People Australia

Mary Thompson was sentenced, at the March 1789 Lincoln Assizes, to 7 years transportation for the theft of a silver watch. She arrived in Sydney in 1790 aboard the Lady Juliana as part of the Second Fleet. She was sent to Norfolk Island in August 1790 on the Surprize. By February 1791 she was living with Samuel Pigott. In July of that year they were cultivating a small piece of land at Sydney Town. They were among the many couples married by Rev Richard Johnson in a mass ceremony on the island in November 1791. The couple returned to Sydney in 1792 on the Atlantic. They settled on a farm in the Hawkesbury region and had 7 children before the marriage apparently broke down in 1812. A newspaper ad in the Sydney Gazette stated that Samuel would not be responsible for his wife's debts after she had 'eloped from my House without any just Cause or Provocation'.

Following Samuel's death in 1817, Mary moved to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in January 1820. She was mustered there in 1820 as owning 50 cattle. She died at Hobart (as Mary Pickett) on 28 March 1824, her age was given as 51.

* information from Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790 (1993), p 569