Elizabeth Thackery was charged at the Manchester Assizes in 1786 of stealing a silk handkerchief.
She was convicted for theft and sailed for Botany Bay aboard Friendship with 97 other convicts.
During the voyage, Elizabeth contracted several liaisons with various members of the Friendship’s crew.
Elizabeth must have had some spirit for she was known as one of the "Fighting Five", a group of convict women who fought against their imprisonment at every step of the voyage.
For her misbehaviour she was one of the convicts transferred during the
voyage to the Charlotte.
Thackery later claimed that when the Charlotte arrived in Botany Bay on January
20th 1788, she seized the opportunity to jump ashore ahead of all the other
female convicts.
No one seems to have disputed her claim.
Eventually Elizabeth was sent to Van Dieman’s Land where she met and married Sam King, a farmer at New Norfolk.