People Australia

On 9 Mar 1824 Elizabeth Johnson's husband Joseph wrote the following petition to the Colonial Secretary. It seems likely that Elizabeth returned to her husband as Shaw was living with Jane Baylis by 1828 and married her the next year.

Sir, I humbly trust you will excuse the liberty I take win thus troubling you, which I am alone led to do from your well known goodness, in the cause of morality. - In April last, I received sentence of transportation for fourteen years, and, as I was on the point of marriage with a young woman named Elizabeth Hanks, a native, you was pleased to allow me to be sent to Newcastle the latter end of May, in order to be married to her, accordingly we were there married. - On the 10th of September, my wife went from Newcastle to Sydney on some business, and returned on the 19th, but in the mean time I had been removed to this settlement. She wrote me several letters from newcastle stating she would return to Sydney, in order to get a conveyance to follow me as soon as possible. - I have been anxiously expecting her here ever since, and have written several times to her, but have never received any answers, and I have now heard a report, that she is living an improper course of life, with a man named John Shaw Strange (Prisoner of the Crown who went from Newcastle with the late Commandt)), at the house of Peter Jackson, in Philip Street Sydney, another Prisoner of the Crown, who went from newcastle last May. - I have apply'd to the Commandant here, who has given me permission to say he has no objection to my wife being forwarded to this settlement; and therefore most humbly beg, yo will cause her to be sent here, on order that she may be placed under my protection, as her husband.