For the Rest of Your Natural Life, a talk on transportation.

Margaret Catchpole by Richard Cobbold

Following a very interesting talk about Suffolk Witches last year, Little Waldingfield History Society was delighted to welcome Pip Wright once again.  He enthralled the audience with his account of the history of penal transportation which he illustrated with folk songs played on the guitar.  Using newspaper accounts and original testimony, he focussed in particular on the 2500 people from Suffolk who were deported first to America and then, after the American Revolution, to Australia.

Most convicts never returned and ten times as many men were transported as women.  One of the best known among the women was Margaret Catchpole, described by Wikipedia as a British adventuress, chronicler and criminal, born in Suffolk, who worked as a servant in various houses before conviction for stealing a horse.  She later escaped from Ipswich Gaol and, following recapture, was tranported to Australia. Her entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography describes her as one of the few true convict chroniclers with an excellent memory and a gift for recording events. (14 March 1762 – 13 May 1819).

Interestingly one of the meeting rooms that we use regularly at Endeavour House is named after Margaret.  I am sure she would have been very surprised to find herself commemorated in the offices of local government!

  

The next LWHS event will be an entertainment by Charlie Haylock ‘Suffolk Vernacular’ on Wednesday 16^th October.  Further details from  Diana Langford at Pitt Cottage, telephone:  01787 248298