The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women

by Deborah J. Swiss

  Drawing a simple X, the fifteen-year-old signed the convict record list that bound her as official property of the Crown for the next seven years. Agnes’s 113-day journey had just begun. Her new world measured 28 feet between the scuppers and 133 feet stem to stern. The Westmoreland , built four years earlier, was a three-masted barque, registered at 404 tons, under the command of Captain Brigstock. The ship had spent the last month at Deptford, where it was fitted with guns and munitions for protection against pirates and mutineers. After the convict hulk had passed inspection by the Government Agent for Transports, a steamer towed it to Woolwich for mooring at a spot known as “the Bony off the Butt.”16 Here she lay ready to accept her human cargo. The vessel would eventually carry 185 female prisoners, their children, and a crew of 28 boys and men.

  Surgeon Superintendent Ellis handed Agnes and Janet a wooden bowl and spoon, a blanket, and a bed tick of heavy cotton filled with straw. Primitive mattresses in hand, the Glasgow girls followed a waiting officer through a bulkhead, down a cramped ladder, then through another hatchway to the orlop deck. This was the ship’s lowest deck. Two tiers of berths filled the tight space designed to pack in as many bodies as would fit head to toe, like tins of sardines tucked into His Majesty’s larder. Once in the ship’s bowels, Agnes was assigned a berth. Her bed and refuge aboard the Westmoreland was eighteen inches wide and four feet long, an elevated plank a foot and a half above Janet’s berth. Across the aisle, another two prisoners would be squeezed into the stuffy passage.

  While Agnes leaned over to lay out her bedding, she took in a deep breath and began choking on fumes emanating from beneath her feet. The Westmoreland was only a few years old but had already developed a distinct odor. Prisoners slept on the lowest deck right above the bilge, distinguished by a rotting stench from accumulating human waste and dead rats. Accustomed to the open air in the wynds, Agnes couldn’t escape soon enough. The officer ushered her back to the main hatch and pointed to two tiny water closets in the center of the ship. Feeling a bit woozy in this floating cesspool, she stumbled toward the hatch ladder. Janet remembered to duck under the beams and pushed Agnes’s head down to help her avoid a nasty gash.

  Back on deck, the two friends watched a line of women, some pregnant and others holding children in their arms, waiting to sign the surgeon’s ledger. Once topside, Agnes and Janet were immediately put to work scrubbing the deck. They soon learned that cleaning the ship was a never-ending task rotated among the prisoners. At midafternoon, they were assigned to a mess of six women and fed salted beef, cabbage soup, and a biscuit. This meal needed to last them until breakfast the next morning. Under the auspices of the Royal Navy, the girls were allotted two-thirds the naval ration.17 This might have been adequate were it not for widespread corruption among the crew. “Rascally masters and their stewards did not hesitate to employ false weights and measures, and more than one ships’ captain was accused of having set up store on arrival and retailed, at an exorbitant profit, the rations withheld from the convicts.”18

  The night watch came on deck as the ship’s bell rang eight times. After the final prisoner inspection at eight o’clock, the girls were locked inside their berth and secured under two decks of hatches bolted shut. Gossiping about their new companions, the duo spoke in hushed tones through velvety black claustrophobia until the lapping of the waves against the hull lulled them to sleep.

  The ship’s bell sounded again: six bells, morning watch. Agnes looked up. She was only half awake. Perhaps she was dreaming. The fifteen-year-old tumbled out of her berth. Her neck hurt. She was only five feet tall, but her narrow bed, only slightly wider than her petite frame, didn’t allow her to turn over without a delicate balancing act. As she untangled her arms, coarse wool scratched against her skin. At least she had a blanket. Her eyes lingered on the drops of water that slipped between the ship’s seams and reappeared as a stain on the lower planks. Anchor chains strained against the river’s current, and creaking beams oozed a rush of bitter smells from the Westmoreland’s bowels. It was six o’clock in the morning, and she was already feeling queasy.

  As the Officer of the Guard whistled through his pipe, Agnes scampered toward the newly opened hatch. She tossed her blanket over her shoulder, grabbed her bowl and spoon, and scurried up the narrow hatch opening, around the corner to a steep ladder for the final climb to the upper deck. Being young and fast moved Agnes to the front of the line for breakfast, but first she would have to pass daily inspection by Surgeon Superintendent Ellis.

  Up on deck, a big barrel of water greeted a sleepy Agnes just as she rounded the main mast. Bending over the open cask under the watchful eyes of an officer, one of the swabbies scooped a sloppy cupful of the greyish liquid and shoved it into Agnes’s hands. The water was drinkable by the standards of the day, light grey and murky, and the surgeon told the girls it would lessen seasickness. Accustomed to drinking beer rather than dirty water, Agnes took a few sips and splashed the rest on her face and tangled hair, just enough to jolt into full consciousness. Mr. Ellis took a glance inside her mouth, checked for fever, and administered the daily allotment of lime juice.

  A wisp of fog clung to the river, but the sky was cloudless and ideal for Agnes to air her blanket on deck. Agnes wanted to keep the wool fresh for as long as possible. No one seemed to know how long the upcoming sea voyage would take, but she had heard rumblings from the crew about a previous trip taking four months. For now, she was stuck on a floating prison, tantalizingly close to but irrevocably separated from the land that had exiled her.

  The longest time Agnes had spent on a boat was the fifteen minutes it took to ferry across the River Clyde in Scotland with Janet and Helen. Perhaps a bowl of the slimy gruel served for breakfast would help settle the young Scot’s stomach. Worse yet, she had to contend with those bloody bells, clanging every half hour, bringing a perpetual headache.

  Within four weeks of being stuck on the river in summer’s heat, Agnes hated the Westmoreland, the ship that never lay still in its mooring. When the ship swayed one way, she leaned the other, but nothing she tried could prevent her seasickness. Janet held on to her mate as she leaned over the railing and spit up the gruel. On August 1, Surgeon Superintendent Ellis admitted Agnes to his hospital for “obstinate costiveness,” constipation typically caused by dehydration from seasickness and the animal fat in a new diet.19 For her treatment, the petite lass was forced to endure generous doses of calomel, a mercury compound used for intestinal purging. Instead of helping patients, this nineteenth-century remedy caused bleeding gums, mouth sores, and more dehydration. After three days in the infirmary, Mr. Ellis released Agnes. She wondered if she would ever get used to the constant rocking.

  It was a very humid August, and Agnes felt a bit better back on deck in the river’s breeze. The morning sun had burned off the fog from the river. Agnes closed her eyes for a moment, leaned on the rail, and felt the warm light on her face. For a second she felt free. The fantasy soon passed, and with a gentle sigh she opened her eyes to a most curious sight. As the young prisoner glanced over the bulkhead, she spotted a boatful of bonnets headed toward the ship.

  Elizabeth Fry sat prim and proper in an approaching skiff, filled with members of the Society for the Reformation of Female Prisoners. She founded this group in 1821 to address conditions on the convict ships and to include groups that had been founded across Europe and modeled after her Association for the Improvement of Female Prisoners in Newgate.

  Captain Brigstock spied the visitors, buttoned his waistcoat, and barked orders at his crew. In an instant, sailors appeared out of nowhere, jumping around like wild monkeys. Barefoot to reduce slipping, the young mariners laid out the gangplank while the officers and mates prepared a proper reception for the arriving dignitaries.

  Surgeon Superintendent Ellis straightened his silk tie and brushed his epaulets into place as sailors marched all the convict girls and women onto the main deck. The Westmoreland had taken on prisoners for the last five weeks an
d was nearly filled to capacity. Among the youngest on board, Agnes pushed forward with her trademark curiosity. She couldn’t see over the rail, but she could hear rich people exchanging pleasantries, talking in the unmistakable accent of the upper class. Amid the shouts and confusion, one sound stood out from the rest. Agnes stood mesmerized by the approaching rustle of skirts—big full skirts with lots of crisp, white petticoats. Her thief ’s awareness suddenly tuned to high. Oh, to possess such finery, someday, someday.

  The bonnet appeared first, capping the rest of the simply coiffed, impeccably dressed Elizabeth Gurney Fry. Serene and radiant with purpose, the Quaker reformer projected a powerful presence. Bound by a whalebone corset, pale, powdered, and stately, she stepped on board ready to battle for the reformation of “the poor creatures.” Over the course of twenty years, Mrs. Fry visited 106 ships that carried nearly half the women transported, at times even risking her life to make the trip in terrible storms.

  Today, Mrs. Fry had enlisted some of London’s more prominent women to help “save” Agnes and the others awaiting transport. As the well-to-do ladies boarded the Westmoreland, Agnes could think of nothing but their dresses, how dear they were, each one a masterwork of delicate stitching across layers of soft silk, just like the ones she had coveted on the Cross at Kilmarnock. She snapped out of her daydream as Mrs. Fry began to speak, greeting Captain Brigstock and Surgeon Superintendent Ellis first.

  After reading a short prayer, the earnest Quaker lectured her captive female audience about “abandoning their evil ways, and becoming Useful Members of Society.”20 Opening her Bible to the twentieth chapter of Matthew, she read the parable of the lord of the vineyard and explained its passages.21 Although Agnes and Janet stood in polite deference to the woman who had been so kind inside Newgate’s hell, the angel of gaols rambled on, as she spoke with “thys,” “thees,” and “thous.” The friends who didn’t need to speak to know what the other was thinking suppressed simultaneous yawns. Finishing the sermon at last, Mrs. Fry moved closer to her audience and asked if anyone wanted a message delivered to a parent or loved one. This was Agnes’s last chance to communicate with her mother, Mary.

  Mr. Ellis called for quiet and motioned the prisoners forward one at a time. Soon, the Scottish lassie stood face-to-face with the celebrated reformer. Drawing a deep breath of Mrs. Fry’s starched lace and perfume, Agnes curtsied and bowed her head. First, Mrs. Fry handed her a Bible, paving the way for redemption of her soul. Next, she pressed into Agnes’s hands a small burlap bag filled with precisely measured patchwork pieces, a thimble, colored thread, and needles. From the depths of her soul, Elizabeth believed that industry paved the path toward reform and an ultimately productive return to society. In the meantime, sewing hundreds and hundreds of tiny stitches gave the confined women something to do, keeping their minds off rebellion and other wicked enterprises. A finished quilt sometimes served as a political statement. When presented to a member of high society in Van Diemen’s Land, it offered tangible evidence of Elizabeth’s successful association.

  Finally, the tall Quaker looked serenely upon the simply dressed grey-eyed girl and hung a small tin ticket, stamped with #253, around her neck. It became a symbol of her punishment for stealing a warm pair of stockings. It was also her voucher for travel to the Cascades Female Factory on the other side of the world. For the remainder of her exile, Agnes would be referred to as #253. Janet would soon be rechristened #284, as the two were initiated into an ever-growing sisterhood of sorrow.22

  Fry’s system of numbering and ordering seemed contradictory to her compassionate understanding of why Agnes had become a thief. A complicated woman, Mrs. Fry fervently believed that discipline hastened the road to redemption. With some reluctance, the British government adopted most of the recommendations outlined in her 1827 Observations on the Visiting, Superintendence, and Government of Female Prisoners, including her system of numbering:

  “Every individual . . . may wear a ticket inscribed with a number by which she shall be distinguished. . . . Especially in convict-ships, the plan of numbering the prisoners will never fail to be advantageous. . . . This number must not only be found in the class-list connected with a register of her conduct, but must be inscribed on all the principal articles which belong to her—especially her seat at table, her clothing, her bed and bedding, and her books. Such a system is found by experience to be very effectual in preventing disputes among the prisoners, and in promoting that strictness of discipline which is essential to the order and regularity of the whole machine.”23

  Numbers documented every movement in the transportation system: first a convict number, then a probationary Ticket of Leave, and finally the welcome stamp on a numbered Certificate of Freedom. Aboard ship, the captain and the surgeon superintendent found it easier to keep track of numbers than names, particularly with so many Marys, Anns, and Sarahs in their charge. Counting the cargo lined up by the numbers minimized confusion and saved time. Surgeon Superintendent Roberts, who served on the ship Royal Admiral, took note of Fry’s impact on the prisoners: “Those women who had for any time been under prison discipline, and had received the attention and care of Ladies Societies, more definitely those of Newgate and Edinburgh, were decidedly the best behaved and orderly . . . and their grateful recollections of such kindness and care was deeply implanted and cherished by them.”24

  Agnes stared at the red cord and tin marker that had been placed around her neck. The gentle Quaker gave the little lass in her well-worn green dress a reassuring smile and reached forward with a small bundle. These final parting gifts to the newly christened #253 included a practical black cotton cap, a burlap apron to protect her one dress, and a sack in which to store beloved trinkets. Agnes fingered the small tin ticket that hung between her breasts, lingering to grasp its significance until the first mate jerked her back into line for the closing prayer. The Quaker minister and her friends adjusted their full skirts. They knelt on the nearly spotless deck that the female prisoners had dry-holystoned earlier to scrub off the dangerously slick grime constantly deposited by wind and rain.

  The service went on and on, and the sun blazed down over the unprotected audience. It was well past two before the proselytizing ended. Agnes could barely keep her eyes open. By the time the ship’s bell rang for lunch, her Scottish nose glowed with a fine case of sunburn, a sensation quite foreign to a lass accustomed to Glasgow’s overcast skies.

  The Society for the Reformation of Female Prisoners continued to come aboard every few days for the remainder of the Westmoreland’s stay in Woolwich. By the time the ship lay ready to sail, a few of the older girls had gamely mastered vivid impressions of the upper-class philanthropists. The rowdy thespians performed their one-act play nightly, belowdecks, to rave reviews of muffled laughter. Four months from now, laughter could bring the punishment of shorn hair. Presently, the girls could savor a quiet giggle at the expense of the women in white petticoats.

  Lying in her berth, Agnes opened and shut the Bible Mrs. Fry had slipped into her arms. It was of little use for spiritual solace, full of words on pages she could not read, but it was comforting to have something of her own. As she quickly leafed through the volume, she watched her berth mates put the Good Book to more practical purposes. Women accustomed to having nothing let nothing go to waste. Their God was a God of utility. One used the Bible for primping, tearing pages for curling papers in her hair.25 Another folded its sheets into even squares and made a deck of playing cards.

  In the logbooks above deck, Agnes’s namelessness reinforced her baptism into anonymity under Britain’s Transportation Act. It belied her true function as breeder and tamer for a motley aggregation of felons, freemen, and adventurers currently wandering the wilds of Van Die-men’s Land. Belowdecks, the name Mary and Michael McMillan had given their daughter in 1820 grew ever more precious. Four years before, Agnes had concocted the fake name “Agnes Reddie,” hoping to hide her identity from the judge and the gavel. Her clumsy lie had o
nly made him more determined to deport her. Now her real name had never seemed more important. She wasn’t going to give it up that easily. As #253 drifted off to restless sleep, she whispered five defiant words into the Westmoreland’s darksome hold: “My name is Agnes McMillan.”

  King Neptune’s Visit

  The ship’s routine changed abruptly at dawn on August 12, 1836, when the mooring was released and the Westmoreland started its journey down the Thames under the tow of a steamer and pilot. It carried 185 convicts and their 18 children. An Australian folk song titled “Convict Maid” conveys what many must have felt that fateful morning:

  To you that hear my mournful tale

  I cannot half my grief reveal

  No sorrow yet has been portrayed

  Like that of the poor Convict Maid

  Far from my friends and home so dear

  My punishment is most severe

  My woe is great and I’m afraid

  That I shall die a Convict Maid26

  The Westmoreland had to travel nearly thirty miles down the Thames to reach the mouth of the river. As the prisoners bid farewell to their native shore, the good fortune of favorable weather was not with them. As they sailed east, strong headwinds slowed the ship to a crawl. The river gradually widened and disappeared into the frosty North Sea white caps. Belowdecks, the women and children were tossed about while the barque pitched back and forth in the open waters. A strong wind carried the ship beyond Margate, around the North Foreland, and past the white cliffs of Dover. After thirteen days of seasick misery, the Westmoreland finally cleared the channel and headed into the Atlantic Ocean.

  Surgeon Superintendent Ellis made this entry in his diary: “On putting to sea, we were so unfortunate as to encounter strong westerly winds, and it was not until the 24th of the month that we had cleared the channel; during this period the prisoners suffered very much from sea sickness more so inclined than I had ever seen on any former occasion, and which as is usually the case, was followed by obstinate costiveness, requiring the most active purgative medicine to subdue it. . . .”27 For the second time, the surgeon admitted #253 to the infirmary, administered calomel for her constipation, and released her two days later on August 26. After two treatments, no matter how sick she felt or how much she vomited, Agnes vowed she would never ask Mr. Ellis for one more spoonful of his bilious medicine.