Elizabeth Rymes

A Remarkable Life

This is the second book in the trilogy about the Everingham dynasty. It is the story of the life and times of Elizabeth Rymes, a truly remarkable woman pioneer in the early colonial days of Australia.

Found guilty of theft and sentenced in the Old Bailey, in 1789, to seven years transportation to New South Wales, fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Rymes looked across the courtroom at the judge, a broad smile breaking out on her face. Her eyes scrunched up as they always did when she smiled, which gave her face an elfin attractiveness.
“Thank y’ me Lord,” she said.
Then she turned and gave an exaggerated, mock curtsey to the portrait of the mad King George, hanging on the courtroom wall, and then another broad smile to the judge.
“Thank y’ me Lord.”
The judge shook his head in incredulity.
“Take her down!” he said.

Elizabeth Rymes was transported to Australia on the Second Fleet in 1790. In New South Wales she met and married a young convict who had arrived on the First Fleet, Matthew James Everingham. Together they raised ten children and weathered floods, fires, political turmoil and great personal losses. Elizabeth lived a remarkable life as an Australian pioneer woman and became the matriarch of the Everingham dynasty, a family which endures in Australia today.

ISBN 978-0-646-84910-2-6
290 pages