Thieves, needlewomen, Aboriginal warriors and a ten-year-old boy: the free people transported as convicts to Van Diemen’...
Emma Cotton (or Cotterell) sailed into Sydney harbour on the Rubicon in 1833 as a free immigrant. A 32-year-old woman of independent means, she took on needlework in the colony. Emma’s genteel life unravelled four years later when she appeared before a …