The biography I choose to write about is Mary Reibey. Mary Reibey was a businesswoman, shipowner and trader who was expelled to Australia from England. On May 12th, 1777, was the day she was born, and on the 30th of May, 1855, she died. In 1791 (she is around the age of 15 when arriving), after landing, she settled in Sydney as a young accused horse thief and by fortuitous spouse and an entrepreneurial spirit became the leading colonial seller and philanthropist. In this paper, I will also look at Mary Reibley's personal history which was so elevated that this lady has a position on our $20 notes. This will also involve looking at the period and location she grew up in the New South Wales colony in the early decades of the late 18th century British colonization.
Mary Reibey was born Molly Haydock in the Bury district of Lancashire in England and christened. Mary’s parents were prominent leaders of mid-sized Yeomaniacs, but she was orphaned in her early adulthood and brought up by her maternal grandmother. Mary was well educated and frequently attended church at Blackburn Grammar School. She left Lancashire after her grandmother's death in 1790 and when she was 13, she disguised herself as a boy and decided to steal a horse maybe as a misled joke while having to work as a servant. Once she was arrested, she was still dressed as a boy and was identified as James Burrows, after a kid, she was aware of who died recently. Mary retained her disguise as a boy, but at her Stafford Assizes trial she was revealed. The theft of horses in the late 18th century was punished by execution, but Mary was not willing to do the hangman’s noose owing to her 'tender years' (Gilchrist, 2016). In October 1792, she was 15 years of age, and arrived at New South Wales on Royal Admiral.
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An appeal for her freedom was ineffectual and she was sent to New South Wales in 1792 in the Royal Admiral, where she had been named a nurse servant to the household of Francis Grose, who was a defense forces personnel and lieutenant governor. When she arrived, she wrote to Penelope Hope, her aunt, expressing in ‘idiosyncratic spelling’ her plans to get her sentence of seven years reduced and to ‘watch every opportunity to get away in too or 3 years. But I will make myself as happy as I can in my present and unhappy situation’ (Reserve Bank of Australia. 2016, 20). Only at age of seventeen, she wedded Thomas Reibey, a twenty-five free settler and junior shipping officer on the Britannia East India Company department. It would be a fortuitous union for each of them, and combined they made a really solid, faithful working relationship. (Gilchrist, 2016). Together they achieved a lot, Thomas was given asses to land on a rich fertile Hawkesbury River, where they were able to produce numbers of cargo businesses and farms along the Hawkesbury River to Sydney. Once this happened, they moved to Sydney and also created a substantial stone house and trading establishments near the Macquarie Place which is what it is today and Reiby Place. Even though in 1880 the building was cleared it was also once the Bank of New South Wales once originally names the Entally House after the Indian suburb of Entally. By 1803, Thomas also owned successful trading in coal, cedar, wheat and boats, which were traded up and down the Hunter and Hawkesbury River. His ship-building companies, so important for the growth of the early colonies, were quickly growing. By 1805, he participated in construction in the Bass Strait, and by 1807, his company had grown further. His schooner ‘Mercury’ exchanged daily with the Pacific Islands. Earlier, he built up comprehensive trade networks with India and China. Through his often-long absences, Mary maintained both their family and his business ambitions alive. Their family ended up having 7 children (Thomas, James, George, Celia, Eliza, Jane Penelope and Elizabeth). All their children were well educated and baptized in the Old St Philip’s Church.
After the death of Thomas in 1811 due to a fatal illness which he picked up on a trading trip to Bengal, Mary was seen as a very wealth woman but she never remarried. After her husband’s death she continued his business responsibility managing the Reibey family empire. In 1812, she founded a bigger warehouse in George Street, Sydney, and with the acquisition of further merchant vessels, she began to grow her sailing and trade activities. She obtained land grants for her two eldest sons in Van Diemen 's Territory and started to exchange widely with investments there. By 1817, the year she turned forty, Mary Reibey was projected to be worth around three and a half million dollars today. Three years later, she controlled a thousand acres of land and properties. In 1820, Mary left Sydney and sailed to England with her two eldest daughters. It would have been seen as a once young convict thief that had turned into a wealthy and respected success story.
Although Mary died with none of her children out living her, she still had many grandchildren. She died at the age of 78. Over that period of time that she arrived the colony was only 4 years old and had changed a great deal. Mary was not only a woman, but a mother, wife, pioneer, leading businesswomen, entrepreneur but she played a key role in the trade in colonizing Australia. Her story was a very poor girl terns rich girl story. Being a woman that made such a big impact was not common in this era. Which is why she is on $20 note to this very day.
Mary Reibey was a woman of many talents and occupations in her long life. Mary got the life she deserved but no one would have thought she would get. Mary very much deserved being on the $20 note and she earned all of it. The era that she was born and died in was not use to the major success of a woman which made it all so much more that Mary ended up the way she did with such success and drive to be a key component on our history.
References
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- Anu.edu.au. (2020b). Biography - Mary Reibey - Australian Dictionary of Biography. [online] Available at: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/reibey-mary-2583 [Accessed 19 Aug. 2020].
- Deakin.edu.au. (2013). The Settler Evolution: Space, Place and Memory in Early Colonial Australia - ProQuest. [online] Available at: https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy-b.deakin.edu.au/docview/1470090796?accountid=10445 [Accessed 24 Aug. 2020].
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- Gilchrist, C. (2016). Mary Reibey | The Dictionary of Sydney. [online] Dictionaryofsydney.org. Available at: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/mary_reibey [Accessed 19 Aug. 2020].
- Karskens, G. (2013a). The Early Colonial Presence, 1788–1822. The Cambridge History of Australia, [online] pp.91–120. Available at: https://www-cambridge-org.ezproxy-b.deakin.edu.au/core/books/cambridge-history-of-australia/early-colonial-presence-17881822/164E0BA456E45C53695836BC2821BCC9 [Accessed 24 Aug. 2020].
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- Reserve Bank of Australia. 2016. Notable Australians: Historical Figures Portrayed on Australian Banknotes, Reserve Bank of Australia, Sydney. Available at https://museum.rba.gov.au/exhibitions/notable-australians/pdf/notable-australians.pdf#page=22 [Accessed 19 Aug. 2020].
- Walsh, G.P. 1967. 'Reibey, Mary (1777-1855)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Available at http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/reibey-mary-2583 [Accessed 19 Aug. 2020].
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