Fowey – born Mary Broad (Mrs. Bryant), one of the first British convicts transported to Australia, was baptised on this day in 1765.  It is highly likely that this was also her birthday since, due to high child mortality levels, many babies were baptised on the day of their birth since it was believed that unbaptised babies who died were not Christian and could not go to Heaven.

She was also one of the first convicts to be married in Australia when she married a fellow prisoner, William Bryant (January 26^th) and one of the handful of transportees to escape from the penal colony.   The daughter of a mariner who taught her to navigate with skill, Broad was convicted in 1786 of highway robbery and sentenced to death.  With two accomplices, she attacked an Agnes Lakeman, stealing a silk bonnet and other valuables to the value of £12. 

Interestingly the court records record her as a ‘forest dweller’.  Luckily for Broad, she was sentenced at the Easter Assizes when it was tradition for judges to review death sentences and commute some to life imprisonment or transportation.  The choices were arbitrary and the sentences of the three highwaywomen were commuted to transportation for life.  The tale of the journey is told in the page about her husband. 

Broad’s case was taken up by James Boswell and, on return to England, Broad was pardoned (May 2nd, 1793) and became a minor celebrity.  She was financed and accommodated in London where her sister was a cook and Boswell taught her to read and write, financed her return to Cornwall and continued to support her financially.  This support ended with Boswell’s death in October 1794 and Broad spent the rest of her life living quietly in Fowey.