Australian Royalty: Genealogy of the colony of NSW

Mary was born in Halesowen, Worcestershire, England in 1779, the eldest child of Edward Hyde and Sarah Blunn. Mary also had a younger brother John who was born two years later.

Mary was convicted at the Warwickshire Assizes of theft and sent to Australia in 1798 on board the Britannia.

Mary Hide, one of 97 convicts transported on the ship 'Britannia', January 1798.
Convicted at Warwick Assizes for a term of 7 years.
Vessel: Britannia.
Date of Departure: January 1798.
Place of Arrival: New South Wales.

In November 1795, at the age of 16, Mary was accused of stealing items of clothing from Francis Deakin, her employer, including 1 black silk cloak, 1 muslin shawl, 1 cotton gown, 1 dimity petticoat, 2 pair of cotton stockings and 1 pair of scissors. On 21 March 1796, at the age of 17, Mary, who also used her mother’s name as an alias, was sentenced at the Warwickshire Assizes to 7 years transportation to New South Wales for theft. She was not transported until 1798.

On 18 July 1798 Mary arrived in Sydney, one of 95 female convicts on board the Britannia II, a whaling ship that had also previously brought convicts to Sydney in May 1797. Females were in short supply in the Colony, and competition for the newly arrived female convicts on that day was described by David Collins in “An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales” as like a cattle auction. The lot of the women who arrived that day was to be a servant or a “wife” to a stranger, or a hut-keeper for convict males at Parramatta for those who would not go with one man. As Mary stayed in Sydney, it can only be assumed that she was initially chosen by one of the men in the “cattle auction” on board the deck of the Britannia II.

Mary Hide had a relationship with John Black a Naval Office and they had 2 children John Henry 1799 and Mary Ann 1801. John was lost at sea in 1802 on his ship the "Fly" between Sydney and India. Mary then married Simeon Lord a former convict in 1814.

In August 1798, when they were both 19 years old, Mary met John Black, a ship's officer who had survived the mutiny on the Lady Shore in 1797, and who that month had arrived in Sydney on board the Indispensible. Mary came under John’s “protection” and fell pregnant almost immediately, and they went on to have two children. Mary, however, was often "keeping the home fires burning" as John was away for months at a time either whaling or otherwise working his trade as a ship's captain. The longest time that Mary got to spend with Black was from 11 January 1801 to 1 January 1802, when he entered into the liquor trade and established a shop on his leased land.

Mary Hyde of Sydney a single woman was married to Simeon Lord Esq. of Sydney by Rev. B. Vale at St Philips Sydney on 27 Oct 1814, a licence having been obtained 25 Oct 1814

Lord, Simeon, 58, free by servitude, Atlantic, 1791, 7 years, Protestant, merchant, Macquarie Place, Sydney
Lord, Mary, 40, free by servitude, Britannia, 1801, 7 years, Protestant
Lord, Francis, 16, born in the colony
Lord, Edward, 14, born in the colony
Lord, Thomas, 12, born in the colony
Lord, George, 10, born in the colony
Lord, Robert, 8, born in the colony

Mary in the period 1855 to 1859 sued the Commissioners of the City of Sydney and won compensation for the enormous sum of over £15,600 (plus costs) for the inundation of her property at Botany.

Mary is noted for her pertinacity. Despite in late 1855 partially winning her case through the New South Wales Courts, Mary appealed and 3 years later in early 1859 won fully after taking her case as far as the Privy Council in England, the final court of appeal then available to a British subject living in the Colony of New South Wales.

In 1859, in the 70-year-old Colony of New South Wales, her court case, although largely ignored by historians, was nevertheless an achievement: women did not have the vote; and Mary lived in a male dominated society governed by British law where women had little power. Married women had no power at all, and Mary was only able to sue as being a widow she was no longer married.[6]

Having experienced life as a woman in Victorian society, single, married and widowed, Mary became concerned with what today would be called a feminist issue. She stipulated in her will that any bequests made to her daughters and granddaughters were to be given to them in their own right and that their husbands should not have any say. She attempted to give her daughters and granddaughters control over their own inheritances. Unfortunately the law of the day overrode her stated wishes. Remembering that Colonies in Australia were largely governed by English law, prior to the English 1887 Married Woman's Property Act (which was a rallying point for many first-wave feminists in the late nineteenth century, and was only passed after years of intense political lobbying by dedicated women) a married woman could own no property, and was the chattel of her husband. Any property that she had owned as a single woman, or that she inherited as a married woman whether in goods, money, or land, passed into the ownership of her husband.