Sarah Thatcher
| First name | Sarah |
|---|---|
| Last name | Thatcher |
| Country of Origin | England |
| Date of Birth | 12/4/1814 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1818 |
| Submitted by | Gail Tregear |
Story
We believe her mother who died on the voyage was being transported for forgery.
The Friendship’s voyage was 7 months long and many died including her mother and possibly a brother, Her first memory was of seeing a sailor sewing a sack and he told her that was what they were going to bury her mother in.
She went to a foster mother in Parramatta until the Girls’ Orphanage opened, where she learned to read and sew but not to write. At age 10 she was indentured as a servant and married James Smith six weeks before her thirteenth birthday. 12 years later she was a widow with three children when she met my great great grandfather Henry Harren, a political prisoner. They went to Queanbeyan and then Melbourne. She became the postmistress on the goldfields near Ballarat and died in 1903.