The Deceptive Identity of Mary Leigh/Gangell/Murphy

Mary Leigh or Lee or Gangell or Murphy - Free Settler or Convict: 9 May 1842 mss transcript of evidence in the case of John Thornley, who has been charged with harbouring 'Mary Leigh, an absconded offender.' Leigh goes to great lengths, apparently successfully, to explain that Leigh is not really her name, even though she acknowledges that she has been known by that name. She claims it is her mother's maiden name, that her real name is Mary Murphy, that she arrived in New South Wales a free settler, establishing herself at Pittwater in Van Diemen's Land with her defacto husband, William Gangell. She further states that she has been in the Colony for nearly 26 years. Although the case against Thornley is dismissed, research indicates that Mary is a liar. Mary Leigh, born in 1793, was one of 126 convicts transported on the 'Maria' arriving in September 1818. She had been convicted of Larceny at Chester and sentenced to Transportation for Life. Her various aliases are recorded as Lee, Lea, Gangell and Gingell. Her father's name was not Murphy, as she claimed, it was John Lea. She married William Gangell in January 1819 at Hobart Town and was granted her ticket-of-leave in March 1843. She lived in Lower Macquarie St, and was approved for a Conditional Pardon in October 1845 despite having spent several periods in the House of Correction (with hard labour) for having absconded from her husband and family. She died in 1870.