People Australia

Mary Marshall (c.1764-1820) was found guilty on 7 July 1784 at the Old Bailey, London, of assaulting and stealing money from Daniel Levy, an old clothes dealer. Her death sentence was commuted to life transportation. Marshall arrived at Sydney aboard the Lady Penrhyn as part of the First Fleet.

Marshall was ordered 25 lashes on 9 February 1789 for infamous expressions, and 50 lashes on 18 March 1789 for being in possession of soldiers' property. She was sent to Norfolk Island on the Sirius in March 1790. By February 1791 she had been assigned, with two men, to work for Richard Phillimore. She married Phillimore in the mass wedding ceremony on the island in November 1791.

Mary received 50 lashes on 29 August 1791 for leaving Phillimore's farm without permission and being 'very impertent' to Major Ross.  She received a conditional pardon in 1807. In December 1807 Mary and her husband left Norfolk Island for Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) on the Porpoise. She died suddenly at Hobart on 17 March 1820, described in the Hobart Town Gazette as a 'poor old insane woman'.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), pp 237-38