Mary Bryant
| Mary Bryant | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Mary Broad 1765 Fowey, Cornwall, England |
| Died | after 1794 Cornwall, England? |
| Occupation | thief, highwaywman |
| Spouse(s) |
William Bryant m. 1788; dec. 1791 |
| Children | Charlotte Bryant (1787–1792) Emanuel Bryant (1790–1791) |
| Parent(s) | William Broad Grace Symons Broad |
Mary Bryant (1765–after 1794) was a Cornish convict sent to Australia. She became one of the first successful escapees from the fledgling Australian penal colony.
Bryant was born Mary Broad (referred to as Mary Braund at the Exeter Assizes) in Fowey, 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 bad petty thievery. She, along with Catherine Fryer and Mary Hayden alias Shepherd, robbed and violently assaulted Agnes Lakeman on a road in Plymouth, stealing a silk bonnet valued at 12 pence, and other goods valued at £1 and 11 shillings. All three were senteced to hang on 20 March 1786, which was commuted to seven years' transportation during the following month.
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, whom she called Charlotte. 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, Emanuel, born on 6 May 1790.
William Bryant was also from Cornwall, where he had worked as a fisherman. In early New South Wales, William was considered useful, and was put in charge of looking after the fishing ships. When he was caught selling fish on the side, he was given 100 lashes. He made a plan to escape with Mary, persuading 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 and Mary Bryant, the children, in company with fellow prisoners William Allen, Samuel Bird alias John Simms, Samuel Broom alias John Butcher, James Cox alias Rolt, Nathaniel Lillie, and William Morton (an experienced navigator), stole Governor Arthur Phillip's six-oared cutter. After a voyage of sixty-six days, the group reached Kupang, in West Timor on the island of Timor, a journey of 5,000 kilometres. This voyage has often been compared with William Bligh's similar 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.
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