People Australia

Peter Williams (c.1764- ) was found guilty on 10 September 1783 at the Old Bailey, London, of a highway assault and theft of a silver watch and accessories. His death sentence was commuted to 7 years transportation to America. He was among the prisoners who mutinied on the convict transport Mercury in April 1784. Recaptured, he was sent to the Dunkirk hulk in June 1784. He was discharged to the Charlotte in March 1787 and arrived in Sydney in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet.

Williams (as Peter Creamer) married Margaret Hall on 13 February 1788 at St Philip's Church, Sydney. On 12 September 1789 he was sentenced to 25 lashes for concealing the truth. Williams and his wife were sent to Norfolk Island on the Supply in January 1790. On 11 June 1790 (as Peter Creamer) he received 50 lashes for neglect of duty. By July 1791 he was subsisting two people on a one acre lot at Sydney Town. His wife had left him by then and was sharing a sow with Thomas Watson and Sarah Acton.

Peter Williams left Norfolk Island in September 1792 on the Atlantic, by which several term expired convicts arrived at Port Jackson (including his wife Margaret Hall).  No further colonial records have been found for Williams.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 386