Margaret Catchpole

Margaret Catchpole (14 March 1762 – 13 May 1819) was an English servant girl, chronicler, and deportee to Australia. Born in Suffolk, she worked as a servant in various houses before being convicted of stealing a horse and escaping from Ipswich Gaol. Following her capture, she was transported to the Australian penal colony of New South Wales, where she remained for the rest of her life. Her entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography describes her as "one of the few true convict chroniclers with an excellent memory and a gift for recording events".

Early life Catchpole was reputedly born at Nacton, Suffolk, the daughter of Elizabeth Catchpole and according to one source of Jonathan Catchpole, head ploughman.

Catchpole had little education and worked as a servant for different families until being employed in May 1793 as under-nurse and under-cook by the writer Elizabeth Cobbold at her house on St Margarets Green in Ipswich. Cobbold's husband was a brewer and member of the prosperous Ipswich Cobbold family. Catchpole was close to the family and was responsible for saving the lives of children in her care three times. She also learned to read and write while employed by the Cobbolds. 1887: An English Lass, an Australian play by Alfred Dampier and C.H. Krieger, with Lily Dampier as Catchpole in the original production. 1911: The Romantic Story of Margaret Catchpole, an Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford and starring Lottie Lyell in the title role. Only part of the movie survives today. 1945: Margaret Catchpole, a radio play by Rex Rienits produced twice by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: in 1945 with Bebe Scott as the lead and in 1958 starring Alda Ferris. 1949: Margaret Catchpole, the Girl from Wolfkettel, a novel by George Goldsmith Carter. Wolfkettel is, or was, a Saxon name for the area around Nacton. 1966: The Extraordinary Margaret Catchpole, a novel for children by Ruth Manning-Sanders that concentrates on her life before she was deported. 1972: The Smuggler's Wench, a bodice-ripper by Monica Mugan adapted from the Cobbold novel. 1974: Margaret Catchpole, a novel for children by Australian author Nance Donkin with illustrations by Edwina Bell, depicting Catchpole as a pioneering convict woman. 1979: Margaret Catchpole: Two Worlds Apart, a chamber opera by the English composer Stephen Dodgson with a libretto by Suffolk-based writer Ronald Fletcher, recorded by Naxos in 2019. 2007: Scapegallows, a novel by Carol Birch based on Catchpole's experience. 2019: "Margaret Catchpole", a song by East Suffolk folk group Honey and the Bear on their album Made in the Aker.

As eponym

The Margaret Catchpole Public House is situated on Cliff Lane close to the site of the Cobbold Brewery in Ipswich.