A hard life

Life for women not born into any form of wealth was hard in the 1800’s.
Options were limited and with none of the modern conveniences we take for granted, it was unending toil.
Even so, the life of Margaret Doherty was tragic. Reliant on men for support, often pregnant and reduced to crime and drink, it must have been a constant struggle.
Margaret was born in 1831 to Henry and Margaret Doherty in Limerick, Ireland during the time of the Great Famine.
In 1851 she was charged with receiving stolen clothing and when she got to court it was found she had a previous conviction for stealing a cow and already been in jail.
She was sentenced to be transported and left in 1852 heading to Hobart, where she was described as 20, 155cm tall, brown hair and dark eyes. She could not read or write.
After one small issue with being absent from her service without leave she was unexpectedly charged with murder.
Prisoners had some freedom and while Margaret and another woman were at an eating house with a former convict called Peter Lomas, he went to the loo and never returned. Margaret found him dead with a small bottle of medicine in his hand that she took. A witness said Margaret had given it to her and the police then charged her with murder.
At an inquest though it was found Peter had died on natural causes and the charge against Margaret was dropped.
In 1853 Margaret and George Jenkins applied to be married and four months later Margaret had her first child Harry. They moved to the Huon Valley where they lived with a former convict John Clarke.
Jenkins deserted Margaret to go to the goldfields and Margaret turned to Clarke and had three children by him.
Margaret got her ticket to leave - then her conditional pardon in 1856 only to have tragedy strike.
She was nursing her latest baby Charlotte when a neighbour she had had an argument with threw boiling water over them. Charlotte died.
Although Margaret quickly had another child, a son, it had placed a strain on her relationship with Clarke who up and left.
Unable to support herself Margaret had her three oldest children put into care. She was by this time drinking heavily.
About 1864 Clarke returned and the two youngest went back into their care. They decided to start afresh in New Zealand.
But shortly after their arrival in Timaru, Clarke left again, leaving Margaret with the children.
Unable to cope she got into more and more trouble with the law, and ended up being charged with deserting her children. They were admitted to the Lyttleton Orphanage.
Between 1869 and 1882, Margaret was charged with numerous offences including larceny, vagrancy, drunkenness, using obscene language, behaving in a riotous and indecent manner in the street, having no lawful means of support, soliciting and prostitution, and wilful destruction of private property.
In 1878 she married again a man called Thomas Stanton.
But in 1882 she was accidentally burnt to death at her home when her skirt caught the fire.
She was 50. Margaret is buried in an unmarked grave in the Barbadoes Street Cemetery in Christchurch.
Picture by Carl Tronders.​