People Australia

John Richardson was found guilty, on 7 July 1784 at the Old Bailey, London, of breaking into a house and stealing a shirt, a silk coat and four teaspoons, the property of three different people. Sentenced to seven years transportation he was sent to the Ceres hulk on the Thames to await his fate. He arrived in Sydney in January 1788 aboard the Scarborough as part of the First Fleet. He had two children with Mary Finn. Following her death in 1793 he formed a relationship with Mary Quinn.

Richardson was a well-known hawker of fruits and cakes in Sydney, known as 'Muffins'. He was buried at Sydney on 18 January 1810, leaving his wife and four children in poor circumstances. Several times in the colony he signed his name as 'John Richardson Mann'.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), pp 306-07