31/07/2026
On a winter day in March 1804, a young women was caught stealing a gown, a couple of petticoats, a pair of stockings, a bonnet and a handkerchief. Was she trying to clothe herself or planning to sell them? We will never know. What we do know, through available records, is that two weeks later she stood before the Worcester Assizes, where she was found guilty and sentenced to be transported.
Over a year passed before she was taken from her prison cell, a dark, damp and dirty space she shared with many other women, to the ship, ‘William Pitt,’ which would take her and 119 female convicts, to Port Jackson in the distant Colony of New South Wales. This was June 1805, and the journey was long and arduous. The ship did not sail through the heads to reach the sheltered waters and safe anchorage of Sydney harbour until April 1806. During this gruelling voyage, Ann gave birth to a son, Benjamin Baker, giving a glimmer of hope and new life. Ann and her baby began their new life in the fledgling colony where she would go on to marry and have at least six other children. Her descendants, including her children and grandchildren, have become a significant part of the history in the Young area, capturing the interest of family historians.
Benjamin, Ann’s firstborn lived 60 years in Sydney and fathered seven children. Born free in a colony where most around him were convicts, Benjamin's life was a testament to resilience and adaptation. Benjamin and his mother were living with Abraham Whittaker by 1808. By 1808 two year old Ben and his mother were living with Abraham Whittaker, a man who was lucky to be forging a new life at all. Whittaker had been sentenced to death for forgery, but his friends petitioned the authorities for mercy and his sentence was commuted to transportation for life. His accomplice, John Atkinson, was not so fortunate and was hanged, even though the consensus of opinion was that Whittaker was the 'principal in the uttering'. Whittaker arrived in the colony aboard the 'Coromandel' in 1802, received a ticket of leave in 1813 and a conditional pardon in January 1814. Although Ann and Abraham did not marry, they lived as a couple for around five year and had two daughters who grew up to lead their own lives.
One of Ann’s daughters, Mary Ann married Elijah Rivers and arrived in Wombat in the 1860s. Ann Gibbon’s granddaughter, Susannah Rivers married the Wombat publican Charles Peter Lewington.
Ann’s other daughter with Abraham Whittaker, Elizabeth, married Robert Woodbridge and together they had twelve children. The Woodbridge name may be familiar to many here as their sons - Joseph, Thomas, John Joseph, Roland and Daniel all settled nearby. Daniel opened the hotel in Bendick Murrell at the time of the railway construction before settling on land in that area while Thomas settled at Boorowa.
Ann and Abraham parted ways and she married another ex-convict, Joseph Smith. Like Ann, Joseph had arrived in 1806, he sailed on the ‘Fortune and Alexander’. Together they had three children, Joseph, Hannah and Thomas. They were married in 1819 when Joseph received a Conditional Pardon. Tragically, their marriage only lasted five years before Joseph passed away. Ann remarried shortly after his death, John Vernal had arrived on the ‘Atlas’ in 1816 sentenced to life for theft. Ann and John remained together until her death twenty years later.
Joseph Smith junior settled in Cowra as an adult, while his sister and brother stayed close to Sydney. Ann and Joseph Smith senior’s grandsons through Thomas, Joseph and George headed away from the more settled areas. Joseph married Elizabeth Smithers in St John’s Anglican Church, Young in 1875 and George married Annie Davis in Boorowa in 1878. This couple made their home in Murringo.
Ann had two children and eight grandchildren settle in the area between 1860 and 1880. The following generation in this area numbered close to fifty. Her descendants, who settled and flourished in our area, have left an indelible mark on the community. Their contributions should inspire and connect us to our shared history. Ann's legacy lives on through the generations, a powerful reminder of the enduring impact one life can have on many.
