A historian will visit Maitland Historical Society on Tuesday to recount the life of the town’s legendary founder, Molly Morgan. And it’s a saga so wild and inspiring you’d never believe it if it weren’t all true.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
England, 1789 – locked in a tavern, the infamous, fearless and compassionate woman who would go on to help forge the modern Hunter Valley was staring death in the face.
Outside, police were raiding her home looking for £4 worth of stolen yarn.
Her husband fled, her children disappeared into the woodwork and the police found what they were looking for. Molly was sentenced to death.
How she went from that dark, grim place to the sunny shores of Australia is a remarkable tale of survival and a testament to her unconquerable strength. But it was just a prelude to her life of adventure.
In the years that followed Molly was reunited with her husband in the penal colony, then they split.
She then escaped back to England as the mistress of a ship’s captain, but refused his offer for marriage and sought out her children.
She bigamously married a well-to-do businessman but, after an argument, their house not-so-mysteriously burned down. She fled and returned to a life of petty crime.
Her fiery temper earned her an express ticket back to Australia in 1804. And when she started rustling government cattle, she was transferred to Newcastle’s brutal penal colony.
Either her good behaviour or legendary charms inspired the Governor to cut her loose and sign over a massive parcel of Crown Land – it would become Maitland CBD.
Molly established farms, set up a grog shop and drank the menfolk under the table, turned down countless proposals and married (for a third time) to a man 30 years her junior.
But Molly was more than just a hellraiser, she was a deeply generous person. And as her businesses boomed she became one of the Hunter’s wealthiest people. She was perhaps the largest land holder in the region by the late 1820s.
She gave £100 to a church school at a time when land was five shillings an acre, turned her home into a hospital and worked to save the lives of prisoners facing execution.
The colourful life of Molly Morgan will be the subject of Newcastle historian Jude Conway’s presentation at the Maitland Historical Society’s rooms at 3 Cathedral Street Maitland from 5.30pm on Tuesday. The society asks for gold coin donation entry.
