Title
Rebels' Choices: Jane New and Ellen Murphy's Lives as Convicts, Thieves, Domestics and Wives in Colonial Australia
Abstract
This article examines the lives of two female convicts who rebelled against the law and the Australian penal system in the early nineteenth century. It traces Jane New and Ellen Murphy’s lives from their first arrests through their experiences with and exits from the penal system. As thieves, convicts, domestics and wives, New and Murphy interacted repeatedly with the law. Both the notorious New (who starred in her own case, In re Jane New), and the more representative Murphy, began thieving as young teenagers in the teeming cities of England. The law arrested, tried, convicted and transported them to Van Diemen’s Land (today the Australian state of Tasmania). It then unsuccessfully attempted to manage their lives.
Law influenced convict women’s choices in more overt ways than it did free women although, as this article discusses, many similarities existed between the legal disabilities imposed on both groups and, on occasion, as with Jane New, convict women were doubly disabled because they were assigned to their husbands. Nevertheless, as Kay Daniels observed, the Australian penal system both “trapped and enabled” convict women. Tracing New and Murphy’s interactions with the law illustrates how convict women were able to make meaningful choices even in the heavily regulated penal systems of Governors Arthur of Van Diemen’s Land and Darling of New South Wales.
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