According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an outcast is:

“a person who has no place in their society or in a particular group, because the society or group refuses to accept them”.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/outcast

In the case of some of my ancestors, not everyone in their social circle considered them to be outcasts, but enough of the law-abiding court officials did, so yep – they were outcasts.

I was born in Australia and my heritage is mostly English, therefore I can claim a number of outcasts among my ancestors. I’ve mentioned my fourth-great-grandfather-outcast in a previous post, so I will indulge another outcast ancestor in this one.

Mary Cavillon (or Cavilion) acquired a position on my Family Tree by virtue of her son’s marriage to my distant cousin, and I use the word virtue loosely because it seems Mary didn’t live a very virtuous life. As luck would have it, the less virtuous an ancestor was, the more information is available about their life today.

Mary was no exception.

It seems Mary Cavillon found herself in a swanky part of London on the 5th day of December 1810, and apparently availed herself of a set of false keys (mysteriously found in her pocket) to let herself into an upstairs bedroom in the dwelling house of William Dean. Once inside, Mary helped herself to some items of (questionable?) value, including a pair of sheets, a hat, a pair of boots, a greatcoat, a couple of handkerchiefs, a few shirts, and half a crown.

Needless to say, Mary would have been a tad conspicuous hauling that load of loot out of the house and onto the street, if she hadn’t been caught red-handed by one of the dwelling-house residents and handed over to the local constabulary, minus the loot.

The consequence for Mary’s slip from lawfulness that December day was the death sentence for breaking into William Dean’s abode. The English took break-and-enter very seriously back then, but surprisingly, the death sentence was often overturned; perhaps it was just meant as a deterrant. Luckily for Mary, a pardon was granted in 1811.

Having served time in prison, Mary was released to repent, which didn’t end well. Rather than repent, it seems Mary came up with more devious ways of avoiding apprehension: she changed her name to Isabella Phillips. So it was Isabella Phillips (alias Mary Cavillon, née Lyons) who stood in the dock of the Old Bailey in 1813. Again, Mary (Isabella) was given the death sentence, but this time there would be no pardon, well, she dodged the noose, but wasn’t set free either. Instead, the Old Bailey wasted no time in sentencing the poor soul, and we assume Mary was a poor soul, to transportation to Australia as a convict. Poor Mary, the outcast, sailed for Australian shores on the Broxbornebury in 1814.

But what happened to Isabella?

Well, somewhere between the 1813 trial at the Old Bailey, and the Broxbornebury‘s 1814 arrival in Australia, neither Mary Cavillon nor Isabella Phillips can be found in the ship’s documentation, but Mary’s thirteen-year-old son Nicholas is listed as a passenger on the ship, and he certainly wouldn’t have been travelling alone as a tourist, albeit free settler. Did the authorities simply give up trying to figure out who was Mary and who was Isabella? The reason history attributes the 1813 trial to Mary Cavillon, alias Isabella Phillips, is the similarity of the details of the crimes: Mary Cavillon’s break-and-enter in 1810, and Isabella’s break-and-enter in 1813, were almost identical.

As kids have a tendency to do, Mary’s son, Nicholas, grew up. Was it luck or misfortune that Nicholas crossed paths with Milbah Harrex? Milbah was the granddaughter of my fourth-great-grandfather, Thomas Taber. Despite her tender age of nineteen years in 1829, it may have seemed a good match for Milbah to marry twenty-eight-year-old Nicholas, who was by then a successful baker in Parramatta. Regardless of any blessings for the marriage, or lack thereof, wedded bliss did not follow Milbah into the union with Nicholas. Ten years later, the newspapers of the day didn’t leave out any details in the description of Milbah’s battered body when she fronted the bench at the Parramatta Police Station. It seems Nicholas and alcohol were well acquainted, but not compatible, and Milbah bore the brunt of Nicholas’ drunken rage.

The son of outcast Mary Cavillon may have come to Australia as a free settler, but his actions towards his wife would surely make him an outcast among the decent-folk of the colony, and within his wife’s extended family. Milbah’s grandfather, Thomas Taber, had not only been a teacher and schoolmaster in the colony, but also the parish clerk in his church. A collective sigh of relief must have been heard when Nicholas was finally sent to gaol for three years, after attempting to kill Milbah while in a drunken stupor.

The irony is, Mary Cavillon arrived in Australia as an outcast, but gained her freedom after serving her time. Mary’s son, Nicholas Cavillon, arrived in Australia as a free settler, but became an outcast due to his mismanagement of alcohol (and money).

Perhaps the label of convict was a more honourable tag to wear than wife-beater, despite Nicholas’ attempts to wipe the label of convict from his mother’s story. On Mary’s death certificate Nicholas described his mother as a ‘free settler‘.

But the history books tell a different story.