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When eighteen-year-old Princess Victoria became Queen of England in 1837, the royal duty of presiding over executions was transferred immediately to the House Secretary for the sole reason that he was a man. She was considered too delicate for the task. By 1838, execution was limited to those who committed murder, arson, or violent crime. Still, every Monday morning a crowd gathered in front of Newgate to watch the spectacle of death. “Publicity was traditionally an essential feature of this punishment, serving to shame the offender and deter others from committing the crime.”24

On the Sunday before execution day, the condemned listened to a long sermon in the prison chapel and gathered around the very coffins that would lower them into the ground. “The Old Bailey, although extremely inconvenient, is beautifully compact. You can be detained there between the time of your committal and your trial—you can be tried there, sentenced there, condemned-celled there, and comfortably hanged and buried there, without having to leave the building, except for the purpose of going on to the scaffold.”25

Most of those tried at the Old Bailey had committed petty theft, adding hundreds daily to the 162,000 convicts ultimately transported to Australia. Detailed records kept by the British government indicate that youthful boys were more likely to be transported for minor crimes than older prisoners who committed similar offenses.26

Seventeen-year-old Frederick Osborn had stolen his dinner and three plates on which to serve it. His beggar’s banquet of beef, cheese, and butter brought a seven-year sentence. Charles Griffin stole two loaves of bread while his mother waited outside the market. The fourteen-year-old was punished with transport for seven years because he had been in custody before. Charles’s defense fell on callous ears: “I took the loaves because I was hungry. I did not touch the till.” The Transportation Policy specifically targeted healthy young boys like Frederick and Charles, who could best serve a new colony.27

It seems the plea of poverty was heard only when a lawyer was paid. Indicted for house robbery at sixteen, John Sherwin admitted the crime and somehow afforded counsel. In pleading his case, his lawyer stated “that poverty had led him to commit the offence, and that he threw himself on the mercy of the Court.” The jury “recommended to mercy in consequence of his destitute state,” and the judge imposed two months’ confinement.28

The inventory of goods stolen by those on trial during Ludlow’s day in court reads like a list of family necessities. Henry Brown, age twenty-two, pinched two pots valued at three shillings. He pleaded his own case, stating: “I was out of work. These two pots were in the street, and I picked them up.”29 Thomas Saunders, just sixteen, stole a pair of trousers. Seventeen-year-old Thomas Cook purloined a pair of boots from a display in a shop doorway. For these crimes, each received seven years’ transport.

Whether sentenced to seven or ten years, this was the era when only a tiny percentage of those transported would ever make their way back to England. Convicts who completed their sentences rarely returned to their homeland. The only way back was through a daring escape at the Cape of Good Hope or by paying a large fee for ship’s passage.

Five other women were among those convicted the same day Widow Tedder was exiled to Van Diemen’s Land. Like Ludlow, forty-seven-year-old Amy Wilson stole from her master and was sentenced to ten years. Twenty-five-year-old Ann Price, with friend Mary Grady, had taken two pairs of stays, the boning used in corsets. Valued at eight shillings, their small heist brought seven years’ transport for each. Mary Sullivan also received a seven-year punishment. At forty-six, she was caught stealing clothes and a bedcover. Hannah Herbert stood trial just before Ludlow. She had committed forgery, an offense that typically carried a life sentence. Somehow the thirty-four-year-old convinced the court that the laudanum