An Essay on wheather or not Mary Reiby should be on the $20 note.

Mary Reibey, born Mary Haydock, may not be one of the most recognised Australian icons, but in her lifetime certain achieved many great accomplishments. She came out to Australia as a convict on the ship "The Royal Admiral" after being convicted of stealing a horse and being sentenced to seven years in Australia. She arrived in Sydney in October 1792 and two years later was married to Thomas Reibey (An Irish officer on the "Britannia") whom she met on her voyage out to Australia, this however is questionable as new evidence suggests that they did not come over on the same boat but instead meet thorough Major Francis Grose. This marriage to a free man meant that she was considered to be a free woman. After her husband's death in 1811, Mary was left not only to run her family of seven children but also his quite profitable import business.

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Mary soon proved to be very good at the business and financial sides of things and ended up owning a warehouse, many ships, seven farms, numerous buildings in Sydney and a sizable amount of money. She was obviously well respected in the colony and came a long way from her convict background. It was hard enough times for a woman to become successful in a male dominated world and she achieved so much and came so far that she deserves to be on our twenty dollar note.

As said before, Mary Reibey came to Australia in 1792. This is only four years after the First Fleet's arrival in 1788. Due to the enormous task of building a colony and the time it would take to establish such a place, it can be expected that the conditions when Mary arrived would not have been that much better than they were...