Mary Ann Bugg is gaoled at East Maitland Gaol

Mary Ann Bugg is gaoled at East Maitland Gaol for stealing cloth. Mary Ann Bugg; who becomes well known as the wife of one of Australia’s longest surviving bushrangers, Captain Thunderbolt; was born on the Australian Agricultural Company’s property near Gloucester on 7 May 1834. She is the daughter of a Worimi/Birpai woman with the English name of Charlotte and an ex-convict shepherd, James Brigg. Along with her younger brother John, Mary Ann is taken to Sydney in 1839, to be “civilised” at the Orphan School. In Sydney she receives an education necessary for her to work as a domestic servant In March 1866, in an effort to capture Thunderbolt the troopers arrest Mary Ann, along with her two elder children and baby. The two older children are taken away from her and, with the baby, she is brought before the bench.