Sarah Gregory
Gregory, Sarah (c1743?-1807)
Sarah Gregory was sentenced to seven years transportation at the March 1789 Hertford Assizes for the theft on 18 October 1788 of four pigs belonging to Joseph Burn in the parish of St Michael near St Albans. In April she was sent from gaol to London for embarkation on the Lady Julian transport. She was permitted to bring her 8 year old daughter Elizabeth on the voyage.
Less than six weeks after landing in the colony Gregory was witness at a wedding on 14 July 1790. On 1 August she and her daughter sailed for Norfolk Island with 194 mostly female convicts. Soon after arrival she was living with Thomas Gregory (b.c1741, tried Old Bailey, qv) who was sent to the island on the same ship. They had almost certainly been married in England. From early 1791 they lived on a small piece of land at Charlotte Field (Queenborough) They were well behaved and their product flourished, enabling them to take on a 60 acre lease by 1796. On 18 July 1791 the First Fleet marine Henry Wright was ordered a flogging for attempting to -deflower- 10 year old Elizabeth. In addition he was compelled to run the gauntlet of all the men and women in the settlement as a kind of ritual humiliation. In June 1794 the couple were recorded living together as a married couple with their daughter.
Sarah Gregory died on 20 April 1807. A humble headstone at the old Norfolk Island Cemetery survives, describing her as the wife of Thomas Gregory, ages 67. The inscription suggests that her loss was keenly felt. In May 1808 Thomas sailed for Hobart, Van Diemens Land where he died in 1809.
Notes: PRO ASSI/31/15; Sarah’s age in assize documents is given as 45 and as 34 on the embarkation list the age on the tombstone suggest that the former was more correct; her burial as Sarah Gregory the wife of Thomas Gregory suggest that the couple may, indeed have been married in England.
Source: "The Second Fleet Britain's Grim Convict Armada of 1790" by Michael Flynn Mitchell Library Ref 994.02/51A
http://www.gregory-fisher.com/Fisher/1777_1842.htm