Austin was a resident of London and the mother of five children when she left England with Mary Fisher to take the Quaker message of George Fox to the New World.
There they met with fierce hostility from the Puritan population and the Deputy Governor of the colony, Richard Bellingham, as news of the heretical views of the Quakers had preceded them.
They were forced to undress in public, and their bodies were intimately examined for signs of witchcraft, Ann reporting that one of the female searchers was ‘a man in a womens [sic] apparel’.
Fisher and Austin were deported back to Barbados on the Swallow after five weeks' imprisonment, having been unable to share their faith with anyone except Upsall, who became the first North American Puritan convert to Quakerism.
"[8]On her return from Boston, Ann Austin's ministry continued until her death in prison during the Great Plague of London in 1665.