In this episode of History Listen, Australian actor Richard Roxburgh recounts the story of Alexandrina Grant (if that’s her real name) who was transported to Australia in 1845 for ““falsehoods, fraud and wilful imposition” in obtaining clothes.”


Before being sent to Australia, Alexandrina had been convicted in Aberdeen for theft at the age of 17.


Little is known of her childhood but that it was an ignominious start –Alexandrina was the “bastard child” of criminals who was born in gaol in Scotland and who was probably apprenticed as a servant when she was child, because this is often what happened to children with no parents.

Alexandrina ended up living into her eighties, was married to a ‘free’ man, William Askew, give birth to 10 children, and – towards the end of her life – ran boarding houses in Redfern, Sydney.

In the interim she attracted attention as a “notorious fraudster”, “A Lady Swindler”.