People Australia

John Pettitt and John Ayres were sentenced, on 21 April 1784 at the Old Bailey, London, to seven years transportation for stealing musical instruments from a shop window in St Martin's le Grand, London. Sentenced to seven years transportation, the prisoners were sent to the Censor hulk before disembarking on the Scarborough in February 1787.

Pettitt was sentenced to receive 50 lashes after playing cards at 2 am with Edward Goodwin in October 1789. As John Petit he left Port Jackson on the Endeavour on 18 October 1795. The ship proved to be unseaworthy and had to be scuttled. Her crew and passengers were taken to Norfolk Island. Pettitt died there on 25 June 1796. 

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 284