[1][2] Born in Chatham, Kent in 1768, William travelled to New South Wales in 1787 aboard the First Fleet convict transport Charlotte, as a free servant of John White, the colony's first Surgeon-General.

[3] Upon arrival in Botany Bay, Sydney on 20 January 1788, Broughton and White commissioned a convict on the ship, Thomas Barrett, to strike each of them a medallion to commemorate the voyage.

[6] The Boyd, a convict transport captained by John Thompson, arrived in Sydney from Ireland in August 1809, and two months later was chartered by ex-convict Simeon Lord to take seal skins to England.

On the way, the Boyd was to call at New Zealand to complete the cargo with kauri spars,[7] and also drop off several young Māori at Whangaroa Harbour, among them Te Ara, the son of a Ngāti Uru chief.

[9][1] During the voyage, Thompson, fresh from England and apparently ignorant of Māori customs, treated Te Ara like a common crew member and demanded that he work his passage as a seaman.

When Te Ara failed to comply either due to illness or out of a belief that, as a rangatira, such work was beneath him, he was deprived of food and flogged—common punishments meted out to British sailors at the time.

[11] The next day, the Boyd burnt to the water after its gunpowder magazine was accidentally ignited, causing a massive explosion that killed a number of Māori who were pillaging the ship, including Te Ara's father.

[12] Elizabeth, the last survivor to be rescued, was in a Māori chief's (possibly Te Pahi's[14]) possession and found to be "greatly emaciated", dressed only in a linen shirt and with white feathers ornamenting her hair "in the fashion of New Zealand".

[17][13] After receiving repairs, the ship reached Lima, Peru in August, where for almost a year Elizabeth lived at the home of a Spanish family while Berry recovered financially from the perilous voyage.

[19] Within two months of his arrival in Sydney in October 1813, he was granted a ticket of leave, and went on to establish Australia's first drawing school, in Pitt Street, in 1814, the year he painted Elizabeth's portrait.

[12] The portrait was rediscovered in England in the early 1950s by art collector Rex Nan Kivell, who found inside the back of the frame a letter from Broughton to Elizabeth's adopted family in Lima, thanking them for "nobly distinguishing themselves by their humanity in their protection and benevolent treatment of the child".

[23] Broughton subsequently drew the ire of colonists who sought peaceful race relations in the area, including Charles Throsby, a vocal champion of Aboriginal people since meeting them while exploring the Southern Tablelands.

[24] Berry also witnessed Elizabeth answering the "cruel but interesting" question if she remembered the death of her mother:[15] Her counternance, ... assumed the appearance of the deepest melancholy; and, without uttering a word, she used to draw her hand across her throat.

[24] Around this time she decided to lease Throsby Park to, among others, the Earl of Belmore, Governor of New South Wales, whose residence in the area saw it flourish as a popular holiday spot.