Margaret Greenwood: a life of crime

The photographing of prisoners was introduced into New South Wales gaols in 1871. This 1875 record contains a rare and revealing photograph of a former Imperial convict, a prisoner again in her old age.

Margaret Greenwood was originally transported as Margaret Shannahan on the Caroline from Cork in 1833, under a sentence of seven years for house robbery. Her occupation was listed as housemaid, and she was aged 17 at the time of her trial. She was assigned as a domestic servant, gave birth to a daughter in 1837, and three years later married the child’s father (William Greenwood ), a ‘greatly respected’ citizen of the Araluen district.

However, by the 1870s her life was falling apart. Her husband had died tragically in a carting accident, and she seems to have been abandoned by her eight surviving adult children. Margaret became derelict and embarked on a life of petty crime (being tried and convicted on 12 different occasions for a variety of offences).

As the gaol record notes, she was killed in a tram accident on 18 May 1887.

Darlinghurst Gaol Photograph description book, entry for Margaret Greenwood, (formerly an imperial convict), 1875. NRS 2138 [3/6040, no. 1219]