Mary Ann Bugg - Early Years

Early Years

Mary Ann Bugg was born at the Berrico outstation near Gloucester in New South Wales, Australia. Her father, James Bugg, who was born in Essex, England in 1801, was convicted of stealing meat (two lambs, a wether sheep and two pigs) at the Essex Assizes held at Chelmsford in July 1825 and was sentenced to death. Reprieved to life transportation, he sailed on the convict transport "Sesostris" (incorrectly recorded as "James Brigg"), which reached Sydney on 21 March 1826. On 15 January 1827, he was assigned to the Australian Agricultural Company as a shepherd. Successful in his duties, he was promoted to overseer around 1829 and soon afterwards assigned to oversee the Company's outstation at Berrico. In 1834 he was granted a ticket-of-leave - the colonial equivalent of a parole pass - which allowed him to work for himself so long as he remained in the district and attended a regular muster; he chose to continue working for the Company.

In 1833, Bugg established a relationship with an Aboriginal woman he called Charlotte, and from this union were born Mary Ann (1834), John (1836), Eliza (c1839), William (1841), James (1843), Jane (1845), Elizabeth (1847) and Thomas (1850). Mary Ann and her brother John were baptised by the Company's chaplain, Reverend William Macquarie Cowper, on 24 February 1839. The following day Bugg headed to Sydney with them, where they were to be educated. He and Charlotte had requested the Company's Commissioner, Colonel Henry Dumaresq, to find a school for them so as to "elevate them above the Barbarism of her Tribe". Dumaresq received approval to send them to the Orphan School at Parramatta, however they were not eventually educated there. All that is known with certainty is that Mary Ann attended school somewhere in Sydney where she learnt literacy, numeracy, and domestic skills, before returning to Berrico when she was around ten years of age.

On 1 June 1848, less than a month after her fourteenth birthday, Mary Ann married a man named Edmund Baker at the Church of England in Stroud. Baker was almost certainly ex-convict Edward Baker, a "Lady Harewell" transportee (1831). They appear to have given birth to a daughter Helena, although this cannot be stated with certainty. Their relationship ended within a year or two of their marriage.

Mary Ann moved to the Bathurst district with her second partner, John Burrows, where they were living when gold was discovered at the Turon River in July 1851. A son James was born in 1851 and another son John in 1853; by the time her second son was baptised the couple had settled in the Mudgee district. By mid-1855, Mary Ann had left Burrows and was living with ex-soldier James McNally, to whom she bore another three children: Mary Jane (1856), Patrick Christopher (1857) and Ellen (1860). McNally was a farmer at Cooyal north of Mudgee, and it was there in 1860 that Mary Ann met ticket-of-leave convict Frederick Ward (later to become bushranger Captain Thunderbolt).