The Fry family of Dorsetshire are caught in the deadly grip of poverty in 19th century rural England. While many around them die from hunger and disease and many others are swallowed up by countless overflowing workhouses, Josiah Fry conceives a plan that will give his own family a means of escape and a fresh start in life. He decides to deliberately commit a crime punishable by transportation to Van Diemen's Land. His wife Mary is forced to return with their two year old son to her parents in nearby Wiltshire, where she must wait for at least four years to apply for free passage to join him. When her parents die and the illiterate Mary is forced into the workhouse, she has no idea if her husband is dead or alive, or if in fact he was transported at all. With the help of a kindly rector and an old shepherd, she fights the first of many battles as she journeys into the unknown world of emigration to the colonies and the search for land upon which to settle. At a time when nearly 80% of the population was illiterate, and when women were expected to unquestioningly follow their husbands, pioneering women became a new force as they stepped outside of their social constraints and helped build a nation. Josiah's Plan is the poignant, uplifting and at times heart warming story of one pioneering woman's reluctant part in a plan; a plan conceived in desperation, fraught with fear and filled with the honesty and humour that gave birth to the spirit of 19th century Australian settlement.