Gunning & District Historical Society

Whatever Happened to Martha Alchin?  by Garry Smith This is not Martha Alchin, just a depiction of a woman of the period Martha Alchin (nee Latter) (1786-?) was a native of County Kent, England. There were many Alchins in Kent at the time and still are, but was Martha one of my Alchins; this was her married name so what connection is there with the Alchins who came to Jerrawa/Oolong Creek in the late 1840s? Martha Alchin was committed to Maidstone Gaol in 1834 charged with larceny. Her name appeared in the Greenwich, Woolwich, Deptford, and West Kent Guardian on 13 December 1834. She was tried at the Kent County Sessions at Maidstone on 6 January 1835. Martha was one of many prisoners sent to Maidstone Gaol in 1834 to await trial (Greenwich, Woolwich, Deptford and West Kent Guardian, 13 December 1834, 5) Martha Alchin arrived in the colony of New South Wales aboard the barque Mary on 7 September 1835. She was one of 180 female convicts who had sailed from L...

Abel Alchin: First Cousin, First in the Colony by Garry Smith St John the Baptist Church, Wateringbury, Kent, England We have all puzzled, at some time, about which family member was the first to come to the colony of New South Wales. Was it a convict? A free settler? A member of the military? I had thought that Martha Alchin, convict from County Kent, might have been the first; she arrived in 1835 – but more about her at another time. The puzzle might now be solved. Abel Alchin (1805-1842) arrived in the colony in 1826. He was aboard the convict ship Marquis of Huntley. He was not a convict. He came to Sydney as a member of the 57 th (The West Middlesex) Regiment of Foot to be garrisoned in the colony to guard against convict uprisings, track down bushrangers and generally keep order. Convict Chain Gang for recalcitrant convicts sent to work on the roads Abel Alchin was born in 1805 in Wateringbury, in the Parish of Frindsbury, Kent,...