Maria Lord (c. 1780 - 22 July 1859), also known as Maria Risley or Riseley, [1] was an Australian convict and entrepreneur.
Maria Risley was born in England c. 1780 to Robert and Mary Risley. In August 1802 she was sentenced at the Surrey assizes to seven years' transportation for stealing from a dwelling house. She reached Sydney on 24 June 1804 aboard the convict transport the Experiment . [2]
Almost exactly twelve months later, on 25 June 1805, she gave birth to a daughter, Caroline Maria Risley, whose father was recorded as John Thompson. Contemporary accounts suggest that some time in the second half of 1805 she was chosen from a line-up of women at the Parramatta Female Factory to become the convict servant of the well-to-do marine officer Edward Lord, who had travelled from Hobart to Sydney to 'find a wife'. [3] Maria and baby Caroline arrived in Van Diemen's Land in November 1805. Between 1806 and 1819 she and Edward Lord had eight children together. They married in 1808, after she was granted a free pardon. [4]
When Maria arrived in Hobart in 1805 she brought with her "a quantity of trading goods" and soon established a shop. [5] After Edward Lord resigned his commission in 1812, he engaged in trading, land acquisition and hotels and became one of the richest people in the colony, while Maria expanded the retail business. During these years she played a "crucial" role in building up the import and export side of the family business and in re-investing their growing capital. [6] She later did business in partnership with her brother John Risley, who arrived in the colony as a free settler in 1819. [7] She acted as Edward Lord's agent and managed his affairs with his power of attorney during his lengthy absences. By 1820, she reputedly controlled over a third of the resources in Van Diemen's Land, controlling the supply of wheat and meat and a portion of the profitable rum trade through monopolies. [8] Historians including Lloyd Robson and Manning Clark have blamed the Lord family business, and the Lords' exploitation of the colonial tendering system, for the corruption of the Van Diemonian economy and the displacement of the earlier small settlers. [9]
From 1816 Edward Lord spent less and less time in Van Diemen's Land, taking frequent trips back to England. During these absences Maria acted as his business agent and played a prominent role in Hobart society. During these years she lived in Ingle Hall, where she hosted dinners and balls. [10] Some time around 1822 she began spending time with Charles Rowcroft (later a well-known writer), a young English magistrate 14 years her junior who had recently arrived in the colony. [11]
In August 1823, Edward Lord placed a notice in the Hobart Town Gazette revoking Maria's authority over the family business, and in October Maria left Hobart to live at the family's country estate in New Plains. In 1824 Edward successfully sued Charles Rowcroft for "criminal conversation" and was awarded 100 pounds in damages, in a trial widely covered by the colonial press. [12] After the trial Edward left for England with their youngest daughter, then aged five. Maria returned to Hobart and opened a shop and a butchery; she also managed a boarding house in the 1830s, and eventually a small store in Bothwell. [13] She lived her last years at "The Priory", a property at Bothwell. [14] [15] She died on 22 July 1859 and was buried in a family plot at St Mathew's cemetery, New Norfolk. [16]
The historian Kay Daniels argued that both Maria and Edward Lord had been neglected by historians, and that Maria's life "illuminates a number of narratives which together make up the female convict experience in Australia". [17]
Kay Daniels, Convict Women. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1998.
Dianne Snowden, 'Lord, Maria (1780–1859)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lord-maria-13052/text23601, published first in hardcopy 2005, accessed online 24 August 2017.
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Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The island was previously discovered and named by the Dutch in 1642. Explorer Abel Tasman discovered the island, working under the sponsorship of Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. The British retained the name when they established a settlement in 1803 before it became a separate colony in 1825. Its penal colonies became notorious destinations for the transportation of convicts due to the harsh environment, isolation and reputation for being inescapable.
George Augustus Robinson was a British-born colonial official and self-trained preacher in colonial Australia. In 1824, Robinson travelled to Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land, where he attempted to negotiate a peace between European settlers and Aboriginal Tasmanians prior to the outbreak of the Black War. He was appointed Chief Protector of Aborigines by the Aboriginal Protection Board in Port Phillip District, New South Wales in 1839, a position he held until 1849. He is also remembered today for his role in the supply of Aboriginal remains to English 'collectors'.
The history of Tasmania begins at the end of the Last Glacial Period when it is believed that the island was joined to the Australian mainland. Little is known of the human history of the island until the British colonisation of Tasmania in the 19th century.
Colonel William Paterson, FRS was a Scottish soldier, explorer, Lieutenant Governor and botanist best known for leading early settlement at Port Dalrymple in Tasmania. In 1795, Paterson gave an order that resulted in the massacre of a number of men, women and children, members of the Bediagal tribe.
The West Coast of Tasmania has a significant convict heritage. The use of the west coast as an outpost to house convicts in isolated penal settlements occurred in the eras 1822–33, and 1846–47.
The following lists events that happened during 1790 in Australia.
Jane, Lady Franklin was a British explorer, seasoned traveler and the second wife of the English explorer Sir John Franklin. During her husband's period as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land, she became known for her philanthropic work and her travels throughout south-eastern Australia. After John Franklin's disappearance in search of the Northwest Passage, she sponsored or otherwise supported several expeditions to determine his fate.
Musquito was an Indigenous Australian resistance leader, convict hunter and outlaw based firstly in the Sydney region of the British colony of New South Wales and later in Van Diemen's Land.
Sir John Lewes Pedder was an English Australian judge, politician and grazier, he was the first Chief Justice of Van Diemen's Land.
Michael Howe was a British convict who became a notorious bushranger and gang leader in Van Diemen's Land, Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1814 in Australia.
Thomas Davey was a New South Wales Marine and member of the First Fleet to New South Wales, who went on to become the second Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land.
Campbell Town is a town in Tasmania, Australia, on the Midland Highway. At the 2021 census, the town had a population of 823.
Mary Lord née Hyde was an English Australian woman who in the period 1855 to 1859 sued the Commissioners of the City of Sydney and won compensation for the sum of over £15,600 for the inundation of her property at Botany.
Ocean was an English merchant ship and whaler built in 1794 at South Shields, England. She performed two voyages as an "extra" ship for the British East India Company (EIC) and later, in 1803, she accompanied HMS Calcutta to Port Phillip. The vessels supported the establishment of a settlement under the leadership of Lt Col David Collins. Calcutta transported convicts, with Ocean serving to transport supplies. When the settlers abandoned Port Phillip, Ocean, in two journeys, relocated the settlers, convicts and marines to the River Derwent in 1804.
Caroline Woolmer Leakey was an English writer, whose poetry and only novel were influenced and based on her experience living in Van Diemen's Land for five years between 1848 and 1853.
The Broad Arrow; Being Passages from the History of Maida Gwynnham, a Lifer is an 1859 novel published by the English writer Caroline Woolmer Leakey under the pseudonym Oliné Keese. Set in Van Diemen's Land, it was one of the first novels to describe the Australian convict system and one of only two colonial novels to feature a female convict as its main character. It has been described as a precursor of the better-known For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke (1870–72), who used Leakey's book as a source for his story.
Francis Allman was a commissioned officer of the British Army and was born in County Clare, Ireland on 1 November 1780. He enlisted as an ensign in the Queen's Royal Regiment of Foot with his brother John in 1794.
Babette Alison Smith was an Australian colonial historian, mediator and business executive. She wrote books about the convicts transported to Australia.
