There are many heartbreaking stories among those of the 13,500 (approx.) women who were transported to Van Diemens Land (VDL) as convicts between the years 1812 and 1853. One of the saddest, perhaps, is that of Mary Manning, a young Irish woman, who arrived per Persian in 1827.[1]
An unmarried mother when she arrived, she had brought her small child with her. Two years later, she married a free settler and gave birth to twins early the following year. Five months later she and her babies were brutally murdered inside their hut in a remote part of the bush by a small party of aborigines apparently intent on taking revenge on settlers in the vicinity for the atrocious treatment they had long been receiving at their hands. Mary was twenty-three years old. She had been in the colony for only four years.[2]
[1] CON40-1-7, Image 35, FCRC ID: 10017; Police Number 61.
[2] See report of inquest: The Tasmanian, 18 June 1830, p.5.
