Among the lives of the more than 1,600 women in Notorious Strumpets are stories which range from the truly awful to the tragic, from the amusing to the pathetic. Some of these are described below.
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Flogged for a letter
Elizabeth Murphy [Glatton] bore the dubious distinction of being the first woman flogged in Van Diemen's Land. Her crime was to have written a letter to a Francis Dring 'containing the most infamous language and accusing him of the most heinous crime'.

First woman hanged
Mary McLauchlan [Harmony] was the first woman hanged in Van Diemen's Land. She had given birth to a child in the Female House of Correction but had killed it soon after. Her trial and hanging attracted much public attention.

A violent history
Ephemia Lawson [Borneo], a woman known to Edinburgh authorities as honest and decent, was transported for life for throwing sulphuric acid over a man named Archibald Campbell. Many years later in Hobart she received an additional life sentence for 'feloniously stabbing Mary Worster with intent'. She was still a convict when she died in 1878, aged in her 70s, and more than 50 years after she was originally convicted.

Convict teenagers
Sarah Barnes [Borneo] was just 13 years old when transported for 14 years for stealing prints off a standing near Shrewsbury Marketplace. Louisa Atkins [Broxbornebury] was aged 14 years when transported for larceny. Mary Tickton [Mary] was only 15 when transported for life. Ann Johnson [Midas] was 16. She had stolen plate from her father and mother. Maria Johnson [Mermaid] was also 16. She was variously described as having a 'sullen and violent temper', being 'impudent and vicious', and 'grossly depraved and immoral'.

Severely punished for adultery
Alice Robson [Broxbornebury] was forced to walk the 35 miles from George Town to Launceston wearing a 6¼lb iron collar, as punishment for being a 'profligate adulteress'. Robson had left her husband, who she claimed brutally ill-treated her, to live with George Town's Principal Superintendent. She was nursing a 2 month old infant at the time.

Censorious surgeons
Peter Cosgreave, the Surgeon on board the transport Friendship, did not mince his words when reporting on the women he had escorted from England to Sydney. Comments included 'a prostitute and filthy', 'mutinous and extremely insolent', 'a thief, prostitute and blasphemous wretch', 'void of all shame', 'filthy and lazy', 'an idiot, but given to theft', 'a good for nothing old woman', and 'an industrious but mutinous and turbulent vile disposition'. James Hall of the Mary Anne had a similar attitude to most of the women in his charge. Three earned his special attention. Rachel Chamberlin was 'a most infamous character, a confirmed thief and vile prostitute, a sly woman, hypocrite, blasphemer, drunkard, revengeful, reprobate, refractory, insolent'. Sarah Fenton was 'as desperate and depraved a character as ever has been transported: capable of doing murder; turbulent; reprobate; never easy but in mischief; fond of exciting uproar and mutiny; a feigner of illness; an hypocrite; a Devil incarnate'. Sarah Fletcher, 'a robust country woman', was 'a dangerous woman to man. Under a fair face and simplicity of manners lie a lustful heart, a lying tongue and great hypocrisy in religion. Prostitute. An infamous feigner of illness.'

Murdered by her husband
Elizabeth Perkins [Friendship] had served out her time, married and was mother of a little girl. In 1829 she was brutally beaten to death by her husband, whose excuse was that his home was heartless and desolate due to his wife's 'drunkenness and dissipation'. He was executed nonetheless.

Fighting a pitched battle
Mary Buckley [Maria] was charged with 'fighting a pitched battle in the Red Lion Public House'.

A human pin-cushion
Eliza McEwen [Maria] was coughing and spitting blood so much that the Surgeon on the convict ship had requested that she not be embarked. Some 45 pins were removed from different parts of her body by the doctors at the prison and on the voyage to New South Wales. She claimed she had no idea how they got there.

Hardly a crime
Elizabeth Frisby [Lord Wellington] was transported for the 'crime' of 'being an incorrigible rogue'. Margaret Dillon and Mary White [Janus] were transported for 'vagrancy'.

In bed with five men
Sarah Collins [Janus] committed many offences during her 22 years as a convict. On one occasion she ran from her service, only to be recaptured at Garths Hut, the Rushy Lagoon, where the Constable found her in bed with five men and another woman, Charlotte Turner [Providence].

Inaccurate with a bottle
Native of Jamaica Mary Revlett [Providence] was once charged by a Mrs Kelly with assaulting her and 'throwing a bottle at her husband which missed him and struck her in the face'. Mary Ann Cardin [Providence] on the other hand, didn't miss when she struck her husband's assigned servant on the head with a plate.

Unusual crimes
Elizabeth Waddle [Janus] was transported for life for 'falsely personating a seaman's widow to receive prize money'. She was an upholsterer by trade, could read and write, and committed no offences while a convict in Van Diemen's Land. Elizabeth Wood Lloyd [Sir Charles Forbes] was transported for bigamy. She claimed she thought her first husband was dead when she married William Truss, First Clerk in the Auditor's Office, a man of very considerable means. Certainly the prison officials in England treated her with great respect, and the Ship's Surgeon spoke highly of her behaviour and 'the deference with which the prisoners treated her'. 'I do not think her capable of misconduct', he wrote. However before she had served her time she was guilty of three acts of misconduct, including one of 'disorderly, immoral and disgraceful conduct'. She also applied to marry again, but two years later married a different man. Ann Frances Clifton [Mermaid] was transported for stealing a letter. Her home had been a Post Office, a tobacconist's and a library. Mary Boswell [Harmony] was transported for horse stealing. She was said to be 'connected with a gang of gypsy horse stealers'. Catherine Campbell [Harmony] was transported for obtaining clothing from young girls under pretence of telling their fortune.

Gave as good as they got
Ann Wilson [Morley] committed many offences in her 16 years in the Colony. On one memorable occasion she faced the Magistrates for being disorderly in the Female Factory and breaking the Superintendent's window. On receiving a sentence of 12 more months in the Factory she impudently replied: 'I thank you. It is the very place I wish to go to.' The officials would have none of that, and gave her 4 hours in the stocks, to which she responded: 'That will not hurt me either. You shall not have my hair cut off for all that.' An order was then made that her hair be cut off. Undeterred, she told them: 'That will not hurt me either. I don't care if it was cut off fifty times.' Wilson later spent time at Port Arthur as a servant to official Thomas Lempriere. There she got into trouble for giving tobacco to the prisoners. Phoebe Allen [Persian] was determined not to be returned to her service. She told the Magistrate: 'You may do what you like with me, I won't go back; and if you send me back, I'll run away. I would rather be hanged than go back.' She got her wish, but it cost her 2 weeks solitary on bread and water and a year in the House of Correction.

Turbulent lives
Rachel Chamberlin [Mary Anne] had already been in 13 different gaols when transported for 7 years for stealing a bolster. Her husband was already a convict at Sydney and her brother in Van Diemen's Land. Some of the charges she faced in the Colony included singing obscene songs in the Female Factory, fighting in the Police Barracks, stealing a pig, receiving calico and slop jackets, and 'creating an affray in Bathurst Street'. Catherine Coole [Mary], from Glasgow, committed a wide variety of offences, including 'turning her Master's infant son out of bed' in the dead of night so that she and a man named John Shore could use it, stealing 700lbs of wool, for which she got an extra 7 years, and 'giving … a wrong direction as to which way a runaway went yesterday'.

Respectable connections
Hannah Howell [Mary Anne] was in her mid 50s when given a life sentence for setting her barn on fire. 'Respectably connected', she brought her four children with her, the eldest being 22 years old. Howell led a blameless life in Van Diemen's Land and was soon pardoned. Charlotte Nicholls [Mermaid], a 'mulatto looking woman' born in Havana, had respectable friends in England even though recorded as a prostitute. Her husband had abandoned her years before to come to New South Wales as a servant.

Riots in the Factory
On 2 June 1826 and several days after there was a severe breakdown of discipline at the Female House of Correction. In all 13 women were later charged with 'riotous and disorderly conduct. In April 1828 four women were charged with 'violent and disorderly conduct in breaking down the cell in which [they] were confined on the night of the 2nd … and likewise breaking two spinning wheel, the property of Government, on the night of the 1st …' Another riot occurred in August 1828, this time in view of the Principal Superintendent of Convicts.

A valuable servant?
Mary Ann Pritchard's [Mary] trade was not recorded, but she must have had some useful skills. Assigned to one Stephenson near Launceston, she committed 9 offences in a 2 year period, ranging from receiving to absconding, but she was always taken back into the same service. Her next Master was similarly indulgent. Mary Ann Anderson [Brothers] had a similar experience. She faced the Magistrates for disobedience of orders, neglect of duty, insolence to her Master and Mistress and threatening to knock her Master's brains out with a poker. Yet she was returned to the same service because her Master said that 'he wishes to have her'.

A scandal and a song
Ann Pope [Brothers] found herself at the centre of a minor colonial scandal, even featuring in a scurrilous song set to the tune of the children's song 'Cock-robin'.

Hardly speaks English
Elinor James [Brothers], Alice Lunt [Henry] and Charlotte Davies [Henry] could barely speak English, they being natives of Wales. Yet Davies had learnt enough in her first few months to be charged with 'using profane language'. Twenty-three years after her original sentence she was given another 7 years for stealing 3 bee hives.

A mass break-out
On the evening of 5 December 1826 seven women broke a hole through the wall of the Hobart Female Factory and escaped. One, Elizabeth Slater [Brothers] was said to be drawn by the attractions of a man named 'Hopping Tom'. Recaptured and punished by the close cutting of her hair, she soon attempted another escape, this time falling off the Factory wall and bruising her limbs.

A French convict and a Swede
Caroline Vantileur [Henry] was born in Bordeaux. She moved to England as a child, where she was later convicted of grand larceny. Among her 17 colonial offences, she was once caught coming out of the Scotch Thistle Public House dressed in men's clothing. Maria Coote [Providence] was born in Carlscrona, Sweden. She received a harsh sentence of transportation for life for stealing ?2 10s from her landlord. It was her first offence and one she continued to deny. Her offences in Van Diemen's Land included 'coming home drunk and being found undressed in bed with two men', 'tippling in a public house after hours', and attempting to abscond to Sydney with her husband to escape his creditors. Years later she was reported as an absconder and was never heard from again.

A solicitous Surgeon - with a secret
Surgeon of the Providence Matthew Burnside took great care of the convicts in his charge. All but one of the women survived the 5 month voyage. The comments he wrote against the name of each of the 100 women shows that he took the care to become familiar with each of them. One, Julia Mullins, he described as a 'notorious strumpet and a most dangerous girl'. Seventeen year old Julia Mills, on the other hand, was 'mild and tractable. Conducted herself with becoming decency. Is a girl of superior feeling to most on board.' What he failed to mention was that Mills had spent most of the voyage in his cabin, an indulgence that cost him his pay when was reported to officials.

Innocent
Ann Chiddock [Providence] was still angry about her conviction for stealing a cloak when she arrived at Van Diemen's Land 10 months later. "I bought it from a man. I could not find the man and I suffer for it," she angrily declared. Perhaps there was some truth to her claim, because in a rare decision, the Lieutenant-Governor forgave the last 6 months of her 7 year sentence and allowed her to return to England.

Women overboard
Sarah Wassel [Sovereign], a woman suffering from 'mental aberration', tried to drown herself by jumping overboard from the ship. Miraculously the ship was brought about and she was saved. Christiana McDonald [Lady of the Lake] was not so lucky. She fell overboard when trying to save her cap, which had blown off, and 'sank almost immediately'.

Drunk and disorderly
Margaret Hill [Providence] committed 57 offences over a 20 year period in Van Diemen's Land. Fifty involved drunkenness. Louisa Cutler [Sovereign] was once convicted of 'getting beastly drunk and using disgusting, obscene and filthy discourse'. Later the same year her master told the magistrates she had been drunk 'four out of the five days she had been with him'. Margaret McCauley [John Bull] committed 41 offences involving drunkenness in just 11 years.

Escaped to Bombay
Ann Margaret Wright [Providence] escaped from Van Diemen's Land on the ship Phoenix, making it as far as Bombay. There she was recaptured and returned to Hobart. A few years later she was sentenced to hang for attempting to murder her husband with a spade. He was found in their hut 'bleeding head & foot' and when someone asked who had done it 'she stamped and held up her hand and said "I did, me and Bill Cobb".' Her sentence was commuted to life and 13 years later she was pardoned. However years later she received another 7 years for stealing a frying pan and tub. She was still in gaol in 1859, 34 years after her first conviction.

Committed the crime to come to Van Diemen's Land
Bridget Dart's [Sir Charles Forbes] husband had been sent to Van Diemen's Land as a convict in 1821. So desperate was she to join him that she stole a cloak from a shop door in order to be made a convict. She was sentenced to 7 years transportation. It was only then that she heard her earlier application to be sent out as a free woman had been granted. Belfast-born sisters Mary and Dorothy McWilliams [Harmony] were aged 19 and 17 respectively when they passed forged notes in Glasgow in order to join their mother in Van Diemen's Land (Jean Jarvis [Mary Anne]). Both were thought depraved by their Scottish gaoler, but passed almost blameless lives in the Colony.

Any man will do
Hannah Yowband [Mermaid] applied to marry four different men in just four years. Eliza Morris [Harmony] applied to marry four men in six years.

A Honduran slave
One woman who arrived on the ship Borneo was described simply as 'Maria, a slave'. A 'woman of colour', she came from Honduras, where she lived with her father, mother, brother and sisters. Attacked by a man with a knife, she managed to kill him in the fight. She was sent to Van Diemen's Land for life, aged only 15 at the time. Two years after she arrived she was allowed to marry and 8 years later won a Conditional Pardon

Victim of small-town gossip
Elizabeth Williams [Borneo] seems to have been the victim of small-town vindictiveness and gossip. As a young farm servant, she became pregnant to and married a wealthy old farmer. After 12 years of married life and 3 children, the old man died. The locals, who had always seen her as a gold-digger, a prostitute and a vindictive thief, were quick to move in. She was charged with setting fire to a haystack, found guilty and sentenced to hang. The sentence was commuted to life and she was sent to Van Diemen's Land, without her three young children. There she remarried and won a pardon after less than 10 years.

Lewd intention
Sometimes the convict women had the courage to make complaint about how they were treated, and sometimes they were believed. Mary Miller [Lady of the Lake] accused her master of 'assaulting her with a lewd intention'. Her complaint was discovered to be well founded and she was removed to another service.