People Australia

Thomas Cottrell was a marine in the 45th (Plymouth) Company when he arrived at Sydney aboard the Friendship in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet. He served in Captain James Meredith's Company at Port Jackson. He had a son Thomas with Ann Lynch in 1789. Lynch and the child were sent to Norfolk Island in March 1790, Cottrell remained at Port Jackson.

Cottrell was granted 80 acres at the Field of Mars in January 1792 where, in 1795, he employed Joseph Marshall. With five others Marshall gang raped a woman, Cottrell appeared as a witness at their trial. The men were found not guilty but were nevertheless detained and tried for assault. They were again found not guilty on 25 April. Marshall was sentenced to 700 lashes, though was forgiven half the punishment.

Cottrell had sold his land to Rev. Samuel Marsden by 1800. He is probably the Thomas 'Cotrell' who went to Port Dalrymple as a settler on the Buffalo in March 1805. Floods and a hard winter forced many of them off their land within a year. Cottrell was back at Port Jackson by February 1811. In April of that year he advertised (as Thomas Cottell) in the Sydney Gazette that he was sailing for India in the Hibernia.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), pp 83-84