Author Description

The life and times of Elizabeth Rymes, convicted in the Old Bailey in 1789 at the age of 15, sentenced to transportation to NSW Australia for a period of seven years, and transported on the Second Fleet to New South Wales, Australia, as a convict. In NSW she met and married Matthew James Everingham, a young convict who had arrived on the First Fleet. An inspiring story of a young woman who was a remarkable pioneer in the early days of white settlement in Australia, possessed of a positive attitude to life as a convict settler in a difficult pioneering era. The story tells of her interactions with the native Aboriginal people of New South Wales and of the trials she faced weathering floods, fires and other great personal losses as she supported her husband, Matthew, and raised their 10 children. Elizabeth went on to be the matriarch of the Everingham dynasty, an extensive family which endures in Australia today. The book is a combination of biography, political and social history, and fiction.