Margaret Dawson ( – 16 February 1816), also known as Margaret Henderson, was a convict sentenced to transportation. She travelled on the Lady Penrhyn as a member of the First Fleet to establish a British colony in Australia. She had a long-term relationship with the surgeon, William Balmain, whose descendants still live in Australia. Theft and conviction She came from Liverpool and was employed in London as a servant for Joseph and Frances Shetley. On the afternoon of Sunday, 12 February 1786, while her employers were away, Dawson collected a large quantity of clothing, jewellery, and money, and left the house. When Mrs Shetley returned home, she found the house in disorder and servant girl missing. Joseph Shetley, set out to follow Dawson, knowing she came from the Liverpool area, he asked after her at the Golden Cross at Charing Cross and was told that a girl of her description had boarded the coach for Chester. Shetley took a postchaise with a Mr Lowe, and overtook the coach at St Albans. Dawson was apprehended, and taken to a local Inn where she handed over the stolen goods from her pockets and two boxes. The goods were recognised by Shetley, only item missing being a guinea coin, used to pay for the coach. When asked if she had acted with an accomplice or was travelling with anyone, she said she wasn't. At her trial at the Old Bailey on 22 February 1786 for "feloniously stealing" goods to the value of £12 4s 1d, Mr Lowe stated that she was so changed in appearance that he would not have recognised her. In her defence, Dawson said "I have nothing to say, I have no witnesses." She was found guilty and sentenced to the mandatory sentence of death. The prosecutor and jury recommended mercy on account of her youth, being only fifteen, and it being her first offence. After ten months in Newgate Prison, Dawson was returned to court. Here, on 4 January 1787, her death sentence was commuted "on condition of being transported for [a term of seven years], to the Eastern coast of New South Wales, or some one or other of the islands adjacent". New South Wales In January 1787, Dawson was delivered from Newgate to Lady Penrhyn, then moored in the River Thames. Arthur Phillip, the commander of the expedition, in a letter to Under Secretary Evan Nepean, complained