Mary Bryant
Encyclopedia
Mary Bryant was a Cornish
convict
sent to Australia
. She became one of the first successful escapees from the fledgling Australian penal colony.
, Cornwall
, United Kingdom
, to William Broad and Grace Symons Broad, a fishing family. She left home to seek work in Plymouth
, England, where she became involved in petty thievery. After being arrested for highway robbery of a silk bonnet
, jewellery
, a few coins
and food for her family, and committed by J Nicholls, Mayor of Plymouth, to gaol, with two accomplices - Cathrine Fryer and Mary Haysoning - she was sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia. In May 1787, Bryant was sent as a prisoner with the First Fleet
aboard the ship Charlotte
.
Bryant gave birth on the journey to a baby girl, whom she called Charlotte after the ship, and gave the surname Spence, after one of the other convicts, David Spencer, possibly the father. When she arrived in Australia, she married William Bryant on 10 February 1788. Bryant, a convicted smuggler, was also on the Charlotte with Mary and they later had a son together called Emanuel, born on 6 May 1790.
William Bryant was also from Cornwall, where he had worked as a fisherman. In Sydney Cove
, a colony just starting off, William was considered useful, and was put in charge of looking after the fishing ships. When he was caught selling fish on the side to convicts, he was given 100 lashes. He made a plan to escape with Mary, persuaded a Dutch captain to give him some sailing equipment, and waited until all boats that could chase after them had left. On 28 March 1791, William, Mary, her children, and a seven-man crew stole one of the governor's boats and many supplies.
After a voyage of sixty-six days, Mary, her children and the eight men reached Kupang
where she was forced to leave her friend, Sam Lily, in Timor
. Lily was sent back to Botany Bay to be interrogated and eventually hung. This extraordinary voyage became part of seafaring history, and has often been compared with William Bligh
's similar epic journey in an open boat of only two years earlier, after the mutiny on the Bounty
. Bligh's voyage had also ended in Timor. The trip involved navigating the then uncharted Great Barrier Reef
and the Torres Straits.
Timor was then under the control of the Dutch
. The Bryants and their crew claimed to be shipwreck survivors. They were later discovered to be British convicts, apparently after William became drunk and confessed in the process of bragging. The next day troops arrived at Timor searching for the escapees, and William distracted the troops in an attempt to let Mary and the children get away. William was shot down on the coast of Timor. Those that weren't shot were captured by Lieutenant Ralph Clarke and put on a ship back to England. During the voyage back, Mary's children perished of tropical fever; the younger child in late 1791, the elder in May 1792.
She expected to be hanged or returned to Australia. However, Mary Bryant was instead imprisoned for an additional year in Newgate Prison
, during which time a public outcry ensued, coupled with an onslaught of publicity by the famous writer and lawyer James Boswell
. As a result, she was pardoned in May 1793, as were the four surviving men of her crew later. Boswell gave her an annual pension
of 10 pounds, but nothing more is known of her life after her release.
Boswell had a reputation for amorous dalliances with lower class women and his friends took to imagining or joking that Botany Bay had provided him a new mistress. His friend William Parsons wrote a scurrilous poem in which they're imagined hanged together on the gallows at Tyburn in a final union. Yet despite this "elegantly turned prurience" (as Robert Hughes
put it), it seems Boswell was motivated only by sympathy and that all he received was a packet of "Botany Bay
tea leaves" (Correa
sp.). (The tea was found with papers at Boswell's Malahide Estate in Ireland in 1930. It and the papers are today at Yale University
, which gave a portion of the tea to the Mitchell Library in Australia.). She returned back to her family and remarried, but did not have any more children.
/Australian television movie
The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant
, with Romola Garai
(playing the eponymous heroine) Jack Davenport
and Sam Neill
. It was first screened in Australia on 30 October 2005 on Network Ten
as a two 2-hour part series. It was screened in the UK over Easter
weekend 2006 on ITV
. It was not an entirely historically accurate treatment of her story.
She also featured heavily in Timberlake Wertenbaker's play Our Country's Good
, which itself was based on Thomas Keneally's novel The Playmaker
. Both centre on the first Australian settlers' decision to stage a performance of The Recruiting Officer
, and the action ends just at the point of Bryant's escape.
The Mary Bryant story also featured in Patrick Edgeworth's play Boswell for the Defence. A huge success in London in 1989, it starred Leo McKern.
A musical titled Mary Bryant was written by Nick Enright
to music by David King http://www.hlamgt.com.au/news/2007/10/17/nick-enrights-mary-bryant-produced-by-magnormos/ http://www.australianstage.com.au/reviews/melbourne/mary-bryant--magnormos-906.html and was presented in Melbourne by Magnormos
, directed by Aaron Joyner with musical direction by Sophie Thomas and movement direction by Jessica Enes.
Mary Bryant is the subject of a one-woman physical theatre show, "Oh Mary!", devised and directed by Bec Applebee and Simon Harvey (Kneehigh Theatre
and O Region), and performed by Bec Applebee. It has an original script written by Anna Murphy (Kneehigh Theatre, BBC Radio 4), choreography by Helen Tiplady of Cscape Dance and a unique soundtrack recorded with award winning band Dalla and Radjel, including a special commission by Neil Davey. Currently (May 2011) touring the UK http://becapplebee.com/page3.htm.
Cornish people
The Cornish are a people associated with Cornwall, a county and Duchy in the south-west of the United Kingdom that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales, as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe...
convict
Convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...
sent to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. She became one of the first successful escapees from the fledgling Australian penal colony.
Life
Born Mary Broad (referred to as Mary Braund at the Exeter Assizes) in FoweyFowey
Fowey is a small town, civil parish and cargo port at the mouth of the River Fowey in south Cornwall, United Kingdom. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 2,273.-Early history:...
, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, to William Broad and Grace Symons Broad, a fishing family. She left home to seek work in Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
, England, where she became involved in petty thievery. After being arrested for highway robbery of a silk bonnet
Bonnet (headgear)
Bonnets are a variety of headgear for both sexes, which have in common only the absence of a brim. Bonnet derives from the same word in French, where it originally indicated a type of material...
, jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...
, a few coins
COinS
ContextObjects in Spans, commonly abbreviated COinS, is a method to embed bibliographic metadata in the HTML code of web pages. This allows bibliographic software to publish machine-readable bibliographic items and client reference management software to retrieve bibliographic metadata. The...
and food for her family, and committed by J Nicholls, Mayor of Plymouth, to gaol, with two accomplices - Cathrine Fryer and Mary Haysoning - she was sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia. In May 1787, Bryant was sent as a prisoner with the First Fleet
First Fleet
The First Fleet is the name given to the eleven ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 with about 1,487 people, including 778 convicts , to establish the first European colony in Australia, in the region which Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The fleet was led by Captain ...
aboard the ship Charlotte
Charlotte (ship)
The Charlotte was a First Fleet transport ship of 335 tons, built on the River Thames in 1787. She was a light sailer, and had to be towed down the English Channel for the first few days of the voyage...
.
Bryant gave birth on the journey to a baby girl, whom she called Charlotte after the ship, and gave the surname Spence, after one of the other convicts, David Spencer, possibly the father. When she arrived in Australia, she married William Bryant on 10 February 1788. Bryant, a convicted smuggler, was also on the Charlotte with Mary and they later had a son together called Emanuel, born on 6 May 1790.
William Bryant was also from Cornwall, where he had worked as a fisherman. In Sydney Cove
Sydney Cove
Sydney Cove is a small bay on the southern shore of Port Jackson , on the coast of the state of New South Wales, Australia....
, a colony just starting off, William was considered useful, and was put in charge of looking after the fishing ships. When he was caught selling fish on the side to convicts, he was given 100 lashes. He made a plan to escape with Mary, persuaded a Dutch captain to give him some sailing equipment, and waited until all boats that could chase after them had left. On 28 March 1791, William, Mary, her children, and a seven-man crew stole one of the governor's boats and many supplies.
After a voyage of sixty-six days, Mary, her children and the eight men reached Kupang
Kupang
Not to be confused with Tanjung Kupang in JohoreKupang is the provincial capital of East Nusa Tenggara province in southeast Indonesia....
where she was forced to leave her friend, Sam Lily, in Timor
Timor
Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. It is divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, belonging to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. The island's surface is 30,777 square kilometres...
. Lily was sent back to Botany Bay to be interrogated and eventually hung. This extraordinary voyage became part of seafaring history, and has often been compared with William Bligh
William Bligh
Vice Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMAV Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers...
's similar epic journey in an open boat of only two years earlier, after the mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty
The mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny that occurred aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, and has been commemorated by several books, films, and popular songs, many of which take considerable liberties with the facts. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against the...
. Bligh's voyage had also ended in Timor. The trip involved navigating the then uncharted Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is the world'slargest reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres over an area of approximately...
and the Torres Straits.
Timor was then under the control of the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. The Bryants and their crew claimed to be shipwreck survivors. They were later discovered to be British convicts, apparently after William became drunk and confessed in the process of bragging. The next day troops arrived at Timor searching for the escapees, and William distracted the troops in an attempt to let Mary and the children get away. William was shot down on the coast of Timor. Those that weren't shot were captured by Lieutenant Ralph Clarke and put on a ship back to England. During the voyage back, Mary's children perished of tropical fever; the younger child in late 1791, the elder in May 1792.
She expected to be hanged or returned to Australia. However, Mary Bryant was instead imprisoned for an additional year in Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...
, during which time a public outcry ensued, coupled with an onslaught of publicity by the famous writer and lawyer James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
. As a result, she was pardoned in May 1793, as were the four surviving men of her crew later. Boswell gave her an annual pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
of 10 pounds, but nothing more is known of her life after her release.
Boswell had a reputation for amorous dalliances with lower class women and his friends took to imagining or joking that Botany Bay had provided him a new mistress. His friend William Parsons wrote a scurrilous poem in which they're imagined hanged together on the gallows at Tyburn in a final union. Yet despite this "elegantly turned prurience" (as Robert Hughes
Robert Hughes (critic)
Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...
put it), it seems Boswell was motivated only by sympathy and that all he received was a packet of "Botany Bay
Botany Bay
Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
tea leaves" (Correa
Correa
Correa is a genus of mainly eastern Australian plants with distinctive bell-shaped flowers. Correa is in the family Rutaceae, and like many in this family the crushed leaves have a distinctive scent. There are ca. 11 species in the genus, though natural hybridisation between the species makes...
sp.). (The tea was found with papers at Boswell's Malahide Estate in Ireland in 1930. It and the papers are today at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, which gave a portion of the tea to the Mitchell Library in Australia.). She returned back to her family and remarried, but did not have any more children.
Drama
She was the subject of a BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
/Australian television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant
The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant
The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant is a 2005 film loosely based on the life of Mary Bryant, a Cornish girl convicted of petty theft and is transported to the Australian Penal Colony on the First Fleet with other prisoners bound for Botany Bay. It is written by Peter Berry and directed by Peter...
, with Romola Garai
Romola Garai
Romola Sadie Garai is an English actress. She is known for appearing in the movies Amazing Grace, Atonement, and Glorious 39, and for appearing in the BBC adaptation of Emma.-Early life:...
(playing the eponymous heroine) Jack Davenport
Jack Davenport
Jack Davenport is an English actor, best known for his roles in the television series This Life, Coupling and as James Norrington in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. He has also appeared in many other Hollywood films such as The Talented Mr. Ripley...
and Sam Neill
Sam Neill
Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
. It was first screened in Australia on 30 October 2005 on Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
as a two 2-hour part series. It was screened in the UK over Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
weekend 2006 on ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
. It was not an entirely historically accurate treatment of her story.
She also featured heavily in Timberlake Wertenbaker's play Our Country's Good
Our Country's Good
Our Country's Good is a 1988 play written by British playwright, Timberlake Wertenbaker, adapted from the Thomas Keneally novel The Playmaker. The story concerns a group of Royal Marines and convicts in a penal colony in New South Wales, in the 1780s, who put on a production of The Recruiting...
, which itself was based on Thomas Keneally's novel The Playmaker
The Playmaker
The Playmaker is a novel based in Australia written by the Australian author Thomas Keneally.In 1789 in Sydney Cove, the remotest penal colony of the British Empire, a group of convicts and one of their captors unite to stage a play...
. Both centre on the first Australian settlers' decision to stage a performance of The Recruiting Officer
The Recruiting Officer
The Recruiting Officer is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury to recruit soldiers...
, and the action ends just at the point of Bryant's escape.
The Mary Bryant story also featured in Patrick Edgeworth's play Boswell for the Defence. A huge success in London in 1989, it starred Leo McKern.
A musical titled Mary Bryant was written by Nick Enright
Nick Enright
-Life:He was drama captain of St Ignatius' College, Riverview in 1964, where, like Gerard Windsor and Justin Fleming, he was taught by Melvyn Morrow. At that school, he won the 1sts Debating Premiership in both 1966 and 1967....
to music by David King http://www.hlamgt.com.au/news/2007/10/17/nick-enrights-mary-bryant-produced-by-magnormos/ http://www.australianstage.com.au/reviews/melbourne/mary-bryant--magnormos-906.html and was presented in Melbourne by Magnormos
Magnormos
Magnormos is an independent musical theatre production company based in Melbourne, Australia, that specialises in producing musicals written by Australian writers, and landmark international works....
, directed by Aaron Joyner with musical direction by Sophie Thomas and movement direction by Jessica Enes.
Mary Bryant is the subject of a one-woman physical theatre show, "Oh Mary!", devised and directed by Bec Applebee and Simon Harvey (Kneehigh Theatre
Kneehigh Theatre
Kneehigh Theatre is an international theatre company based in Cornwall, England.Kneehigh was started in 1980 by Mike Shepherd. Early productions were performed in village halls, marquees, cliff-tops and quarries...
and O Region), and performed by Bec Applebee. It has an original script written by Anna Murphy (Kneehigh Theatre, BBC Radio 4), choreography by Helen Tiplady of Cscape Dance and a unique soundtrack recorded with award winning band Dalla and Radjel, including a special commission by Neil Davey. Currently (May 2011) touring the UK http://becapplebee.com/page3.htm.
Books about Bryant
- Cook, Judith (1993) To Brave Every Danger: the epic life of Mary Bryant of Fowey, highwaywoman and convicted felon, her transportation and amazing escape from Botany Bay. London: Macmillan ISBN 0-333-57438-9
- Currey, C. H. (1963) The Transportation, Escape and Pardoning of Mary Bryant (née Broad). Sydney: Angus and Robertson
- Durand, John (2005) "The Odyssey of Mary B" Elkhorn WI ISBN 0-9743783-1-3
- Erickson, Carolly (2005) The Girl From Botany Bay. Hoboken, NJ.: John Wiley ISBN 0-471-27140-3
- Hausman, Gerald & Loretta (2003) Escape from Botany Bay: the true story of Mary Bryant. New York: Orchard Books ISBN 0439403278
- Hughes, Robert The Fatal ShoreThe Fatal ShoreThe Fatal Shore. The epic of Australia's founding, by Robert Hughes, published 1987 by Harvill Press, is a historical account of the United Kingdom's settlement of Australia as a penal colony with convicts. The book details the period 1770 onwards through white settlement to the 1840s, when...
: a history of the transportation of convicts to Australia, 1787-1868. New York: Knopf ISBN 1-86046-150-6 - Kampen, Anthony van (1968) Het leven van Mary Bryant. 3 vols. Bussum: Unieboek NV (in Dutch)
- King, Jonathan (2004) Mary Bryant: her life and escape from Botany Bay. Pymble, N.S.W.: Simon & Schuster Australia
- Pearse, Lesley (2003) Remember Me. London: Michael Joseph (London: Penguin Books, 2004 ISBN 0-14-100649-8) (historical novel)
- Pottle, Frederick A. (1938) Boswell and the Girl from Botany Bay. London: Heinemann
- Scutt, Craig (2007) Mary Bryant: The Impossible Escape. Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia; Black Dog BooksBlack Dog BooksBlack Dog Books is an independent publisher and production house based in Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia. They publish books in all genres but focus mainly on children's literature.-History:...
ISBN 9781921167614 - Veitch, Anthony Scott (1980) Spindrift, The Mary Bryant Story: a colonial saga. Australia: Angus & Robertson Publishers ISBN 0-207-14409-5
- Walker, Mike (2005) A Long Way Home. Chichester; Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley
External links
- Mary Bryant movie at The Internet Movie Database
- First Fleet Online at University of Wollongong
- Mary Broad Christening and Family information from IGI