My Father Was a Blacksmith

Louise Cooper

My father was a blacksmith, but he didn’t get payed much as we lived in a small town. One day I snuck into the farmer Andrew’s Jenkins chicken coop and stole one of his chickens, but as I was running away I was caught by passers by, Arthur Dawson and Olivia Dawson who took me to the policeman. I was triled and convicted in London Quarter sessions and in 1808 I was transported on Lady Juliana for term of seven years.
The boat was enormous; as I got on I could see the settlers saying there goodbyes to relatives. I was lead down stairs to a dark dungeon and taken to my hammock. The voyage was long and on the trip at 60 other women died and at least 20 of those were attacked and abused by the soldiers, 251 days later we arrived at Port Jackson. I was as skinny as a stick as convicts weren’t feed much, I was sent directly to the Female Factory. I was to line up at the Factory and a man would drop a scarf or handkerchief at the feet of the woman of his choice. If she picked it up, the marriage was virtually immediate, a man named peter Harrison dropped a scarf at my feet and I picked it up, we were married then and there.
Last night I stole this book with nothing in it from Peters draw I hoped he wouldn’t need it, little did I know that he was never going to need it, because he would die. Tonight as I was walking home from the factory and a soldier followed me. I was worried he might try to hurt me so I walked faster trying to get home to Peter, but I was too slow, he caught up with me, grabbed me by the arms, and pushed me against the wall. I screamed as loud as I could, I was right outside of our house. As his grip tightened, I heard the door open, I cried out “what do you want from me” and his reply was, “you, will you marry me”. I screamed NO as loud as I could as he pulled out a knife and said let’s try again, will you marry me?
Thankfully at that moment Peter saw me and pushed him away and started yelling in vulgar language at him, the soldier...