People Australia

Mary Walker (c.1760- ) was found guilty at the 21 February 1787 Old Bailey Sessions of the theft of 20 linen handkerchiefs, worth 30 shillings, from a shop. Her death sentence was commuted to 14 years transportation in May 1787. She was held at Newgate gaol until she embarked for New South Wales on the Lady Juliana in June 1789, arriving in Sydney in June 1790 as part of the Second Fleet. Her young daughter Sarah Lee accompanied her.

Walker and her daughter were sent to Norfolk Island on the Surprize, arriving in August 1790. She lived with Aaron Davis; they had at least four children. By 1804 Davis was a prosperous baker and merchant on the island. The couple and their two youngest children returned to England around 1805 but by 1813 Aaron Davis had suffered severe financial losses and had petitioned to return to New South Wales. He died in 1814 before this could happen. Mary Walker's son-in-law, James Mitchell, who had married Sarah Lee, arranged for Walker and her two children to return to Tasmania where she had £1000 worth of property due her but it is not known if she returned to the colony.

* information from Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790 (1993), pp 590-91