Streets Alive Stories - Margaret Catchpole and The Ipswich Man
Margaret Catchpole
Born: 14th March 1762 in Nacton, Suffolk
Died: 13th May 1819 (aged 57) in New South Wales, Australia
A glimpse into her life
1762: Margaret Catchpole was born in Suffolk.
1793: Catchpole had little education and worked as a servant for different families until being employed. Here Catchpole was responsible for saving the lives of children in her care three times. She also learned to read and write. She once rode bareback into Ipswich as a child to fetch a doctor, guiding the horse with a rope.
1797: Catchpole stole a horse and rode it to London to meet her former lover. She rode the horse 70 miles (110km -equivalent to 2 ½ marathons!) to London in nine hours but was promptly arrested for its theft. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death. Her sentence was reduced to transportation for seven years and she was detained in Ipswich Gaol. After three years she escaped by using a clothesline to scale the 22-foot (6.7 m) wall. Catchpole was recaptured on a Suffolk beach and sentenced to death, later reduced to transportation for seven years.
1801: She arrived in Sydney on the River Nile. She was employed as the overseer of a farm, and while in the country became a midwife. She kept a small farm of her own. She was happy and respected.
1814: She was pardoned but did not return to England.
1819: Catchpole died after catching influenza from a shepherd she was nursing.
The Ipswich Man
Born: Unknown
Died: between 1258 and 1300
A glimpse into his life
The Ipswich Man is believed to have arrived in Ipswich in the mid-twentieth century, coming from modern-day Tunis in North Africa.
1270: Richard de Clare, an Anglo-Norman nobleman, went on a crusade.
1272: de Clare brought four captive Saracens (members of a tribe on the Syrian borders of the Roman Empire) with him to England from Tunis. The Ipswich Man is believed to be one of those four.
Historical research tells us that The Ipswich Man became a Christian before the time of his death. During his final years he was cared for at the Greyfriars Monastery. He died from a spinal abscess that by the latter end of his life would have seriously incapacitated his movement.
1300: The Ipswich Man was buried in the grounds of the friary in a single grave.