Rachel Earley (1769 - 1842)

Born 23 Apr 1769 in Lambourn, Berkshire, England

Descendants

Died 27 Apr 1842 at age 73 in Kangaroo Point, Tasmania, Australia

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Biography

Rachel Earley was a convict on the First Fleet.

Rachel Earley was convicted of house-breaking and theft in 1786. She was transported to Australia with the First Fleet, on the vessel 'Friendship'.

Rachel Earley was born on April 23, 1769 in Lambourn, Berkshire, England.

Rachel's daughter was Elizabeth (Earley) Evans (1794 - 1875).

Rachel died on April 27, 1842 in Kangaroo Point, Tasmania, Australia aged 73.

General Notes Rachel Earley was tried at Reading, Berkshire and on 24 July 1786 found guilty of house-breaking and the theft of tea and silk worth 3 shillings. She was sentenced by the court to seven years transportation. She departed Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 aboard the brig Friendship, one of 6 convict ships assigned to the First Fleet [11 ships in all]. She was transferred [with 20 other female convicts] to the transport ship Prince of Wales at Cape of Good Hope on 28 Oct 1787, arrived at Botany Bay 20 Jan 1788 [with 1 male and 48 other female convicts], and disembarked on 6 Feb 1788. Rachel spent time in irons onboard the Friendship for the twin crimes of “theft and dirtyness”. ^[1] On 5 Apr 1791 was ordered to receive 10 lashes for refusing to obey orders. She married John PRICE, left him and then had a daughter, Elizaber EARLY, out of wedlock to Samuel MARSDEN. Rachel Earley married a guy called John Price who was a convict as well. They were married in 1st June 1788 in Australia. John Price was tried in Southwark, Surrey 1785, for stealing livestock (a goose). He was sentenced to transportation for 7 years. He left England on the Alexander aged 22 in May 1787. He left NSW in 1793. He was the first person to die on Norfolk Island of natural causes. She had a relationship with a private in the Marines called Samuel Marsden. That relationship produced a child called Elizabeth Earley who was born in Norfolk Island in 1794. Rachel's daughter Elizabeth married a guy called Uriah Allender who was about 25 years older than her. Uriah Allender was a convict as well from Kent England. He arrived at Sorrento, Melbourne, on board the Calcutta in 1804 and later moved to Tasmania where he and Elizabeth Ealry were married and started a family.

Rachel was sentenced to seven years transportation at Reading Berks on 24 Jul 1786 for theft. She embarked aboard the first fleet ship Friendship and was transferred to Prince of Wales at the Cape of Good Hope on 28 Oct 1787. ^[2] Died: 27 April 1842 (Age 80) at Kangaroo Point, Van Diemens Land, Australia ^[2] Rachel Earley First Fleet Convict, died at Kangaroo Point TAS April 1842 aged 75. She was buried at Clarence Plains Anglican Cemetery, that is St Mathews Rokeby- 29th April 1842.There is no headstone extant. Her date of birth is therefore appoximately 1767.

PARTNERSHIPS & MARRIAGE Several partnerships and/or marriages are attributed to Rachel Earley. In NSW she had 3 girls to various partners. In 1791 Rachel Earley moved to the Norfolk Island settlement with her partner, John Price. Separating, Rachel then became the partner of Pte Samuel Marsden who arrived in NSW with the NSW Corps, acting as a guard on the transport, Surprise, a ship of the Second Fleet, in 1789. In 1793, Pte Marsden was sent to Norfolk Island on the Kitty, where he lived with Rachel Earley. Their child, Elizabeth was born on the island in 1794. In March the couple sailed for Sydney, where she remained while Samuel returned to the island with the Corps in July. The relationship appears to have broken down at this point. Two other children were born after Rachel returned to the island. However, by 1798, Marsden was also living on Norfolk Island but now with Anne Harmsworth, the teenage daughter of a marine who had arrived with the First Fleet. Rachel re-partnered with an unknown male, bearing two additional children. These two children, Catherine and Anne Earley, do not appear on victualling records, and their exact paternal identity has not been confirmed. Rachel and her 3 children were removed to VDL on closure of Norfolk around 1807, and is claimed to have arrived in Hobart Town per the Snow ? from Norfolk Island. However, shipping records do not list a ship of that name.

Rachel Earley & Daughters in VDL. In 1811, Rachel was listed among women convicts present at Hobart Town muster. However, until her death at Kangaroo Point in 1842, Rachel Earley disappears from records. She may have been living with her son in law and daughter, Urias and Elizabeth Allender. This couple had married on 25 September 1815 in Hobart Town. The Allenders lived at Kangaroo Point where Urias was a senior and experienced ferryman. He had served in the Royal Navy, only to be transported on the Calcutta in 1803 for stealing clothing. Nearby Urias had a grant of 30 acres from Lt Gov Macquarie. In 1819 he had sown wheat and potatoes, had eight cattle, 30 male sheep and 100 ewes and also supplied wheat for the Commissariat.

Rachel was probably not living with her daughter Catherine who married Charles Clark(e), and who lived in the New Norfolk area. (Here Charles became embroiled in the Crahan stock theft gang and was charged but acquitted of sheep stealing. The other gang members were not so lucky. (See MacFie, Stock Thieves and Golfers, p20.)

Rachel's third daughter, Ann, married Henry Robinson per Calcutta, a former calico printer, in 1821. The couple lived and are buried in the Pittwater area, Henry was buried at Sorell in 1845. Ann, widowed, perhaps moved to her mother and sister at Kangaroo Point, as she is buried at St Matthew’s, Clarence Plains, on 30 June 1851.

EARLY Rachel from “The Crimes of the First Fleet Convicts” by John Cobley TRANSPORT Friendship PLACE AND DATE on TRIAL Berkshire Summer Assizes at Reading on 24 Jan1786. CRIME AND SENTENCE Rachel Earley [sic], late of the hamlet of Whitley in parish of St. Giles, spinster: "For fely stealing 3 yards of silk Ribband 18d. one linnen Cap val. 6d. 1 ounce of Tea val. 3d. l ounce of Tobacco 4d. and 1 ounce of sugar val. 1d. goods of Jas. Pilgrim at the hamlet of Whitley in the parish. of St. Giles on 24 June 26 Geo: 3.To be transported beyond the seas for 7 years. OCCUPATION none AGE 24 years (1787) APPEARS IN Order in Council No. 1, p. 6; Ross’s Returns, p. 248; Richard’s Returns, p. 272; Clark’s List (Harley), p. 10. ^[3]

Note:Clark appears to have made two errors (in addition to mis-spelling the name). For Rachel Harley, he has the place of trial as London, when sources agree that she was tried in Reading on 24 July 1786. He also shows her as a Mercury mutineer, an impossibility if she was not tried till 1786. ...and John PRICE who Married Rachel Early on 1 June 1788, at St.Phillips C of E Sydney. He was tried at Southwark, Surrey on 16 February 1785 for stealing livestock (a goose) of unknown value. He was sentenced to transportation for 7 years and left England on the Alexander aged about 22 at that time (May 1787). He had no occupation recorded. He left NSW in 1793(?). He could write; at least his signature is shown

ANOTHER ACCOUNT Rachel Earley was indicted and convicted at Reading, Berkshire on 27 June 1786 for the theft of 'three yards of silk Ribband, a linnen cap, and an ounce of tea, tobacco and sugar', total value 2 shillings and 8 pence, at Whitley in the parish of St. Giles, where she lived. She was sentenced to 7 years transportation, eventually leaving England on the Friendship, then being transferred to Prince of Wales at the Cape of Good Hope on 28 October 1787.These were ships of the 'First Fleet', the handful of vessels that travelled to Australia to start a new colony, and to get rid of convicts otherwise kept in hulks since the American war of Independence had closed off that avenue of disposal. The First Fleet sailed the last leg of their voyage from the Cape of Good Hope (today's Capetown) directly to Botany Bay, the southern harbour of what we now call Sydney, arriving 26 January 1788. Shortly afterwards they moved to the northern harbour of Port Jackson, and proclaimed their colony.At Port Jackson Rachel married a John Price on 1 June 1788, both signing with mark, which meant they could not write their own names, a common enough situation in the times. Rachel would have been about 21 years old at the time. Both then left for Norfolk Island where it seems Price was 'the first man to die of natural causes on the island'.Rachel then took up with a marine, a Private Samuel Marsden, and had a girl child named Elizabeth by him on 28 January 1794. They both left the island to return to Port Jackson (on the 'Francis'), but it appears they split up shortly afterwards, Marsden going on to formally marry Ann Harmsworth.Rachel returned to Norfolk Island with her daughter on 'Reliance' in February 1796 and the child was baptised there on 19 April 1802, at the age of 8. The two of them apparently stayed on the island until the general exodus to VDL in 1808, for they next show up in a Hobart muster in 1811. She died there at Kangaroo Pt., and was buried at Rokeby, age given as 75 yrs. Condensed from 'The Founders of Australia', By Mollie Gillen.

MORE INFO EARLY Rachael (Friendship) had married John Price in Sydney Cove on 1 June 1788. It is not clear whether Price was the first man to die on the Island else left by Chesterfield in 1793. Rachel had a child by Private Samuel Marsden and left with him by Francis in 1794. Separating from Marsden, Rachel returned to the Island with the child. She died in Van Diemen’s Land in 1842 and was buried in Rokeby.^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ First Fleet Online. University of Woolongong. Online database. Record for Rachel EARLEY/HURLEY/EARLY/HARLEY/ARLLY. http://firstfleet.uow.edu.au/ Retrieved 2 May 2021.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Gillen, Mollie. The Founders of Australia: a biographical dictionary of the First Fleet. North Sydney: Library of Australian History, 1989
3. ↑ P.R.O. Assizes 2/25; P.R.O. Assizes 5/ 106, Part 1. Reported in: The Reading Mercury, 31 July 1786; Clark, R., Journal, p. 10.
4. ↑ First Fleet Fellowship. Norfolk Island Settlement. Retrieved online 2 May 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210502015835/https://firstfleetfellowship.org.au/stories/norfolk-island-settlement/