Mary Ann Smith alias Mary Steward

Mary Ann Smith was transported to Australia on the Henry Wellesley, arriving in Port Jackson (Sydney) on 22 December 1837.

On 14 July that year she had been sentenced at Lancaster to 14 years transportation for stealing a cloak. The convict indent describes her as 40 years of age, a widow with four sons and one daughter. She was an American, born in Philadelphia. Unlike most of the women on her ship, she had previous offences, two of them, for which she had been sentenced to seven years and for three weeks.

Mary Ann Smith was a milliner and dress-maker. She was five feet, one and a half inches tall. She had a sallow complexion, brown hair mixed with grey and grey eyes. Her distinguishing marks were a missing top front tooth and a small mark on her cheek.

Glancing at the descriptions of her fellow passengers, it is striking how many of the women on the Henry Wellesley had tattoos. One had a blue mark beneath the eye, some had initials on their upper arms, and several had the same tattoo - five dots and a cross tattooed on the back of their hand.

By 1846 Mary Ann Smith would have been in her late forties - too old, I think, to be the Maria Steward who married George Faulkner and had two children.

Was Maria Steward her real name...

There is a Maria Steward listed on the Ireland-Australia transportation database. It is the alias of a Maria Kane. But there are no details of her age, trial place, trial date, crime or sentence. There is a document reference that could be followed up.

And a Mary Ann Smith who was transported in 1837 used the alias Mary Steward.

http://www.nationalarchives.ie/search/index.php?category=18

Mary Faulkner, died Glebe 1852

Wondering if the Mary Faulkner who died in 1852 might possibly be Maria Faulkner, I ordered her death certificate from Births, Deaths and Marriages New South Wales.

The information on her death certificate is scant. She had lived in Glebe, in Sydney. She was fifty. And her burial on 21 August 1852 was in Sydney South Circuit, County of Cumberland - possibly the old Devonshire Street cemetery. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. B. Chapman, a Wesleyan minister. Her "quality or profession" is not stated, nor is the cause of death.

Going by her age and religion, she may have been the Mary Faulkner from Sussex who arrived on the Roxburgh Castle in 1839, aged 37.

Her exit from this world did not warrant a death or funeral notice in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Convicts named Steward arriving in Australia

Twenty-five men and three women with the surname Steward appear on the British convict transportation registers. Seven were named William Steward, five Thomas, four John, three Robert, three Charles, two George and one Henry. All the women were Elizabeths. In 1814 a Sarah Steward, the wife of a convict, arrived with her two daughters, Jane and Mary.

Other convicts named Steward arrived under different names. The Colonial-Secretary's Index has an Ann Jemima Steward who arrived on the Morley in 1820, her name recorded as Seward. The 1828 Census records a John Steward who supposedly arrived on the Somersetshire in 1814, but whose name doesn't appear on the British convict transportation registers. At the time of the census he was an overseer assigned to a Mr Barber "at Yass, on the Goulburn Plains".

Others were transported from Ireland. Bridget Steward arrived from Cork on the Almorah in 1824, her name recorded as Stewart. An entry on the Colonial-Secretary's Index noted she was "not be assigned from the Female Factory, Parramatta until the Almorah left Port Jackson". The Samuel Steward who has five entries under his name in the index to the Colonial-Secretary's records may have arrived from Ireland.

At least three convicts named Steward were employed in the Gundaroo area before 1846.

William Steward who arrived on the Countess of Harcourt in 1828 was living in Bathurst when he received a ticket of leave in 1834 and his freedom in 1835. A black Jamaican, he had been tried at Lancaster Quarter Sessions.

Another William Steward who arrived on the Asia in 1833 was in Yass when he received his ticket of leave in 1837.

Thomas Steward arrived in 1836 on the Strathfieldsay and was in Yass when he received a ticket of leave in 1840.

Maria Steward's name doesn't appear in the British convict transportation registers, on lists of convict women or on the Colonial-Secretary's Index.

British convict transportation registers 1787-1867, One Search database (http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au), State Library of Queensland
NSW State Records, Index to the Colonial-Secretary's Correspondence
NSW Convict Women on Ships arriving from England and Ireland 1788-1828, http://members.iinet.net.au/~perthdps/convicts/confem66.html

Maria Steward

All that is known of Maria Steward comes from three official documents: her marriage certificate, the baptism certificate of her first child, and a death certificate that may or may not be hers.

Maria Steward married George Faulkner in Gundaroo on 26 January 1846. The minister was Church of England, E. Smith, the witnesses F. Timmins and M. Timmins of Gundaroo. Maria was seven and a half months pregnant. Six weeks later, on 6 March, she gave birth to their first child, George. Frederick was born in 1848, but his birth was not registered.

Maria and George gave consent to the marriage themselves. Maria was not so young she needed the consent of her parents to marry, and nor did she need the consent of the government. She wasn't a convict or a ticket-of-leave holder.

There is a death certificate for a Maria Falkner, without the "u". She died a pauper in Hyde Park Asylum for Infirm and Destitute Women (now Hyde Park museum) in 1883. Her death, on 16 February, is recorded as caused by "senile debility". She was 63. She was buried in Church of England section of Rookwood Necropolis. The death certificate leaves blank her place of marriage, age at marriage, and children. Her place of birth is listed as Gibraltar.