People Australia

Rachel Hoddy (c.1768-1826) and Ann Hardiman were found guilty on 25 June 1788 at the Old Bailey, London, of feloniously stealing a cloth coat, value 10., a velvet waistcoat, value 5 shillings, a pair of leather breeches, value 6 shillings, a man’s hat, value 4 shillings, a pair of leather shoes, value 12 pennies, a pair of plated shoe buckles, value 4 shillings, a base metal knee-buckle, value 2 pennies, a base metal tobacco box, value 2 pennies, and 3 shillings in monies numbered — the clothing and money from a man Hoddy had gone to bed with the previous night; Hardiman had helped her pawn the items. Sentenced to seven years transportation the women arrived at Sydney in June 1790 as part of the Second Fleet.

Hoddy was sent to Norfolk Island on the Surprize, arriving in August 1790. She had nine children; six are known to have been fathered by Isaac Williams who disappeared from colonial records after 1805. Hoddy moved to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) on the City of Edinburgh in September 1808 with six of her children. She was buried, as Rachel Williams, on 4 April 1836 at Hobart. Her age was given as 71 and her occupation as housekeeper.

* information from Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain’s Grim Convict Armada of 1790 (1993), pp 334-35