Australian Dictionary of Biography

Robert Sidaway (1758-1809), a watchcase maker, was born on 14 January 1758 and baptized on 5 February at St Leonards, Shoreditch, London, son of John Sidaway of Horse Shoe Alley, and his wife Elizabeth. Robert was sentenced to transportation for life at the Old Bailey in 1782 for stealing, and arrived in New South Wales in the First Fleet transport Friendship in January 1788. Although Ralph Clark mentioned in his journal that Sidaway, a 'daring and villainous fellow', was put in leg irons for a month on the way out, apparently he behaved better after his arrival, for he received a conditional pardon on 29 November 1792, an absolute pardon on 27 September 1794, and was given a contract as baker for the troops. In January 1796 Sidaway opened the first theatre in Sydney. It had been built by convicts under the management of John Sparrow. It was in Bell Row and was used until 1798, when Governor John Hunter ordered that it be closed as it was a corrupting influence, probably because of the robberies taking place on theatre nights. It operated again for a time in 1800 and then ceased altogether.

Sidaway held a 130-acre (53 ha) farm, partly purchased and partly leased, at the Field of Mars, on which he grew maize and wheat. He was one of those settlers permitted by Hunter to buy goods at moderate prices from the Minerva in 1800. He kept a public house and in 1805 obtained a wine and spirit licence. He died on 13 October 1809, described by the Sydney Gazette as a philanthropist and a respected member of society. He had formed an alliance with Mary Marshall, who had been sentenced to transportation for life at the Old Bailey on 10 January 1787 and had arrived in the First Fleet in the Lady Penrhyn. As Sidaway's residuary legatee, she sent Governor Lachlan Macquarie a memorial applying for a renewal of the lease on Sidaway's property in Sydney, but this was refused. She continued in Sydney as a publican.