User:Euryalus/Adams

Mary Adams (c. 1757 – 30 April 1788) was an English convict sent to Australia aboard a ship of the First Fleet. A domestic servant, Adams was arrested and convicted in 1786 for the theft of clothes and a thimble, and the attempted theft of four pots. She was sentenced to seven years penal transportation, but died three months after arrival in the prison colony of New South Wales and was buried beside the shore of Sydney Cove.

Early life
Prior to her arrest, Adams had been living with a soldier, Thomas Boxley, at a lodging house in Marygold Court in the London parish of St Mary le Strand (later, the Strand District). In October 1786 Adams was engaged as a domestic servant for John Oliver, the proprietor of The Green Man public house in Willesden. She moved from Marygold Court into a room in the Oliver's home, but left suddenly a week later. Afterward, John Oliver and his wife Ann noticed the absence of a quantity of clothing and a silver thimble.

Late in the evening of 3 November, John Oliver was woken by the sound of breaking glass from the pantry in the public house. Going to investigate, he discovered Adams standing outside the broken pantry window, seemingly in the process of removing a number of brass pots. Oliver shouted, and a passing parish patrol heard his cry. Adams was arrested in the public house yard and taken to a police post in Litchfield; a subsequent search of her lodgings swiftly revealed the thimble and some of the Oliver's missing clothing. On 4 November she was charged with theft and attempted burglary and transferred to Newgate Prison to await trial.

Trial for theft
On 13 December 1786, Adams was brought before a twelve-member jury and Judge Baron Hotham at the Old Bailey, to face charges of theft from the Oliver's home.

Oliver and his wife Ann gave evidence that they were missing a silver thimble, worth one shilling, and a bundle of clothes - two cotton gowns, one green and one white petticoat, two shirts, one shift, one hat and an ostrich feather. The estimated worth of the clothing was 42 shillings, including 12 shillings apiece for the gowns and 6 shillings for the feather. They identified the shift and thimble from Adams' home as being theirs, and drew the court's attention to Adams' possession of pawnbroker receipts for the other missing items. A police constable, William Pickering, and the keeper of the Litchfield police post, Patrick Divine, corroborated the finding of the missing items in Adams' home.

Two pawnbrokers, Robert Payne and George Gabell, attested that Adams had come to their shops in mid-October to sell expensive gowns and petticoats which she had claimed were hers. Adams' partner Thomas Boxley was also called, and denied ever seeing any of the missing items.

Adams herself denied she had deliberately taken the clothes. She claimed the Olivers themselves had put the missing gowns and petticoats in her room, and they had then become accidentally mixed in with her own clothing. She told the court her employment had not been happy, as Mrs Oliver was "always drunk" and both Mr and Mrs Oliver had "used [her] very ill" and failed to pay her wages. She had decided to leave their employ, and so had bundled her clothes together and departed. It was only a fortnight later that she realized she had taken the Oliver's goods along with her own.

She was found guilty of stealing clothing and a thimble with a combined worth of 30 shillings, and was sentenced to seven years penal transportation.