Mary Davies Davis Bishop (Convict) 1st Fleet
- Born: 1761, Diddlebury Parish, Shropshire England
- Marriage (1): Samuel Day (Convict) 1st Fleet on 2 Nov 1788 in St Philips C of E, York St, Sydney, NSW Australia
- Marriage (2): Marine Private Thomas Bishop in 1791 in Norfolk Island Penal Settlement, NSW Australia
- Died: 1 Jan 1839, Kurrajong, NSW Australia at age 78
- Buried: St Peters C of E, Richmond, NSW Australia
General Notes:
(S9) "The Journal of Arthur Bowes Smyth Surgeon" "Lady Penrhyn" 1787-1789 1st Fleet.
DAVIES, Mary TRANSPORTED "Lady Penrhyn"
PLACE AND DATE OF TRIAL: - Salop Lent Assizes, held at Shrewsbury on Saturday, 12 March 1775 before Sir George Nares Knt, and Sir James Eyre Knt. (1)
CRIME AND SENTENCE (a) That Mary Davis [sic] late of the parish of Diddliebury Spinster and Ann Davis ditto broke into the house of John Wills on 12 November 1784 and stole "one copper tea kettle to value of 4s." and that, Joseph Owen (q.v.) late of the parish of Halford received the same, knowing it to be stolen. Endorsed "Ignor". (2)
(b) That Mary Davis [sic] and Ann Davis stole the goods etc. of Sarah Cound (as charge above) and that Joseph Owen (g.v.) received them knowing them to be stolen.
Endorsed: Mary Davis "Guilty"
Ann Davis "Not guilty nor fled discharged"
Joseph Owen (q.v.) "Guilty to be transported for 14 years. (2)
(c) "That Mary Davis, Ann Davis, Joseph Owens [sic; q.v.], and his wife Margaret Owens... on 12 November ...did break and enter the dwelling house of Mary Burton and, one calico petticoat of the value of 3s. One linsey apron of the value 2s. One linen handkerchief of the value of 1s. Of the goods and chattels of Mary Burton one cloak of the value of 6s. One pair of Leather Pumps of the value 3s. One pair of plate shoe buckles of the 2s. Of the goods and chattels of Jenny Predess spinster one pair of leather shoes of the values. One pair of copper shoe buckles of the value of 6d. Of the goods and chattels of Maria Lowe spinster one silk Hat of the value of 2s.
The goods and chattels of Sarah Powell spinster...feloniously did steal..." (2)
Endorsed: Mary Davis "Guilty to be hanged" (2)
No record of reprieve: 7 years.
OCCUPATION: - Service (5). AGE. 25 years (1787) (5)
APPEARS IN Letter dated 12 July 1785 from the Clerk of the Peace to Lord Sydney (nee Bolton, Mary).
Mary Davies appears as no 23 in this list (3); Goal Calender, Shrewsbury, General Quarter Sessions, 3 October 1786 (4); Order in Council No. 4, page 25; Ross's Return (Davis), page 233; Richard's Returns, page 286; Bower's List (Davis), page 5 No. 15.
REFERENCES: - (1) P.R.O. Assizes 2/25; (2) P.R.O. Assizes 5/105, Part 1; (3) Salop Record Office, Order for Quarter Sessions; (4) Salop Record Office, Goal Calendar; (5) Bowes, A., Journal, page 5.
(S9) "The Journal of Arthur Bowes Smyth Surgeon" "Lady Penrhyn" 1787-1789 1st Fleet "
Page 49 of the book states: -
""On the 18th December 1787: - This day Mary Davis one of the Convicts, fell down the fore Hatchway & pitched on her head--Being well defended by false hair, rolls &ca. &ca. She sustained no material injury. I must here make a discretion to take notice of the beautiful appearance of the Sea Abt 9 o'clock at night the moon shone very bright & its silver beams reflecting upon the waves (whose edges seem'd tip'd with silver) exhibited a sight the beauty & Novelty whereof no one who has not been a spectator of a similar scene can form an adequate idea of, This day it was very cold, the Thermometer was down to 49. Many large Albatrosses Abt"".
Research Notes:
Jon Heppell notes:
Mary Davies, aka Davis, born in Diddlebury Parish, Shropshire, England; convicted and condemned at Salop Lent Assizes for multiple burglaries on 12 March 1785 (later commuted to 7 years transportation); journeyed to NSW on the First Fleet's Lady Penrhyn, assigned to Norfolk Island in March 1790, gave birth to daughter Charlotte Bishop at some time before July 1791 1 (Norfolk Island), married to discharged Marine Private Thomas Bishop, turned settler, in November 1791 2 (if not already married, unrecorded, before her assignment), returned to Sydney with Thomas and Charlotte on board the Kitty, 9th March 1793. Recorded as Mary Bishop, widow 3 of Thomas Bishop, on the indenture of conveyance of the deceased (d. 10 Dec 1793) Thomas Bishop's 110ac grant (Bishop's Farm) at Hen & Chicken Bay to James Squire, colonial brewer, dated 11th August 1794.
Thereafter, Mary Bishop did appear in Governor Hunter's 1798 Assignment Report of Women Convicts as deriving employment as housekeeper to Harry (Henry) Parson(s) of the New South Wales Corp. who was a contemporary of hers on Norfolk Island. Other researchers have from various colonial musters identified her, as Mary Davis, in 1800 as a "convict whose sentence has expired. Is off stores" and in 1805 as "Mary Bishop at Parramatta. Government Servant who is free by servitude". Samuel Marsden recorded her as a concubine in his (Marsden's) Female Muster 1806, as a servant at Government House and mother of an illegitimate daughter.
Mary and Charlotte had settled in Parramatta, where Mary was employed by Governor Philip Gidley King as The Housekeeper at Government House, a position she held for over 10 years from 1800 until some nine months into the incumbency of Lachlan Macquarie. Her appointment encompassed both the Castle Hill convict revolt of 1804, and the Rum Rebellion of 1808. She acquired by grant and lease some 30 odd acres of land, both for tillage at Bringelly (Bishop's Farm), and a town lot (16, section 16) in George St Parramatta, probably her long term place of residence, which she sold in 1825 to Samuel Barber. In the 1828 muster, Mary was recorded as residing with (as housekeeper) James Martin at Parramatta, with her grandson Alexander Crabb. James Martin 4, witness to her land sale to Barber, left the Governor's service in the same September of 1810 as did Mary. He held 80 acres immediately adjacent to Mary's Bishop's Farm at Bringelly, granted on the same day. He was also witness to Mary's daughter Charlotte's marriage to Richard Shrimpton in 1819, and it is probable he'd had at least Alexander residing with him in Parramatta in 1822.
At some time after 1828, Mary moved to Kurrajong, residing probably with Charlotte until her death on 1st January 1839, possibly as old as 87 years. She is buried in the cemetery of St Peter's at Richmond, in the same grave as her daughter Charlotte. Their descendants are legion.
1.Mary Davis travelled to Norfolk Is. on the ill-fated HMS Sirius, disembarking in mid March 1790. Sometime in the ensuing 17 months a female child was born to Mary and when first entered into the Norfolk Island Victualling Records (July 1791 ?) was, in keeping with convention at the time, registered under her mother's transportation name, but was later shown as Charlotte Bishop. Such entry was not necessarily a birth date.... it may have been made only when Charlotte was weaned, or it may represent a baptism date.
Biographical Database of Australia ~ Norfolk Island Victualling Lists 1792-1796 <http://www.bda-online.org.au/files/VL1792_VictuallingList.pdf>. "Although, most of the population were mustered in the early years of Norfolk Island because of the fledgling nature of the colony, children in fact were not in receipt of victuals until the end of March 1793 and inconsistently came onto the stores anywhere between a few months and upwards of one year's age." .... The data ... was edited by Carol J Baxter and Garry Wilson for inclusion in the BDA. This article was written by Garry Wilson .... Accessed on 24th March 2016.
2.A submission to Australian History Research moderator Cathy Dunn has been deemed of sufficient credibility to include the Bishop ~ Davis marriage in new 1791 NI Marriage Register ... <http://www.australianhistoryresearch.info/marriage-list-of-november-1791-norfolk-island/>
3.at the very least his common law wife, no surviving record of a formal marriage.
4.MARY BISHOP & JAMES MARTIN
Perhaps at this stage more should be said about Mary Bishop's relationship with James Martin. It was certainly of long duration, and would appear to have been at the very least an ongoing commercial arrangement, if not a deeper personal one.
James Martin was born, according to his military record, in about 1775 in the parish of Somersham, Huntingdon, England. At the age of 19 he enlisted in the 87th Regiment, but less than 12 months later on 29 May 1795 he transferred to the New South Wales Corps (later renamed the 102nd Regiment) as a Private. In February of the following year, James and his regiment disembarked from the Marquis of Cornwallis in Sydney Town, to take up garrison duties in the colony. By 1802, Martin was under the command of Captain John Brabyn and serving in the Governor's personal bodyguard. This duty would undoubtedly have brought him into contact, frequently, with the Governor's Parramatta housekeeper. Furthermore, Captain and Mrs Brabyn were next door neighbours, at Lot 15 George Street, of the same Mrs Mary Bishop.
James, in his memorial, claimed service with the gubernatorial bodyguard under Governors King, Bligh and Macquarie, until he obtained discharge from the military in mid September 1810. Mrs Bishop's tenure as Government House (Parramatta) Housekeeper ended 9 months into Macquarie's term, also being paid off in mid September, 1810.
Whether at this time they actually took up agricultural pursuits together has yet to be established, but without doubt, their adjacent land grants on South Creek at Bringelly, totalling 110 acres, gave them the opportunity to do so. James was consistently recorded in following musters as a storekeeper residing in Parramatta, as was Mary also officially domiciled. Perhaps they were weekend farmers, or maintained two residences, or were just land speculators. Further land dealings research should uncover more about these holdings. There is also the inference, based on claims made in his 1823 memorial, that James re-enlisted for about a three or four year period around 1817, probably in the NSW Veterans Company, again under Captain Brabyn.
Over the ensuing years, Mary and/or her family were repeatedly associated in the public record with the person of James Martin. He was a witness to the marriage of Charlotte Crabb to Richard Shrimpton on 9th August 1819. He is recorded in the 1822 muster as the carer of a 10 year old male child who was of appropriate age to be Charlotte's son Alexander, and was indisputably head of household in the 1828 census of both Mary, recorded as his housekeeper, and Alexander Crabb, her grandson. In the meantime, in 1825 James had acted again as a witness in a Bishop family transaction, this time to the sale of Mary's George Street allotment to Samuel Barber.
After the 1828 census, both James and Mary appear to have fallen from the public gaze, until their deaths, Mary's in 1839, and a probable record for James in 1843, although a James Martin, residing in Sussex Street in the 1842 Electoral Roll could well be him, given his occupation of storekeeper.
This was no casual association.
Marriage: 2nd November 1788 @ Sydney. Samuel Day & Mary Bishop
In 1993, the Fellowship of First Fleeters, guardians of lore, sanctioned the fixing of a memorial plaque to the headstone of Charlot Pently [sic] in the cemetery of St Peters Anglican Church, Richmond NSW, to commemorate the life of Charlotte's mother, Mary (Davis) Bishop, who arrived in Port Jackson with the First Fleet on 26th January 1788 and who died at Curryjong (Kurrajong) NSW nearly 51 years later, on 1st January 1839.[1]
This the Fellowship did (after considering various conflicting opinions as to the identity of Mary Bishop and her relationship with Charlotte Pentley, née Bishop) on the basis of convincing research by both Dr Mollie Gillen AM FF in her acclaimed book "The Founders of Australia" and also by Yvonne Browning, author of "St. Peter's Richmond: the early people and burials 1791-1855".[2]
MRS SAMUEL DAY ?
The confusion over Mary (Davies/Davis) Bishop's identity arises largely from the hitherto unexplained marriage registered at St Phillips Sydney on 2nd November 1788 between a Mary Bishop and the convict Samuel Day. Mollie Gillen characterises this marriage as a "considerable complication" to the story of Mary Davis, noting that no Mary Bishop was recorded in any First Fleet document. She further establishes that Samuel Day's long term wife was Mary Bolton, who was not to be confused with Mary Bishop, and that Mary Davis (Lady Penrhyn) was undeniably the mother of Charlotte Bishop. Mollie Gillen concludes: "Why Mary Davis married Samuel Day … and why she used the name Mary Bishop … remain … a mystery".[3]
However, two things remain certain…
1.The name "Mary Bishop" was in use by someone in the lead up to November 1788.
2.Mary Davies/Davis per Lady Penrhyn was known as "Mary Bishop" for most of her life in the Colony.
It follows that Mary Davis assumed the name Bishop soon after arrival in NSW. The most logical explanation for this is that she formed a relationship with a male named Bishop, soon after arrival in NSW. Furthermore, it is conceivable that the Day ~ Bishop marriage was recorded erroneously i.e. Bolton being incorrectly identified as Bishop and that Mary Bishop was never associated with Samuel Day.[4] Credibility is added to this notion of "mistaken identity" by the similar circumstances surrounding these two women. Both were named Mary "B______", were tried for similar crimes on the same day, at the same place, and were transported on the same ship.[5] With this in mind, the simplest and most credible explanation for this "mystery" marriage is that it never took place. The question again arises ... why was Mary using the name of Bishop ?? .... a male Bishop lurking ?... if so, which one ?
According to authoritative sources, there were three male Bishops in the First Fleet; two of them were Marine Privates; the third was a convict. First Fleet 1788,[6] which purports to be a transcription of the original First Fleet manifest, places Elias Bishop (Marine Private) on Alexander,[7] Joseph Bishop (Convict) on Friendship,[8] and Thomas Bishop (Marine Private) on the Supplementary Listing [9] of those who arrived, but without a record of which ship. The Fellowship of First Fleeters has Elias (Marine Private) on Alexander,[10] and both Joseph (Convict) and Thomas (Marine Private) on Friendship.[11]
Joseph Bishop married Ann Dring (Lady Juliana) at St Phillips Sydney on November 13th 1790 and was settled by 1792 at The Ponds on 50ac.[12] Elias Bishop married Catherine Smith (Prince of Wales) on Norfolk Island in June 1793.[13] The only Bishop for whom there is no conflicting record of marriage is Thomas.
The tracing of land grants, memorials, entitlements and transfers is building a convincing case that Thomas Bishop was, at the very least, the common law husband of Mary, and probably the father of Charlotte Bishop.
CONCLUSION
There ends this narrative, as it presently stands. Mollie Gillen has already established that Mary Davis was Mary Bishop, and the mother of Charlotte Bishop. The missing link in this treatise is documented confirmation that Mary Bishop widow of Thomas Bishop was Mary Bishop per Lady Penrhyn. All the evidence very strongly suggests this, but falls short of absolutely conclusive proof. Extensive research can find no other widowed Mrs Mary Bishop in the colony at the time of these seminal events.
It is hoped, with time, the wider dissemination of original sources (especially through the world wide web) and ongoing diligent work by numerous other researchers, that the appropriate documentation will be uncovered to verify all of the above conclusions. I endorse the limited publication of this work only to perhaps stimulate a dim recollection and the discovery, somewhere, of an obscure journal reference, or a previously unpublished diary note, or a long buried register, something, that carries such proof.
Jon Heppell
For interest's sake ... direct descent.
Mary Davies + Thomas Bishop
Charlotte Bishop + John Pentley
Susanna Jane Pentley + Jacob Chillingworth
Mary Chillingworth + Peter Burnes
James Ernest Burnes + Emily Carey
Edith Veronica Burnes + unknown
Doris May Burnes + Lawrence Bugden
Betty Dawn Bugden + Jeffrey Wilder
Gail Maree Wilder + Jon Heppell
Noted events in her life were:
• source. & Jon Heppell who notes:
Mary Davies, aka Davis, born in Diddlebury Parish, Shropshire, England; convicted and condemned at Salop Lent Assizes for multiple burglaries on 12 March 1785 (later commuted to 7 years transportation); journeyed to NSW on the First Fleet's Lady Penrhyn, , assigned to Norfolk Island in March 1790, gave birth to daughter Charlotte Bishop at some time before July 1791 1 (Norfolk Island), married to discharged Marine Private Thomas Bishop, turned settler, in November 1791 (if not already married, unrecorded, before her assignment), returned to Sydney with Thomas and Charlotte on board the Kitty, 9th March 1793. Recorded as Mary Bishop, widow (common law wife, no record of a formal marriage) of Thomas Bishop, on the indenture of conveyance of the deceased (d.10 Dec 1793) Thomas Bishop's 110ac grant (Bishop's Farm) at Hen & Chicken Bay to James Squire, colonial brewer, dated 11th August 1794.
Thereafter, Mary Bishop did appear in Governor Hunter's 1798 Assignment Report of Women Convicts as deriving employment as housekeeper to Harry (Henry) Parson(s) of the New South Wales Corp. who was a contemporary of hers on Norfolk Island. Other researchers have from various colonial musters identified her, as Mary Davis, in 1800 as a "convict whose sentence has expired. Is off stores" and in 1805 as "Mary Bishop at Parramatta. Government Servant who is free by servitude". Samuel Marsden recorded her as a concubine in his (Marsden's) Female Muster 1806, as a servant at Government House and mother of an illegitimate daughter.
Mary and Charlotte had settled eventually in Parramatta, where Mary was employed by Governor Philip Gidley King as The Housekeeper at Government House, Parramatta, a position she held for over 10 years from 1800 until some nine months into the incumbency of Lachlan Macquarie. Her appointment encompassed both the Castle Hill convict revolt of 1804, and the Rum Rebellion of 1808. She acquired by grant and lease some 30 odd acres of land, both for tillage at Bringelly (Bishop's Farm), and a town lot (16, section 16) in George St Parramatta, probably her long term place of residence, which she sold in 1825 to Samuel Barber. In the 1828 muster, Mary was recorded as residing with (as housekeeper) James Martin at Parramatta, with her grandson Alexander Crabb. James Martin 2, witness to her land sale to Barber, left the Governor's service in the same September of 1810 as did Mary. He held 80 acres immediately adjacent to Mary's Bishop's Farm at Bringelly, granted on the same day. He was also witness to Mary's daughter Charlotte's marriage to Richard Shrimpton in 1819, and it is probable he'd had at least Alexander residing with him in Parramatta in 1822.
At some time after 1828, Mary moved to Kurrajong, residing probably with Charlotte until her death on 1st January 1839, possibly as old as 87 years. She is buried in the cemetery of St Peter's at Richmond, in the same grave as her daughter Charlotte. Their descendants are legion.
Charlotte at age 14 (on 1st Jan 1806) received a 100ac land grant (Bishop's Farm) from King contiguous with and later absorbed into the King pastoral empire "Dunheved" on South Creek in western Sydney. She bore at least 10 children to six partners, three of whom she married. Charlotte died in 1851, also at Kurrajong, and she is buried in the cemetery of St Peter's at Richmond, in the same grave as her mother Mary.
1.Mary Davis travelled to Norfolk Is. on the ill-fated HMS Sirius, disembarking in mid March 1790. Sometime in the ensuing 17 months a female child was born to Mary and when first entered into the Norfolk Island Victualling Records (July 1791 ?) was, in keeping with convention at the time, registered under her mother's transportation name, but was later shown as Charlotte Bishop. Such entry was not necessarily a birth date.... it may have been made only when Charlotte was weaned, or it may represent a baptism date.
Biographical Database of Australia ~ Norfolk Island Victualling Lists 1792-1796 <http://www.bda-online.org.au/files/VL1792_VictuallingList.pdf>. "Although, most of the population were mustered in the early years of Norfolk Island because of the fledgling nature of the colony, children in fact were not in receipt of victuals until the end of March 1793 and inconsistently came onto the stores anywhere between a few months and upwards of one year's age." .... The data ... was edited by Carol J Baxter and Garry Wilson for inclusion in the BDA. This article was written by Garry Wilson .... Accessed on 24th March 2016.
2
1.MARY BISHOP & JAMES MARTIN
Perhaps at this stage more should be said about Mary Bishop's relationship with James Martin. It was certainly of long duration, and would appear to have been at the very least an ongoing commercial arrangement, if not a deeper personal one.
James Martin was born, according to his military record, in about 1775 in the parish of Somersham, Huntingdon, England. At the age of 19 he enlisted in the 87th Regiment, but less than 12 months later on 29 May 1795 he transferred to the New South Wales Corps (later renamed the 102nd Regiment) as a Private. In February of the following year, James and his regiment disembarked from the Marquis of Cornwallis in Sydney Town, to take up garrison duties in the colony. By 1802, Martin was under the command of Captain John Brabyn and serving in the Governor's personal bodyguard. This duty would undoubtedly have brought him into contact, frequently, with the Governor's Parramatta housekeeper. Furthermore, Captain and Mrs Brabyn were next door neighbours, at Lot 15 George Street, of the same Mrs Mary Bishop.
James, in his memorial, claimed service with the gubernatorial bodyguard under Governors King, Bligh and Macquarie, until he obtained discharge from the military in mid September 1810. Mrs Bishop's tenure as Government House (Parramatta) Housekeeper ended 9 months into Macquarie's term, also being paid off in mid September, 1810.
Whether at this time they actually took up agricultural pursuits together has yet to be established, but without doubt, their adjacent land grants on South Creek at Bringelly, totalling 110 acres, gave them the opportunity to do so. James was consistently recorded in following musters as a storekeeper residing in Parramatta, as was Mary also officially domiciled. Perhaps they were weekend farmers, or maintained two residences, or were just land speculators. Further land dealings research should uncover more about these holdings. There is also the inference, based on claims made in his 1823 memorial, that James re-enlisted for about a three or four year period around 1817, probably in the NSW Veterans Company, again under Captain Brabyn.
Over the ensuing years, Mary and/or her family were repeatedly associated in the public record with the person of James Martin. He was a witness to the marriage of Charlotte Crabb to Richard Shrimpton on 9th August 1819. He is recorded in the 1822 muster as the carer of a 10 year old male child who was of appropriate age to be Charlotte's son Alexander, and was indisputably head of household in the 1828 census of both Mary, recorded as his housekeeper, and Alexander Crabb, her grandson. In the meantime, in 1825 James had acted again as a witness in a Bishop family transaction, this time to the sale of Mary's George Street allotment to Samuel Barber.
After the 1828 census, both James and Mary appear to have fallen from the public gaze, until their deaths, Mary's in 1839, and a probable record for James in 1843, although a James Martin, residing in Sussex Street in the 1842 Electoral Roll could well be him, given his occupation of storekeeper.
This was no casual association.
Marriage: 2nd November 1788 @ Sydney. Samuel Day & Mary Bishop
In 1993, the Fellowship of First Fleeters, guardians of lore, sanctioned the fixing of a memorial plaque to the headstone of Charlot Pently [sic] in the cemetery of St Peters Anglican Church, Richmond NSW, to commemorate the life of Charlotte's mother, Mary (Davis) Bishop, who arrived in Port Jackson with the First Fleet on 26th January 1788 and who died at Curryjong (Kurrajong) NSW nearly 51 years later, on 1st January 1839.[1]
This the Fellowship did (after considering various conflicting opinions as to the identity of Mary Bishop and her relationship with Charlotte Pentley, née Bishop) on the basis of convincing research by both Dr Mollie Gillen AM FF in her acclaimed book "The Founders of Australia" and also by Yvonne Browning, author of "St. Peter's Richmond: the early people and burials 1791-1855".[2]
MRS SAMUEL DAY ?
The confusion over Mary (Davies/Davis) Bishop's identity arises largely from the hitherto unexplained marriage registered at St Phillips Sydney on 2nd November 1788 between a Mary Bishop and the convict Samuel Day. Mollie Gillen characterises this marriage as a "considerable complication" to the story of Mary Davis, noting that no Mary Bishop was recorded in any First Fleet document. She further establishes that Samuel Day's long term wife was Mary Bolton, who was not to be confused with Mary Bishop, and that Mary Davis (Lady Penrhyn) was undeniably the mother of Charlotte Bishop. Mollie Gillen concludes: "Why Mary Davis married Samuel Day … and why she used the name Mary Bishop … remain … a mystery".[3]
However, two things remain certain…
1.The name "Mary Bishop" was in use by someone in the lead up to November 1788.
2.Mary Davies/Davis per Lady Penrhyn was known as "Mary Bishop" for most of her life in the Colony.
It follows that Mary Davis assumed the name Bishop soon after arrival in NSW. The most logical explanation for this is that she formed a relationship with a male named Bishop, soon after arrival in NSW. Furthermore, it is conceivable that the Day ~ Bishop marriage was recorded erroneously i.e. Bolton being incorrectly identified as Bishop and that Mary Bishop was never associated with Samuel Day.[4] Credibility is added to this notion of "mistaken identity" by the similar circumstances surrounding these two women. Both were named Mary "B______", were tried for similar crimes on the same day, at the same place, and were transported on the same ship.[5] With this in mind, the simplest and most credible explanation for this "mystery" marriage is that it never took place. The question again arises ... why was Mary using the name of Bishop ?? .... a male Bishop lurking ?... if so, which one ?
According to authoritative sources, there were three male Bishops in the First Fleet; two of them were Marine Privates; the third was a convict. First Fleet 1788,[6] which purports to be a transcription of the original First Fleet manifest, places Elias Bishop (Marine Private) on Alexander,[7] Joseph Bishop (Convict) on Friendship,[8] and Thomas Bishop (Marine Private) on the Supplementary Listing [9] of those who arrived, but without a record of which ship. The Fellowship of First Fleeters has Elias (Marine Private) on Alexander,[10] and both Joseph (Convict) and Thomas (Marine Private) on Friendship.[11]
Joseph Bishop married Ann Dring (Lady Juliana) at St Phillips Sydney on November 13th 1790 and was settled by 1792 at The Ponds on 50ac.[12] Elias Bishop married Catherine Smith (Prince of Wales) on Norfolk Island in June 1793.[13] The only Bishop for whom there is no conflicting record of marriage is Thomas.
The tracing of land grants, memorials, entitlements and transfers is building a convincing case that Thomas Bishop was, at the very least, the common law husband of Mary, and probably the father of Charlotte Bishop.
CONCLUSION
There ends this narrative, as it presently stands. Mollie Gillen has already established that Mary Davis was Mary Bishop, and the mother of Charlotte Bishop. The missing link in this treatise is documented confirmation that Mary Bishop widow of Thomas Bishop was Mary Bishop per Lady Penrhyn. All the evidence very strongly suggests this, but falls short of absolutely conclusive proof. Extensive research can find no other widowed Mrs Mary Bishop in the colony at the time of these seminal events.
It is hoped, with time, the wider dissemination of original sources (especially through the world wide web) and ongoing diligent work by numerous other researchers, that the appropriate documentation will be uncovered to verify all of the above conclusions. I endorse the limited publication of this work only to perhaps stimulate a dim recollection and the discovery, somewhere, of an obscure journal reference, or a previously unpublished diary note, or a long buried register, something, that carries such proof.
Jon Heppell
• connection. The connection between Jon Heppell and myself goes like this:
Jon Heppell . . .
Is linked in some way to . . .
Mary Davis (aka Davies) (1761) who with Thomas Bishop
Had Charlotte Bishop (1791) who married Richard Shrimpton (c1762)
They had Richard Shrimpton (1826)
He had Richard 3rd Shrimpton (1855) who married Susannah Jeffery (1857)
Her father was John Jeffery (1834)
His father was John Jeffery (1808)
His father was James Jeffery (1781) & he also had William Jeffery (1803)
He had James Jeffery (1837)
He had Mary Jeffery (1860) who married William South (1854)
They had Annie South (1891) who married Leslie Rice (1885)
They had Hazel Rice (1913) who married Emmett Whyte (1899)
They had Sandra Whyte (1943) who married Colin Parker (1936)
His father was Arthur Parker (1894)
His mother was Martha Parker (1872)
Her mother was Elizabeth Roser (1844)
Her father was John Roser & he also had John Roser (1838)
He had George Roser (1868)
He had Charles Roser (1897)
He had George Roser (1923) who married Olive Elliot (1924)
Her mother was Doris Emery (1903)
Her mother was Phoebe Davies (1876)
Her father was Joseph Davies (1852) & he also had G A Davies (1894)
He had Colin Davies (1925)
He had me Robyn Bray (nee Davies) (1950)
• Arrived on the Ship: On board the "Lady Penrhyn " 1st Fleet sailed from Portsmouth on the 13 May 1787, 22 Jan 1788, NSW Australia.
Mary married Samuel Day (Convict) 1st Fleet, son of William Day and Sarah Allen, on 2 Nov 1788 in St Philips C of E, York St, Sydney, NSW Australia. (Samuel Day (Convict) 1st Fleet was born in 1767 in Gloucestershire England, christened on 5 Apr 1767 in Dursley, Gloucestershire England and died in 1846 in Launceston, Tasmania Australia.)
Mary next married Marine Private Thomas Bishop in 1791 in Norfolk Island Penal Settlement, NSW Australia. (Marine Private Thomas Bishop was born circa 1760.)
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