MENTION the name Mary Bryant in Australia, and you are bound to provoke wistful musings. Most people today know her from the popular television miniseries that chronicled her incredible tale of daring, adventure, and tragedy. Those who have dug deeper know that the real story is fascinating enough. No need for embellishment here.
Many of you are aware that England originally committed Australia to be a prison colony. In the final twelve years of the 1800s, thousands of criminals made the journey around the world to live out their sentences in Australia rather than old prison hulks along the Thames River or in Portsmouth. Mary was a member of the first group that sailed, known to history as the First Fleet.
The epic story of the First Fleet is its own saga, and the tales of hardship, abuse, and adventure would fill two libraries. Mary had her own adventures, and she became pregnant along the way, the father being fellow convict William Bryant, whom she later married.
Upon arrival in Australia, everyone in the First Fleet struggled mightily just to survive. Australia hardly lived up to the hype of being a healthy, wealthy, fertile place to live in the early days. Nevertheless, William did well for himself. As a skilled fisherman, he was put in charge of the fishing fleet, whose desperate mission was to supplement the meager food stocks coming from the farms. He gained access to boats and equipment, and when the time came, a sympathetic ally.
In 1791, three years after their arrival, William, Mary and a small group of other prisoners stole the governor’s launch and sailed away from the colony near modern-day Sydney, determined to find freedom. They traveled north into the then-uncharted Great Barrier Reef, a choice that was risky and brilliant. Risky because the chances were slim that they could survive the trip, brilliant because no ship captain would be foolish enough to pursue them.
The party successfully navigated the Reef, crossed the Torres Strait, and sailed on to Timor in modern Indonesia, a journey of nearly 3,500 miles in a small open boat. That epic voyage compares with that of William Bligh, who accomplished a similar feat only a couple years before. Had the story ended there, Mary and William would stand out as great personalities in the history of the South Pacific, but it does not end there.
Once at Timor, the group sold the story that they were shipwrecked survivors of an English vessel that went down near Australia, but their true identities soon leaked out. Mary and her party were arrested and awaited a return either to England or to Australia.
Coincidentally, Captain Edward Edwards (who does that to their child?) arrived in Timor, having recently survived his own shipwreck. Edwards was sent to collect the fugitives of the Mutiny on the Bounty, caught many of them, then lost his ship, Pandora. Together with Edwards, the Pandora survivors and the Bounty mutineers, Mary sailed for England aboard a Dutch ship.
By then, Mary had lost William and one of their children to illness in Timor, which was famously unhealthy. Her final child, Charlotte, died on route back to England. Mary was now alone once again to face the authorities.
In England, she stood trial for escaping Australia, but her plight caught the attention of a prominent attorney who took up her case. She returned to jail for another year to finish out her original sentence and was released. The last anyone heard from Mary, she returned to Cornwall to live with her family, apparently without breaking the law.
Phew! A petty criminal languishing in a prison hulk in England, a member, or should we say survivor of the First Fleet, a convict in Australia, an escaped convict, a sailor of one of the greatest sea voyages in Pacific history, the last survivor of her immediate family, and finally a free woman. Mary Bryant has earned our fascination and our respect.
BC Cook, PhD lived on Saipan and has taught history for 20 years. He currently resides on the mainland U.S.
BC Cook
