Who and What I Find (TE version)

Category: Edwards

  • Timothy Hoy

    TIMOTHY HOY (1782-1838)
    Timothy was born in Herefordshire, Essex, England. He was tried for breaking and entering the dwelling house of James Hawkins at Thorley, and stealing various articles of wearing apparel valued at £52.10s.0d. He was convicted at the Lent Assizes in Hertford in 1807 and sentenced to death. This was changed to transportation for 7 years. He came on the ship “Admiral Gambier” (1), which departed Portsmouth on 2nd July 1808 with 200 male convicts. The voyage took 171 days, arriving in Sydney on 22nd December 1808. Three convicts died on the voyage.

    Timothy was a brickmaker and stonemason, and helped in the construction of St Luke’s in Liverpool. In 1811 he married Bethia Edwards (1794-1864), daughter of James Freeman (Alexander 1788) & Mary Edwards (Mary Ann 1791). He was granted a Conditional Pardon by Governor Macquarie on 31st January 1820, and was granted land at Liverpool 5 months later on 1st July 1820. On his pardon he is described as 5 ft. 6 1/2 in. tall, dark ruddy complexion, brown hair and hazel eyes.

    In the 1822 Muster he was also renting land from Mr Dixon, with 15 acres of wheat, 1 of barley,1 horse, 2 horned cattle, and 2 hogs. This was most probably John Dickson, the husband of Susannah Martin, Bethia’s half sister. In the 1828 Census he had 100 acres at Liverpool called ‘White Hills’, 43 cleared, 30 cultivated, 4 horses, 30 cattle, and 1 convict working for him, named Begley.

    Timothy and Bethia had 11 children; William, James Harris, Susannah, Mary Ann, James, John, Elizabeth, Timothy, Regecca, Henry & Charlotte. Timothy died on 28th July 1838, and Bethia died on 1st December 1794. They were both buried at St Luke’s in Liverpool, Sydney

  • Mary Edwards (nee Mary Hopely, Mrs William Edwards)

    Mary Edwards was a convict aboard The Ship Mary Ann which sailed from England, on Wednesday, 16 February 1791 and arrived in Port Jackson on 9 July 1791, the first ship in the Third Fleet to arrive in Sydney. The ships Master was Mark Munroe. 

    Mary Edwards (maiden name Mary Hopely), wife of William Edwards, was born around 1766 in Herefordshire.

    In August 1789, both of them were arrested in Leominster where they then lived, and charged (Hereford 9 MAR 1790) with stealing shoes etc from a shop. William was acquitted, Mary sentenced to 7 years’ transportation. (It was that time in NSW history when the appeal had gone out for More Women, to redress the imbalance.) Mary was confined in Hereford Gaol until her departure aboard “Mary Ann” in February 1791.

    She lived with James Freeman, eventually married Abraham Martin, she retained her first husbands name from England.

    She had two children with James Freeman (Alexander 1788), Mary 1792-1801 and Berthina or Berthia 1794. Berthia married Timothy Hoy (Admiral Gambier, 1808). She had one child, Susannah 1800, with Abraham Martin.