While today’s youngsters are serious about Sugar Plum fairies and Santa Claus, the thoughts of ten year old Mary Wade should have been vastly totally different. At Christmastime in 1789, Mary was the youngest convict aboard a ship sure for Australia: considered one of 2 hundred and fifty or so ladies, half approach to an odd land. Their female convict ship The Lady Juliana, a part of the Second Fleet, had set sail from Portsmouth in July.

Mary Wade: The Littlest Convict , (born in England in 1778), had been arrested and located responsible of stealing one other child’s clothes. Her death sentence, commuted to transportation for all times, was bitter sweet. Mary had escaped the gallows but would by no means see her family once more. She spent the spring of 1789 in horrendous situations at Newgate Prison. Mary was one of fifty ladies fed bread and water in a cell that had neither beds nor toilets. However, once aboard The Lady Juliana, her situation improved. All convicts have been moderately fed and given warm beds. Only 5 women and two youngsters died through the eleven month voyage and the condition of those that arrived within the colony in 1790, had improved.

To relieve the pressure on Sydney Cove, Governor Phillip despatched many new arrivals including Mary, to a place described by Captain Cook as, ‘a Paradise’ – Norfolk Island. There, at age fourteen, Mary gave delivery to a daughter. She had two extra kids with emancipated Irish transportee, Teague Harrigan and by 1806, the family was residing in a tent on the banks of the Tank stream in Sydney. Harrigan joined a whaling ship however by no means returned.

By 1809, Mary had married and arrange home near the Hawkesbury River with convict Jonathan Brooker. Emancipated circa 1812, the pair took ownership of a thirty acre farm in Airds, Campbelltown and lived happily until Harrigan’s death in 1833. Twenty six years later in 1859, eighty 12 months previous Mary died at home. She had given delivery to twenty one children. In her lifetime, her family had grown to incorporate 5 generations and over three hundred descendants. Now, Mary’s descendants number in the tens of 1000’s, including Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia.

At Christmastime in 1789, ten 12 months old convict Mary Wade was facing an uncertain future. Today, she is recognized as considered one of Australia’s founding mothers.