The Tin Ticket Part 1

The Tin Ticket.

The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women.

by Deborah J. Swiss.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Like Agnes McMillan and Janet Houston, I'm blessed with true-blue mates. Digney Fignus patiently edited chapter draft after chapter draft, transcribed stacks of nineteenth-century newspaper accounts and convict records, and composed the beautiful song "All for Love," which honors the transported women. My children, Alex and Alison Rice-Swiss, cheered me through each deadline and across the finish.

Molly Lyons, my agent at Joelle Delbourgo a.s.sociates, is exceptional and believed in me from our first meeting. Berkley Books editor Natalee Rosenstein and a.s.sociate editor Mich.e.l.le Vega were outstanding at all the details that moved The Tin Ticket The Tin Ticket into production. A giant thank-you to Berk ley publisher Leslie Gelbman, managing editor Jessica McDonnell, Richard Ha.s.selberger and Andrea Tsurumi in the art department, and everyone in publicity, promotion, and sales. into production. A giant thank-you to Berk ley publisher Leslie Gelbman, managing editor Jessica McDonnell, Richard Ha.s.selberger and Andrea Tsurumi in the art department, and everyone in publicity, promotion, and sales.

An extraordinary team helped build this book. Anne Raisis provided excellent editorial expertise and moved mountains to gather photo permissions from around the world. Ames Halbreich added atmosphere and poetry as she edited chapters. Connie Hadley helped shape The Tin Ticket The Tin Ticket's tone by asking the right questions, and generously delivered healthy care packages for the final crunch. Audrey Block contributed brilliant edits through every phase of this project, along with humor at just the right moments. Shannon Hunt, Mary Kantor, Judy Noonan, and Judy Walker offered comments and suggestions that improved each chapter. Charlie Mitch.e.l.l quickly answered several th.o.r.n.y research questions. Magnificent technical expertise came from Tom Coy and Yamil Suarez. Kay Coughlin, David Holzman, Jo Hannah Katz, Dari Paquette, and Wendy Tighe-Hendrickson also extended wonderful support.

Special thanks to s.h.i.+rley McCarron, project manager for the Cascades Female Factory; Father Peter Rankin, parish priest in Kilmore, Victoria; and Rob Valentine, Lord Mayor of Hobart, Tasmania. Members of the Female Factory Research Group-Trudy Cowley and FionaMacFarlane-provided superb transcription services for Tasmanian records. Cary Memorial Library staff Heather Vandermillen and Jean Williams located many obscure reference materials through interlibrary loan that, in turn, led me to other original sources.

My research journey began with inspiration from Tasmanian artist Christina Henri's poignant and thought-provoking work 900 Bonnets 900 Bonnets, an installation that honors the children who perished at the Cascades Female Factory, and her recent Roses from the Heart Roses from the Heart project, for which people on many continents are sewing bonnets to honor each of the twenty-five thousand transported women. project, for which people on many continents are sewing bonnets to honor each of the twenty-five thousand transported women.

I first fell in love with Tasmania and then with the convict women who helped shape a nation. Over the course of the past six years, I've been rewarded with the gift of friends.h.i.+p, wit, and wisdom from convict descendants and their families, including Mary and Chris Binks, Sherilyn Butler, Edna and Phil Cullen, Lisa and Denis Samin, Joy and Joe Sharpe, Kaye Williams, and Glad and Bob Wishart. Agnes, Bridget, Janet, and Ludlow would certainly smile at their legacy.

INTRODUCTION.

Life's most interesting journeys often begin with a surprising coincidence. Sometimes a story finds you. In 2004, I traveled to Tasmania to join two wilderness treks. Challenging myself among a group of highly experienced trekkers, I completed the eighty-kilometer Overland Track in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park and climbed Mt. Ossa, Tasmania's highest peak. I also explored the Bay of Fires in Mt. William National Park, where huge Aboriginal middens mark Musselroe Point.

During a break from hiking, I happened to meet Christina Henri, a Tasmanian commemorative artist whose work honors the twenty-five thousand women exiled from the British Isles to Australia. She was standing in line ahead of me in a post office in Launceston, Tasmania. Without knowing that I'm a writer, she turned to me and said: "I have a story I want to tell you."

I knew little about this chapter in history until that day I stood in the queue chatting with Christina. Out of the blue, she began to describe the piece of paper she held in her hand, a pattern for a christening bonnet. Christina was mailing one of nine hundred bonnet patterns to a volunteer helping her create a traveling memorial honoring the nine hundred infants and children who died at the Cascades Female Factory. Newspapers of the day had labeled the damp, converted distillery, hidden under the cliffs of Mt. Wellington, "the Valley of the Shadow of Death." This was the prison that housed the women featured in The Tin Ticket The Tin Ticket.

The backdrop for these women's lives exposes a time in history still unknown to many. The journey of the convict women began in slums all across the British Isles, where the dest.i.tute struggled to survive. Profit trumped morality as wigged and powdered Parliamentarians sold grain at inflated prices to other countries and ignored widespread hunger and homelessness among their own citizens.

High levels of unemployment, created by the Industrial Revolution and an exploding urban population, left a working-cla.s.s girl with few options in the early 1800s. Even a woman fortunate enough to find work was always paid less than a man. When thousands of soldiers returned from the Napoleonic Wars, many female factory workers lost their jobs to the men. The Glasgow Courier Glasgow Courier suggested that if a woman was "not ugly," she might "find relief in prost.i.tution" instead of a crippling life in the textile mills. suggested that if a woman was "not ugly," she might "find relief in prost.i.tution" instead of a crippling life in the textile mills.1 Many girls had no choice but to resort to selling their bodies, which was not a crime in nineteenth-century Britain. Others staved off starvation by collecting and selling bones, singing ballads for pennies, picking pockets, or pilfering small items that might be traded for food or a place to sleep. Petty theft was a way of life for women, men, and children desperate to make it through another day. As a result, prisons across the British Isles were packed far beyond capacity. Many girls had no choice but to resort to selling their bodies, which was not a crime in nineteenth-century Britain. Others staved off starvation by collecting and selling bones, singing ballads for pennies, picking pockets, or pilfering small items that might be traded for food or a place to sleep. Petty theft was a way of life for women, men, and children desperate to make it through another day. As a result, prisons across the British Isles were packed far beyond capacity.

For nearly one hundred years, England had routinely disposed of its convict population in the American colonies, and built its rich empire on the backs of convict and slave labor. However, the American Revolution, followed by the abolition of slavery, eliminated this option. During the frenzied imperial land grab at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Great Britain could not persuade its "proper" citizenry to homestead its new colonies in Van Diemen's Land and in New South Wales. Few responded to ads in London newspapers seeking single women to populate a land where men outnumbered them nine to one. Parliament's solution was to conscript a slave labor force using the Transportation Act, an old law pa.s.sed in 1718 that allowed prisoners to be s.h.i.+pped anywhere in the world. Originally crafted to be a humane subst.i.tute for the death penalty, it served a new purpose at the close of the eighteenth century. Under the pretense of justice, a greed-driven government expatriated the powerless. Ever since Captain James Cook's discovery of Australia in 1770, England resolved to keep it for herself. The empire was especially concerned with France, its longtime enemy, which had already laid claim to Tahiti.

Under the Transportation Act, 162,000 women, men, and children were exiled to Australia from 1788 to 1868. The legislation resolved several problems. It supplied cheap, disposable labor and removed the "unsightly" poor from Britain's sh.o.r.es. Most important, it provided a steady supply of young women who could serve as breeders for the empire's newest crown jewel: Australia. Once the government s.h.i.+fted the focus of the Transportation Act to include more women, constables targeted and arrested female petty thieves in droves. The women were placed in irons, packed onto s.h.i.+ps, and exiled to New South Wales and Van Die-men's Land, known today as Tasmania. Of the twenty-five thousand sent, fewer than 2 percent had committed a violent crime, and 65 percent were first offenders.

The Tin Ticket focuses on the women and children s.h.i.+pped to Van Diemen's Land, whose horrific journey and miraculous survival has largely been overlooked in written history. The tale unfolds through the eyes of the women themselves. Agnes McMillan was one of thousands of children cast into a system where the punishment far exceeded the scope of the crime. focuses on the women and children s.h.i.+pped to Van Diemen's Land, whose horrific journey and miraculous survival has largely been overlooked in written history. The tale unfolds through the eyes of the women themselves. Agnes McMillan was one of thousands of children cast into a system where the punishment far exceeded the scope of the crime. The Tin Ticket The Tin Ticket explores the background, the daily life, the brutal choices, and the surprising destiny of this struggling young girl who grew up in extraordinary times. explores the background, the daily life, the brutal choices, and the surprising destiny of this struggling young girl who grew up in extraordinary times.

Wandering Glasgow's back alleys in 1832, abandoned by her parents at age twelve, Agnes McMillan could rely on no one but herself and her thirteen-year-old surrogate big sister, Janet Houston. Mates in the truest sense of the word, the two young la.s.ses sacrificed neither loyalty nor hope as they traveled together to a land where even the stars in the sky seemed out of place and upside down. Friends.h.i.+p, ingenuity, and irreverent humor helped sustain Agnes and Janet as they came of age in the face of unimaginable hards.h.i.+p and humiliation. These same traits, their descendants suggest, permeate the Australian character today.

Ludlow Tedder represents another important part of the convict women's story. Like many mothers, she was transported with her youngest child. A widow who worked as a maid, the mother of four never earned enough to make ends meet. In 1838, she lost poverty's gamble, which thousands of others took every day, when she pilfered eleven spoons and a bread basket from her employer. Tried for petty theft in London's Central Criminal Court, Ludlow was sentenced to ten years in Van Diemen's Land with her nine-year-old daughter, Arabella. Innocent children suffered the same punishment as their mothers, and sometimes worse, yet their voices have been largely ignored, their existence buried in government reports. Ludlow and Arabella were forced to leave behind the rest of their family, and thus transport was a life sentence for them, because there was no way back.

Arrested for minor crimes, tagged and numbered as chattel for forced migration to Australia, women like Agnes McMillan, Janet Houston, and Ludlow Tedder were identified in Newgate Prison and on certain s.h.i.+ps by a tiny tin ticket hung around their necks. Surprisingly, these women-more sinned against than sinning-found an ally in Elizabeth Gurney Fry, a Quaker reformer whose tireless labors proved how simple acts of compa.s.sion can change the fate of many. Her influence brightened hope for the female convicts and paralleled their harrowing journeys from Newgate Prison to the transport s.h.i.+ps and finally to the Cascades Female Factory in Van Diemen's Land.

Fry's personal journal chronicles a deep understanding of what the convict women endured, including a description of the numbered tickets she placed around their necks on a red ribbon. The fateful tin tags are also mentioned in the second officer's report for the convict s.h.i.+p Garland Grove Garland Grove and in the diary of Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of the governor of Van Diemen's Land. and in the diary of Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of the governor of Van Diemen's Land.2 A radical for her time, Elizabeth Fry was the first woman to speak before Parliament, lobbying on behalf of prison reform. Her diary reverberates with the power and the pa.s.sion of her convictions, a revolutionary voice in the raging Victorian debate that deemed only men capable of reform and redemption. Believing that education and learning a skill could change the lives of the desperately poor, the forward-thinking Mrs. Fry set up a school for the children of convict women and taught their mothers how to sew while they awaited transport.

Fry and her volunteers met with nearly half of the female transports. They boarded the convict s.h.i.+ps and gave each prisoner a packet containing patchwork pieces, needles, and thread for st.i.tching quilts that could later be sold in Australia. One such quilt, a.s.sembled aboard the convict s.h.i.+p Rajah Rajah during its 105-day voyage in 1841, was found stored in an attic in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1987. Today this treasure is housed in the National Gallery of Australia, stained with the blood and sweat of girls and women who would become colonial pioneers and founding mothers of modern Australia. during its 105-day voyage in 1841, was found stored in an attic in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1987. Today this treasure is housed in the National Gallery of Australia, stained with the blood and sweat of girls and women who would become colonial pioneers and founding mothers of modern Australia.

Primary sources for The Tin Ticket The Tin Ticket meticulously doc.u.ment comprehensive and often surprising facts about the women's lives. For example, Agnes McMillan's court transcripts reveal her occupation: "age 12, ballad singer." Even the fact that her fence, Daniel Campbell, carried his belongings in a red handkerchief is carefully noted. meticulously doc.u.ment comprehensive and often surprising facts about the women's lives. For example, Agnes McMillan's court transcripts reveal her occupation: "age 12, ballad singer." Even the fact that her fence, Daniel Campbell, carried his belongings in a red handkerchief is carefully noted.

Convict musters archived by the Tasmanian government describe each woman's physical characteristics: eye and hair color, height, shape of face, shade of complexion, freckles, dimples, pock marks. They also describe her demeanor, acts of rebellion, marriage applications, and where she lived and worked once freed.

Details of time and place are drawn from original nineteenth-century doc.u.ments, including s.h.i.+p logs, newspaper accounts, letters, and diaries written by s.h.i.+p officers, s.h.i.+p surgeons, police magistrates, and religious reformers; trial and police transcripts; statements issued by the women; prison and orphan school records; and government publications, including select committee reports that investigated allegations of mistreatment and abuse.

After five years of research, I returned to Australia in 2009 to complete my work. My first stop was Tasmania's capital, Hobart, and the ruins of the Cascades Female Factory. Once I finished my research in Hobart, I set out across Tasmania and then went on to mainland Australia, following the journey of the freed convict women portrayed in The Tin Ticket The Tin Ticket. I walked along the docks on Macquarie Street, where the women were paraded through crowds of hooting colonists. Under the shadows of Mt. Wellington, I placed my hands on the prison's cold stone walls and viewed artifacts that offer a glimpse into the everyday lives of those who were transported: a tiny barred window that allowed only a sliver of light into the women's ward, the damp solitary cell remains lying next to the Hobart rivulet, a stone washtub from Yard Two, perhaps the very one at which Agnes, Janet, and Ludlow spent their punishments and sc.r.a.ped their hands and elbows. Standing in the yard at midnight, I felt the chill left behind by the women and children who could not survive Cascades.

My initial research led me to descendants of the women featured in The Tin Ticket The Tin Ticket. After corresponding with them for several years, I was graciously invited into their homes on my return trip to Australia. They shared extensive collections of family history, granting me access to information and secrets that, for some, had been suppressed for generations. In a remarkable coincidence, the three women whose lives I chose to study were at the Cascades Female Factory at the same time. Their lives intersected in ways that surprised me as well as their descendant families.

As the paper trail unfolded, I began to see through Agnes McMillan's eyes as her world changed from the black and white of the Glasgow woolen mills and Newgate Prison to the bright greens of untamed Tasmania, the Huon Forest, and later the dusty goldfields in Victoria.

In following the paths of the women and traveling with their descendants, we unearthed new facts about their lives that had been tucked away in used bookstores, small museum resource rooms, and the Archives Office of Tasmania. We discovered that Agnes McMillan's family had witnessed an event that shook the continent, the Eureka Rebellion. A former female convict helped sew the well-known blue and white Southern Cross flag raised during this workers' revolt. The rebellion would come to be known as the birth of Australian democracy, ignited by a furor over taxation without representation.

It is estimated that at least one in five Australians (and two million from the United Kingdom) share convict ancestry. This has recently become a source of pride for many. When I asked ten-year-old Keely Millikin what she knew about her great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Ludlow Tedder, she stood up very straight and replied: "She was a very very strong woman." Father Peter Rankin, parish priest in Kilmore, Victoria, also expressed his admiration for the resourceful and enterprising women "who had nothing and yet had it all," and emerged "from the darkness of the s.h.i.+p's hold to become the light of Australia's future." strong woman." Father Peter Rankin, parish priest in Kilmore, Victoria, also expressed his admiration for the resourceful and enterprising women "who had nothing and yet had it all," and emerged "from the darkness of the s.h.i.+p's hold to become the light of Australia's future."

The legacy of the transported women, once referred to as the "convict stain," reveals new truths about a social engineering experiment that, for nearly a century, was covered up by both the British and the Australian governments. Not until the year 2000 was the practice of systematically destroying convict census records overturned by the Australian legislature. Fortunately, key records are intact for each woman featured in The Tin Ticket The Tin Ticket. In the final years of transportation, the after-math of the Irish potato famine led to a marked increase in women and men from Ireland who were exiled for stealing food, livestock, and clothing. Often overlooked, the Irish had a profound effect on early colonial history. To help tell their story, I chose Bridget Mulligan. Had Bridget not survived the harsh sentence imposed because she was Irish, her great-granddaughter Mary Binks would not be running Gran's Van in 2010. Gran's Van is a mobile soup kitchen for the homeless and the needy in Devonport, Tasmania. Former mayor of Devonport and a finalist for Australia's Local Hero Award in 2009, Mary is a living legacy to the important role convicts played in helping found modern Australia.

During the nineteenth century, twenty-five thousand women were discarded by their homeland. For many, that journey began with the accident of being born poor and the crime of stealing food or an article of clothing. Yet by sheer force of will, those who survived forged a promising future and became the heart and soul of a new nation. In marked contrast to Britain's rigid cla.s.s system, freed convicts built, in record time, a society that enjoyed a vibrant economy alongside easy mobility between cla.s.ses. Women who were banished by their home country saved a new colony from collapse, accelerated social change, and were among the first in the world to gain the right to vote and to own property.

Their epic tale reveals universal themes involving the depths and heights of humanity, long-suppressed intergenerational secrets, and the potential for n.o.bility that lies within us all. Though some historians paint women like Agnes, Janet, Ludlow, and Bridget as harlots and criminals of the worst order, they were among the most resourceful and resilient women of their generation. Every breath and every step was a choice to survive rather than succ.u.mb to their captors' cruelty. Theirs is a story of courage, transformation, and triumph.

1.

The Grey-Eyed Girl b.l.o.o.d.y Christmas, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l

The lush coastal hinterland offered a perfect day for Christmas 1869. The temperature was a lovely seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. At the head of the table, Grandpa William rose from his seat, cleared his throat, and recited a prayer from the Bible. It was time to carve the traditional mutton and ham. Every December, the red flowers of the native Christmas bush came into bloom just in time for the holiday and filled the vases in the center of the handmade cedar table. On the sideboard, b.u.t.tery cakes stacked with kiwifruit sat next to the cooling mince pie.

Grandmum Agnes hurried to the kitchen and took a plum pudding out of the wood-fired oven. She brought it straight to the table and, to the delight of the three-generation clan, set it aflame with brandy. Everyone knew what was coming next. A small silver sixpence had been surrept.i.tiously placed inside. Whoever found it on his or her plate would enjoy good luck for the coming year.

Agnes McMillan Roberts already considered herself a lucky woman and counted her good fortune every single day. Just a year earlier, the British government had overturned the Transportation Act, a social engineering experiment that had exiled 162,000 women, men, and children from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Thirty-three years ago, at age fifteen, Agnes had been s.h.i.+pped from Glasgow to Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania), the small island off the southern coast of Australia. It had proven to be both a curse and a blessing.

After the Christmas feast, Agnes moved to her favorite spot. Sitting on the sprawling porch, she looked out on her seven children and seven grandchildren, who came to visit Lismore every summer. Situated between the sea and the subtropical rain forest known as the "Big Scrub," Lismore, Australia, had been founded by a Scotsman who had honeymooned on an island of the same name in Agnes's home country. The family matriarch had grown accustomed to seasons turned upside down from the land of lochs and northern lights where she was born forty-nine years ago. Although she still maintained a hint of the Scottish brogue, her secret past lay securely cloistered in the confidence of her husband, William, and her longtime childhood friend, Janet Houston.

As her grandchildren played hide-and-seek along the banks of the Richmond River, Agnes chuckled at the skinny legs that peeked out from their short pants. She reached for a cup of hot India tea, freshly brewed to wash down the midday feast. Wisps of silver hair blew gently in the seasonable breeze, framing grey eyes the color of steel and a gaze that seemed to go on forever. The same rare color of the eyes of Athena, the Greek warrior G.o.ddess known for her strength and wisdom, Agnes's eyes mirrored these traits. Her Scottish eyes had witnessed the births and deaths of people and nations. Today they sparkled in December's summer sun.

The content matron, just over five feet tall, rocked back in her chair and considered how far she had traveled. Neither her children nor her grandchildren knew anything about Grandmum's early Christmases, including the one thirty-seven years before that changed the course of her life and made theirs possible. She started to hum. It was an old melody, one her mother had taught her, one she had sung on the streets of Glasgow so many years ago.

It was December 27, 1832. The gas lamps glowed in icy orbs that ran in crooked rows throughout the sleepy town. Even by Scotland's standards, the weather was horrid. Gale-force winds from the west pelted heavy downpours onto the small faces that bobbed in and out from the protective doorways in the wynds by the Green. It had been raining for days and days. Temperatures hovered just above freezing. "b.l.o.o.d.y Christmas, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," muttered the street people.

In a dense alleyway along the River Clyde, twelve-year-old Agnes McMillan s.h.i.+vered and huddled close to her friend Janet. Her breath billowed white and frosty, and she pulled what was left of a scarf over her nose. The two girls had eaten nothing for days but "Irish apricots" and had a taste for something other than potatoes. Some nights, even in the wettest winter months, they slept in a doorway, other nights in an outhouse. Pilfering a slice of bread from a street vendor was commonplace, but that didn't pay for lodging. For homeless waifs like Agnes and Janet, sleeping in a bed, typically with several others, was a luxury they could seldom afford.

At this time of year, there were only seven hours of daylight, and nightfall arrived by four in the afternoon. Under the cover of Glasgow's darkest recesses, the fated duo hatched a plan to celebrate the holidays with clean clothes and fresh lamb. Theft had become their lifeline. Four friends from the streets were in on the plan, and together they targeted a gabled mansion in the rich part of town, where for several days not a single candle had flickered. The owner, a widow named Elizabeth Barbour, had likely traveled from her Fife Place home for holiday merry-making at a country estate.1 After all, it was b.l.o.o.d.y Christmas. After all, it was b.l.o.o.d.y Christmas.

As the clocks marked midnight, every ounce of Agnes's cunning centered on the task at hand. It was time to accomplish something more than mere survival in Scotland's toughest town. Since her father had disappeared and her mother had basically abandoned her, Agnes had managed to get by and make a few coins singing ballads near the Glasgow Green. Although she could neither read nor write, she'd remembered the songs her mother taught her and put together a repertoire for impromptu street performances. At twelve, the lithe la.s.sie with a bit of a voice often attracted a small crowd of pa.s.sersby, but the day had been too miserable to sing.

Friend and protector Janet Houston had taken the ever-hopeful ballad singer under her wing because she knew firsthand what it took to survive in Glasgow's unforgiving alleys. Both Janet's mother and father had pa.s.sed away. The thirteen-year-old sometimes slept at her aunt Gibson's flat, but that was not always an option; Janet also relied on a network of small-time neighborhood thieves who managed to steal enough to pay for food and shelter. They often banded together to pilfer food from street vendors, but tonight they gathered around the Glasgow Green to gamble on the higher stakes of a house break.

Creeping along the ghostly edges of the tightly built stone structures, the co-conspirators made their way through the wynds, the winding pa.s.sages that would deliver them to the city's upscale West End. The girls approached the mansion's iron gate and gave a quick glance up and down the lane. This was the moment when they would make their move. The neatly swept neighborhood seemed nearly deserted. Looking skyward toward the graceful lancet windows, Agnes paced nervously and pulled her wet shawl tighter. This had to be easier work than picking the pockets of a "groggified" pedestrian or pilfering meat from a sharp-eyed butcher. It seemed simple enough. Breaking a rear kitchen window provided the typical point of entry for small-time burglars. A quick smash of the pane and they'd be in, out, and gone. The scraggly housebreakers held their breath as the sound of shattering gla.s.s settled into the night. They waited for a moment, ears tuned, hearts pounding, ready to flee at the first sound of a footstep.

The older, more street-savvy Janet reached through the jagged gla.s.s. She lifted the bolt and unlatched the door. Ever so carefully she leaned her shoulder into the heavy ash frame and cracked it open, sending the smoky smell of mutton into the damp night air. The well-stocked larder was bolted shut to prevent the maids from stealing. Hunger, all too familiar, would need to wait. Out of the wind in the still of the mansion, fully charged with adrenaline, the girls set to work. Gold watches, silver spoons, silk scarves, and fas.h.i.+onable gloves were the prime targets for young thieves. There was no time to ponder how much the wealthy could afford to lose. The gang of six quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed up items they could hide inside their shawls and sell unquestioned at the p.a.w.nshop. They had ten minutes, at most, to complete the heist.

Mission completed, the nervous trespa.s.sers darted through the swinging back gate, confident that this was going to be a holiday they would enjoy. They were wrong, terribly wrong. Agnes McMillan, Janet Houston, and the rest of the troop charged straight into the grasp of a waiting constable, who knew all too well what the sound of breaking gla.s.s meant. They must have been novices. Experienced thieves took the time to learn the regular route for police patrols and took advantage of a force too lean to keep up with the rising tide of Glasgow crime.

Flushed and gasping for air, Agnes "lied with a latchet," the Scottish term for telling a big fib. She did her best to talk her way out of being trapped with the others, but there was no escape. According to Glasgow court records, the grey-eyed waif told the officer that her name was Agnes Reddie, perhaps out of shame, or out of naive desire that a different name would protect her from wearing the chains that rattled in his pocket. This was the first arrest for the pink-cheeked street urchin, but she had already faced off against bad tidings more times than she could count. She would confront this latest predicament with Janet at her side.

Goosedubbs Street.

Agnes McMillan was born to an age of extremes in social cla.s.s, politics, and physical environment. The years leading to her parents' marriage had been tangled in one national disaster after another. As Mary Henderson and Michael McMillan moved into adulthood, climate, political upheaval, and geography conspired against their future.

The year 1815 opened with the promise of peace when Britain ended its three-year war with America on February 18. Any euphoria, however, was short-lived. That March, Napoleon returned to power and terrorized Europe yet again. Michael McMillan, like thousands of young Scots, was conscripted under the command of the Duke of Wellington and the Seventh Coalition. Thankfully, by June the coalition had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Unfortunately, as one war ended, a battle of a different sort exploded.

On a remote Indonesian island called Sumbawa, the jungle grew silent and the ground began to shudder as Mt. Tambora spewed its molten heart into the atmosphere. Though it occurred five years before Agnes's birth, the most powerful eruption in ten thousand years, and the largest ever recorded, changed the world's climate and magnified the struggle her parents would face to put bread on the table. The ma.s.sive surge of volcanic ash circling the globe could be neither stopped nor controlled. When Michael McMillan returned to Glasgow from the Belgium battlefields in 1816, brown snow fell throughout Europe. It was "the year without a summer." Birds fell frozen from the sky. Crops failed all across the British Isles, and families went to bed hungry night after night. "Bread or blood" became their battle cry as food riots broke out, protesting the skyrocketing price of wheat.

Amid this chaos and uncertainty, Mary Henderson fell in love with Michael McMillan. Many young women, including Mary, married after the return of the soldiers, prompting a baby boom. This population explosion was ill-timed to coincide with an implosion of the British economy, but Michael was lucky and found a steady job working for the railroad.

Scottish citizens were part of Great Britain's kingdom, joined by the Act of Union in 1707 and subject to the laws of Parliament. Mary and Michael McMillan would certainly have despaired over their daughter's future had they known how people like themselves were described in a report to Parliament on administration of the Poor Laws in Scotland: "The people who dwell in those quarters of the city are sunk to the lowest possible state of personal degradation in whom no elevated idea can be expected to arise, and who regard themselves, from the hopelessness of their condition, as doomed to a life of wretchedness and crime. . . . They nightly issue to disseminate disease and to pour upon the town every species of abomination and crime."2 Agnes's parents were likely spared this prediction because nearly all the poor were illiterate. Agnes's parents were likely spared this prediction because nearly all the poor were illiterate.

Agnes was born on September 11, 1820, in a tenement flat on Goosedubbs Street, a narrow lane in the center of Glasgow's worst slum. It was a gruesome affair, a.s.sisted by a midwife who would not have washed her hands nor cleaned the dingy muslin in which Agnes was wrapped. A woman's strength in surviving childbirth bode well for a baby born in the pre-Victorian era. Twenty percent of mothers died in labor.

In stark contrast to most new citizens, the future Queen Victoria was birthed with the a.s.sistance of a female obstetrician and several attending doctors. Baby Victoria entered the world "as plump as a partridge"3 the year before Agnes was born and held the honor of being the first member of the royal family vaccinated against smallpox. the year before Agnes was born and held the honor of being the first member of the royal family vaccinated against smallpox.

As a parent, Mary McMillan carried the additional responsibilities of a factory laborer and was expected to be on her feet for fourteen-hour s.h.i.+fts throughout her pregnancy. A woman who worked in a mill since childhood commonly paid the price of a narrow and deformed pelvis, which made labor difficult and increased infant mortality. This deformity was caused by the stress of standing without movement coupled with malnutrition. As Mary stumbled toward what she hoped would be a better future, the only work available endangered her health and the life of her unborn child.

Like her co-workers, Mary McMillan returned to work two weeks after giving birth, fearful of losing a prized job. Some mothers were allowed to bring their infants to the mill, tied in a sling and quieted with a pacifier made from a dirty rag soaked in milk and water. Agnes may have been cared for by an elderly neighbor or by a youngster unable to find employment. Reliable child care was rare and unaffordable for most parents, but the poor looked out for one another and invited their young neighbors in for porridge or bread whenever they had an extra morsel to share.

From an early age, "weans," as children were called, often spent their days alone inside a one-room flat while their parents worked. Toddlers were given "pap" to eat, a watery paste made from bread and water. Some mothers used laudanum, a cheap and readily available derivative of opium, to drug their children during the day. An ounce cost the same as a pint of beer and suppressed hunger as it fueled an addiction. Others silenced crying babies with G.o.dfrey's Cordial, a mixture of opium, sa.s.safras, brandy, caraway seeds, and treacle. Gin was another widely used comforter, an all-purpose soother from cradle to grave, as cheap as beer and sold on every street corner to young and old alike. Not until the twentieth century was the purchase of alcohol limited to adults. Liquor often provided the main source of calories for entire families, and it was safer to drink than the tainted water from the river.

Peeking out onto Goosedubbs Street as a five-year-old on her own, Agnes saw a world of cobblestone and brick, full of misery and manure. Coal particles stung her eyes at every blink. Each sip of water she drank from the brackish public well carried the risk of dysentery or typhoid fever. She and everyone else who lived near the mills coughed out pieces of black grit breathed in from Glasgow's raging industrial fires. Neighbors overhead tossed their garbage out the window onto the walkway. Most had witnessed some unfortunate soul drop dead in the street or on the job. The grey-eyed five-year-old had already proven to be lucky, since half the Scottish children born in 1820 had already been laid in the ground by their parents. In the slums, dunghills and raw sewage blanketed the crowded s.p.a.ce with a sticky black glaze. This was Agnes's playground and schoolyard.

Children dashed around the wynds playing tag, hide-and-seek, and peever-the Scottish version of hopscotch. Boys picked up sticks to bat whatever they could hit in the air. An old barrel hoop started a contest for who could spin it the farthest. Street waste offered an abundance of possibilities for games and entertainment. Clever mothers sewed dolls from sc.r.a.ps of cloth. Discarded shoe heels, hammered with nails resembling eyes and a mouth, formed the perfect face for the doll. Pieces of rope were s.n.a.t.c.hed up for skipping along the bank of the River Clyde. Nothing went unused, and nearly everything was used again and again with renewed purpose.

Among the laboring cla.s.s, a child's role included the duty of earning a living. By age seven, Agnes would have been expected to contribute to the McMillan household income. Every penny mattered. Children her age, and younger, worked full time as chimney sweeps or factory workers, hired for the ability to reach small crevices and machine parts. Weans sometimes earned more than their parents because of the market value attached to their small size. Mine owners employed five- and six-year-olds to crawl through muddy sc.u.m deep inside the shafts and scurry back with a heavy load tied over their shoulders.

Hunger and hopelessness incited families to commit unthinkable acts. Some parents relied on punishment to make their children earn money or commit a crime, whatever it took to keep the family afloat. Five-year-olds were forced to st.i.tch gloves until the midnight hour. Six-year-olds were booted into the streets and ordered to steal a pocketbook or grab a loaf of bread. Small bodies with fast legs made good criminals. Other parents made valiant attempts to protect their sons and daughters from miscreant street influences, sometimes hiding their clothing so they could not venture outside.

Most Glasgow families lived in poverty. Even with two incomes, subsistence wages were not enough to lift a family out of dest.i.tution. Absent the availability of homegrown meat or vegetables, the average city dweller spent at least 60 percent of earnings on food, some spending up to 90 percent. Members of the laboring cla.s.s, like the McMillans, lived on oatmeal for breakfast and potatoes for dinner. Bread, beer, and lard rounded out their diet. Luxury items like milk, b.u.t.ter, cheese, or a piece of pork were rarely purchased. The largest meal portions were reserved for Michael McMillan, the primary breadwinner, especially when he could afford meat. When food ran short, mothers and children were expected to go without and sacrifice for the survival of the household.

A Glasgow father spent very little time in the home. When his s.h.i.+ft ended late into the evening, he generally headed straight for the flash house to "swallow a hare" at the pub. Workmates in tow, he drank heartily into the wee hours. Glasgow taverns, one for every fourteen people, guaranteed escape from the bleakness of a one-room flat. "Drunken statistics" published in the Scotsman Scotsman revealed that Glasgow residents drank more than five times the amount of their London counterparts because of worse housing and less a.s.sistance for Scotland's poor. Like their parents, the young took solace under alcohol's haze, as described by a fourteen-year-old stonecutter: "Usquebaugh (whiskey) was simply happiness doled out by the gla.s.s and sold by the gill." revealed that Glasgow residents drank more than five times the amount of their London counterparts because of worse housing and less a.s.sistance for Scotland's poor. Like their parents, the young took solace under alcohol's haze, as described by a fourteen-year-old stonecutter: "Usquebaugh (whiskey) was simply happiness doled out by the gla.s.s and sold by the gill."4 The comfort of the bottle expanded Glasgow's generation of abandoned children. Police commissions investigating the cause of juvenile delinquency in the early nineteenth century linked alcoholic parents to criminal children. "It is likely that drunkenness was often the result of indigence rather than simply baccha.n.a.lian pleasures. Many families of juvenile delinquents seem to have been engaged in a fight between dest.i.tution and respectability in the struggle to keep their heads above water from day to day."5 Among the poor and middle cla.s.s, it was a woman's duty to try to protect the family from the lure of the bottle, to ensure that a man's paycheck wasn't spent entirely at the pub. On payday, she would wait, children in hand, along the rail tracks or outside the factory exit. Money spent on prost.i.tutes was another problem. Marriage in the Regency era was a loose concept at best, fidelity an uncommon one. As unemployment rose, so, too, did wife beating. If a woman found the courage to take her mate to court, he claimed that she had been drinking, fully aware that drunken wives could be gaoled by their husbands' testimony. Desertion was commonplace among men. Without warning, many ran away from the Glasgow tenements in search of better employment or an easier life.

These were the stresses that robbed childhoods from the thousands of Scottish children who ended up on the street or in a factory. Agnes McMillan was no different. Her father abandoned the family early in her life. She never learned why he left, but there are many possible explanations. Railway men worked fifteen-hour s.h.i.+fts, seven days a week, with only one holiday a year. Michael McMillan's job of coal porter entailed lugging a wheelbarrow back and forth, loading and unloading mound upon mound of dusty fuel. So pitiful was the pay for this backbreaking work that many resorted to larceny. Men Michael's age often surrendered to arrest, alcoholism, or the grave. The average life expectancy for a Glasgow native was just under thirty-one years.

Nearly 30 percent of Glasgow households were headed by a woman. Some were widows and others abandoned wives like Mary. Many Scottish la.s.ses had never married because of the availability of jobs in the mills coupled with a shortage of men. If a woman lost her job or her mate, her options for employment were severely more limited than a man's. If the sole breadwinner didn't work, she ended up on Glasgow's streets. There were no alternatives, no safety nets. If a woman was poor, it was considered her fault. If her children went hungry, it was blamed on her flawed character.

Poverty was treated as a crime, conveniently alleviating the conscience of the upper cla.s.ses. Poorhouses were designed to be as miserable as possible to discourage use by people who needed help most. When Agnes was born, local counties couldn't handle the swelling number of women, men, and children who were without food, a place to sleep, or prospects for employment. The few admitted to a workhouse were called "inmates" and were required to wear uniforms. Each inmate performed hard labor. Men worked breaking stones with axes. Women and children pulled apart old hemp rope that would be reused on s.h.i.+ps, tearing their flesh as they teased dirt and tar from the rough fibers. In The Borough The Borough, British poet George Crabbe described this "pauper-palace"6: Those gates and locks, and all those signs of power: It is a prison, with a milder name, Which few inhabit without dread or shame.

If Mary McMillan had lost her job and been forced into a poorhouse, the overseer would have separated her from Agnes. He would have shorn Agnes's hair to three inches, thereby reinforcing her beggar rank and discouraging a return to "poor relief." Mother and child would have gone to sleep hungry. Food rations, deemed "an efficient test of poverty," were half the amount served in prisons, just enough to keep the worker inmates on their feet.7 In gaol, hard labor was generally not required, so, in effect, poverty was punished more harshly than stealing. The workhouse was a death sentence for 23 percent of those who entered, a mortality rate more than double that for the homeless. In gaol, hard labor was generally not required, so, in effect, poverty was punished more harshly than stealing. The workhouse was a death sentence for 23 percent of those who entered, a mortality rate more than double that for the homeless.

The End of Eden.

For a time, Mary McMillan was able to provide for Agnes by laboring at the nearby woolen manufactory, as the mill was called. The work was stifling and dangerous, but because she was paid based on her productivity, she trudged on. There was no ventilation, nor privies, nor provisions for water. Agnes's mother considered herself fortunate to have a job, but toxic tedium and twelve years on her feet had finally ground her down. In theory, the Industrial Revolution offered women the potential for economic freedom. In reality, most earned between one-third and one-half of what a man brought home.

No matter how Mary scrimped and saved, she was always behind. With wages on the order of four s.h.i.+llings per week, there was little chance to make ends meet. Her basic expenses required at least five s.h.i.+llings, exceeding her earnings in spite of working overtime. In neighborhoods like Goosedubbs Street, weekly rent cost one s.h.i.+lling, sixpence; oatmeal and flour, one s.h.i.+lling, ten pence; potatoes, five pence for a large sack; candles and fuel, one s.h.i.+lling, two pence.

Facing the numbing struggle to make it through the next day, Mary McMillan found optimism beyond her grasp. Whether it was despair, drink, or a different reason, Mary ultimately gave up on motherhood. Unable to cope with work and parenting, she often left Agnes to fend for herself. By age twelve, Agnes was left entirely to her own resources. Her mother still allowed her to sleep at the flat, but Agnes spent many a night wandering the wynds. Luckily, she made friends easily, thanks to "a spirited demeanor," as described by her descendants. Deserted by her family and consigned to wretchedness by her government's grim prediction in Parliament's Poor Laws report, the Goosedubbs Street girl found protection in what would be called a street gang today.

Janet Houston, a year older, adopted the abandoned little songstress. Agnes's alliance with a surrogate big sister provided a sense of belonging and a semblance of a family, at least for a while. Agnes sang to whoever would listen, and Janet collected coins from pa.s.sersby. Together the best friends looked out for each other as they managed a lean existence along the River Clyde. Life on the dingy streets was certainly hard, yet these two independent souls had decided that sleeping in an alleyway was preferable to the workhouse or the factory. Now, however, the sunken-cheeked twelve-year-old was under arrest, chains shackled to her wrists. As the iron door closed, leaving her and Janet in the damp silence of the holding cell, Agnes cursed her bad luck. She knew what justice meant for the poor. b.l.o.o.d.y Christmas, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.

If a society is judged on how it treats children and the downtrodden, the British Empire failed on all fronts during Agnes's lifetime. Voices of reason were few and rare, even among leading intellectuals. Francis Hutcheson, one of the founders of the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment, suggested that benevolence arose from the instinctive human commitment toward "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers." Man's morality, he believed, would inspire "a determination to be pleased with the happiness of others and to be uneasy at their misery."8 Enlightened optimism like Hutcheson's faded in favor of luminaries voicing more cynical views about the future of humanity. In his famous Essay on the Principle of Population Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus argued that in accordance with the laws of nature, famine and starvation would weed out the poor, thus alleviating the strain of population growth on modern civilization. He recommended that the underprivileged be prevented from marrying and having children.9 A father of three, he felt exempt from this proclamation because of his wealth. Following his logic, Agnes McMillan should not have been born. A father of three, he felt exempt from this proclamation because of his wealth. Following his logic, Agnes McMillan should not have been born.

A controversial celebrity of his time, Malthus advocated against the Poor Laws and any a.s.sistance that might help sustain the struggling. This was the brand of popular thinking that permitted the abuses of power under the Transportation Act, including s.h.i.+pping twenty-five thousand girls and women to the other side of the world, Agnes and Janet among them.

Throughout the British Isles, madness and hypocrisy permeated politics and everyday life. In 1820, a child who stole clothing could be banished and worked to death in Australia, but George IV, a known bigamist and suspected murderer, would be crowned king. King George IV humiliated Queen Caroline when he continued his relations.h.i.+p with a commoner to whom he'd been secretly married years earlier. Her Highness, too, engaged in scandalous behavior, including dressing in see-through gowns during alleged affairs with her servants. Her death in 1821 was widely attributed to poisoning by His Majesty.

The Industrial Revolution heightened society's imbalances. It fattened the prosperous and starved the weak, widening the chasm between cla.s.ses and creating an incubator for juvenile criminals like Agnes and Janet. In earlier decades, parish schools in rural villages welcomed children during the slower farming cycles and fostered a relatively high literacy rate. Had Agnes been born into an agrarian family, hard labor would still have been her fate, but she would have eaten better food, grown up in healthier surroundings, and perhaps learned to read. Though farm hands labored long and hard, there were changes in pace and a variety in ch.o.r.es, unlike the perpetual monotony that poisoned the factory floor. Farm children were valued by their parents, if for no other reason than their ability to work the fields. This bond helped keep rural families intact.

Factories, on the other hand, demanded labor every day of the week, every month of the year. As industry enhanced technology, it stunted education for the poor, and literacy declined. There were simply not enough hours in the day for children to learn to read and write. The lowest cla.s.ses, following the lure of progress, traded a self-sufficient agrarian lifestyle for enslavement in an urban jungle. From 1780 to 1830, child labor grew exponentially, largely due to the end of a family-centered economy.

Well on its way to becoming one of the largest cities in Europe and already Scotland's most congested, Glasgow had grown to a population of two hundred thousand. As daylight broke, low-lying smog erased the city's color. Ashen figures wandered hopelessly through a black-and-white world. By Christmas 1832, Agnes's hometown, unrivaled in squalor, was dirtier and more dangerous than any city in the empire.

This was a far cry from the pristine paradise enjoyed by Glasgow's seventy thousand inhabitants just thirty years earlier. The city's name came from the Gaelic Glaschu, Glaschu, or "clean green place." English writer Daniel Defoe described eighteenth-century Glasgow as "one of the cleanliest, most beautiful and best cities in Great Britain." or "clean green place." English writer Daniel Defoe described eighteenth-century Glasgow as "one of the cleanliest, most beautiful and best cities in Great Britain."10 Built along the River Clyde, this peaceful enclave was protected by steep rolling hills. Children played in the water, and men fished in the streams by tree-lined meadows. This was an urban oasis defined by nature's beauty, resplendent in its orchards, cornfields, and terraced flower gardens. Built along the River Clyde, this peaceful enclave was protected by steep rolling hills. Children played in the water, and men fished in the streams by tree-lined meadows. This was an urban oasis defined by nature's beauty, resplendent in its orchards, cornfields, and terraced flower gardens.

Agnes and Janet never knew the green, open s.p.a.ces of a more serene Glasgow. The tobacco and linen trade had set the Garden of Eden on fire. Seldom did the close companions see the magical northern lights, hidden under a murky haze that rarely lifted from their city's sky. The lazy River Clyde was widened and violated to make room for noisy steam-powered s.h.i.+ps bringing sugar and raw cotton to fuel Glasgow's new industries. The fragrance of buds in bloom was replaced by the stench of the slum. A once-glistening metropolis had lost its l.u.s.ter by the time the Goosedubbs Street girls sat before the sheriff.

Glasgow residents lived on average twelve years less than their rural counterparts, a fact attributed to urban housing: "damp earthen, muddy floors, walls saturated with moisture . . . small closed windows admitting of no perflation [sic] of air, crowded apartments, thatched roofs saturated like a sponge with water."11 The physical toll on the tenement dweller was devastatingly obvious. The rich were almost always taller than the poor by four inches or more. The physical toll on the tenement dweller was devastatingly obvious. The rich were almost always taller than the poor by four inches or more.12 One-third of Glasgow's children hobbled along with a disfiguring gait caused by malnutrition and rickets. One-third of Glasgow's children hobbled along with a disfiguring gait caused by malnutrition and rickets. 13 13 More were maimed by their work in factories or mines. More were maimed by their work in factories or mines.

Laborers were pitted against one another for every job, every day. A person willing to work for less landed the job only until someone more desperate arrived at the factory door. Glasgow s.h.i.+pping companies imported starving Irish citizens who eagerly accepted cheap wages, thereby putting Scottish citizens out of work. To make matters worse, peasants from the highlands crowded the city in search of a better life that did not exist. In addition, the s.h.i.+ft from hand to power looms destroyed a large cottage industry and left thousands of traditional weavers without employment and their families without food. Bleakness clung to the land like mold on an old loaf of bread.

The Glasgow wynds did not suffer fools. Like feral dogs, children on the streets learned to live according to their wits and a well-developed talent for exploiting opportunity. Alley dwellers worked their way up the street society according to a criminal hierarchy. Agnes and Janet would have started at the bottom, lifting an apple or two from a vendor cart. With small successes, the novice progressed to stealing items from stores and pa.s.sersby. The proceeds could be bartered for money through any number of fences who lurked under the cover of candle shops, street stalls, and public houses. Many lodging-house owners offered thieves a bed for the night in return for an item that could be p.a.w.ned easily. Other proprietors, fences themselves, encouraged crime as they made their boardinghouses a safe haven for gangs and a thriving underground economy from which they, too, profited.