Elizabeth Dark

In the 1814 Muster, Elizabeth's convict mother, Lucy, was a convict servant to a self employed Sydney shoemaker by the name of John Cooper, who it would seem reasonable to suspect was a relative of Lucy and may even be her brother. One must wonder if perhaps she entered upon this crime spree, at least partly with the intention that when convicted, she would be sent to join her relative in Sydney. John Cooper, a Londoner aged fifteen, was convicted at the Old Bailey on 21st May 1798, of stealing a, pocket handkerchief from the person of David Hill and arrived on the “Coromandel” in 1802. The child Elizabeth, stayed with John Cooper after Lucy left to live with John Tindall, she was still with him and aged sixteen in the 1828 Census.