Sarah (Chidley) Harpur - Welsh, Convict "Alexander" 1806

Sarah Chidley was baptised at West Bagborough, Somerset on 13 December 1789 at age 3[1]. She was convicted of petty larceny at Taunton in 1805 and sentenced to transportation for seven years. She travelled to Australia on the Alexander 1, arriving at Sydney Cove on 20 August 1806.

She died on 26 or 27 of June 1866 (counting three or four days back from the Friday of the inquest) in strange circumstances, as recorded in the Sydney Morning Herald of 5 July[2]:

An inquest was held on Friday, at the Wheelwrights' Arms, on the body of Sarah Welsh, formerly a Mrs. Harper, of Sydney. It appears she left Forbes about eighteen days ago in company with her son and an old man, in a dray, and arrived in Penrith three or four days ago. Her son having stopped on the road, the old woman remained in the dray till she breathed her last, the old man watching and taking care of her. From the evidence of the son, it seems she was 89 years of age, and in her dotage. The jury returned a verdict of "Death from old age and natural causes."
The 'son' was probably Joseph Jehoshaphat Harpur, since the only other surviving son, Charles, was at Eurobodalla. The age of 89 is puzzling, as that would make her nearly as old as Joseph Harpur, her first husband. Perhaps the age was mistranscribed from a handwritten '80', which puts her birth year at 1786, in accordance with the baptismal register.

The Government Gazette on 28 August says that Joseph Jehoshaphat Harpur and 'Elizabeth Madden, a son and daughter of the deceased' claimed her estate[3]. 'Elizabeth Madden' must be Elizabeth Harpur, although no record of a marriage to a Mr Madden is recorded.