This three act "domestic drama" chronicles the life of Margaret Catchpole (1762-1819) and was one of many that appeared on British stages in the mid-nineteenth century.
Having been sentenced to death twice (once for stealing a horse, once for breaking out of jail), Catchpole was transported to Botany Bay for the rest of her life. During this time she became "one of the few true convict chroniclers with an excellent memory and a gift for recording events. Her letters of 8 October 1806 and 8 October 1809 are the only known eyewitness accounts of the Hawkesbury River floods of those years; she described graphically the countryside, the Aboriginals, and the wildlife; she wrote of the first convict coalminers at Coal River (Newcastle) and of the savagery and immorality of the inhabitants of the colony, and by her writings added richly to Australia's early history. Richard Cobbold, the son of her former employers, in The History of Margaret Catchpole, 1-3 (London, 1845) provided the source of many plays, books and articles. He distorted the facts brilliantly, rewriting and, in some cases, originating in genteel and proper English Margaret's letters from Australia to his mother" (ADB).
Written and performed the year following Cobbold's biography, the acts listed here "Early Scenes", "The New Place ... Bright Hopes", and "Australia" with the list of actors and roles provide the gist of the story.
Rare: the only other broadside we can find for a play based on the same is held by the SLNSW, titled Margaret Catchpole, the female horse-stealer, or, The life and adventures of a Suffolk girl! staged at the Victoria Theatre (London, 1845).
