By Michaela Ann Cameron

Supported by a Create NSW Arts and Cultural Grant – Old Parramattans & Rogues

For centuries, folk singers have sung cautionary ballads about women who, following seduction, abandonment, betrayal and often shame, died of a broken heart and were buried in their local churchyards. There is Barbara Allen who ‘died of sorrow,’ the unnamed suicide found ‘hanging by a rope’ in Railroad Boy, and the many women who ‘faded away’ in other variants of the Died for Love ballad.[1] It would seem St. John’s Cemetery, Parramatta, is not without its own lovelorn one, for to this list of disconsolate heroines we may add Sarah Moses, whose headstone declares in a clear yet vulgar hand that ‘Sarah, wife of Mr. Moses Moses, formerly of Hobart Town and now of Yass Died of broken heart from peculiar family trials, April 1st 1841. Aged 47 years.’[2]

Given the long, established folk tradition, Sarah’s epitaph conjures images of the quintessential sheltered gentlewoman who fell victim to a rake and consequently died the most delicate and feminine of deaths. But in this and so many other ways, the epitaph is a stone counternarrative to much of what was said about Sarah in the paper trail left in her wake.

A Grocer’s Daughter?

Colonial records indicate Sarah was born ‘Sarah Brown’ in Pontefract, Yorkshire, around 1795.[3] As there is no exact match for a baby girl with this name in the Pontefract baptisms for 1795 or 1794, she may have been the Sarah Brown baptised on 21 August 1793 at St. Giles’s Church, Pontefract, West Riding, Yorkshire, England; the fourth daughter and fifth of a total of six children born to Jane Oxley and her husband Benjamin Brown, a grocer.[4] As a grocer in the market town of Pontefract in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Benjamin Brown was a member of an ‘ancient’ trade that ‘complemented rather than competed’ with the fresh fruit, vegetable and meat markets by tapping into a global system of supply to deal ‘almost entirely in foreign produce of dried fruits, spices, and a variety of teas, coffees and sugars.’[5] Since working-class families of this period tended to exclusively consume staples that were not then a part of the grocer’s commodities, Benjamin’s trade was a ‘high-class luxury trade’ that drew ‘its customers from the middle and higher income groups’ who had an interest in consuming exotic colonial ‘plantation goods’ made accessible by Britain’s imperial activities.[6] In short, Benjamin Brown was both a working-class man and ‘a minister of luxuries to the rich.’[7] Considering the quality and expense of the goods that grocers handled, entry into the large business network of supply relied on the grocer’s reputation and his ability to retain trust. Successfully marketing unusual, foreign goods to buyers also required the grocer to have ‘a certain amount of education.’[8] We may safely assume, then, that the Browns would have valued and been in a position to invest in the education of their children. This family background would account for the fact that the Sarah Brown of Pontefract who arrived in lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land, later ‘Tasmania’) in 1820 was recorded as being able to both read and write, even in a period noted for being a ‘hard time’ for English females especially to obtain an education in England.[9] Whether this record simply referred to her ability to read and sign her own name is unclear, as this was sometimes enough to be classed as literate. But if it was an indication of a higher level of literacy, and there are other reasons to believe this is the case, this detail makes it even likelier that Sarah Brown had indeed come from the more privileged household the grocer Benjamin Brown was capable of providing.[10] Her probable father’s occupation also had the potential to do something else: his grocery products’ links to the extremities of the British empire could have nurtured within the young Sarah a familiarity with—and curiosity for—the world beyond provincial West Yorkshire.

A willingness to travel would explain why Sarah had been attracted to her recorded occupation of ‘lady’s maid,’ which often required young women to travel far from their birthplaces to accept roles in reputable households.[11] The lady’s maid was the female equivalent of a gentleman’s valet. They were ‘placed near the persons of the master and mistress, receiving orders only from them, dressing them, accompanying them in all their journeys, the confidants and agents of their most unguarded moments, of their most secret habits,’ and, as such, were towards the top of the domestic service hierarchy.[12] ‘All that can be expected from such servants,’ wrote Mrs. Beeton in her Household Management guide in 1826, ‘is polite manners, modest demeanour, and a respectful reserve, which are indispensable,’ so it is not surprising to find contemporary newspaper advertisements consistently stating that the role required educated women of ‘good character’ and ‘respectability.’[13] The lady’s maid’s specific duties included keeping the dressing-room in good order, ‘air conditioning’ 1800s style by ‘throw[ing] up the sash to admit fresh air…sometime before the mistress is expected…[and] closing it…in time to recover the temperature which they know is preferred,’ airing linen, and laying out clothes, ‘carefully brushed and cleaned’ along with ‘all articles of the toilet.’[14] Hairdressing was ‘one of the most important parts of the lady’s-maid’s office’ and lady’s maids were expected to take lessons to keep up with the ‘continually changing…fashion and mode of dressing the hair.’[15] A lady’s maid also had to care for her mistress’s linen, ‘select from the wardrobe such things as are suitable for the occasion,’ and keep it in good repair, so ‘a thorough knowledge of dressmaking and repairing and restoring clothes,’ including stain removal, was a necessity.[16] As a lady’s maid, Sarah also would have had to maintain her own appearance to a high standard at all times.[17]

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE. James Gillray, “Progress of the Toilet—The Stays—Plate 1; The Wig—Plate 2; Dress Completed—Plate 3,” (London: Hannah Humphrey, 27 St. James’s Street, 26 February 1810), 1868,0808.7910, AN147730001. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Sarah’s occupation provides further evidence that her literacy was likely at a much higher level than merely the ability to read and write her own name in a parish register. A lady’s maid was expected to deliver visitors’ calling cards and messages to her mistress and, as the travelling companion of her mistress, had to be expert not only at packing her clothing but also at planning routes, booking tickets, securing seats, carriages and berths, whilst being responsible for the luggage.[18] Indeed, Sarah may have even had a knowledge of foreign languages, which Mrs. Beeton noted in her guide was ‘a most useful qualification’ for a lady’s maid.[19] An advertisement placed by a young woman in the Taunton Courier in 1814 addressed ‘To respectable Families, & Proprietors of Boarding Schools’ indicates that at least one woman who would have accepted the role of lady’s maid in this period was not only literate in her native tongue but also in additional languages:

A SITUATION is WANTED for a YOUNG LADY, 22 Years of Age, who is competent in the Office of instructing the juvenile Portion of a Family in French, English, and the incidental attainments of early Life. She possesses an anxious disposition to render herself agreeable to those about her; and, being conversant in domestic affairs, would have no objection to take an appointment as HOUSEKEEPER or LADY’S MAID.

The most respectable references can be given as to Character and Abilities.

Apply, post paid, to the Taunton Courier Office.[20]

Sarah quite easily could have been the anonymous 22-year-old ‘YOUNG LADY’ mentioned in this advertisement in 1814. Even if she was not, accepting a similar position as a lady’s maid in a ‘genteel family’ would certainly account for the long distance Sarah, a young singlewoman, travelled at some point before 1819 from her home in Northern England to her next recorded location: the County of Somersetshire in England’s South West.

If these were Sarah’s origins, then she was clearly not a pampered member of the English gentry who, thanks to a sheltered life, was easy prey for a charming and more worldly man with bad intentions. She was, at least initially, like Benjamin Brown: one of the respectable, hard-working, agentive ‘middling’ sort; a confident young woman who exercised her agency by utilising the ‘human capital’ her parents seemingly invested in her, (her education), and ‘travelling around Britain to maximise that investment’ by securing employment.[21] Benjamin Brown therefore probably would have resigned himself to the fact that his youngest daughter would travel far from the family home. What the purveyor of exotic goods imported from the outer limits of the British empire undoubtedly could never have imagined was that a daughter of his would herself become an export to one of the empire’s colonial outposts, or that another grocer’s store would prove to be her portal into that world.

A Grocer’s Scammer

On 14 July 1819, Sarah Brown, Mary Hickman and Catherine Leeson ‘knowingly’ set out with ‘forged £1 Bank of England notes’ in their possession and attempted to spend their ‘fictitious’ notes in, of all places, a number of grocery stores in Bath.[22] Mary Hickman was detected by grocer Susannah King, whereas Sarah and Leeson tried their luck with another grocer named Charles Cooper. Cooper, it turns out, was no less alert than King, so Sarah and Leeson’s scam was discovered and they, too, were soon apprehended by Police Officer John Bourne and Constable James Clarke respectively. G. H. Tugwell, the Mayor of Bath, committed the three ‘utterers’ to the Ilchester County Gaol and House of Correction the same day and the grocers and law enforcers alike all received monetary rewards from the Bank of England for their vigilance.[23]

The forgery and circulation of counterfeit notes was a huge problem in England since the 1600s and, consequently, both offences attracted the death penalty. In spite of the capital punishment related to these crimes, when low denomination notes valued at only one and two pounds were introduced in 1797 the forgery problem reached ‘epidemic’ proportions.[24] Between 1797 and 1821, for instance, the Bank of England’s Committee for Law Suits brought ‘over two thousand’ offenders to trial, including Elizabeth Miller of Surrey in 1818 and Sarah Brown and company in 1819, and ‘had a hand’ in ensuring around ten per cent of those prosecuted were swallowed up by the gallows.[25]

The percentage who actually paid the ultimate price for the crime during this period was low by comparison to the number prosecuted because, fortunately for the likes of Sarah, in May 1801 the Bank had allowed a plea bargain to differentiate between major and minor offences. Those charged with circulating small amounts were ordered for prosecution, ‘with liberty to plead guilty to the Minor Offence.’[26] Sarah was a first-timer, but her accomplices Hickman and Leeson were ‘notorious offenders.’[27] Hickman, for instance, had been found guilty of ‘knowingly uttering’ base coin at Bitton in April 1815 and imprisoned for one year and ‘further’ ordered ‘to find surety for her good behaviour for two years,’ while Leeson had also been tried for uttering in 1815 and again in 1817, for which she spent ‘six months in Devizes house of correction’ where she was ‘kept to hard labour.’[28] Still, when the three young women faced the court at the Somerset Summer Assizes on 14 August 1819, all were eligible to plead guilty to the minor offence and ‘were, consequently, not tried capitally,’ as the amounts they had uttered were small.[29] Pleading guilty to the lesser offence meant an automatic sentence of fourteen years transportation. Those who swung were guilty of the act of forgery itself, or of ‘knowingly’ uttering notes of high value.

So, who was the source of Sarah’s forged notes? It seems likely the forged notes Sarah, Hickman and Leeson uttered were the handiwork of Charles Hibbert, a ‘crippled’ counterfeiter of Bath who was apprehended around the same time ‘with forged plates for £1 and £2 notes, impressions from the plates, and other plates for making the Water Mark visible in the substance of the paper.’[30] He had also been ‘forging notes upon country banks’ for good measure.[31] Hibbert belonged to an ‘ingenious’ family of respected engravers yet had been ‘induced…through extreme poverty’ to carry on ‘his nefarious dealings to a great extent.’[32] It was also, no doubt, because it was simply easy for Hibbert to do so, as the Bank of England had failed to establish a ‘technological divide’—genuine Bank of England banknotes were produced via copperplate engraving and, as historian Jack Mockford has noted, there were approximately 10,000 people in England with the means and skill to engrave.[33] If good and bad notes were created with an identical process and looked and felt the same, then they were regularly taken to be ‘exactly as banknotes are.’[34] Since there was so little difference between them, there were often doubts that those prosecuted, transported or even executed for uttering had ‘knowingly’ circulated the counterfeit notes at all.[35] Which begs the question: was Sarah’s guilty plea a confession that she had willingly circulated notes she knew to be fake? If so, what drove her to do it? Had she failed to secure a position as lady’s maid or been dismissed without a reference? Or was she duped by Hickman and Leeson into thinking she was using real notes in the transaction and merely entered a guilty plea to receive the lesser of the potential punishments when punishment was already a foregone conclusion? The truth about Sarah’s involvement may have been as blurry then as it is now, but Hibbert’s case was different: with so much damning evidence of his career as a forger, he admitted his guilt and ‘appeared to have made up his mind as to the fate which…await[ed] him.’[36] Guilty or not, from her own cell at Ilchester County Gaol in September 1819, Sarah would have heard the hammering of the carpenters ‘putting up the machine’ on which the one-legged engraver was ‘to end his mortal existence.’[37]

After eight months in Ilchester County Gaol, 26-year-old Sarah was delivered on board the convict transport Morley (3) (1820) on 28 April 1820 and sailed from London a month later on 22 May.[38] According to Thomas Reid, the surgeon on board, Sarah’s health was ‘very good’ for the duration of the voyage.[39] She was one of the fifty female convicts who disembarked at lutruwita (Van Dieman’s Land / Tasmania) on 29 August, the rest continued on to Warrane (Sydney Cove), Port Jackson in Cadigal Country, where they landed on 30 September.

‘Van Diemen’s Land’

Sarah’s first assignment in 1820 was to Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Fisk of Liverpool Street, nipaluna (Hobart Town), Muwinina Country. Fisk had previously been the commander of the schooner Estramina, established a flour-mill, ‘contiguous to Wellington Bridge, for the immediate accommodation of the public’ in 1817, and in 1819 was ‘nominated and appointed’ by ‘His Honor the Lieutenant Governor…to be [a] Member of the Lieutenant Governor’s Court of Civil Judicature…Hobart Town.’[40] It was during Sarah’s time with the Fisks that an impression of her demeanour was first committed to the record: ‘Insolent & abusive to Mrs. Fisk.’[41] This was not an unusual remark about a convict’s behaviour toward their master or mistress, but in light of the hints about Sarah’s possible background it would be unwise to picture a rough, trash-talking con. It seems more accurate to envisage a young convict servant who was quite the opposite: displaying a level of haughtiness her mistress did not think her entitled to. After all, ‘insolence’ means Sarah showed an arrogant lack of respect for those who believed themselves to be her superiors. If she were as educated as the fragments of evidence pertaining to her background suggest, then her ‘insolence’ would have been the natural response of an educated person struggling to accept and adjust to her degraded status as a convict. The inclusion of the word ‘abusive’ reveals Sarah had a fiery temperament, though we should bear in mind that Mrs. Fisk, the recipient of her tongue-lashing, likely felt the velocity of Sarah’s ‘abuse’ because she was, perhaps, uncommonly articulate for a convict whilst hurling it. In any case, the challenge Sarah posed to a figure attempting to assert power over her was evidently all too much for Mrs. Fisk and she was not inclined to provide a convict servant with another opportunity to get the better of her.

By early 1821, Sarah had been reassigned to Mr. and Mrs. Baker—possibly the Mr. Baker of Macquarie Street, nipaluna (Hobart Town), who was ‘Crier of the Lieutenant Governor’s Court.’[42] Again, Sarah’s conduct was unsatisfactory in some way, so on 14 April 1821 she was ‘Rep[rimande]d & dis[charge]d from the serv[ic]e of Mrs. Baker &…conf[ine]d in H[is] M[ajesty’s] Gaol [Hobart Gaol] until ass[igne]d to some service by His Honor the Lieu[tenan]t Gov[erno]r,’ by order of Magistrates Reverend Robert Knopwood and A. W. H. Humphrey, Esq.’[43] Sarah’s misconduct and dismissal from the Bakers may have had something to do with the fact that she was pregnant.

Two months later, on 18 June 1821, 28-year-old Sarah (by then five months pregnant) entered St. David’s Church, nipaluna (Hobart Town), and before witnesses Elizabeth Mary Mack and George Northam married fellow convict, 30-year-old Moses Moses (Moshe ben Yosef).[44] The son of a rabbi and a glass-cutter by trade, Moses Moses hailed from London.[45] He had been tried at the Old Bailey twice, the first time for uttering and the second time for picking pockets whilst between jobs.[46] His second Old Bailey appearance earned him a life sentence beyond the seas.[47] Though originally transported to Warrane (Sydney Cove) per Marquis of Wellington (1815), Moses soon absconded from his master and upon being recaptured was transported to nipaluna (Hobart Town), in lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania) per Kangaroo in April 1816.[48] Moses made two attempts to secretly leave the colony in May 1817 and January 1818, to no avail, and the second failed attempt resulted in a six-month sentence in irons performing heavy labour in the gaol gang.[49] ‘Repeated disobedience,’ both in the gaol gang and later when he was reassigned, resulted in floggings in both 1818 and 1819.[50] He was frequently reported as absent from the muster for church and in July 1821, the newlywed Moses was accused of stealing five shirts but was acquitted, which was just as well, because in October, Sarah and Moses welcomed baby William.[51]

From the limited information available, it seems Sarah and Moses had much more in common than uttering. Both were independent and skilled, and both were risk takers who had no qualms about defying authority. These traits had been the undoing of them and marked them out as difficult, unmanageable, ‘insolent’ convicts, yet the same traits apparently also proved to be the making of them in different circumstances. In fact, Sarah’s potential background as a grocer’s daughter might have been influential on (as well as useful to) Moses Moses, because just one year after their marriage, in June 1822, the glass-cutter changed careers and opened his own confectionary shop in Mr. R. Wallis’s House, corner of Wellington-bridge,’ in nipaluna (Hobart Town).[52] There, he informed the public, he sold, ‘all kinds of Confectionary Goods, Candied Bread, and Sweet-meats.—Orange and Lemon peel candied or preserved on the shortest Notice.’[53] A couple of weeks later, a John Bickerton, Bread and Biscuit Baker from London, informed the public that he was now Moses’s partner in the business.[54]

Moses Moses, the formerly incorrigible offender, must have shown a marked improvement in his behaviour since becoming a family man and business owner. In January 1823, the authorities thought fit to assign to Moses his own convict brother John ‘Jacob’ Moses, who had previously been assigned to a baker in Cadi (Sydney).[55] John’s skills as a baker would come in handy in the family business, which had expanded to being a ‘bread and biscuit shop,’ in which Moses had ‘constantly on SALE, Gingerbread and Gingerbread Nuts of the best quality, & in any quantities; Confectionary of all kinds, and plain and fancy Biscuits’ as well as ‘Pastry made to order.’[56] In the course of the next two months, Sarah gave birth to a second child, Anna Maria, Moses’s shop moved to the corner of Liverpool and Elizabeth Streets, and in April 1824 Moses received his ticket of leave.[57] A year later, the Moses family continued to grow with the addition of baby Phoebe.[58] The profits of the family business also grew in 1825, since Moses was allegedly overcharging for bread by selling bread ‘short of the legal weight’ and was fined for having an illegal weight in his possession.[59] This last infraction may have proved the end of Moses’s time as the owner of the business, as his brother John was soon advertising the opening of a new pastry and confectionary shop on Elizabeth Street while Moses tried his hand at professional boxing all over lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania).[60] Though still convicts under sentence themselves, Sarah and Moses appear to have had another convict assigned to them, because in 1825 Ann Powell per Brothers (1823) was advertised as a ‘Runaway’ who had ‘absconded from the service of Sarah Moses.’[61]

In spite of the inroads the Moses family had made and the fact that she was now a married mother of three children under the age of four, Sarah had not given up verbal sparring and wandering herself. According to Sarah’s convict profile, on 27 August 1826 she absconded from her home and proceeded to wollerwerli (New Norfolk) without a pass.[62] Sarah did not return of her own volition; she had to be ‘apprehended’ on 3 September and ‘returned to her family’ the next day.[63] Another daughter, Sarah Tabitha, was born eight months later on 1 May 1827, followed by Joseph William in 1829, and Abraham in 1831.[64] In the early stages of the last pregnancy, Sarah was found guilty of ‘Very dis[orderl]y conduct & making use of obscene & violent language,’ and sentenced to ‘36 hours sol[itar]y confinement on B[read] & W[ater]’ by E. Dumaresq; a sentence that may have been served at the Cascades Female Factory, which was established in 1828.[65] Even this punishment was not enough to bring an end to Sarah’s wanderlust. On 28 March 1832, she was again ‘at large without a pass’ and reprimanded.[66] It would be the last highlight in her convict career in lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania).

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE. Cascades Female Factory, 1844. John Skinner Prout, The Female Factory from Proctor’s Quarry J.S. Prout (1844), ([Hobart] V.D.L.: T. Bluett, 1844). HA1097 / SD_ILS:100631. Courtesy of Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania; “Female Factory, Cascades,” (1900), NS1013/1/45, in Photographs and Glass Plate Negatives collected by E. R. Pretyman (NS1013). Courtesy of Tasmanian Archives.

Sarah remains, as ever, out of focus. The bare facts are that while she was a convict in lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania) she regularly fled what, from the outside, appeared to be a thriving business and home life, and that she was involved in heated exchanges. However, these details alone do not unequivocally reveal the kind of person Sarah was. What was she verbally opposing and running away from? Whether it was her master, mistress, judge, gaoler, or convict husband, all those who found fault with her conduct assumed their right to have power over her. It may be that Sarah had good reasons to argue with and flee from all of them, including her husband; a convict whose own exploits reveal him to have been highly persuasive, a determined escape artist, a boxer, and a wily businessman. Then again, perhaps where Sarah and Moses were concerned, it was always ‘six o’one, ‘n’ ‘alf dozen o’ t’other.’

Mrs. Moey of Sydney Town: ‘The Most Disagreeablest Woman That Ever Was Born’

On 17 April 1833, ‘Mrs. Sarah Moses’ and children, ‘John Moses [William] 11 Years of age, Anna Maria Moses 10 years of age, Phoebe Moses, 7 years of age, Sarah Tabitha Moses 6 years of age, Joseph Moses, 2 years of age, and Abraham Moses, 16 Months old,’ boarded the Enchantress and sailed from nipaluna (Hobart Town) for Warrane (Sydney Cove), Cadigal Country. Although Moses Moses did not travel with the rest of his family, (he appears to have been the ‘Mess.r Moses’ who travelled ahead of them per Gulnare in March 1833), their separate voyages were not related to any marital strife.[67]

Four months later, in August 1833, Sarah was issued her Certificate of Freedom.[68] While her inner self continues to elude us somewhat, her certificate at least furnishes us with a few details of her outer appearance. The now 40-year-old Sarah was five feet, four and three-quarter inches tall, with a ‘fair Ruddy complexion,’ brown hair and blue eyes, and, as such, probably bore a striking resemblance to her eldest daughter, Anna Maria.[69] Significantly, no other distinguishing features were recorded for Sarah, even though pockmarks, missing teeth, missing fingers, multiple scars, tattoos, freckles and pug noses were typically recorded in such documents. Once again, this adds weight to the theory that Sarah’s background had probably been better than a lot of her fellow convict women. If so, with a less battered physical appearance than most, very possibly also betraying some level of education in her speech and general comportment, being part of a convict family that had already risen above its station thanks to their business in lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania), and likely with a wardrobe to match, it is hardly surprising that Mrs. Sarah Moses stirred as much ill feeling among her peers in Cadi (Sydney) as she had done within her former ‘superior’ Mrs. Fisk. Be that as it may, in Cadi (Sydney) we also finally gain a sample of what Sarah was capable of dishing out, too.

In February 1836, the Sydney Gazette reported on the case of Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses.[70] Sarah was the ‘defendant’ and had been summoned ‘to answer the charge of assaulting the complainant.’[71] ‘The parties’ were neighbours in George Street, Cadi (Sydney), and had ‘quarrelled invariably every day since they…sojourned in the neighbourhood.’[72] Mrs. Roberts described Sarah as ‘the most disagreeablest woman that ever was born,’ who ‘in her tagtrums [sic]…applied every blackguard epithet that could be selected from Geases classic collection, upon [Mrs. Roberts] and her friends, who had in vain tried to cut the connection, and drive [Sarah] from the neighbourhood.’[73] Sarah, who was accused of ‘insolence’ and repeatedly using ‘abusive, obscene and violent language’ in lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania), somehow managed to remain straight-faced when she, adopting a ‘butter would not melt’ ladylike persona, ‘lifted her hands and eyes heavenward, and ejaculated, “Mrs. Roberts; Mrs. Roberts, I’m shocked at you.”’[74]

Unmoved by Sarah’s performance, Mrs. Roberts pressed on. She told their worships ‘what hurt [her] feelings most was the epithet’ Sarah bestowed upon her: “terrible old faggot” [i.e. a bundle of old sticks], ‘which was literally untrue, seeing that although she was the mother of children, her sun was still in the meridian, and she was no more a faggot than the old bundle of sticks who called her so.’[75] Sarah, who clearly believed in her ability to convince her audience that she was the better sort of person, seized this opportunity to turn the tables on her accuser:

“There your Honor; there comes the dirt; I knew it would come out; that ere’s the genteel language she makes no bones of applying to us,” yelled Mrs. Moses, whose patience appeared to have burst the trammels imposed by policy, and who relieved from the difficult part she had sustained, blased away in the full glory of unsophisticated oratory. “I knew she’d let the cat out.—I’m the disagreeablest woman alive—I’m the horridest vociferator in Sydney; I’m every thing that’s bad; but now you’ve got a specimen of her abilities, and hopes you’r satisfied” [sic].[76]

The reporter was a little uncharitable in describing Sarah’s outburst as ‘unsophisticated oratory.’[77] Though Sarah was not altogether in control of her emotions at the time and made use of colloquialisms, in her retort she also displayed wit, an excellent vocabulary, and the ability to construct a strong, rational argument in her defence even when, based on her past conduct, she was undoubtedly guilty as charged. In fact, even the reporter went on to humorously imply that Sarah’s accuser was the least ‘heddicated’ of the two women in his manner of recording Mrs. Roberts’s next statement to the court:

“You see your worships, that I have children, and Mrs. Moses has childer, and my childer and her childer play together, as other childer do; least wise they fight as other childer do; and little Moey (Mrs. Moses: “Don’t you call names”) waps my Bill, and then I waps him, and then Mrs. Mo waps my Bill again, and then we has a disturbance, for my Bill is a quiet little chap and knows “Let dogs delight, to bark and bight,” and can say all Watts’ songs by heart, where little Moey don’t know none of them ere instructive songs as makes good boys of naughty uns, and has’nt got no heddication, which I calls a shame in this march of hintellect time, when we pays such heavy taxes for schools.” [sic][78]

This phonetic rendering of the speech, with all its quaint, repetitive phrasing, made a mockery of Mrs. Roberts, particularly when she said Sarah’s son ‘little Moey’ (presumably Joseph or Abraham Moses) ‘has’nt got no heddication’ [sic].[79]

Mrs. Elizabeth Roberts may not have been as eloquent as Mrs. Sarah Moses, but she did have a witness who was willing to corroborate her statements. ‘[W]hat Mrs. Roberts…had averred was correct—quite correct,’ stated lodger Joseph Bryan.[80] ‘Mrs. Moses…stept up to the palings, and accused Mrs. R. of many failings, which she had not; said she would anatomise her if she could get her outside, and called her every thing but a woman of repute, winding up with the particularly ungracious “terrible old faggot.”’[81] Mrs. Moey was never one to surrender. It was “all a made up story to blast [my] reputation,” Sarah claimed, and she “would have taken out a summons first, but the complainant started away like a greyhound, and arrived at the Police Office first, having run neck and neck all the way from the theatre.”[82] “[I have] been sixteen years in the colony,” Sarah informed their worships, “and no one could say to [me] ‘black’s the white of your eye.’”[83] It is just as well Sarah’s former mistresses Mrs. Fisk and Mrs. Baker were not present to remind her of her ‘reputation’ documented in her convict record in lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania). Despite Sarah’s efforts, the court found in favour of the plaintiff Mrs. Roberts, and Sarah was ‘bound to keep the peace herself in £10, and two sureties in £5 each.’[84]

Mrs. Roberts and friends may have at last succeeded in driving the ‘Moeys’ from the neighbourhood, because less than a year later, Kent Street, Cadi (Sydney), was Moses Moses’s stated residence.[85] It was, however, to be a temporary address, because in early January 1837, Moses and his brother Isaac began taking decisive steps to shut down their Cadi (Sydney) lives in preparation for a new joint venture in Yass, a recently established, isolated small town with a population of 37 in Ngunnawal and Wiradjuri Country, 280 kilometres southwest of Cadi (Sydney), that took its name from the Ngunnawal word yharr, meaning ‘running water.’[86] On 4 January, for instance, Isaac took out a licence as an auctioneer at the Sydney Police Office, and by late March was advertising the auction of his ‘remaining Stock-In-Trade’ at his own ‘General Store’ on York Street ‘in consequence of his removal to Yass.’[87] Just as Isaac was looking to travel light and set up his new life in Yass, Moses, too, appears to have seen this as an ideal opportunity to get rid of ‘old stock.’ The same month Isaac took out the auctioneer’s licence, Moses ran the following public notice twice in the advertising section of The Sydney Monitor on 25 and 30 January 1837:

Based on past behaviour, it is within the realms of possibility that Sarah had deserted the family home once more, but it is also possible Sarah was unceremoniously cast out instead.[88] Evidently, Moses was neither expecting nor wanting Sarah to return since he had so publicly disowned her, which is something he had never done before.

We know Moses made the move to Yass soon after, because in August 1837 he was named as his brother Isaac’s business partner in the new ‘Yass Store,’ later known as the ‘Argyle Store,’ and in November that year, Moses was appointed the town poundkeeper.[89] The children, who were raised in the Jewish faith, were likely with Moses, as Sarah appears to have lingered around Kent Street, Cadi (Sydney) all alone in fairly desperate circumstances. In February 1838, the following notice appeared in The Australian:

This is the last piece of direct evidence we have of Sarah’s movements, and even it indicates Sarah was a transient person who had actually already left Kent Street and, quite possibly, ‘Sydney Town’ altogether. Perhaps she had left those items behind because she had found somewhere more permanent to stay and no longer needed them. It could be that by then Sarah was living at Penrith in Dharug Country with her sister-in-law, 21-year-old Hannah Moses (née Thrum); that is, the wife of Isaac, Moses’s brother and business partner. Whether Sarah took refuge with Hannah, or whether Sarah and Moses had come to some kind of understanding or arrangement at that stage, is pure speculation. Even if correct, Hannah Moses passed away at Penrith and was buried at the Parramatta Burial Ground (St. John’s Cemetery, Parramatta) on 8 March 1838—just one month after the notice of Sarah’s box and bedding was published, so what became of Sarah after her sister-in-law Hannah’s death would still be a mystery.[90]

Since there is no evidence that Sarah ever set foot there, there is a good chance the people of Yass did not have even the slightest inkling that there was a ‘Mrs. Moey’ still living in either Sydney Town or somewhere in Greater Sydney—and, in the long term, that ended up being rather convenient for Moses.

The Merry Widower

For Mr. Moses Moses, Yass was a place of reinvention. He very quickly established himself in his new community as a successful businessman. When he and Isaac dissolved their partnership in the Argyle Store in April 1839, Moses became the proprietor of the White Hart Inn. At Yass, Moses and his entrepreneurial siblings, who were also gravitating to this location and surrounding areas, were amassing multiple properties and gaining the respect of the townspeople.[91] The only part Sarah had to play in any of this was as his dearly departed wife.

On 20 January 1840, the rabbi’s son Mr. Moses Moses, falsely declaring himself a widower, married a Reverend’s daughter, Miss Hannah Dray, at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Cadi (Sydney).[92] Hannah had probably arrived in the colony as a free immigrant in June 1838 on the Westminster with her sister Mrs. Sophia Hilder, who quickly settled in Yass.[93] Given Hannah’s religious background, it is hard to imagine she was any more aware than the minister officiating the ceremony that she was marrying a married man. On the other hand, as a 30-year-old spinster ‘housemaid’ in a period when her age qualified her as being ‘over the hill,’ Hannah may have considered herself very fortunate to have landed a husband (albeit someone else’s), and one who was among the town’s leading businessmen at that.[94] Moses could be very persuasive, too; he had once convinced a captain of a ship to let him stow away to escape the colony, so perhaps Moses did openly charm her into a bigamous marriage after all.[95]

Bigamy was not allowed in the colony, but that was no impediment to the many colonists who attempted to slip past the net. The numerous rejections recorded alongside convicts’ names in the Registers of Convicts’ Applications to Marry on the basis that they were ‘already married’ attest to this.[96] As we have seen, Moses Moses had regularly shown little respect for the law of the land anyway, and perhaps he had good reason to be flippant where colonial marriages were concerned. There were strange cases like Benjamin Ratty’s wife, Ann, who was recorded in colonial documents very specifically as ‘the wife of Samuel Arnold’ yet received permission to marry twice at St. John’s Parramatta, while her first husband Samuel was living in Cadi (Sydney), and actually outlived both her second and third husbands.[97] In any case, Moses would have suffered no spiritual unrest for his actions, since the Torah does not forbid polygamy. For the same reason Isaac may have been complicit in his brother’s bigamous marriage; then again, their business partnership had already dissolved in April 1839, so he may not have known. Or did they have a falling out over Moses’s relationship with Hannah Dray? As for the children, Moses may have simply dared them to say anything about their living mother, or fed them stories about her. There is also the slim possibility that at the time Moses genuinely believed Sarah Moses was dead, perhaps due to their estrangement, coupled with false information or the lack of any. However the bigamous marriage came about, the reality was that 46-year-old Sarah, who had borne Moses six children and supported the entrepreneur in his early forays into small business, was replaced by the much younger Hannah, who soon began giving him the first of another eight children.[98]

Sarah ‘died of a broken heart’ on Wednesday 31 March 1841, just over a year after Hannah and Moses’s marriage, a few months after her eldest daughter, eighteen-year-old Anna Maria ‘the daughter of Moses Moses of the White Hart Inn, Yass,’ married in a Jewish ceremony at Cadi (Sydney), and in the same year that Moses and Hannah welcomed their first child, Barnett.[99]

After Sarah’s actual death, Moses went on to still greater success, though he would also suffer the loss of Sarah’s namesake, 15-year-old Sarah Tabitha, who drowned at Yass on 3 February 1843.[100] In 1842, for example, Moses was decorated with a silver medal for his ‘gallant conduct in endeavouring to capture the Bushranger Massey.’[101] In 1846, he built the Yass Inn, which according to him at least was ‘the best hotel out of Sydney,’ and later he became a member of the first Yass District Council as well as a founding member of the Yass District Hospital Board.[102] Among other buildings still extant in Yass, Moses built for his second family ‘Alfriston Cottage,’ which was named after his wife Hannah’s birthplace.[103] The original cottage still stands as ‘the core’ of the much-renovated ‘Old Linton House’ and has an asking price today of $2.5–2.7 million.[104] Moses could also claim the honour of selecting the ground that would become the ‘place of interment’ for those in the district of Yass who were ‘of the Jewish persuasion.’[105]

All the while, Sarah’s own grave remained unmarked at the Parramatta Burial Ground. For six years and one month, no family member invested in a memorial for Sarah. Moses Moses might have wished he had done that much for his legitimate wife, because thanks to some unnamed ‘friends’ who raised the funds for her headstone, ultimately death did not silence Sarah either.[106]

Sarah had never been one to keep quiet and apparently she had not been when she learnt that she had been bigamised. We do not need direct accounts of her reaction to the news of her husband’s invalid marriage to Hannah Dray to know that. When it was finally erected over her grave, the contents of her headstone—including its emphatic identification of her as ‘the wife of Mr. Moses Moses,’ the specification of his former as well as present locale lest their be any confusion between him and another, and the fact someone went to the trouble to put a notice in the newspaper announcing its installation at the cemetery—tells us Sarah did a very thorough job of exposing her ‘peculiar family trials’ to sympathetic listeners.[107]

*          *          *

Sarah Moses was not exactly the archetypal fragile victim her brokenhearted headstone might lead the casual cemetery tourist to envisage. That Sarah had a strong personality, a sharp tongue, and a few hard edges, there is little doubt (but since she had them, we can safely conclude that she had needed them). Indeed, even from the mere fragments of information available, one gets the sense that it was usually her mouth that got her into scrapes. It is not, therefore, difficult to imagine away some of the gaps in her story; picturing her being dismissed from a position as lady’s maid in a ‘genteel family’ in England as a result of her ‘insolence,’ and thus being reduced to walking into that grocery store in Bath with the forged note that led to her transportation.

It would be all too easy, then, to paint Sarah as a hostile, aggressive woman and Moses Moses as an upwardly mobile, self-made man who wanted a more respectable, immigrant woman by his side than the rough convict he had attached his convict self to all those years ago in lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania). There are plenty of things in Sarah’s convict record that could be used to corroborate such a representation.

Nevertheless, a close and critical reading of the available evidence reveals Sarah was a far more complex figure than either of those caricatures allow. The story of Sarah Moses (née Brown) is a reminder that the convicts transported to this country were not all low-born members of a criminal ‘underclass.’ Many, if not most of them, were ordinary working men, women and children with no prior convictions and, like Sarah, were often more educated and skilled than the free people who remained in their native lands.[108] While their transportable crimes created a critical juncture in their lives, their criminal activity did not necessarily define the ‘sort’ of people they fundamentally were, either before or after their conviction. In the colony Sarah was a disobedient convict, and no doubt she was hardened by her experiences and added a number of choice profanities to her vocabulary as a result of her time in gaol, on the convict ship among other degraded women, and in lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land / Tasmania). But as the wife of Moses Moses, the educated, skilled, confident grocer’s daughter undoubtedly played a large—though entirely undocumented—role in helping Moses to become the successful and respected entrepreneur he became. For all the evidence of her being ‘disagreeable,’ we also cannot ignore that she must have had some redeeming qualities for anyone—friend or family member—to be so outraged at Moses Moses on her behalf that they would raise the considerable funds required for her headstone and then devote her memorial to exposing her ‘unnatural oppressors’ and testifying to her softer side all those years after her death. The countless numbers of convict and ex-convict women (and even free people) lying in the Parramatta Burial Ground in unmarked graves remind us of how easily this could have happened to Sarah, too. From the appropriateness of the memorial and the fact that the six years that had passed had not dulled the sense of the injustice done to Sarah, we may surmise that it was her, by then, adult children after all who honoured her and exposed Moses once they were in a position to do so—albeit under the guise of ‘friends’ so as not to incur the wrath of their wealthy, respected father.

Sarah’s bold voice continues to echo from the grave through the words chosen for her epitaph by her ‘friends,’ whoever they were. For this reason, even though her epitaph’s revelation that she died for love initially conjures an image that fails to capture every facet of Sarah Moses in all her complexity, ultimately there could have been no more fitting and everlasting ‘final word’ for a strong woman who in life, rightly or wrongly, never failed to interject to defend herself against those who sought to control her narrative.

CITE THIS

Michaela Ann Cameron, “Sarah Moses: Tell the World I Died for Love,” St. John’s Online, (2019), https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/sarah-moses/, accessed [insert current date]

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Philip Moses and Jeannette Tsoulos at the Australian Jewish Historical Society for their assistance in differentiating the convict Moses Moses from the free merchant also named Moses Moses alias Moses Moss. (The individual in a portrait held in their collection is often mistaken for the convict Moses Moses but is in fact the free merchant Moses Moses alias Moses Moss). Thank you also to Anne Drayton at the State Library of New South Wales, who took the time to confirm my theory that the picture of Sarah’s daughter Anna (which I had found, unsourced, online) was indeed the one held in their collection.

References

Primary Sources & Databases

• Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Guide to Cookery in all Branches, Daily Duties, Menu Making, Mistress & Servant, Home Doctor, Hostess & Guest, Sick Nursing, Marketing, The Nursery, Trussing & Carving, Home Lawyer, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, Warwick House, 1907).
• J. Bulcock, The Duties of a Lady’s Maid: With Directions for Conduct, and Numerous Receipts for the Toilette, (London: Printed by C. Smith, Angel Court, Strand, 1825).
• Bank of England Archive (https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive, 6 September 2019).
• British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/, 6 September 2019).
• Female Convicts Research Centre Inc., Female Convicts in Van Diemen’s Land Database, (2018), https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/database/database-research, accessed 18 September 2019.
• Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019).
• Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 5 September 2019).
• Prison History (www.prisonhistory.org, 6 September 2019).
• The Digital Panopticon (https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/, version 1.1, 5 September 2019).
• Trove (https://trove.nla.gov.au/, 5 September 2019).

Secondary Sources

• John Benson and Laura Ugolini (eds.), A Nation of Shopkeepers: Five Centuries of British Retailing, (London and New York: I. B. Taurus, 2003).
• Janet Blackman, “The Development of the Retail Grocery Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” Business History, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1967): 110–117.
• Michaela Ann Cameron, “Elizabeth Bennett: The Baker’s Wife,” St. John’s Online, (2016), https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/elizabeth-bennett/, also published on Female Factory Online (2016), https://femalefactoryonline.org/bio/elizabeth-bennett-bakers-wife/, accessed 6 September 2019.
• Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012).
• David Kent, Norma Townsend and Deborah Oxley, “Deborah Oxley’s ‘Female Convicts’: An Accurate View of Working-Class Women? [with Reply],” Labour History, No. 65 (November 1993): 179–199.
• John Levi, These Are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788–1850, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2013).
• Randall McGowen, “Managing the Gallows: The Bank of England and the Death Penalty, 1797–1821,” Law and History Review, Vol. 25, No. 2, (Summer, 2007): 241–282.
• Jack Mockford, (Ph.D. Diss.), “‘They are Exactly as Banknotes are”: Perceptions and Technologies of Bank Note Forgery During the Bank Restriction Period, 1797–1821,” (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire, 2014), accessed online https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/001e/004f8e526855afe09fcb674b8ba1d9cd602f.pdf, 5 September 2019.
• Stephen Nicholas and Deborah Oxley, “The Living Standards of Women during the Industrial Revolution, 1795–1820,” The Economic History Review, Vol. 46, No. 4 (November 1993): 723– 749.
• Deborah Oxley, “Exercising Agency,” Labour History, No. 65 (November 1993): 192–199.
• Joseph Aubrey Rees, The Grocery Trade, Its History and Romance, Vol. II, (London: Duckworth & Co, 1910).
• Jon Stobart, “An Empire of Goods? Groceries in Eighteenth-Century England,” in Maki Umemura and Rika Fujikowa (eds.), Comparative Responses to Globalization, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 23–45.
• Jon Stobart, Sugar and Spice: Grocers and Groceries in Provincial England, 1650–1830, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

NOTES

[1] These ballad variants include The Water is Wide, Must I Go Bound?, Will Ye Gang, Love?, There is a Tavern in the Town.

[2] See Sarah Moses’s headstone in Right Section, Row 22, Memorial E (R.22.E), St. John’s Cemetery, Parramatta.

[3] Her birthplace and birth year are recorded in her Certificate of Freedom. See “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820), Certificate of Freedom, 15 August 1833,” New South Wales Government, Butts of Certificates of Freedom, Series: NRS 12210; Item: 4/4317; Reel: 991; Entry No: 33/0895; Index Number: 65, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales), https://records-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1e5kcq1/INDEX310635, accessed 18 September 2019.

[4] See Yorkshire Parish Records, Leeds, England: West Yorkshire Archive Service. There is another contender for the Sarah Brown of Pontefract who is buried in St. John’s: Sarah Brown, daughter of William and Elizabeth Brown, baptised at St. Giles on 22 September 1799, but this is four years later than Sarah herself stated was her birth year, whereas the grocer’s daughter only had a two-year discrepancy between her baptism of 1793 and the convict Sarah’s stated birth year of 1795. Also, calculating her birth year from the age recorded on her headstone again places Sarah’s birth year around 1794. A Sarah Brown of St. Giles married Matthew Milnes in 27 December 1827, which could actually be the grocer’s daughter. However, both the bride and the groom signed their names with an X, which seems unlikely for a grocer’s daughter.

[5] John Benson and Laura Ugolini (eds.), A Nation of Shopkeepers: Five Centuries of British Retailing, (London and New York: I. B. Taurus, 2003), p. 4; Janet Blackman, “The Development of the Retail Grocery Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” Business History, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1967): 110.

[6] Janet Blackman, “The Development of the Retail Grocery Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” Business History, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1967): 110. Regarding the global system of supply including the East India Company, see Jon Stobart, Sugar and Spice: Grocers and Groceries in Provincial England, 1650–1830, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), especially Chapter 3 “From Colony to Counter: Networks of Supply.” For a discussion of the British public’s interest in empire and ‘tropical groceries’ or ‘plantation goods,’ see Jon Stobart, “An Empire of Goods? Groceries in Eighteenth-Century England,” in Maki Umemura and Rika Fujikowa (eds.), Comparative Responses to Globalization, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 23–44.

[7] Joseph Aubrey Rees, The Grocery Trade, Its History and Romance, Vol. II, (London: Duckworth & Co, 1910), p. 198.

[8] Jon Stobart, “An Empire of Goods? Groceries in Eighteenth-Century England,” in Maki Umemura and Rika Fujikowa (eds.), Comparative Responses to Globalization, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 24.

[9] For a source recording her literacy, see “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820); Convict ID: 9467,” in Female Convicts Research Centre Inc., Female Convicts in Van Diemen’s Land Database, (2018), https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/database/database-research, accessed 18 September 2019. Stephen Nicholas and Deborah Oxley’s analysis and presentation of statistics relating to literacy and height indicates that “both rural and urban-born English females experienced rising illiteracy from 1795,” leading them to conclude, “Our data on illiteracy and heights point to hard time for English women between 1790 and 1820.” See Stephen Nicholas and Deborah Oxley, “The Living Standards of Women during the Industrial Revolution, 1795–1820,” The Economic History Review, Vol. 46, No. 4 (November 1993): 741. For St. John’s Online’s dual naming policy, see Michaela Ann Cameron, “Name-Calling: A Dual Naming Policy,” in St. John’s Online, (2020), https://stjohnsonline.org/editorial-policies/name-calling-a-dual-naming-policy/, accessed 13 April 2020. The essay discusses giving prime position to indigenous endonyms and subordinating European imposed exonyms in both the colonial Australian and colonial American contexts and was adapted from “Name-Calling: Notes on Terminology,” in Michaela Ann Cameron, (Ph.D. Diss.), “Stealing the Turtle’s Voice: A Dual History of Western and Algonquian-Iroquoian Soundways from Creation to Re-creation,” (Sydney: Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, 2018), pp. 25–35, http://bit.ly/stealingturtle, accessed 6 September 2019.

[10] Regarding the interpretation of literacy levels reported in convict indents, which is where Sarah Moses’s own literacy information is sourced from, and for a general discussion comparing convict literacy to free people who remained in England in this era see Stephen Nicholas and Deborah Oxley, “The Living Standards of Women during the Industrial Revolution, 1795–1820,” The Economic History Review, Vol. 46, No. 4 (November 1993): 728–29.

[11] Her occupation ‘lady’s maid’ was recorded in her Certificate of Freedom. See “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820), Certificate of Freedom, 15 August 1833,” New South Wales Government, Butts of Certificates of Freedom, Series: NRS 12210; Item: 4/4317; Reel: 991; Entry No: 33/0895; Index Number: 65, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales). https://records-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1e5kcq1/INDEX310635.

[12] J. Bulcock, The Duties of a Lady’s Maid: With Directions for Conduct, and Numerous Receipts for the Toilette, (London: Printed by C. Smith, Angel Court, Strand, 1825); Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Guide to Cookery in all Branches, Daily Duties, Menu Making, Mistress & Servant, Home Doctor, Hostess & Guest, Sick Nursing, Marketing, The Nursery, Trussing & Carving, Home Lawyer, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, Warwick House, 1907), pp. 16, 1772–74, 1802–11; see also Sharon Lathan, “Regency Servants: Valet and Lady’s Maid,” Austen Authors, (2015), https://austenauthors.net/regency-servants-valet-and-ladys-maid/, accessed 7 September 2019.

[13] Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Guide to Cookery in all Branches, Daily Duties, Menu Making, Mistress & Servant, Home Doctor, Hostess & Guest, Sick Nursing, Marketing, The Nursery, Trussing & Carving, Home Lawyer, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, Warwick House, 1907), p. 1772. For other examples of lady’s maid advertisements in both the South West of England where Sarah Brown ended up in the 1810s, and some from closer to her birthplace as well, see “NURSERY or LADY’S MAID,” Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 3 September 1812, p. 1; “HOUSEKEEPER & LADY’S MAID,” Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 11 February 1813, p. 1; “WANTS A SITUATION,” York Herald, 8 December 1810, p. 1; “WANTS A SITUATION,” York Herald, 19 January 1811, p. 1, all via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019. See also “Duties of Behaviour” including “Religion, Honest and Probity, Diligence and Economy, Attention, Familiarity with Superiors, Good Temper and Civility, Confidence in Keeping Family Secrets, Vanity and Dress, Amusements, Vulgar and Correct Speaking, Change of Place, Courtship,” in J. Bulcock, The Duties of a Lady’s Maid: With Directions for Conduct, and Numerous Receipts for the Toilette, (London: Printed by C. Smith, Angel Court, Strand, 1825), pp. 6–134.

[14] Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Guide to Cookery in all Branches, Daily Duties, Menu Making, Mistress & Servant, Home Doctor, Hostess & Guest, Sick Nursing, Marketing, The Nursery, Trussing & Carving, Home Lawyer, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, Warwick House, 1907), p. 1772.

[15] Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Guide to Cookery in all Branches, Daily Duties, Menu Making, Mistress & Servant, Home Doctor, Hostess & Guest, Sick Nursing, Marketing, The Nursery, Trussing & Carving, Home Lawyer, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, Warwick House, 1907), pp. 1772–73. See chapters entitled “Display of the Forehead,” “Taste in Dressing the Hair,” and “Practical Directions for Hair Dressing, with Receipts,” in J. Bulcock, The Duties of a Lady’s Maid: With Directions for Conduct, and Numerous Receipts for the Toilette, (London: Printed by C. Smith, Angel Court, Strand, 1825), pp. 192–233.

[16] Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Guide to Cookery in all Branches, Daily Duties, Menu Making, Mistress & Servant, Home Doctor, Hostess & Guest, Sick Nursing, Marketing, The Nursery, Trussing & Carving, Home Lawyer, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, Warwick House, 1907), p. 1773. See also the chapters entitled “Dress-making and Fancy Needle-work,” “Care of the Wardrobe, and the Method of Taking out Stains,” and “Method of Cleaning Silks and Chintz, and of Clear Starching, and Getting-up Lace and Fine Linen” in J. Bulcock, The Duties of a Lady’s Maid: With Directions for Conduct, and Numerous Receipts for the Toilette, (London: Printed by C. Smith, Angel Court, Strand, 1825), pp. 315–28.

[17] Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Guide to Cookery in all Branches, Daily Duties, Menu Making, Mistress & Servant, Home Doctor, Hostess & Guest, Sick Nursing, Marketing, The Nursery, Trussing & Carving, Home Lawyer, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, Warwick House, 1907), p. 1773.

[18] Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Guide to Cookery in all Branches, Daily Duties, Menu Making, Mistress & Servant, Home Doctor, Hostess & Guest, Sick Nursing, Marketing, The Nursery, Trussing & Carving, Home Lawyer, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, Warwick House, 1907), pp. 1773–74.

[19] Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management: A Guide to Cookery in all Branches, Daily Duties, Menu Making, Mistress & Servant, Home Doctor, Hostess & Guest, Sick Nursing, Marketing, The Nursery, Trussing & Carving, Home Lawyer, (London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, Warwick House, 1907), p. 1774.

[20] “To respectable Families, & Proprietors of Boarding Schools,” Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 29 December 1814, p. 1 via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019.

[21] Deborah Oxley, “Exercising Agency,” Labour History, No. 65 (November 1993): 196.

[22] “Somerset Assizes, Bridgewater, Tuesday night, August 7,” Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, Thursday 19 August 1819, p. 3 and “Somersetshire Assizes,” Bristol Mirror, Saturday 21 August 1819, p. 3 via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019.

[23] Joseph Kaye, “List of Prisoners Tried at the Summer Assizes for uttering &c forged Bank Notes, also the Names of the Persons whom he considered as entitled to rewards for apprehending them,” in Bank of England, “Committee for Law Suits, 1819, Book 2,” Bank of England Archive (m5/322), pp. 215–17, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/archive/committee-for-law-suits-minutes/1819-book2.pdf, accessed 6 September 2019. Mary Hickman, Sarah Brown, and Catherine Leeson’s names appear on p. 217. Susannah King, Grocer, was awarded £5 for apprehending Hickman; Charles Cooper, Grocer, and John Bourne, Police Officer each received £5 and £10 respectively for apprehending Sarah, while Charles Cooper, Grocer and Constable James Clarke received £5 each for apprehending Leeson; “Sarah Brown, Ilchester Gaol, 14 August 1819 and 28 April 1820,” Somerset Gaol Registers and Description Books, Reference Numbers: Q/AGI/14/1 and Q/AGI/14/2, (Somerset Archives & Local Studies, South West Heritage Trust, Taunton, Somerset, England). For more on Ilchester County Gaol and House of Correction see Prison History (https://www.prisonhistory.org/, 2019), 19th Century Prisons, Ilchester County Gaol and House of Correction, https://www.prisonhistory.org/prison/ilchester-county-gaol-and-house-of-correction/, 6 September 2019.

[24] Randall McGowen, “Managing the Gallows: The Bank of England and the Death Penalty, 1797–1821,” Law and History Review, Vol. 25, No. 2, (Summer, 2007): 243.

[25] Randall McGowen, “Managing the Gallows: The Bank of England and the Death Penalty, 1797–1821,” Law and History Review, Vol. 25, No. 2, (Summer, 2007): 243. See also Michaela Ann Cameron, “Elizabeth Bennett: The Baker’s Wife,” St. John’s Online, (2016), https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/elizabeth-bennett/, accessed 6 September 2019, also published on Female Factory Online (2016), https://femalefactoryonline.org/bio/elizabeth-bennett-bakers-wife/, accessed 6 September 2019.

[26] See for example “Alice Butterworth” in Bank of England, “Committee for Law Suits, 1819, Book 2,” Bank of England Archive (m5/322), p. 209, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/archive/committee-for-law-suits-minutes/1819-book2.pdf, accessed 6 September 2019.

[27] “No title,” Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, Thursday 15 July 1819, p. 3 via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019.

[28] For a newspaper reports about Mary Hickman’s prior conviction as an utterer of base coin, see “No title,” Bristol Mirror, Saturday 15 April 1815, p. 3 and “GLOUCESTER ASSIZES,” Gloucester Journal, Monday 17 April 1815, p. 4. For newspaper reports of Catherine Leeson’s previous trials, see “The Somerset Michaelmas Sessions,” Bristol Mirror, Saturday 28 October 1815, p. 4 and “The General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for this County…at Warminster,” Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Monday 21 July 1817, p. 4, all via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019.

[29] “No title,” Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, Thursday 15 July 1819, p. 3; “Somerset Assizes,” Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, Thursday 19 August 1819, p. 3; “Somersetshire Assizes,” Bristol Mirror, Saturday 21 August 1819, p. 3; “TRANSPORTATION,” Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, Monday 26 July 1819, p. 7; “No title,” Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, Thursday 29 July 1819, p. 7, all via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019.

[30] “Re: Charles Hibbert, 14 August 1819,” in Bank of England, “Committee for Law Suits, 1819, Book 2,” Bank of England Archive (m5/322), p. 158, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/archive/committee-for-law-suits-minutes/1819-book2.pdf, accessed 6 September 2019; “CAPITALLY CONVICTED, Bristol Mirror, Saturday 21 August 1819, p. 3 via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019: “CAPITALLY CONVICTED….Charles Hibbert, charged with having forged and counterfeited a plate of copper purporting to be a Note of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England—Hibbert, according to his own declaration, was induced at first to commit the crime of which he has been found guilty, and for which he will probably suffer an ignominious death, through extreme poverty; and having once become connected with the unprincipled utterers of fictitious notes, he was so much in their power that he was in a manner compelled from time to time to persevere in the nefarious traffic. Chas. Hibbert is of a very respectable family in Bath, who have industriously pursued the occupation of Engravers and Copper-Plate printers for nearly the whole of last century. A course of idle habits and dissipation has brought this solitary disgrace on a worthy and ingenious family. It may not be amiss to say, that the name of Charles Hibbert was attached to the requisition of the notorious Hunt Meeting in Bath, January, 1817. [Thomas and Elizabeth Dawell, charged with having assisted Charles Hibbert in uttering forged notes, were admitted King’s evidence against him.]”

[31] For the reference to the country banks Hibbert was committing forgery against, see “FORGERY,” Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, Monday 26 July 1819, p. 7, via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019.

[32] “CAPITALLY CONVICTED, Bristol Mirror, Saturday 21 August 1819, p. 3 via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019.

[33] Jack Mockford, (Ph.D. Diss.), “‘They are Exactly as Banknotes are”: Perceptions and Technologies of Bank Note Forgery During the Bank Restriction Period, 1797–1821,” (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire, 2014), pp. 1–2, accessed online https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/001e/004f8e526855afe09fcb674b8ba1d9cd602f.pdf, 5 September 2019.

[34] Jack Mockford, (Ph.D. Diss.), “‘They are Exactly as Banknotes are”: Perceptions and Technologies of Bank Note Forgery During the Bank Restriction Period, 1797–1821,” (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire, 2014), especially pp. 177–78, accessed online https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/001e/004f8e526855afe09fcb674b8ba1d9cd602f.pdf, 5 September 2019.

[35] Jack Mockford, (Ph.D. Diss.), “‘They are Exactly as Banknotes are”: Perceptions and Technologies of Bank Note Forgery During the Bank Restriction Period, 1797–1821,” (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire, 2014), especially pp. 176–227, accessed online https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/001e/004f8e526855afe09fcb674b8ba1d9cd602f.pdf, 5 September 2019.

[36] “FORGERY,” Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, Monday 26 July 1819, p. 7 via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019.

[37] “EXECUTION OF HIBBERT,” Durham County Advertiser, 25 September 1819, p. 4 via British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/), accessed 6 September 2019; “CAPITALLY CONVICTED,” Bristol Mirror, 21 August 1819, p. 3. Full transcript of the article recounting Hibbert’s execution: “EXECUTION OF HIBBERT. Charles Hibbert, engraver, of Bath, was executed at Ilchester, on Wednesday week, for forgery. The night previous to his execution he slept very soundly, and awoke about four o’clock in the morning, apparently quite tranquil. Agreeably to his desire the preceding night, breakfast was sent to him about six o’clock. Whilst taking this refreshment the carpenters were busy in putting up the machine, on which, in about four hours, he was to end his mortal existence; Hibbert, however, took little or no notice of their hammering, but when the noise ceased, he said, “I suppose ‘tis now all put up.” He was taken to the chapel, and at nine he partook of the holy sacrament. At half-past ten the Under Sheriff attended, and the knell tolled the the [sic] signal for the execution. Hibbert ascended the platform, and continued half and hour in earnest prayer with the Rev. Chaplain. The executioner then proceeded in his sad office, and every thing being prepared, on Hibbert being left to himself, he called to Mr. Bridle, (the humane governor of the County Gaol) in a hurry, saying he should fall, as his head became giddy, and having only one leg, he begged to sit down awhile; here his firmness forsook him for the first time; he was in great alarm and agony of mind; hassocks were brought from the chapel, on which he sat down—from whence, at about twenty minutes before twelve, he rose, and fell never in this life to rise again! He died without a struggle. Among the fragments of paper found in his cell, was the following:—“I am thankful for the existence and intellect the Almighty has given me; have no reason at present to doubt his mercy, and hope to resign with submission my immortal part into the hands of my Creator, to be disposed of as his infinite wisdom and mercy may direct.” In a recent letter to. His wife he sent her the following lines, the production of his muse: ‘In the cell for condemn’d I remain; / But these walls show no terrors to me; / On my pillow of straw I exclaim, / “O God! Take my spirit to thee!” / I see through the bars of this place / The birds as they wanton in air, / While I am confined with disgrace, / But am seeking a pardon from prayer. / If Mercy should dart me a ray, / And I’m destined to see you once more, / I will walk in the strait narrow way, / And try to keep sin from my door. / But ah! I reflect with dismay, / I think on the law with a sigh; / It seems in harsh accents to say, / “Thy warrant is issued to die.” / Then fit me, O Lord, for the stroke; / On thy mercy and love I depend; / Make easy thy burden and yoke! / To thy will with submission I bend.’”

[38] “Sarah Brown, Ilchester Gaol, 28 April 1820,” Somerset Gaol Registers and Description Books, Reference Number: Q/AGI/14/2, (Somerset Archives & Local Studies, South West Heritage Trust, Taunton, Somerset, England). New South Wales Government, Bound Manuscript Indents, 1788–1842, Series: NRS 12188; Item: 4/4007; Microfiche: 644, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).

[39] For the surgeon’s comment, see “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820); Convict ID: 9467,” in Female Convicts Research Centre Inc., Female Convicts in Van Diemen’s Land Database, (2018), https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/database/database-research, accessed 18 September 2019.

[40] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820),” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON40-1-1, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON40-1-1,380,81, accessed 5 September 2019. For the reference to Mr. Fisk “very handsomely tender[ing] his services to take the Command of the Estramina,” see “Hobart,” The Van Diemen’s Land Gazette and General Advertiser (Hobart, Tas.: 1814), Saturday 4 June 1814, p. 2. Regarding Mr. Fisk’s occupation as miller and the establishment of his flour-mill, see “A list of Settlers who have rendered Wheat for the Supply of His Majesty’s Stores, with the Quantity that will be received from each,” The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter (Tas.: 1816 – 1821), Saturday 29 March 1811, p. 1; “Hobart Town,” The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter (Tas.: 1816 – 1821), Saturday 8 March 1817, p. 1 and “Hobart Town,” The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter (Tas.: 1816 – 1821), Saturday 3 January 1818, p. 2. For his appointment as a Member of the Court of Civil Judicature, see “Govt. and General Orders,” The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter (Tas.: 1816 – 1821), Saturday 18 September 1819, p. 1; The family’s home address was recorded as Liverpool-street in the announcement of the birth of the Fisks’ daughter: “Birth,” The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter (Tas.: 1816 – 1821), Saturday 14 June 1817, p. 1 and “On Sale, at Mr. Fisk’s in Liverpool-street, next door to his Flour Mill,” Hobart Town and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), Saturday 1 December 1821, p. 1.

[41] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820),” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON40-1-1, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON40-1-1,380,81, accessed 5 September 2019.

[42] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820),” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON40-1-1, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON40-1-1,380,81, accessed 5 September 2019. For a source about Mr. Baker’s occupation see “To Be Sold,” The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter (Tas.: 1816 – 1821), Saturday 11 September 1819, p. 1.

[43] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820),” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON40-1-1, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON40-1-1,380,81, accessed 5 September 2019.

[44] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820); Convict ID: 9467,” in Female Convicts Research Centre Inc., Female Convicts in Van Diemen’s Land Database, (2018), https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/database/database-research, accessed 18 September 2019. Note: Moses Moses was erroneously recorded as having an alias “Moses Moss” in John Levi, These Are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788–1850, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2013), p. 1902. This has led to other researchers incorrectly identifying a portrait of Moses Moss (who arrived in the colony as a free merchant) as a depiction of Moses Moses, husband of Sarah. There are no known portraits of the convict Moses Moses per Marquis of Wellington (1815). For more on Moses Moses (Moss), the merchant who arrived in the colony as a free immigrant, see John Levi, These Are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788–1850, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2013), p. 1905, the entry directly after Levi’s entry on the convict Moses Moses. These ages are calculated with reference to their birth years rather than the ages recorded at the time of the marriage itself.

[45] Moses Moses’s parents are named “Joseph Moses, Occupation: Rabbi” and “Deborah (Maiden surname not known) [Deborah Barnett], in Marilyn Rowan, “Moses Moses NSW Death Registration Transcription,” NSW Births Deaths and Marriages, (transcriptions.com.au, 14 June 2013), Ref No: 1808636. Regarding Moses Moses’s employment as a glass-cutter see, Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0), 14 July 1813, trial of MOSES MOSES (t18130714-52), https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t18130714-52, accessed 18 September 2019.

[46] At the time of his first trial, he was a fruit seller: Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0), 13 May 1812, trial of MOSES MOSES (t18120513-88), https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t18120513-88, accessed 18 September 2019. Moses Moses’s second trial: Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0), 14 July 1813, trial of MOSES MOSES (t18130714-52), https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t18130714-52, accessed 18 September 2019.

[47] Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0), 14 July 1813, trial of MOSES MOSES (t18130714-52), https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t18130714-52, accessed 18 September 2019; The Digital Panopticon (https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/, version 1.1), Moses Moses Life Archive (ID: obpt18130714-52-defend576), https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/life?id=obpt18130714-52-defend576, accessed 18 September 2019.

[48] “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version); John Levi, These Are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788–1850, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2013), pp. 1902–05.

[49] “Moses Moses, M. Wellington & Kangaroo,” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON31-1-29, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON31-1-29,366,8, accessed 18 September 2019; “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version); John Levi, These Are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788–1850, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2013), pp. 1902–05.

[50] “Moses Moses, M. Wellington & Kangaroo,” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON31-1-29, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON31-1-29,366,8, accessed 18 September 2019; “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version); John Levi, These Are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788–1850, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2013), pp. 1902–05.

[51] “Moses Moses, M. Wellington & Kangaroo,” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON31-1-29, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON31-1-29,366,8, accessed 18 September 2019. Moses was also later in trouble for driving a cart on the Lord’s Day at New Norfolk, see “The Country Post: New Norfolk,” The Hobart Town Courier (Tas.: 1827 – 1839), p. 1. However, this is not a reflection of his religiosity or lack thereof. Moses was, after all, an Ashkenazi Jew, so the Shabbos (Sabbath) began for him on Fridays just before sunset until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night, so the authorities were imposing the dominant religion (Christianity) on him by fining him for not observing the “Lord’s Day” (Sunday). In spite of all this, in August 1823, ‘Mr. M. Moses’ appeared on a “List of Donations for the Erection of the Wesleyan Mission Chapel and Charity School, in Hobart Town,” having donated £1 and 5 shillings. See “Classified Advertising,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), Saturday 23 August 1823, p. 2. “William Moses, Baptism Date: 12 November 1821; Father: Moses Moses; Mother: Sarah,” Australia, Births and Baptisms, 1792–1981, FHL Film Number: 1368234, (Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013).

[52] “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version); “Classified Advertising,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), Saturday 15 June 1822, p. 2.

[53] “Classified Advertising,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), Saturday 15 June 1822, p. 2.

[54] “Classified Advertising: John Bickerton, Bread and Biscuit Baker from London,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), Saturday 29 June 1822, p. 1.

[55] “Jacob Moses, per Asia, Servant to William Thompson, baker of Sydney. Petition for permission to go to the Derwent per Caledonia,” New South Wales Government, Petitions to the Governor from Convicts for Mitigation of Sentences, 1810–1825, Series: NRS 900; Fiche: 3163–3253; Page: 36, (State Records Authority of New South Wales. Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia); “Jacob Moses, 17 January 1823, Re: passage to Van Diemen’s Land for assignment to his brother,” New South Wales Government, Copies of Letters Sent Within the Colony, Series: NRS 937; Reels: 6004–6016; Page: 198, (State Records Authority of New South Wales. Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia).

[56] “Classified Advertising,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), Saturday 12 April 1823, p. 2.

[57] “Maria Moses, Baptism Date: March 1823; Father: Moses Moses; Mother: Sarah,” Australia, Births and Baptisms, 1792–1981, FHL Film Number: 1368234, (Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013). For the public notice of Moses’s ticket of leave see H. E. Robinson, “Classified Advertising: Government Public Notice,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), Friday 23 April 1824, p. 1.

[58] According to the Australian Birth Index, 1788–1922, Phoebe was born 7 May 1825, but her birth was not registered until 1829 at New Norfolk, Tasmania, Australia, “Phoebe Moses, Baptism Date: March 1823; Father: Moses Moses; Mother: Sarah,” Australia, Births and Baptisms, 1792–1981, FHL Film Number: 1368234, (Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013).

[59] “Moses Moses, M. Wellington & Kangaroo,” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON31-1-29, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON31-1-29,366,8, accessed 18 September 2019. For more primary source material related to the illegal weight, see “No title,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), p. 4 and fine for overcharging for bread see “Hobart Town,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), Friday 29 July 1825, p. 3.

[60] Regarding Moses Moses’s boxing, see “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version). Regarding John ‘Jacob’ Moses’s new shop ‘adjoining Mr. Worley’s Butcher’s Shop,’ on Elizabeth Street. He ran it with partner George Evans, see “Classified Advertising,” Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser (Hobart, Tas.: 1825 – 1827), Friday 28 July 1826, p. 1. In July 1826, they advertised, “the Public may be supplied with every Article in the Pastry and Confectionary Line, quite equal, if not superior to any Shop in London. Hot Pastry every Day from 11 to 12, and Muffins and Crumpets every Evening from 5 to 7 o’Clock.”

[61] “Runaway Notice: Ann Powell,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas.: 1821 – 1825), Friday 3 June 1825, p. 1.

[62] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820),” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON40-1-1, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON40-1-1,380,81, accessed 5 September 2019. For the Aboriginal endonym Wol-ler-wer-li and its European exonym New Norfolk, see N. J. B. Plomley, Tasmanian Aboriginal Place Names, (Launceston, Tasmania: Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, 1991–1992), p. 92, https://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/files/assets/qvmag/library/publications/occasional/tas-aborig-place-names.pdf, accessed 28 March 2020.

[63] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820),” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON40-1-1, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON40-1-1,380,81, accessed 5 September 2019.

[64] “Sarah Tabitha Moses, Birth Date: 1 May 1827; Baptism Date: 9 November 1829; Father: Moses Moses; Mother: Sarah,” and Joseph William Moses, Birth Date: 9 October 1829; Baptism Date: 9 November 1829; Father: Moses Moses; Mother: Sarah,” and “Abraham Moses, Birth Date: 8 November 1831; Baptism Date: 11 December 1831; Father: Moses Moses; Mother: Sarah,” Australia, Births and Baptisms, 1792–1981, FHL Film Number: 1368234, (Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013).

[65] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820),” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON40-1-1, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON40-1-1,380,81, accessed 5 September 2019. Regarding the possibility that Sarah served her second last sentence at the Cascades Female Factory, see “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820); Convict ID: 9467,” in Female Convicts Research Centre Inc., Female Convicts in Van Diemen’s Land Database, (2018), https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/database/database-research, accessed 18 September 2019.

[66] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820),” Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office – digitised record Item: CON40-1-1, Founders & Survivors: Australian Life Courses in Historical Context 1803–1920, (http://foundersandsurvivors.org/, 2019), http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch-xsl/image/viewer.html?CON40-1-1,380,81, accessed 5 September 2019.

[67] In These Are the Names John Levi states that Moses sailed for Sydney per Gulnare because he ‘ran into a bureaucratic tangle when it was revealed that his pardon did not have ‘Royal Approval’ and that its conditions differed from the form of approval used in New South Wales. Moses was forced to consult a lawyer for permission to proceed to Sydney on the ship Gulmare [sic].’ However, Levi states that this happened after Moses received his conditional pardon in 1834, but the chronology is muddled, as a person identified only as “Mess.r Moses” made the trip per Gulnare in March 1833 — the year before he received his conditional pardon. Stephe Jitts presents another theory; that Moses was the “Voses Moses [sic]” in the list of arrivals in Port Jackson per Palambam in January 1833 from England via Hobart Town. The assumption appears to be that Moses boarded the ship at Hobart Town, thus joining his free settler brother Abraham and family, for the trip from Hobart Town to Sydney. But according to the Immigration records this “Moses Moses” was Abraham’s three-year-old son by that name, rather than his brother on this occasion. It seems our Moses Moses probably was the “Mess.r Moses” who sailed for Sydney per Gulnare in March 1833, the month before his wife and children made the same trip per Enchantress in April 1833, which might explain why Sarah, who was four months away from receiving her Certificate of Freedom, was permitted to make the journey. Sarah Moses received her Certificate of Freedom in August 1833 when she was already in Sydney and Moses received his in July 1834. Levi does not cite the primary source material relating to the ‘bureaucratic tangle,’ so I cannot determine how that fits in with Moses’s trip to Sydney in March 1833. See John Levi, These Are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788–1850, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2013), p. 1904.

[68] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820), Certificate of Freedom, 15 August 1833,” New South Wales Government, Butts of Certificates of Freedom, Series: NRS 12210; Item: 4/4317; Reel: 991; Entry No: 33/0895; Index Number: 65, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales). https://records-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1e5kcq1/INDEX310635

[69] “Sarah Brown, Morley (1820), Certificate of Freedom, 15 August 1833,” New South Wales Government, Butts of Certificates of Freedom, Series: NRS 12210; Item: 4/4317; Reel: 991; Entry No: 33/0895; Index Number: 65, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales). https://records-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1e5kcq1/INDEX310635

[70] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[71] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[72] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[73] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[74] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[75] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[76] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[77] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[78] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[79] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[80] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[81] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[82] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[83] This timeframe of sixteen years in the colony aligns with Sarah’s arrival year per Morley (1820), which helped to confirm that this was indeed Sarah Moses and not merely someone with the same name. “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[84] “Sydney Police. Thursday, Jan. 28. Elizabeth Roberts v. Sarah Moses,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW: 1803 – 1842), Tuesday 2 February 1836, p. 3.

[85] “Advertising. CAUTION,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW: 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 25 January 1837, p. 3.

[86] “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version).

[87] “No title,” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842), Thursday 5 January 1837, p. 2; “Advertising. SALES BY AUCTION,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 29 March 1837, p. 3.

[88] “Advertising. CAUTION,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW: 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 25 January 1837, p. 3.

[89] For reference to I. & M. Moses, Yass Stores, see “Advertising. Stolen or Strayed,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Friday 18 August 1837, p. 1; For an advertisement of Isaac and Moses’s “Argyle Store,” see “Advertising. Argyle Store, Yass, I. & M. Moses,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Friday 16 March 1838, p. 1. Regarding the dissolution of the partnership of I. & M. Moses in the Yass Store and Isaac’s establishment of the Goulburn Inn, see “Advertising. Goulburn Inn. Isaac Moses & Dissolution of Partnership,” Australasian Chronicle (Sydney, NSW : 139 – 1843), Tuesday 17 September 1839, p. 3.

[90] For evidence of Sarah’s desperate circumstances, see “Advertising. NOTICE,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Friday 9 February 1838, p. 3. The theory that Sarah may have lived with Hannah Moses by 1838 is pure speculation, based solely on the fact that both Moses wives were buried at the same cemetery in Parramatta within a couple of years of each other. There is no other known, concrete link between Sarah and Parramatta or its surrounds. For evidence of Hannah Moses’s Penrith abode in 1838, therefore, see “HANNAH MOSES, Abode: Penrith, When Buried: 8 March 1838; Age: 22 years; By Whom the Ceremony was Performed: Henry H. Bobart, Curate,” in Parish Burial Registers, Textual Records, St. John’s Anglican Church, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia and “Family Notices,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Tuesday 13 March 1838, p. 3 and “Family Notices,” The Sydney Monitor (NSW : 1828 – 1838), Wednesday 14 March 1838, p. 3. For Hannah Moses’s headstone inscription, see Judith Dunn, The Parramatta Cemeteries: St. John’s, (Parramatta: Parramatta and District Historical Society, 1991), p. 167. Hannah is buried in Left Section, Row 31, Memorial D (L.31.D), St. John’s Cemetery, Parramatta. Alternatively, (or perhaps even after Hannah’s death or, indeed, after Moses bigamised Sarah), Sarah may have come to Parramatta for work, or even briefly found herself in the Parramatta Female Factory as a place of asylum, not as a place of punishment. I have found no records of that, but there may not be any even she did, because there are not complete records for the Factory to check against. I can say with certainty that Sarah was not in the Factory at the time of her death, otherwise the Factory would have been listed as her “abode” in the St. John’s burial register (her abode was simply listed as “Parramatta”).

[91] For a fuller discussion of Moses’s siblings’ movements and businesses, see “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version).

[92] New South Wales Government, Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages (https://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/), Marriage of MOSES MOSES and HANNAH DRAY, Sydney, New South Wales, 1840, Vol. V, Registration No. 645/1840 V1840645 75, (Chippendale NSW: NSW BDM, 2019), https://familyhistory.bdm.nsw.gov.au/lifelink/familyhistory/search?2, accessed 19 September 2019.

[93] There is no record of Hannah Dray’s immigration, but her sister Mrs. Sophia Hilder arrived on the Westminster (1838) with her husband Benjamin Hilder (overseer of farming establishments) and their children. There was a “Caroline Dray,” a 24-year-old servant on the same voyage. To have been in the colony to marry Moses Moses of Yass by early 1840, Hannah had to have arrived in the colony at or around the same time as her sister in mid-1838. Since there is no Hannah Dray in the immigration records and she ended up naming one of her daughters “Caroline,” it seems possible Hannah used the name “Caroline” for some reason. See “Caroline Dray, per Westminster, unmarried, house maid, 26 June 1838,” New South Wales Government, Entitlement Certificates of Persons on Bounty Ships, 1832–42, Series: NRS 5313, 5314; Reels: 2654, 1296; Item: 4/4780, 4/4836; Page: 58; Index Number: 55, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales), https://records-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1ebnd1l/INDEX83794, accessed 19 September 2019.

[94] Hannah’s occupation of ‘housemaid’ assumes she and “Caroline Dray” per Westminster (1838) were one in the same. “Caroline Dray, per Westminster, unmarried, house maid, 26 June 1838,” New South Wales Government, Entitlement Certificates of Persons on Bounty Ships, 1832–42, Series: NRS 5313, 5314; Reels: 2654, 1296; Item: 4/4780, 4/4836; Page: 58; Index Number: 55, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales), https://records-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1ebnd1l/INDEX83794, accessed 19 September 2019.

[95] For more on Moses Moses’s escape attempts, see “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version).

[96] New South Wales Government, Registers of Convicts’ Applications to Marry, Series: NRS 12212, 4/4508–4511, 4/4512–4514, (Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia: State Records Authority of New South Wales).

[97] Benjamin Ratty’s wife Ann Bodger married shoemaker Samuel Arnold in England in 1817. Samuel was convicted the day after their marriage and Ann was found guilty of a different crime and transported soon after. Ann was repeatedly recorded in colonial documents as “Ann the wife of Samuel Arnold,” yet while Samuel was living in Sydney and she was in Parramatta, she was permitted to marry Benjamin Ratty at St. John’s, Parramatta in October 1821. Upon Benjamin’s death in October 1826, Reverend Samuel Marsden granted her permission to marry Edward Smith at St. John’s Parramatta in September 1827, while her first husband was living in Sydney. In fact, Ann’s first husband Samuel Arnold outlived both her second and third husbands and died at at the nearby Liverpool Asylum in 1856.

[98] Moses and Hannah’s eight children were: Barnett Moses b. 1841, Jacob Moses b. 1843, Deborah Ellen Moses b. 1845, Sophia Jessie Moses b. 1847, Elizabeth Moses b. 1849, Caroline Moses b. 1851, Jesse Moses b. 1853, and Hannah “Annie” Moses b. 1856. (To make matters confusing, Moses’s brother Isaac and wife Hannah Aarons also named their eldest boy Barnett Aaron Moses, because Barnett was Moses and Isaac’s mother’s maiden name: Deborah Barnett). Moses did not register the birth of his two eldest children with Hannah, Barnett and Jacob, until 1854, which would cause confusion over their ages were it not for the fact Hannah listed all of the children of their marriage and their ages on Moses’s death certificate in 1858. According to Moses Moses’s death certificate, Barnett Moses was born in 1841, as his age in 1858 was recorded as 17. See Marilyn Rowan, “Moses Moses NSW Death Registration Transcription,” NSW Births Deaths and Marriages, (transcriptions.com.au, 14 June 2013), Ref No: 1808636; New South Wales Government, Registry of Births Deaths & Marriages (https://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/), Birth of BARNETT MOSES, Sydney, New South Wales, 1840, Vol. V1854570 136, Registration No. 570/1854, (Chippendale NSW: NSW BDM, 2019), https://familyhistory.bdm.nsw.gov.au/lifelink/familyhistory/search?2, accessed 19 September 2019.

[99] We do not know the official cause of death for Sarah, because her death certificate did not document the cause of death. The statement that she died of a broken heart is from her headstone in Right Section, Row 22, Memorial E (R.22.E), St. John’s Cemetery, Parramatta. For the source featuring the direct quotation regarding Anna Maria Moses’s marriage see, “Family Notices. Marriages,” The Sydney Monitor and Commercial Advertiser (NSW : 1838 – 1841), Friday 1 January 1841, p. 2. The fact that all of Moses’s children were Jewish like him indicates he was a major figure in their lives and supports my theory that the children did not remain with their mother, Sarah, but went to Yass with their father. For sources related to Barnett’s birth year, see footnote 92.

[100] “Coronial Inquest, SARAH MOSES, 3 February 1843, Yass,” New South Wales Government, Registers of Coroners’ Inquests and Magisterial Inquiries, 1834–1942, Series: NRS 2921; Item: 4/6612; Roll: 343, (State Records Authority of New South Wales, Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia). By a strange twist of fate, Moses’s nieces, his brother John’s daughters named Sarah Moses and Hannah Moses, also drowned at Bowning, Yass in November 1844. John Moses almost died in the same incident, but was saved and subsequently suffered a breakdown. See “News from the Interior. Goulburn,” The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Thursday 28 November 1844, p. 4.

[101] “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version). Moses family history researchers have shared photographs of the actual medal on Ancestry.com.

[102] “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version); John Levi, These Are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788–1850, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2013), p. 1904.

[103] “Chapter Two: Moses the Creator,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version); “Baptism of HANNAH DRAY, Birth Date: 20 October 1812; Baptism Date: 6 December 1812; Baptism Place: Heathfield Chapel (Independent), Sussex, England,” General Register Office: Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths surrendered to the Non-Parochial Registers Commissions of 1837 and 1857, Class Number: RG 4; Piece Number: 3107, (The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England).

[104] “Chapter One: Introduction,” in Stephe Jitts, Only Behind a Cloud: A History of Old Linton, (Yass, New South Wales: Stephe Jitts, 2012), n.p. (e-book version); “Tour Old Linton House, a grand mansion for sale in Yass, NS,” Homes to Love (https://www.homestolove.com.au/, 19 June 2019), https://www.homestolove.com.au/old-linton-house-for-sale-20388, accessed 18 September 2019.

[105] “News from the Interior. YASS,” The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Thursday 28 November 1844, p. 2.

[106] “Advertising: The Friends of the undersigned…” The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Thursday 20 April 1847, p. 1.

[107] Sarah Moses’s headstone in Right Section, Row 22, Memorial E (R.22.E), St. John’s Cemetery, Parramatta; “Advertising: The Friends of the undersigned…” The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Thursday 20 April 1847, p. 1.

[108] Stephen Nicholas and Deborah Oxley, “The Living Standards of Women during the Industrial Revolution, 1795–1820,” The Economic History Review, Vol. 46, No. 4 (November 1993): 723–749; Deborah Oxley, “Exercising Agency,” Labour History, No. 65 (November 1993): 192–199; Stephen Nicholas (ed.), Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia’s Past, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). For related debates see David Kent, Norma Townsend and Deborah Oxley, “Deborah Oxley’s ‘Female Convicts’: An Accurate View of Working-Class Women? [with Reply],” Labour History, No. 65 (November 1993): 179–199.

© Copyright 2019 Michaela Ann Cameron