Mary Ann Matthews

Mary Ann was born in Bainbridge, County Down. in circa 1831. Mary's parents, John and Mary Matthews, both died probably taken by the potato famine. In 1848 Mary Ann was given assisted passage to Australia as part of the first shipment of "Potato Orphans" on the ship Earl Gray. Mary worked for a sailmaker James Wann in Sydney, before moving to Wellington New Zealand, in 1850, here she married William Henry Jones in 1852 and went on to have 13 children, 12 of whom survived to adulthood.