of the Slanders and Wilful Misrepresentations Published at Sydney, by Dr. Lang, in the ‘Colonist’ Newspaper, Belonging to Him, (London: George Eccles, 1835), pp. 20–2.

[44] John Marshall, A Refutation of the Slanders and Wilful Misrepresentations Published at Sydney, by Dr. Lang, in the ‘Colonist’ Newspaper, Belonging to Him, (London: George Eccles, 1835), pp. 23–5.

[45] John Dunmore Lang, Transportation and Colonization: or, The Causes of the Comparative Failure of the Transportation System in the Australian Colonies: with suggestions ensuring its future efficiency in subserviency to extensive colonization, (Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, London: A. J. Valpy; Edinburgh, Bell and Bradfute, 1837), pp. 49–52; Edward Forster, London Emigration Committee, to Undersecretary Robert William Hay, Colonial Office, 30 December 1834, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 671; “Immigration,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 21 September 1835, p. 2; “David Scott” (Female Emigration) – arrived Australia 25 October 1834, https://www.geni.com/projects/David-Scott-Female-Emigration-arrived-Australia-25-October-1834/33847, accessed 9 March 2021.

[46] “Biographical Report for MARY LEITCH,” Biographical Database of Australia (https://ww.bda-online.org.au, 2020), Person I.D.: B#10022940101, transcription of “List of the passengers by the ‘David Scott’ in New South Wales Government, Papers Relating to Immigration, Series: NRS 5307; 9/6184 – COD 394; pp. 32–43; Book entry number: 29915 (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).

[47] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), pp. 79–80.

[48] Edward Forster, London Emigration Committee, to Undersecretary Robert William Hay, Colonial Office, 30 December 1834, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I: Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVII, 1833–June 1835, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 670.

[49] Sheffield Independent, 31 May 1834, p. 4. See also State Library of New South Wales and Robert John Pritchard, “Shipboard: The 19^th Century Emigrant Experience,” State Library of New South Wales (n.d.), https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/shipboard-19th-century-emigrant-experience/female-emigration, accessed 7 March 2021.

[50] Michael Belcher notes that Female Factories in the Australian colonies did record the number of infant deaths in certain periods but no other information regarding cause of death, miscarriages or stillbirth, Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), p. 81.

[51] F. B. Smith, Illness in Colonial Australia, (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011), p. 25.

[52] F. B. Smith, Illness in Colonial Australia, (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011), pp. 78–9.

[53] Annette Salt, These Outcast Women: The Parramatta Female Factory 1821–1848, (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1984), p. 113.

[54] Annette Salt, These Outcast Women: The Parramatta Female Factory 1821–1848, (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1984), pp. 111–2.

[55] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), p. 77.

[56] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), p. 77.

[57] Governor Bourke to Charles Grant, Baron Glenelg, Colonial Secretary, 10 September 1836, in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I, Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVIII, July 1835–June 1837, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), p. 534; “Advertising. Mrs. Neale, Midwife, from London, per Ship ‘Canton,’” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 2 November 1835, p. 1.

[58] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), p. 78.

[59] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), pp. 78–9.

[60] Annette Salt, These Outcast Women: The Parramatta Female Factory 1821–1848, (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1984), pp. 113–5.

[61] New South Wales Government Gazette, Issue 114, 3 December 1834, p. 852;Bourke to Grant, 10 September 1836, p. 534.

[62] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), p. 81.

[63] F. B. Smith, Illness in Colonial Australia, (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011), p. 12.

[64] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), p. 75.

[65] “No title,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Saturday 15 October 1831, p. 2.

[66] “No title,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Saturday 15 October 1831, p. 2.

[67] “No title,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Saturday 15 October 1831, p. 2.

[68] Katherine Foxhall, “Fever, Immigration, and Quarantine in New South Wales, 1837–1840,” Social History of Medicine, Vol. 24, No. 3, (2011): 624–642.

[69] “The Gleaner. (From the Times of Tuesday),” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Thursday 25 December 1834, p. 2.

[70] “‘Vox Populi—vox Dei.’ The Epidemic,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Tuesday 30 December 1834, p. 2.

[71] John Marshall, A Refutation of the Slanders and Wilful Misrepresentations Published at Sydney, by Dr. Lang, in the ‘Colonist’ Newspaper, Belonging to Him, (London: George Eccles, 1835), pp. 11–12.

[72] “The Gleaner. (From the Times of Tuesday),” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Thursday 25 December 1834, p. 2; “The Mirror of the Times,” The Sydney Times (NSW : 1834 – 1838), Friday 2 January 1835, p. 2 ; “The Faculty,” The Sydney Times (NSW : 1834 – 1838), Friday 9 January 1835, p. 2. See also John Cobley, “Bland, William (1789–1868),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bland-william-1793, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 7 March 2021.

[73] “Measles,” The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 – 1840), Thursday 22 January 1835, p. 3.

[74] “The Faculty,” The Sydney Times (NSW : 1834 – 1838), Friday 23 January 1835, p. 2.

[75] C. Smith, “To the Editor of the Australian,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Friday 26 December 1834, p. 3.

[76] For example, see Christopher Hamlin, Cholera: The Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009),pp. 106–9.

[77] Katherine Foxhall, “Fever, Immigration, and Quarantine in New South Wales, 1837–1840,” Social History of Medicine, Vol. 24, No. 3, (2011): 635–6.

[78] “Van Diemen’s Land News,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Thursday 5 February 1835, p. 3.

[79] Medicus, “To the Editor of the Colonist,” The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 – 1840), Thursday 15 January 1835, p. 2; See also F. B. Smith, Illness in Colonial Australia, (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011), p. 22.

[80] “The Faculty,” The Sydney Times (NSW : 1834 – 1838), Friday 9 January 1835, p. 2.

[81] Medicus, “To the Editor of the Colonist,” The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 – 1840), Thursday 15 January 1835, p. 2.

[82] Katherine Foxhall, “Fever, Immigration, and Quarantine in New South Wales, 1837–1840,” Social History of Medicine, Vol. 24, No. 3, (2011): 624; J. H. L. Cumpston, The History of Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever, Measles, and Whooping Cough, (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1927), p. 206.

[83] Medicus, “To the Editor of the Colonist,” The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 – 1840), Thursday 15 January 1835, p. 2; J. H. L. Cumpston, The History of Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever, Measles, and Whooping Cough, (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1927), p. 206; J. W. Donovan, “Measles in Australia and New Zealand, 1834–1835,” The Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 1, No. 5, (1970): 8; F. B. Smith, Illness in Colonial Australia, (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011), p. 47.

[84] “The Faculty,” The Sydney Times (NSW : 1834 – 1838), Friday 9 January 1835, p. 2; “No title,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Saturday 4 July 1835, p. 3.

[85] F. M. Hosking, “To the Editor of the Australian,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Tuesday 30 December 1834, p. 3.

[86] “Original Correspondence. The Faculty. Measles or not Measles,” The Sydney Times (NSW : 1834 – 1838), Tuesday 13 January 1835, p. 3; “The Faculty,” The Sydney Times (NSW : 1834 – 1838), Friday 23 January 1835, p. 2.

[87] “No title,” The Alfred (Sydney, NSW : 1835), Tuesday 20 January 1835, p. 3; “Domestic Intelligence,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Tuesday 20 January 1835, p. 2.

[88] See also Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), p. 73.

[89] “Death,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Thursday 26 February 1835, p. 3; “Died,” The Tasmanian (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1827 – 1839), Friday 8 May 1835, p. 7.

[90] “Mission to the Aborigines,” The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), Monday 18 July 1836, p. 4; Peter J. Dowling, [PhD Diss.], ““A Great Deal of Sickness”: Introduced Diseases Among the Aboriginal People of Colonial Southeast Australia 1788–1900,” (Canberra: Australian National University, 1997), p. 229.

[91] “Measles,” The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 – 1840), Thursday 22 January 1835, p. 3.

[92] “Bathurst,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Thursday 23 April 1835, p. 2.

[93] “The Gleaner. (From the Times of Tuesday),” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Thursday 25 December 1834, p. 2.

[94] Charles Grant, “Lord Glenelg to Sir Richard Bourke, Downing Street, 10 December 1836,” in Frederick Watson (ed.), Historical Records of Australia, Series I, Governors’ Despatches to and from England, Vol. XVIII, July 1835–June 1837, (Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923), pp. 611–12.

[95] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), pp. 78–9.

[96] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), p. 79.

[97] Parish Burial Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia.

[98] Michael Belcher, [PhD Diss.], “The Child in New South Wales Society: 1820 to 1837,” (Armidale: University of New England, 1982), p. 76.

[99] Judith Dunn, Colonial Ladies: Lovely, Lively, and Lamentably Loose, (Winston Hills: Judith Dunn, 2008); Lisa Ford and David Andrew Roberts, “Expansion, 1820–1850,” in Alison Bashford and Stuart MacIntyre (eds.), Cambridge History of Australia, Vol. I, (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 124–5.

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