The Armitage connection occurred through the marriage of Mary Bannatyne Armitage, daughter of Joseph and Martha (Files) Armitage to Harry Cornelius Bray. In 1849 Joseph and his family emigrated from Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire to Australia under unusual circumstances.
The Chartist Uprising in Ashton-under-Lyne
During the mid-1800s the Chartist movement emerged as the working class saw as fighting against political corruption in Britain. The People's Charter of 1838 called for democratic reforms to the political system and became a national protest movement.
Ashton-under-Lyne was a Chartist stronghold and events led to an uprising on 14 August 1848 when an armed Chartist National Guard shot dead a police officer PC Bright. A wheelwright, Joe Radcliffe, who was just out of his apprenticeship was charged with the murder. Although the judge conceded that Radcliffe did not fire the fatal shot he was convicted under the law of common purpose of the murder.
A number of people turned Queen's evidence in the case including Joseph Armitage.
http://www.chartistancestors.co.uk/ashton-under-lyne-rising-1848-a-shot-in-the-dark/
Those who had turned Queen's evidence in the case, Thomas Winterbottom, James Winterbottom [no known relation], Joseph Armitage, William Mackland, John Latimer, Thomas Latimer, John Platt, William Broadbent and William Eckersley and their families were placed in the New South Wales immigration scheme by the Ashton police as both a reward for evidence given in the trial and as a means of ridding themselves of some Chartist trouble-makers. They were escorted to London by the Manchester police where they were handed over to the London police. On 7 April 1849, the group was put on board the Mary Bannatyne at Deptford. The next day, a police inspector and another officer came on board and remained until the ship was taken in tow down the Thames as the voyage to Sydney began.
Wednesday, August 1, 1849. (Abridged from the Sydney Morning Herald).
The Mary Bannatyne
During the voyage, the group from Ashton distinguished themselves by such disorderly behaviour that the other passengers lodged a formal complaint on arrival in Sydney. They demanded to know why characters of the worst and basest description had been admitted to the immigration scheme while people who would have been a credit to the colony and respectable members of society have been rejected. [Letter to surgeon of Mary Bannatyne] Wednesday, August 1, 1849. (Abridged from the Sydney Morning Herald).
In New South Wales
The NSW Legislative Council also wanted an answer to this question. An inquiry was held in August 1849 and concluded that the immigration scheme had been misused because the Chartist exiles were not persons qualified by character or probable usefulness for passages under the assisted emigration regulations. The Ashton police were accused of misusing the immigration funds in ridding themselves of these people (British Parliamentary Papers Vol,12 1850 NSW Legislative Council Proceedings."
Joseph and Martha's third child was born shortly after the Mary Bannatyne set sail from England and the little girl was named for the ship: Mary Bannatyne Armitage.