People Australia

Elizabeth Richards (c.1772-1852) and Hannah Bolton were found guilty at the August 1787 Warwick Assizes of the burglary of a house. Sentenced to 7 years transportation, they arrived at Sydney aboard the Lady Juliana in June 1790 as part of the Second Fleet.

Richards was sent to Norfolk Island on the Surprize, arriving in August 1790. By about February 1791 she was living Michael Nowland; they were married in the mass wedding ceremony held on the island in November 1791. They operated a successful pig farm on the island and in about 1798 the couple, with their three surviving children, moved to New South Wales. By 1806 they were prosperous, living on a 52 acre rented farm in the Hawkesbury district, supporting six children (with two more to come), four workers, and owning cattle, goats and nearly 300 sheep.

Following her husband's death in 1828, the widowed Elizabeth Nowland married Peter Vaughan, who was many years her junior, on 25 August 1829 at Windsor. She died (as Elizabeth Nowland) on 8 August 1852 at Wilberforce and was buried next to her first husband and at least two of their children; her age was given as 77 but was more likely about 83.

* information from Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790 (1993), p 497