Irish-born Ellen Cornwall was unusual for her time, heritage and socio-economic class in that she learnt to read and write. Cornwall, one of ten children of labourer Anthony Rowland, moved to England and married bricklayer Frederick Cornwall on 26 November 1843.
On 17 October 1845, Cornwall was charged with theft, convicted and sentenced to gaol for three months. On 31 March 1846, Cornwall again faced charges and on this occasion was sentenced to 10 years' transportation.
Almost two years later, Cornwall wrote to her husband describing her circumstances, hoping to elicit his compassion. (Part of this letter was discovered in the late twentieth century at Lawrence House Museum, Launceston, Cornwall.) In the letter Cornwall outlined her journey to Van Diemen's Land, the death of her infant son, the period of time spent on the hulks in Hobart, and her subsequent hiring by a settler family as a needlewoman.
In 1849, Cornwall was charged with 'neglect of duty' and sentenced to three months' in the Female Factory. One year later, she became pregnant, bore a son and, in late 1850, married Henry McCarthy (the child's father). Cornwall earned her ticket-of-leave in 1851 and a conditional pardon in 1853. No further information about her life has been discovered beyond this time.
(Sources: a letter written by Ellen Cornwall, and 'Your Unfortunate and Undutiful Wife' by Eleanor Conlin Casella and Lucy Frost, Chain Letters : Narrating Convict Lives, 2001)
