My 3x great-grandmother Mary Ann Rankin was born in Scotland, and was transported to New South Wales as a convict in 1829. Although I’ve discovered a bit about Mary’s life in Australia, tracing her branch of my family before her transportation has hit a brick wall.

Arrested

Mary had at least two criminal convictions. The first was when she was arrested and tried in Glasgow on 1 October 1824, and sentenced to transportation for seven years. The sentence was changed to imprisonment, and she spent time in London’s Millbank Prison instead.

The second conviction was for stealing “wearing apparel” and passing it on to the woman with whom she lodged. This conviction resulted in a sentence of transportation for seven years, one that that wasn’t commuted, and the newspaper report didn’t paint her in a good light. I suspect Mary’s circumstances were dire, both in Glasgow several years earlier, and following her release from prison, and that theft was a means to survive.

Transported

Mary does sound like a survivor, tiny and tough. She was barely five feet tall, with a ruddy and freckled complexion, dark hair and hazel eyes. Convict records describe her right eye as being turned inward, and say she had scars above each eyebrow, and on her right elbow and left wrist.

Transported to New South Wales on the Sovereign (II), Mary arrived on 3 August 1829, and was assigned to Mrs Galvin of Sydney. Almost a year later she spent time in prison at Parramatta for running away three times in the space of a month. Although perhaps there was more to it, because six months after that she was described as sober and honest and assigned to Thomas Stephens of Windmill Street, Sydney.

Mary’s family

Mary married Joseph Lowe in December 1830. Joseph was a former convict who was transported aboard the Fanny and was working as a miner. He was more than ten years older than Mary, with whom he had a son named James Lowe. James was born in 1833, but his parents’ relationship doesn’t appear to have lasted. Sometime after having received her certificate of freedom in 1836, Mary and Joseph separated, and Joseph died in 1846.

By about 1839 Mary was in a defacto relationship with William Vaughan, and they had six children together: William, Alfred, Thomas, Elizabeth, George, and Mary Ann. William seems to have disappeared from her life in the mid-1850s. Then in 1867, when she was sixty, Mary married Hugh Gorman.

When Mary died in Cowra on 12 October 1890, she was in her eighties. Mary’s death certificate says her father was a ship’s carpenter and her mother’s surname was McLeod. How accurate this is, is unknown. I’ve tried using the information to find a record of Mary in Scotland, but haven’t located anything useful yet. It could be incorrect, and a red herring, but I have nothing else to go on.

Mary Ann Rankin remains one of my brick walls.

Selected references

‘Hull: Tuesday, December 2, 1828’, Hull Packet, 2 December 1828, p. 3.

‘Hull Quarter Sessions’, Hull Packet, 20 January 1829, p. 2.

Entry for Mary Rankin in UK, Prison Commission Records, 1770-1951, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; PCOM 2: Metropolitan Police: Criminal Record Office: Habitual Criminals Registers and Miscellaneous Papers, Ancestry.com, accessed 18 December 2024.

Millbank penitentiary, London. Engraving by J. Tingle after T. H. Shepherd. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection, image reference 39818i. Image in the public domain.

Mary Ann Rankin, Sovereign, 1829, New South Wales, Australia, Convict Indents, 1788-1842, NSW State Archives, NRS 12188 4/4014, Ancestry.com, accessed 18 December 2024.

Mary Ann Rankin, Sovereign, 1829, Certificate of Freedom 25 February 1836, NSW, Australia, Butts of Certificates of Freedom, New South Wales, Australia, Certificates of Freedom, 1810-1814, 1827-1867, NSW State Archives, 12210/996, Ancestry.com, accessed 18 December 2024.

Death certificate of Mary Gorman [Rankin], died 12 October 1890, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages New South Wales, 4693/1890.