Ann Lawson/Griffiths is my great great Aunt. She is the daughter of convict Euphemia Lawson. Euphemia Lawson was born on 26 Jul 1802 to William Lawson and Jean Campbell in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1821 she married Hugh McMillan, a house painter born at Paisley, Renfrewshire about 1800. Known to Edinburgh authorities as honest and decent, she was convicted of murder and sentenced to death at the Edinburgh Court of Justiciary on 17 December 1827 for throwing sulphuric acid over a neighbour named Archibald Campbell. Euphemia was married and living with her husband when taken but he was found not guilty of the same crime. She had two children who came out with her. She was convicted in, and continued to use, her maiden name which was common practice in Scotland at that time.

The two children, William and Sarah, accompanied Euphemia when she was transported for life to Van Diemen’s Land on the Borneo which arrived at Hobart Town on 8 October 1828 and they were both admitted, but separately, to the Orphan School at New Town a few months after arrival. Euphemia's conduct record paints a picture of a sad and violent life with many reports of drunkenness. Nearly twenty years after she arrived in Hobart Town she received an additional life sentence for 'feloniously stabbing Mary Worster with intent'. She was still a convict when she died a pauper at the New Town Charitable Institution on 9 Sep 1878, aged in her 70s, and more than 50 years after she was originally convicted.

Euphemia Lawson had a third child, Ann, possibly with convict Edward Griffiths on 3 February 1837. She married Edward Griffths at St Matthews Anglican Church, New Norfolk on 23 Nov 1840. Ann was admitted to the Orphan School as Ann Lawson in 1844 but released to her mother a little over a year later during a short period of freedom.

Ann was returned to the Orphan School in 1847, this time as Ann Griffiths, and she stayed there until she was aged 14 and discharged to A. McDowelll, Bothwell. Archibald McDowell was a Scottish immigrant who was related to, and arrived with, the Murrays on the Portland from Leith in 1824. He was one of the first settlers at Bothwell (there were just three houses), purchasing Logan about 1825. He was the district catechist and commissariat clerk. He was said to be very kind to the convicts in his care.

See also:

• her brother William, orphan no 3164
• her half sister Sarah 3163
• and her first admission record as Ann Lawson 3157