People Australia

Elizabeth Evans (c.1759-1820) alias Elizabeth Jones, a domestic servant, was found guilty on 13 December 1786 at the Old Bailey, London, of stealing three pounds of tea from a shop. Sentenced to 7 years transportation, she was sent to Newgate Gaol, where she remained until she embarked for New South Wales on the Lady Penhryn in January 1787, arriving in Sydney in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet. She was accompanied by her young daughter Jane/Jenny Jones.

Evans and her daughter were sent to Norfolk Island on the Supply in March 1790. Returning to Port Jackson in 1794 as Elizabeth Jones she was granted 20 acres of land at Concord in November which she sold to Charles Mann. At mid 1800 she had held a lease since November 1797 for a Sydney lot; she was off stores and kept nine pigs. By 1802 she had purchased 25 acres; eight of them were cleared; she was living on her own.

By 1806 Elizabeth held only one quarter of an acre as a garden and orchard (probably her 1797 lease); she owned five hogs, and had 17 bushels of wheat and maize in hand. She was off stores and employed a convict publicly victualled. She was also living with James Vandecom; they were married at Sydney on 2 February 1810.

Elizabeth Vandecom died at Sydney on 26 September 1820; her age was given as 60.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 120