Stitches in time: the Rajah Quilt DOZENS of women are crammed beneath the decks of a ship bound for Van Diemen's Land struggling to weave their needles against a poor light. That's how amateur genealogist Bernadette Dewhurst-Phillips imagines life on board the Rajah, which set sail from England in 1841 with 180 convict women. Most of the women had been convicted of larceny, including her great-great-great-grandmother Grace Stevens, who later became a Dewhurst when she married into the family.