Margaret Catchpole - a short history 1762-1819

A famous Suffolk country girl who fell in love with a smuggler and was transported to Australia in 1800 for horse-theft and gaol-breaking. She gained immortality due to the book written about her life and respect for her plucky, selfless deeds and the letters she wrote home which form an invaluable description of early settler life.

Although different accounts exist of her early years, it seems she was born into an ordinary farming community – possibly illegitimately – was baptised at Hoo church, up-river from Woodbridge, and raised by an uncle and aunt in a small cottage nearby. Noted from an early age for her horsemanship and courageous deeds, Margaret worked as a servant for several families before going to work in the Ipswich home of the Cobbolds – Ipswich’s brewing family. Unusually, she was taught to read and write by her mistress, Elizabeth Cobbold, and became a valued member of the household, not least for saving one of the Cobbold children from possible drowning on two occasions.

Her love for a local sailor-turned-smuggler, William Laud, led her to steal one of the Cobbold’s horses in 1797, about a year after she had left their employ. Tricked into thinking she was meeting Laud in London, she rode the seventy miles through the night, only to be captured and subsequently condemned to death. Supported by her ex-mistress, her sentence was commuted to transportation for seven years. While in Ipswich gaol, she escaped one night to join her lover and a ship to take them to Holland. They were recognised and intercepted on the beach, Laud was shot dead and a distraught Margaret returned to gaol.

A second death sentence was again commuted to transportation, this time for life, and she left Portsmouth aboard the Nile, arriving in Sydney in 1801. Yet again, her good nature and strength of character, not least her mid-wifery skills, drew her to people’s attention. She sent numerous letters back to England which became an invaluable record of early settler life, and longed for a pardon that would allow her to return home.

She died on 13 May 1819 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Richmond, New South Wales.

Nearly thirty years after her death, her eventful life was chronicled, not always accurately, in the 1847 novel The History of Margaret Catchpole: a Suffolk Girl by the Rev. Richard Cobbold.

© Copyright of Lifechart 2008

Our thanks go to: Colchester & Ipswich Museum for Richard Cobbold’s portrait of MC and Gainsborough’s Orford which hang in Christchurch Mansion; the Cobbold Family History Trust for the First Edition books, original watercolour print, handwriting and signature.