Charlotte Humphries, Convict “Earl Cornwallis” 1801

Charlotte Badger was an emancipated convict who In 1806 was on the colonial brig, Venus, when it was taken over by some of the crew in the estuary of the Tamar River in Tasmania. Charlotte was briefly at the Bay of Islands in New Zealand where she was rescued by Captain Turnbull of the Indispensible, and eventually she made it back to Sydney. Source: WikiTree.

Charlotte Badger was born in 1778, the daughter of Thomas and Ann Badger. She was baptised at Bromsgrove, Worcestershire on 31 July 1778. At the Assizes for the County of Worcester in June 1796: "Charlotte Badger, for feloniously breaking the house of Benjamin Wright, of Bromsgrove, and stealing thereout four guineas and a Queen Anne's half-crown". She and several other convicted criminals were capitally convicted, but were reprieved before the Judge left the city.[4] Her conviction was reduced from death to transportation for seven years. She was eighteen years old at the time. It was not until four years later, in 1800, that Charlotte boarded the convict vessel Earl Cornwallis. The journey lasted a gruelling 206 days before she arrived in New South Wales. n 1803 Charlotte had served her sentence and was a free woman. By April 1806 Charlotte had an infant child. The Venus was a vessel chartered by the colonial government to carry supplies of salted pork and other food to Port Dalrymple at Van Diemen’s Land. The Venus set sail from Sydney on 29 April 1806. On the ship was Charlotte Badger, who had an infant with her, and there was another woman, Catharine Hegarty who was sharing quarters with the first mate, Benjamin Burnet Kelly. It is unknown why Charlotte Badger was on the ship. During the voyage Catharine Hegarty exhibited strange behaviour when she threw overboard a small wooden box of personal papers that Captain Chace was delivering to one of the military commanders at Port Dalrymple. On 16 June the Venus reached the port in the Tamar River, on the northern coast of Tasmania. Soon after arriving, while Captain Chace was off the ship, first mate Kelly, the ship’s pilot David Evans, and an army corporal Richard Thompson took over the ship... The mutineers sailed the Venus across the Tasman and reached the Bay of Islands a few weeks later... There is evidence that after they had been landed from the Venus in the Bay of Islands, the two women had been kept in their own quarters and the chiefs had declared them strongly tapu... Later the Indispensible, Captain Turnbull, visited New Zealand and picked up Charlotte Badger... Charlotte Badger was recorded as arriving at Sydney NSW on the Porpoise on 13 July 1807 from Norfolk Island. The passenger list has the remark: “Brought from New Zealand in the Indispensible and is one of the women who was in the Venus Schooner when ran away with from P. Dalrymple.” In the February 1811 Muster for NSW she is listed as Charlotte Badger (Earl Cornwallis). On 4 June 1811 Charlotte "Badgery" (Spinster, abode Sydney) to Thomas Humphries, (bachelor, abode Sydney , Private Invalid Company). They both marked the register with a cross... Source: WikiTree.

Jennifer Ashton has also found other evidence which contradicts the story that Charlotte got off the Venus in the Bay of Islands and lived among Māori. “If you look through New South Wales census records … you can find Charlotte Badger living in New South Wales in 1811 and right up until the mid 1820s.” she says. There is one small aberration in those records, though. Charlotte does not appear in the 1806 census - the year the Venus was stolen. That means it’s possible she really was on the ship, and really did sail to New Zealand but returned to New South Wales without anyone noticing. Jennifer Ashton thinks that scenario is very unlikely. “Runaway convicts were a big issue,” she says. “I would have thought that if someone who had been involved in piracy arrived back in New South Wales that it would have made the news and that person would have faced further justice - and there’s no mention of her ever facing any further justice.” Source: RNZ. Pirate Mystery: the story of Charlotte Badger.

Sources

1. Mary Louise Ormsby. 'Badger, Charlotte', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1b1/badger-charlotte (accessed 5 February 2022)
2. RNZ. Pirate Mystery: the story of Charlotte Badger https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/black-sheep/story/2018634264/pirat...
3. WikiTree: Charlotte Badger managed by the Australia Project https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Badger-209