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One Free Woman: The True Story of Convict Hannah Rigby
These women are twice convicted, and among them are no doubt some of the most depraved of their sex. -- James Backhouse.
‘A heartbreaking and compelling story of a spirited convict woman.’
Hannah Rigby was a poor Liverpool seamstress, a prisoner and a serial thief. Exiled from her homeland, oppressed by poverty and rigid social mores, used and discarded by a series of men. An “exemplary” servant who was fond of a lark – and a single mother determined to keep her family together.
One Free Woman tells the compelling true story of the only female convict to stay in Moreton Bay when the penal settlement closed – a woman who notoriously served three separate sentences of transportation, including two at one of the harshest establishments in the country.
It is a heartbreaking and sensitively told story of a life that was typical of many women of the time struggling against poverty and gender inequality – women whose voices throughout history have seldom been heard.
One Free Woman reveals new information and celebrates a remarkable woman who, despite a lifetime of immeasurable suffering and loss, could still summon the joy to dance until she dropped.
‘A fascinating portrait of an extraordinary life.’
Sophie Masson AM, award-winning author
‘A heartbreaking and compelling story of a spirited convict woman.’
Hannah Rigby was a poor Liverpool seamstress, a prisoner and a serial thief. Exiled from her homeland, oppressed by poverty and rigid social mores, used and discarded by a series of men. An “exemplary” servant who was fond of a lark – and a single mother determined to keep her family together.
One Free Woman tells the compelling true story of the only female convict to stay in Moreton Bay when the penal settlement closed – a woman who notoriously served three separate sentences of transportation, including two at one of the harshest establishments in the country.
It is a heartbreaking and sensitively told story of a life that was typical of many women of the time struggling against poverty and gender inequality – women whose voices throughout history have seldom been heard.
One Free Woman reveals new information and celebrates a remarkable woman who, despite a lifetime of immeasurable suffering and loss, could still summon the joy to dance until she dropped.
‘A fascinating portrait of an extraordinary life.’
Sophie Masson AM, award-winning author
- GenresHistoryNonfictionCrime
Kindle Edition
Published January 29, 2025
3 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Jane Smith
23 books15 followersI’m an author, librarian/archivist and freelance book editor. I love bringing history to life through fiction and non-fiction for all ages. Four of my books have been short- or long-listed for literary awards.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 17, 2024
Author and historian Jane Smith does an amazing job building a picture of Hannah Rigby’s life, evoking the atmosphere of the time as well as the otherwise unimaginable hardships for Hannah.
Hannah was born in the 1790s in Liverpool, northwest England. She began her working life as a seamstress, which was low status and low pay so it’s likely her expectations for herself were simply to survive. She had the first of her four sons while living in Liverpool, when she was probably still in her teens. Her sons were all fathered by different men, none of whom were her husband. It’s not clear whether these 'relations' were her solace or only transactional, but what is clear is that without a profession, or much education, Hannah had limited means of survival.
Hannah had a hardscrabble life of poverty and difficulty, and unfortunately the available records do not often (or ever) show the good stuff - friendships or moments of happiness or if she had a sense of humour or adventure, so we don't know how much joy there was in her life.
Hannah was transported to Australia on the Lord Sidmouth after a period in Preston Prison in Liverpool, for stealing from a haberdashery. Much has been written elsewhere about the harsh and disproportionate punishments given to minor offenders. Author Jane doesn’t dwell on this here but it’s clear that so much of what happened to Hannah (and women like her) was unnecessary and counterproductive to her being able to build a life of even minor prosperity. Along the way we learn about the founding of Brisbane as a penal settlement, and the opening up of Moreton Bay. There’s consideration of the First Nations people who were displaced (and worse) and a throughline about the treatment of women. After Hannah arrived in Australia in 1823, she wasn't a free woman until 1840, and by then she was in her 50s.
Jane’s descriptions of Hannah’s time on the Lord Sidmouth when she was being transported are particularly vivid to me - the combination of characters and personalities on the ship, the hardship and deprivations, the water (or lack of it), illness, darkness, cruelty, and most of all the smell - let's be honest - how absolutely disgusting it was. I’m trying to imagine this time in Hannah’s life, as I drink my extra-hot cappucino …
Her relationships with her sons seem tragic to our sensibilities, but it may be that her separations from them were normal for her class and her time - another thing we will never know. Even so, I particularly liked how Jane was able to reflect on Hannah’s life, but also stayed close to the public record. This is real history, Hannah’s life was relatively small and insignificant, but Jane has given her a story and some dignity - if not a voice. Jane uses a range of sources, such as first-person logbooks and diaries, public records, and existing scholarship to piece together not just Hannah’s life, but also the people who she comes into contact with and the social and political events of the time.
Thank you Jane for bringing us Hannah’s story - a wonderful, if not always comfortable read. I’m grateful to have received an ARC and opinions are all my own.
Hannah was born in the 1790s in Liverpool, northwest England. She began her working life as a seamstress, which was low status and low pay so it’s likely her expectations for herself were simply to survive. She had the first of her four sons while living in Liverpool, when she was probably still in her teens. Her sons were all fathered by different men, none of whom were her husband. It’s not clear whether these 'relations' were her solace or only transactional, but what is clear is that without a profession, or much education, Hannah had limited means of survival.
Hannah had a hardscrabble life of poverty and difficulty, and unfortunately the available records do not often (or ever) show the good stuff - friendships or moments of happiness or if she had a sense of humour or adventure, so we don't know how much joy there was in her life.
Hannah was transported to Australia on the Lord Sidmouth after a period in Preston Prison in Liverpool, for stealing from a haberdashery. Much has been written elsewhere about the harsh and disproportionate punishments given to minor offenders. Author Jane doesn’t dwell on this here but it’s clear that so much of what happened to Hannah (and women like her) was unnecessary and counterproductive to her being able to build a life of even minor prosperity. Along the way we learn about the founding of Brisbane as a penal settlement, and the opening up of Moreton Bay. There’s consideration of the First Nations people who were displaced (and worse) and a throughline about the treatment of women. After Hannah arrived in Australia in 1823, she wasn't a free woman until 1840, and by then she was in her 50s.
Jane’s descriptions of Hannah’s time on the Lord Sidmouth when she was being transported are particularly vivid to me - the combination of characters and personalities on the ship, the hardship and deprivations, the water (or lack of it), illness, darkness, cruelty, and most of all the smell - let's be honest - how absolutely disgusting it was. I’m trying to imagine this time in Hannah’s life, as I drink my extra-hot cappucino …
Her relationships with her sons seem tragic to our sensibilities, but it may be that her separations from them were normal for her class and her time - another thing we will never know. Even so, I particularly liked how Jane was able to reflect on Hannah’s life, but also stayed close to the public record. This is real history, Hannah’s life was relatively small and insignificant, but Jane has given her a story and some dignity - if not a voice. Jane uses a range of sources, such as first-person logbooks and diaries, public records, and existing scholarship to piece together not just Hannah’s life, but also the people who she comes into contact with and the social and political events of the time.
Thank you Jane for bringing us Hannah’s story - a wonderful, if not always comfortable read. I’m grateful to have received an ARC and opinions are all my own.
April 1, 2025
Hannah Rigby is not a famous name in the history of Australia’s earliest days of white convict settlement – but despite the challenges of her life as a woman, a serial thief, a convict, and an unwed mother, she fought against stigma, suffering and oppression to fight for her life and her family.
Author Jane Smith became intrigued by Hannah Rigby’s story while researching a different book, and has thrown herself into discovering and describing what life might have been like for Hannah in the early 1800s, from her court appearance, imprisonment and transportation to the difficulties of her life in Sydney’s Female Factory for convict women and as an assigned servant to different households of the colony.
With few records or exact detail from Hannah Rigby’s life – in between convictions for theft she seems mostly to have kept out of trouble – Smith does a good job at distilling the likely conditions affecting women in Hannah’s position, extrapolating from other accounts to build a systematic picture of her probable life, supported with existing documentary evidence.
While it’s a little frustrating to know so little that’s concrete about Hannah at the start of the book, Smith’s research is excellent. As she frequently notes, “official records tell us nothing about feelings or hopes; we only have people’s actions to go by”. Without being too fanciful, Smith speculates on possible events and motives, seeking to interpret events and their impact on Hannah, her children and the men in her life. In doing so, she writes with compassion and thoughtfulness about the conditions in which women like Hannah lived and how they behaved and were judged.
Smith traces Hannah Rigby’s journey from one of these “immoral, degenerate, unnatural” women, abandoned by the man to whom she was initially assigned in Sydney when she fell pregnant, to the woman described by the respected Dr Ballow of the quarantine hospital in Moreton Bay, also one of the harshest penal colonies, as “exemplary”. Along the way she has many children to different men, is convicted of theft several times and is twice transported to Moreton Bay. She also seems to do what she can to raise and keep her children (except, of course, abstain from breaking the law when she needed money!).
Along with presenting the actual and speculated events of Hannah Rigby’s life, Smith also spends time recounting the lives and fates of significant people in her life: the fathers of two of her sons; her children; Dr Ballow; some of the convict women she knew, and finally, the losses and grief attendant on her final years.
In One Free Woman, through the life of Hannah Rigby, Jane Smith gives a detailed and sympathetic account of life for female convicts – and through that lens, explores the life of a woman who must have possessed extraordinary resilience and gumption.
Author Jane Smith became intrigued by Hannah Rigby’s story while researching a different book, and has thrown herself into discovering and describing what life might have been like for Hannah in the early 1800s, from her court appearance, imprisonment and transportation to the difficulties of her life in Sydney’s Female Factory for convict women and as an assigned servant to different households of the colony.
With few records or exact detail from Hannah Rigby’s life – in between convictions for theft she seems mostly to have kept out of trouble – Smith does a good job at distilling the likely conditions affecting women in Hannah’s position, extrapolating from other accounts to build a systematic picture of her probable life, supported with existing documentary evidence.
While it’s a little frustrating to know so little that’s concrete about Hannah at the start of the book, Smith’s research is excellent. As she frequently notes, “official records tell us nothing about feelings or hopes; we only have people’s actions to go by”. Without being too fanciful, Smith speculates on possible events and motives, seeking to interpret events and their impact on Hannah, her children and the men in her life. In doing so, she writes with compassion and thoughtfulness about the conditions in which women like Hannah lived and how they behaved and were judged.
Smith traces Hannah Rigby’s journey from one of these “immoral, degenerate, unnatural” women, abandoned by the man to whom she was initially assigned in Sydney when she fell pregnant, to the woman described by the respected Dr Ballow of the quarantine hospital in Moreton Bay, also one of the harshest penal colonies, as “exemplary”. Along the way she has many children to different men, is convicted of theft several times and is twice transported to Moreton Bay. She also seems to do what she can to raise and keep her children (except, of course, abstain from breaking the law when she needed money!).
Along with presenting the actual and speculated events of Hannah Rigby’s life, Smith also spends time recounting the lives and fates of significant people in her life: the fathers of two of her sons; her children; Dr Ballow; some of the convict women she knew, and finally, the losses and grief attendant on her final years.
In One Free Woman, through the life of Hannah Rigby, Jane Smith gives a detailed and sympathetic account of life for female convicts – and through that lens, explores the life of a woman who must have possessed extraordinary resilience and gumption.
December 12, 2024
One Free Woman by Jane Smith is a fascinating account of convict life in Australia, featuring specifically a detailed look at the life of female convict Hannah Rigby. Jane’s research is thorough and extensive; not only does she delve into every detail of Hannah’s life, making the reader feel as though we know her personally, but people Hannah became involved with - be they fellow convicts, various lovers, or employers - also have their lives examined in this excellent book. Jane follows Hannah’s life from her thievery on the streets of England and during her treacherous sea voyage to the wild lands of Australia, and eventually to Queensland’s Moreton Bay. Much of this history I was unaware of despite being a Queenslander, and I really enjoyed Jane’s detailed accounts of how Brisbane was built. Hannah is the thread that glues the story together, but this book is so much more than one life, it is many, and how they are all interconnected; from the female factory in Parramatta to the remoteness of early Stradbroke Island settlers. Sure to appeal to history buffs, but I also think people who love to see women triumph under extreme adversity will really enjoy this book, as I did. Highly recommended.
September 1, 2025
One Free Woman by Jane Smith was such an engaging surprise for me. We follow the remarkable life of Hannah Rigby and the many people she encountered throughout her long, difficult years. Until now, I never would have imagined enjoying historical fiction set in early colonial Australia. Honestly, I thought it would bore me to death. But Jane has a talent for weaving together fact and narrative in a way that feels both authentic and compelling. She brought Hannah’s story, and the broader struggles of the time, to life with incredible detail and care.
I particularly admired the author’s note at the very beginning of the book, where Jane acknowledged and paid respect to our First Nations peoples. Beginning the story with that recognition set the tone beautifully and reminded me of the deeper responsibility that comes with writing about this period in our history. It added a layer of respect and thoughtfulness that carried through the rest of the book.
An insightful, moving read that blends Australia's dark history and storytelling seamlessly.
I particularly admired the author’s note at the very beginning of the book, where Jane acknowledged and paid respect to our First Nations peoples. Beginning the story with that recognition set the tone beautifully and reminded me of the deeper responsibility that comes with writing about this period in our history. It added a layer of respect and thoughtfulness that carried through the rest of the book.
An insightful, moving read that blends Australia's dark history and storytelling seamlessly.
December 17, 2024
Jane Smith should be a detective based on the way she has dug up information about Hannah Rigby, a convict transported to Australia in the early 1800s. Her meticulous research has resulted in this fascinating book that is more than just Hannah's story. It is a social record of early colonisation in New South Wales and Queensland, how it affected Australia's First Peoples, and how a penal settlement in Moreton Bay evolved into Brisbane Town. It is not a happy story but is bound to keep you engaged as you are transported to another time when life was incredibly harsh for so many.
December 17, 2025
An interesting account of the treatment of convicts both in England and Australia in the late 1700s and early 1800s. How cruel we were to the lower classes. The book is a little difficult to follow in some places as the author tends to jump about. Names of those involved are also remarkably similar which sometimes makes things hard to follow.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews