Australian Royalty: Genealogy of the colony of NSW

Born about 1806

Born about 1805 London England

Elizabeth Benson, one of 89 convicts transported on the ship Brothers, 20 November 1823.
Details: Sentence details: Convicted at Middlesex Gaol Delivery for a term of 7 years.
Vessel: Brothers.
Date of Departure: 20 November 1823.
Place of Arrival: New South Wales and Van Diemens Land.

Arrived 7 May 1824

Nothing is known of Elizabeth's background or early life. In May 1823 aged seventeen, she was working as a housemaid and living at the 'Key' public house, in Chandos Street in London's West End. In that month she was sentenced to seven years transportation at the Old Bailey for shoplifting six yards of printed cotton from a High Holborn linen draper's shop. Described as 'decent and well behaved' she sailed in Dec 1823 on the 'Brothers', a female convict ship, and reached Sydney in May 1824.
On arrival Elizabeth was assigned as a servant to Thomas and Christiana Blomfield, landowners of Maitland NSW who had two small boys. In Mar 1826 Elizabeth gave birth to an illegitimate child fathered by John Blaxland, the son of a neighbouring landholder. Her employer took her before a magistrate and she was ordered back to the Female Factory. The sentence was remitted when an enterprising Newcastle convict, John Mayo, offered to marry her.

John and Elizabeth did not marry. Elizabeth gave birth to an illegitimate child in Mar 1826

Married at Christ Church

On 24 Apr 1826 John and Elizabeth were granted permission to marry:
John Mayo 20 Baring (2) fourteen years [a sentence obtained in Sydney], bond, Rev. G. A. Middleton, Newcastle
Elizabeth Benson, 21, Brothers (1), seven years, bond

John Mayo 26 free by servitude Baring 2 1819 7 years, barber at Newcastle
Elizabeth Mayo 25 government servant brothers 1824 7 years
Mary Ann Mayo age 3 born in colony
Catherine Mayo aged 1 born in colony

Elizabeth and John established a shop and in 1832 moved to East Maitland. Elizabeth played an active roll in the business and continued running when her husband was ordered to road gangs in 1829, 1831 and 1833 for various offences. From 1830 when her sentence expired, Elizabeth took a more prominent roll (John's sentence did not expire until late 1834). She was allowed an assigned female convict servant and made a spirited challenge to a magistrate's action in withdrawing the servant in Apr 1833. From 1838 she assisted her husband in running the 'Maitland Wine Vaults' later known as the 'Hunter River Hotel' and had attained a high degree of affluence and respectability for an ex convict by the time of her death.