Page 5
Mary the criminal
breaking the law
going to prison
or hanging at dawn
.... MARY ANN COTTON was born Mary Ann Robson in 1832 . By the time she was arrested there was a total of 15 certain victims with a possible total of 21 in all. She was brought up a strict Methodist, married at the age of 2O years and had five children of whom three died. She had three more children who also died as did her first husband. Within fourteen months of marriage to her second husband he also was dead. After first becoming housekeeper to a John Robinson and then his wife very soon his three children and their mother met their deaths but for some reason John remained alive. Frederick Cotton, whom she married bigamously, was also one of her victims. At her execution on March 24th 1873 it took three minutes for her to die when the execution was bungled
..... MARY BROAD was convicted at Exeter of stealing a cloak and of street robbery with violence and was condemned to die at the age of 21 years but the sentence was commuted to seven years in the penal colony of Australia. She met William Bryant, also a convict, on board ship on the way to Australia and before the eight month long journey was over she had given birth to a daughter. They married soon after their arrival in Australia and a year later her son was born. When famine spread through the colony of New South Wales Mary and her husband and children were among the many who made a bid for freedom but after a treacherous journey they were eventually arrested in September 1791. Along with others they were taken in irons to Bratavia on the island of Java where William and their son died. With her daughter Mary was put on a ship bound for London but lost her daughter on the journey. On arrival in Portsmouth in June 1792 she was sent to Newgate Prison with other survivors but almost a year later was given a pardon, mainly through the insistence of the writer, James Boswell
..... MARY BAKER alias 'Caraboo' was born in 1795 as Mary Wilcox and was the daughter of a cobbler in Devonshire. She ran away from home at the age of 18 and after working as a maidservant for three years was sacked for stealing. Mr Baker eventually deserted her and she set off for Bristol to try to
raise the £5 fare to America. As there was no-one prepared to help her she set up an elaborate ruse in order to obtain her ticket for nothing. Dressed in a turban and Oriental robes she fooled people into believing that she could not speak the English language and by various ways said that she was a princess, the daughter of a Chinese father and Malayan mother and that she had been kidnapped by pirates but had managed to escape from them. Eventually however her hoax was revealed and huge crowds flocked to see her. Eventually her ticket to America was bought for her by a magistrate Mr Worall and she remained there until 1824. On her return to England she once again tried to interest people in 'Caraboo' but no-one was bothered. She married and died in Bristol at the age of 70 years