People Australia

Ann Mather (c.1773- ) was found guilty on 18 April 1787 at the Old Bailey, London, of stealing one pair of velveret breeches and two cloth waistcoats, valued at 5 shillings, from a man who was staying in the same lodging house as her mother. Sentenced to 7 years transportation, she arrived at Sydney aboard the Prince of Wales in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet.

Mather was one of four young girls (including Phoebe Flarty) who were accused on 27 September 1788 of insulting Robert Brown, captain of the Fishburn at Port Jackson — 'Who bottles pease soup? Who puts their men in the coal hole? — but was forgiven on promising not to do it again. On 7 October 1789 Mather and Flarty were sentenced to 25 lashes for stealing some pork from John Jepp.

Mather was sent to Norfolk Island on the Sirius in March 1790, returning to Port Jackson on the Atlantic in September 1792 with her son Joseph (b.1791). In 1794 she appeared in court to give evidence against two men charged with stealing items from a house occupied by herself and Thomas Abbott (Albemarle 1791).

No further information has been found for Ann Mather.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), pp 241-42