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Corfton
Craven Arms Shropshire
local girl makes good
The pub also has a connection with the tranceportation of criminals to Australia.
On january 31 ,1762 ,in the cottage behind the pub, Margaret, wife of David Jones a helper at The Sun, gave birth to a baby girl and named her Mary, later to be known by the more familiar Molly.
She attended the local school at Diddlebury, about a mile from the pub and learned needlework.
On june 25 1785, having two years earlier had a bastard son by another man, married William Morgan, a wheelright of hopesay.
The following year they had a son and moved from Corfton to Cold Weston.
Meanwhile back in Corfton, John Maesbury, landlord of the Sun, laid out some hemping yarn for bleaching,
it disappeared.
The home of William and Molly Morgan was searched and the yarn found !
Both were arrested but William managed to escape, Molly was locked up for the night at the sun, where she had to be sewn up by a surgeon after trying to kill her self by slitting her throat.
She was eventually given the severe sentence of transportation for 14 years.
In a complicated series of events, she escaped and returned to England before ending up back in Australia where she flourished as a farmer and gained an even more colourful reputation for her drinking and sexual exploits.
She had been known as the queen of Hunter Vally and now her colourful life has been marked with a wine named after her that is grown in Hunter Vally.
The above information is a summary of the book "molly morgan, convict - queen" by the late Frank Mitchell, a headmaster of Diddlebury C of E school.
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