Botamy Bay
Chester, September 24, 1825.
The overseer of St. John’s Parish conducted before the magistrates, an elderly-looking woman, in order to prove her settlement, previous to receiving parochial relief: -
Town Clerk: ‘What’s your name?”
With a very significant look the applicant said, “Well, my name, your honour’s,
a very ugly name it’s Kitty Gravy, (dropping a curtsey) I come from the Vale of
Clwyd.”
“Are you a married woman?”
“Married! 0 yes; I are be married very often: I have had four husbands, and the
last he is in Liverpool Infirmary with a broken leg, and his name’s John Joachim
Gravy; a very ugly name isn’t it, your Worship?”
“Where were you married at?”
“Married at? Why I was married at Botamy Bay!”
“At Botamy Bay? Do you mean Botamy Bay, opposite Queen-street, adjoining the
canal?”
“Pooh, no; I mean Botamy Bay — the real Botamy Bay, 30,000 miles off, your
honour!”
“And what took you there?”
“‘Pon my word, they transported me for seven years for doing nothing — nothing
at all; God knows what for, I can’t tell. I never stole nothing in my life.”
Mrs Kitty Gravy here inserted her hand into her sinister pocket, and produced
several documents, including a number of receipts for Poor Books, and a
certificate from Sir Charles Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales, October 25th
1804. On the back of it was endorsed her personal description, and on the Town
Clerk reading the passage “fair complexion”, Mrs. Kitty, looking very knowing,
and with a shrug of her shoulders, exclaimed, “Aye, but it’s withered now!”
She then stated that Gravy was a native of Hamburgh, and was a free settler at New South Wales, residing at Woollomoolo.
She was asked why she did not go to her fourth and last spouse at Liverpool, and she excused herself by stating that she did not like to go there, on account of crossing the water, besides he was better off than she was, although he had a broken leg, and hobbled on crutches.
Mrs Kitty appeared to be in high glee during the whole of her examination which called forth a rebuke from Alderman Bowers for her levity.
“Thank your Honour, (Curtseying) I’m very much obliged; I paid 100 pound for my passage home, and everyone loves poor Kitty. I’m all fair yea and nay, your Honour’s.”
It was insinuated that Mrs. Kitty, (who was 76 years old) lived with a Frenchman, in Brighton, but she repelled the charge indignantly.
Mrs Kitty now proceeded to recapitulate, the period of her nuptials in chronological order, but we shall be content with the following:
“My first husband was James Miller and he was a Scotchman; Thomas Wilson was my next and he was a Hollander in the Navy; my third husband John Grace, an Irishman, from the county of Wicklow; and my fourth was John Gravy, a German; so you see, (said Mrs Kitty with all the naivety of an accomplished punster) that for my last two husbands I had Grease and Gravy! Gravy was a sailor in the Press Gang, and I like a fool married him. But my first husband, the Scotchman, was worth them all,”
“When were you first married?”
“Eh! The Lord knows, it’s a long while ago, but I’ve got a daughter at Little Neston, 46 years old with six children. When I landed in England two years ago, I was robbed of 170 pounds in London.”
Mrs Gravy’s fingers were decorated with a variety of rings, some of them silver.
True Patriots All
Or News from Early Australia as told in a collection of Broadsides.
Garnered and decorated by Geoffrey C. Ingleton.
Reprinted verbatim from ‘The Australian “, 1826.