Henrys, Catherine (c. 1805–1855)

Irish-born Australian convict. Name variations: Jemmy the Rover. Born Catherine Henrys in County Sligo, Ireland, around 1805; died in Melbourne Hospital, in 1855.

Nothing is known about the early life of notorious convict Catherine Henrys, also known as Jemmy the Rover, aside from an obvious bout with smallpox which left her with a pockmarked complexion. Having left her native Ireland for a better life in England, she was living in Derby in 1832, and it is there that she was first brought up on robbery charges. In October 1835, she was convicted of the pickpocket robbery of one Charles Haynes and sentenced to transportation (exile) for life. Henrys was taken along with other female transports to Australia aboard the Arab, arriving in Hobart, on the island of Tasmania, on April 25, 1836. She was assigned as a maid to a haberdasher in Hobart Town but was subsequently charged with disorderly conduct and sentenced to six days in prison. Over the next five years, Henrys was assigned to six masters throughout the colony, although her behavior (drunkenness, neglect of duty, use of obscene language) was such that she stayed with some only a matter of weeks. One of her longest tenures was with George Augustus Robinson, the superintendent of an Aboriginal settlement on Flinders Island.

Henrys apparently escaped the authorities in 1841 and enjoyed one year of freedom, during which she lived in the bush and worked as a timber splitter. She was apprehended again in 1842, found guilty of assault and robbery, and sentenced to three years' hard labor. She received a ticket of leave in 1845, only to have it almost immediately revoked because of another infraction. In 1848, she was convicted again for assault and was confined to a female factory. Within weeks, she escaped, removing the bars of her cell with a spoon and scaling the wall. This arrest-conviction-escape pattern was repeated several times until 1850, when she was granted a conditional pardon and left the island of Tasmania on the Caroline. She died in a Melbourne hospital in 1855.

sources:

Radi, Heather, ed. 200 Australian Women. NSW, Australia: Women's Redress Press, 1988.