Frances Tomsett (c1785-1853)

After a 5½ month voyage beginning on 1 January 1815, the convict Fanny Gutsell arrived in Sydney on 18 June 1815 aboard the Northampton after being convicted for 7 years on 21 Mar 1814 in the Lewes, Sussex Assizes.

Fanny was a nickname for Frances. In the 1822 muster of New South Wales she is shown not as Fanny Gutsell but as Frances Gutsell. It is also the name given for their mother on the birth records for her daughters Frances, Charlotte & Mary, and on the death records for Charlotte & Mary..

On the birth records of Fanny's daughters Frances, Charlotte, & Mary, and on the death records of Charlotte & Mary, it is stated that their father's name was John Gutsell. This means that Fanny was a married woman when she was transported to Sydney, Australia, in 1815 at the age of 26. It also means that her husband joined her in New South Wales.

 When the Northampton arrived in Sydney in mid-1815 with Fanny Gutsell aboard, i t carried a “cargo” of about 110 women convicts and their children.  The Northampton also carried passengers to New South Wales who, because they were not convicts, are described in the musters of New South Wales as “came free”. Among these passengers were:

 1. At least one husband of a convict on board the ship. [William Blake accompanied his convict wife, Susannah Blake, and their 3 year old child Jane (whose name was later changed to Diana). In addition birth records in NSW suggest that John Gutsell accompanied his wife Fanny Gutell.]

 2. Many women (& their children) coming to join their convict husbands who were already in Australia. [Of those 20 convict husbands who can be identified from the records there were 9 from Indefatigable 1815, 3 from Marquis of Wellington 1815, 4 from Somersetshire 1814, 1 from Governor Hewitt 1814, 1 from Earl Spencer 1813 or Guildford 1812 (the records are not clear), 1 from Admiral Gambier 1811, 1 from Ann 1810.]

 3. At least one child coming to join a convict parent already in Australia. [James Williams had arrived as a convict aboard the Earl Spencer in 1813. His wife Esther “came free” to join him aboard the General Hewitt in 1814. Aboard the Northampton was their daughter Esther Williams who “came free” to join her parents.]

 4. At least one family of immigrants. [Henry Greentree, his wife Jane, and their children.]

 5. At least one woman & her children came to join her immigrant husband already in New South Wales. [Jane Lees’ husband William came free on the Mary Ann in 1814. Jane Lees & their children came out to join him.]

 6. The records do not make it   not clear because ages are not given but there may have also been a small number of single female immigrants on board.

 Her husband John Gutsell accompanied her on the Northampton in 1815. A full investigation of the documents available from the period 1815 to 1825 about people who arrived on the Northampton reveals that - in all probability - the convict Fanny Gutsell, like the convict Susannah Blake, was accompanied on board the Northampton by her husband. John Gutsell “came free”. No known children landed with them in New South Wales. After they landed in New South Wales in mid-1815 they may have had a miscarriage, a still-birth or a baby that only lived a short time. Their first child who survived was Frances, named after her mother, who was born in January 1817. Frances was followed by Jane (1818-lived 6 mths), Charlotte (1819), Lucy (c1820) and lastly Mary who was born in March 1822 but for some reason was not counted in the 1822 muster. In 1821 or 1822, however, and before the 1822 muster, John Gutsell died. We know this because, unlike other women who came out on the Northampton, Fanny is not shown in the 1822 or 1825 muster as the “wife of” anyone, just as living in Sydney and a Housekeeper respectively. Unlike the entries of women whose husbands are alive, her children are just shown as the “family of F. Gutsell”. In addition there is no John Gutsell found in the censuses either next to her entry or nearby as occurred in the entries of other women and their husbands of the same surname. (Although there is a convict John Gutsell found in the 1822 muster for New South Wales, his entry is no where near the entry of Fanny or her children, and he can be otherwise discounted. His record states that he arrived in New South Wales on the Eliza which arrived in Sydney in mid-1820, far too late for this man to be the father of Frances, Jane, Charlotte, or Lucy.)

Fanny's maiden name is unknown. Fanny is believed by some to be Frances Tomsett who married a John Gutsell on 20 November 1802 in Frant, Sussex. This, however, would have made her only 14 when she married which just did not happen in England at the time among the working classes, and all marriages under the age of 21 required parent's permission. At that time marriages at ages as young as 14 and 15 occurred in Australia, but not in England. A marriage as early as 1802 would also have meant that there would have been a number of children that accompanied Fanny to New South Wales who should have been noted on the list compiled by the ship's surgeon. A common age for marriages in England at that time was at about the age of 25 years. It is likely that Fanny was newly married, or had only been married for a few years, when she was convicted of her crime in March 1814.

Any children that Fanny gave birth to in Sussex prior to 1815, or on board the Northampton, are unknown. No children were listed by the ship's surgeon for the Northampton for Fanny Gutsell. If the details on the surgeon's list are incorrect for Fanny, as they were for at least one other woman, she may, howewer, have arrived with a child that he accidentally omitted to list. If she did so, however, the child did not survive until the 1822 muster of New South Wales.

Fanny's children born in New South Wales are known from the New South Wales Musters and other records. Her daughter Jane was buried as a 6 month old infant in the Sydney burial ground in 1818 and a death record exists. Birth and death records exist for her daughters Frances, Charlotte & Mary. In the 1822 muster Fanny had with her Frances 5, Charlotte 3 and Lucy 2. By the 1825 muster Lucy has died and she has with her Frances 8, Charlotte 6 and Mary 3.