Convicts and Transportation Combined with Vic/Tas DC

She ‘would prefer him for a husband to any other person in the colony’:
Marriage between free women and convict men

Speaker: Dr Liz Rushen AM

Summary of Talk:
Nearly 3000 single, free women arrived in Australia in the 1830s in response to enticing advertising and a scheme to encourage women to migrate. At least a quarter of these women are known to have married convicts. In this talk, Liz will discuss why so many of these women married men still under sentence.

Brief bio:
Dr Liz Rushen AM is a Research Associate in the Faculty of Arts, Monash University, on the Editorial Board of the Australian Dictionary of Biography and a Director of the Melbourne Maritime Heritage Network. She is also a member of the Professional Historians Association (Vic & Tas), a former Executive Director of the RHSV and former Chair of the History Council of Victoria. She has researched and written extensively on the experiences of nineteenth century migrants, particularly those who left Ireland. In 2021 Liz was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to community history and heritage preservation.

The Circle meets quarterly and is free to all GSV Members.

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