No Time for Tears: How a Teenage Irish Orphan Forged a New Life in a New Land

Escaping certain death in the potato famine hundreds of healthy Irish female orphans were shipped to South Australia to work as domestic servants. With resilience, courage and determination they accepted the opportunity to escape disease and starvation, and took on the arduous tasks of forging a new life while building the infant colony.

Two days before Christmas 1847, Jane Bell, a teenager entered the Lowtherstown workhouse with her destitute mother and siblings. The next year her luck changed and she joined other young girls on the adventure of their lives. Leaving her family behind she sailed to Adelaide where she worked as a domestic servant for George Kingston, a prominent South Australian businessman and politician. Jane became Kingston's concubine after the death of his wife and also developed a relationship with Samuel Macartney, a handsome labourer. With endurance, adaptability and courage Jane survived conflicts and enormous challenges to establish a new family.