A broken family’s fight against a brutal justice system
Historical Fiction, Australian History, Literary Fiction
Date Published: April 2022
Publisher: Tablo Publishing
In 1786 Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a 26 year old woman, became involved in
England’s brutal justice system and found herself exiled from her homeland
to Botany Bay in the antipodes where she had to endure brutality, near
starvation, love and a shipwreck off Norfolk Island with her friend Jane
Fitzgerald. She bore twin girls to a marine William Mitchell while on the
island and began her own family in this strange new land, as she never
expected to ever see her family members, or friends, ever again.
On her return to Sydney she began a new life with another soldier, Thomas
Wright, with whom she had another child but was imprisoned again for selling
her children’s rations to purchase rum where she met a strange cockney woman
named Margaret, who was in charge of the prison and who changed her
life.
William Mitchell, who returned to England carried out an investigation into
who Margaret really was as she had now died, and in doing so came up against
Irish rebels who threatened his life but finally gave him a sealed letter as
to her true identity, that could not be opened by anyone other than one of
the two Fitzgerald women.
About the Author
Brian F. Smith has always had an interest in writing that became further
enhanced with his early career moves which included his service with the
Australian Army before joining the Victoria Police Force. He later went on
to become the Chief Security Officer at the Loloho Port Site on Bougainville
Island in Papua New Guinea. On his return to Australia, he founded the
‘Jordan River Journal,’ a Hobart, Tasmania suburban newspaper before going
to the island’s west coast where he founded the ‘ The Western Herald’
another local weekly newspaper. Since his retirement, he has written four
books: ‘Off The Record”, “Convict Connections’, ‘Witness to a
Miracle’ and ‘Her Jailer’s Secrets’. In 2020 he obtained a Diploma in Family
History from the University of Tasmania.
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