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Guys. I’d like to pitch a TV idea, & that idea is basically ‘Orange is the New Black’, except the date is 1821 and the setting is the ‘John Bull’, a female convict ship sailing from Ireland to Australia.
Here are our main protagonists
Here are our main protagonists
Dr William Elyard, long-suffering physician & acting preacher. If he can’t figure out what is wrong with his patients, he has a tendency to just put a load of wine in their gruel
(what could go wrong?)
(what could go wrong?)
The quarrelsome 32-year-old Jane Hamilton, who keeps getting in trouble for threatening revenge on her messmates & whose room of confinement is covered in tarpaulin to stop her from consorting with sailors
26-year-old dairywoman Mary Downs, who was constantly being locked up for secretly taking a “lighted rag” below decks after dark. Poor girl was just desperate for a smoke
[Plot point: Elyard throws her pipe OVERBOARD!
]
![26-year-old dairywoman Mary Downs, who was constantly being locked up for secretly taking a “lighted rag” below decks after dark. Poor girl was just desperate for a smoke[Plot point: Elyard throws her pipe OVERBOARD! ]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOL1C_6WkAEGLQt.jpg "26-year-old dairywoman Mary Downs, who was constantly being locked up for secretly taking a “lighted rag” below decks after dark. Poor girl was just desperate for a smoke[Plot point: Elyard throws her pipe OVERBOARD! ]")
[Plot point: Elyard throws her pipe OVERBOARD!
]
Villainous 2nd Officer Mr Wise, who “takes liberties” with the convict women & meets Elyard’s protests with the declaration that he is “not going to be under the Control of any Bloody Doctor”
22-year-old Londoner Mary Ryan, who takes to skipping church service to get drunk all day with Mr Wise
The fearless 25-year-old Ann Anderson, who keeps causing trouble by getting into physical fights with sailors on the forecastle deck 
[Plot point: The quarrelsome Jane Hamilton turns attempted murderess of her OWN CHILD, by striking them on the head with a tin pot 
... We have gone off Jane Hamilton]
![[Plot point: The quarrelsome Jane Hamilton turns attempted murderess of her OWN CHILD, by striking them on the head with a tin pot ... We have gone off Jane Hamilton]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOMB0-TWAAEtAIV.jpg "[Plot point: The quarrelsome Jane Hamilton turns attempted murderess of her OWN CHILD, by striking them on the head with a tin pot ... We have gone off Jane Hamilton]")
... We have gone off Jane Hamilton]
Insolent Purser’s Steward William Moore, routinely so drunk that he “did not know what he was doing or saying” & inviting the convicts to his room for sex
29-year-old weaver Margaret Brennan, who seems pretty determined to bed-hop among the other women's beds... & throws biscuits, shoes and bowls on those who were trying to sleep 
Annnnd finally, spare a thought for poor Mary Burne, who was admitted to the ship's sick quarters with dreadful haemorrhoids in the first few weeks & remained there for the rest of the voyage 
I'll stop there because I could go on FOR AGES, but in this ship's diary there is attempted mutiny, attempted murder, lascivious behaviour and a whole whole lot of obscene language
Read the doctor's diary for yourself with @AncestryUK here: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/2318/31792_626640_0871-00000?backurl=&ssrc=&backlabel=Return
Read the doctor's diary for yourself with @AncestryUK here: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/2318/31792_626640_0871-00000?backurl=&ssrc=&backlabel=Return
