Charlotte Badger

Australia's only woman pirate, she participated in the forceful stealing of a colonial brig called the 'Venus', in June 1806 from Port Dalrymple and set sail to New Zealand. In the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser on 20 July 1806 Charlotte was described as very corpulent, with full face, thick lips, and light hair; had an infant child.

Charlotte Badger was baptized (July 31, 1778) at Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, and was originally sent to Port Jackson in New South Wales as a convict aboard the Earl Cornwallis (1801) having been sentenced to seven years for housebreaking. She was sent to the Parramatta Female Factory (1806 – 1808) and her illegitimate daughter was born there. She was then sent to Hobart as a domestic servant aboard the Venus, but the ship’s crew mutinied and took control of the ship. According to varying accounts Charlotte then dressed in male attire, armed herself with a pistol and flogged the captain, and had urged the male convicts to rebel. They group sailed to Rangihoua Bay in the Bay of Island in New Zealand, where Charlotte Badger became one of the earliest recorded white women in New Zealand. Charlotte and her child appear to have been accepted by the local Maori population, and despite two offers of return to Port Jackson, she preferred to remain at Rangihoua. However, relations with the Maoris later became untenable, though the reason remains unclear. Finally Charlotte and her daughter escaped by sea and settled in Tonga, and were living there in 1826.

Trial: At the Assizes for the County of Worcester in June 1796: "Charlotte Badger, for feloniously breaking the house of Benjamin Wright, of Bromsgrove, and stealing thereout four guineas and a Queen Anne's half-crown". In 1803 Charlotte had served her sentence and was a free woman. By April 1806 Charlotte had an infant child. The Venus set sail from Sydney for Van Diemen’s Land on 29 April 1806. It is unknown why Charlotte Badger was on the Venus. On 16 June the Venus reached the port in the Tamar River, on the northern coast of Tasmania, where it was overtaken by some of the crew, and sailed to the Bay of Islands. A public notice published in the Sydney Gazette on 20 July 1806 wrongly described Badger as a convict (she was emancipated) and implied she was among the mutineers: Charlotte Badger was described as “a convict, very corpulent, with full face, thick lips, and light hair, has an infant child." Charlotte was briefly at the Bay of Islands in New Zealand where she was rescued by Captain Turnbull of the Indispensible, and she was taken to Norfolk Island. Charlotte Badger was recorded as arriving at Sydney NSW on the Porpoise on 13 July 1807 from Norfolk Island. The passenger list has the remark: “Brought from New Zealand in the Indispensible and is one of the women who was in the Venus Schooner when ran away with from P. Dalrymple.” In the February 1811 Muster for NSW she is listed as Charlotte Badger (Earl Cornwallis). Marriage: At St Philips Church of England Sydney: On 4 June 1811 Charlotte “Badgery” (Spinster, abode Sydney) to Thomas Humphries, (bachelor, abode Sydney , Private Invalid Company). In the 1814 muster Charlotte Badger, (Earl Cornwallis), Current Status: Free; Wife to a Veteran; Regiment: [Veterans Company], Mustered at, Parramatta on stores: with 1 child on stores. In the 1822 muster she is Charlotte Bodger, Arrived per ship Cornwallis, Current Status: Free by Servitude; Residence: Windsor, "Wife of J Humphries". In 1823 the Colonial Secretary's records show that her husband Thomas Humphries, formerly of the Royal Veteran Company was entitled to receive a grant of 100 acres of land. In the 1825 muster she is Charlotte Badger, Trial Sentence: 7 years; Arrived per ship Earl Cornwallis, 1801; Current Status: Free by Servitude; Residence: Parramatta; Wife of Thomas Humphries. Her daughter is Maria Badger, Aged: 10; Born in the Colony, Residence: Parramatta; Daughter of Charlotte Badger. However her husband Thomas Humphries was listed at Sydney: Arrived per ship Recovery, 1807; Employment: Pensioner; Residence: Sydney. On 5 July 1843, Charlotte Humphries was charged at Windsor, accused of stealing a blanket from Jane Oliver. Thomas Humphries, described as a householder, stood sureties for his wife. The charge against her was dismissed. Her husband Thomas Humphries died 25 December 1843 at Windsor, noted as a 'pensioner' in the burial record. Unfortunately later writers have created the fiction that she had taken an active role in the mutiny. Citations are in Wikitree https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Badger-209