The Commodity is the story of Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Heasman, a young woman from rural England who in the 1850s, is recruited by immigration agents to travel to the Colony of New South Wales as an assisted immigrant. Bess is promised a more prosperous life, work, possibly a marriage, but more importantly a life that would allow her to send money home to her destitute mother and family.

After enduring a three month journey in steerage, Bess arrives in Sydney Town and is taken to the Barracks to meet with residents of the Colony who were seeking servants. Bess’ first post as servant on a dairy farm abruptly ends when her employer dies and Bess decides to join with another servant in going to Melbourne to seek other employment.

After a chance meeting with a wealthy widow on the boat to Melbourne, Bess is employed in her household where she enjoys a level of equality and luxury beyond anything she could have imagined. However, this employment also ends and after a meeting with Caroline Chisholm, Bess realises that the ‘gift’ of assisted immigration was actually a form of trade, and she was the commodity.

When Bess returns to Sydney to await the return of Otto, a sailor she’d met on board the immigrant ship, a series of tragic events results in Bess returning to Melbourne where her life changes dramatically, at first for the good, but ultimately and irrevocably, for the bad.

The Commodity is an imagined history of the author’s Great Great Grandmother, based upon a meagre handful of facts which have been expanded upon to create a full life for one of the forgotten ones.