Jane Meredith

Story

Jane Meredith was born in 1800 at Tooting , London. She was described as a spinster of Stoke Dammerel in the indictment at her trial at Exeter Castle in March 1815. This was for stealing 42 pounds in bank notes from her employer. She was sentenced to death but given the option of going to NSW on a 14 years sentence so on 19th Januray, 1816 she duly arrived on the “Mary Ann” at Sydney Cove .

There she was pregnant, because, as was the custom on the long voyage on convict ships, she had been allotted as bedmate to a sailor, John Brown. As a preganant convict woman she was sent to the Female Factory, which sounds grand but was a room 6 feet by 20 feet over the mens’ gaol, and was designed for 60 women, though it mostly had 200 women and children. The imates were not issued with bedding, bedsteads , candles or cradles. Their main occupation was spinning , and the women slept on the fleeces of wool. There were 4 high windows, usually broken, and the room was usually in a revolting condition, with offensive drains, dirty walls, leaking roof and cracks in the floor. The women cooked all their ration, generally flour, mutton and pork, on the common fireplace. Rev Samual Marsden said the men had complete access to the women and a determined woman could easily visit the town. In 1815 the Superintedant claimed that no issue of clothing had been made for two years.

Jane’s baby was born on 5th April, 3 months after she arrived, and she named him John Brown. Over half the babies born at the Factory died and the infant died on 22 September and was buried in an unmarked grave. Two days later, as Jane now had no baby , she was assigned as housekeeper to the Assistant Surgeon to the Castle Hill Lunatic asylum. He was a doctor who in his own words was a bigamist, dramatist, soldier, historian, scientist, pupil dresser, editor, letter writer, observator, de Quirosville farmer, convict, practitioner in physic, opponent of cant, and confidant of aristocrats and monarchs.

Jane became his housekeeper and then his mistress and had three chilkdren with him , all of them baptised Parmeter and there are Parmenters still lliving in Sydney, but after the family moved to Cockfighters’ Hill in the second half of 1826 she began an association with a young man called Walter Rotten and became pregnant to him. For Jane it was the best thing she could do. Being in a relationship suited the doctor, but was not good for her. This liasion offered far more: Walter Rotten was a convict, but he had come out as a free settler and was from a wealthy family in England. In Sydney he had taken a job in a shop but had tickled the till and was convicted. On his release he had been assigned to his brother , John, who was a successful farmer, and it was while he was living there that the meeting had taken place and it led to a far better life for Jane as they married and at last she was a legal wife and of some consequence.

John Rotten had been sent to Port Macquarie to serve his time but only served about one year and was then assigned to his brother, as was the custom. Walter had settled at Wittingham, Patrick Plains, on a block he had been granted. John and Jane were married in 1827, a week after their son was born. When his time was up, on 31/12/1827, they moved to Maitland , where he bought the Woolpack Inn, after which they built a new inn “The Freemasons’ Arms”, which many years later became the Queen’s Arms and is the oldest one in its original site in Maitland .

From Maitland the family moved to Singletom where he became an auctioneer and a member of the town council. They had 4 children; John , who went with his father to the Californian gold rush and died there c1850. Family legend says the locals asked whre he came from he said “New South Wales” so they hung him because they did not want any convicts there, but there seems no proof; Jane Ann, who married John Singleton 25/7/1844; Maria who married first Francis Drew in 1854 and then Patrick Sullivan in 1857 and then lived with Thomas McLurkin; Fanny, born 18/8/1833 at West Maitland, married Richard Holcombe 4/7/1849 .

Jane died 20/05/1836 at West Maitland. Hers had been a tumuluous life, from degredation to respectability. She had had 8 children to 3 men and had come through to live a happy and secure old age and had left behind a family that has grown and grown ever since.

Inserted by her Great Great Grandson , Norman Holcombe

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