Please forgive the delay. I’ve been caught up with a few family matters. Let me put up the missing photographs that I’ve been able to find. I seem not to have those of Margaret De(h)ee or Dea (n) (e) c.1836-1920, per Inconstant to Port Adelaide, my photo of the headstone of Ellen Fox (1833-1896) per Inchinnan to Port Jackson, nor the pic for Bridget Maria Flynn c.1831-1916, from Clonmel, Tipperary, per New Liverpool to Port Phillip. I’ll keep looking.
If you remember from the previous post I had reached as far as Margaret Ward. Here are the pages again, pp.156-9.
and
The first one on p.157 is of Sarah Arbuckle (c. 1834-1908), one of the three Arbuckle sisters from Tyrone, per Derwent to Port Phillip. My thanks to Len Swindley.
Next is Jane (c.1835-96), one of two Bing, or Byng, sisters From Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, per Diadem to Port Phillip. Thanks to Michaela Smart.
Then there’s Catherine Crowley (c. 1834-1909) from Bandon, in County Cork, per John Knox to Port Jackson. Thanks to Patrick St. George.
And the last one on page 157, Catherine Fox (1830-1920) from Armagh, per Earl Grey to Port Jackson. Thanks to Gwen Etherington.
The last photo i have to hand is of Eliza Barrett, nee Greenwood (1830-96) from Moy, County Tyrone, per Earl Grey to Port Jackson. Thanks to Linda Collett.
I’ll keep looking for the other three.
Re Notes, endnotes or footnotes…
There are some brief notes at the very end of the 2021 version of Barefoot (pp.511-12) which tell you where the documents came from, and basically, how some of the “Belfast Girls” were identified. Not all of the young women sent to Maitland and Moreton Bay are identified in the documents. But if you go to the Register list for the Earl Grey you will find many of the others. Beside their name is a notation, “sent to Maitland” or “sent to Moreton Bay”. There are a few anomalies that will pose an interesting problem for some family historians. Eliza McCready from Downpatrick is not mentioned in any of these documents, yet she soon turns up in Moreton Bay. What exactly happened to the Earl Grey women in the first few years? How many on board that ship were sent to Moreton Bay by 1850? I am sure Ray Debnam’s CD , The Feisty Colleens will have some suggestions.
Early in 2017 I made an attempt to add some notes, when i put into my blog a copy of my Preface, and Introduction to the 1991 edition. See for example, https://wp.me/p4SlVj-Zg You will need to scroll down to the end.
One of the problems was that my reference numbers were out of date. Yet such is the magnificent progress made by our archivists, i’ve successfully searched online for the current numbers.
Thus, for example, starting with the references i had regarding Board of Immigration reports for vessel arrivals, e.g. AONSW (Archives Office New South Wales) 4/4699 Microfilm reel 2852, i went to https://mhnsw.au/collections/state-archives-collection/ and was able to find NRS-5255, NRS-5256 and NRS-5257. These are, respectively,
‘Reports by the Immigration Agent on the condition of immigrants and ships on their arrival 1837-1895‘;
‘Reports by Surgeons on the health of immigrants during their passage (Medical Journals) 1838-86‘;
and ‘Reports by the Immigration Board on complaints of immigrants about their passage 1838-87‘.
I assume it is here we would find information about the scandals, mentioned at the bottom of page 19 of the 2021 version of Barefoot..?, regarding the Hyderabad and Fairlie, maybe of the Subraon too. That’s the vessel that arrived in Port Jackson just a few months before the Earl Grey.
Frustratingly, I have a copy of the Report on the Subraon but the precise reference eludes me. Was it in the collection of Reports and other papers at AONSW 9/6298? Although what i have is obviously printed from a negative microfilm.
That’s the one detailing how the young women from a Dublin Foundling Hospital were abused by crew members. Young Dolly Newman was hoisted up the mast, and was later to die from a miscarriage(?).
On page 35 of the 2021 version of Barefoot it is mentioned that prospective employers of the young orphans had to apply formally, and be approved by the Sydney Orphan Committee/Board of Guardians. What i have in my old notes is the reference, AONSW 4/4715-7 “Registers and indexes of applications for orphans 1848-51“. Would a reader like to take up the challenge, and find the current State Records number? Here’s an example to tempt you,
These are the names of individuals applying for an orphan to become their servant. On the example above, at the top of the page, 24 August 1849, John Armstrong, a Surveyor of Macquarie Street, Sydney is applying for an orphan female as a general house servant under an Indenture. And in the last column on the right of the page under result of the application, he is ‘approved for an apprentice’. But there is sometimes much more than this. Further down that page at number 816, there is something about the elusive Mary Littlewood per Earl Grey.
In those early days, one of the most fruitful sources i used at State Archives was the nineteen volumes of Immigration Correspondence (AONSW 4634-52), covering the years 1838-64. For the orphans i concentrated on the years 1847-51. The correspondence coming out of the Immigration Agent’s office, mostly from F.L.S. Merewether, was especially helpful. It is in those volumes, for example, one can trace the story of young Margaret Devlin from Keady, County Armagh. See pages 36-37 of the 2021 Barefoot version.
In effect, from an early date, I was trying to do what every family historian does instinctively, that is, link as many different sources as possible to find information about a particular family member. This “record linkage” will be familiar to many readers. And the great thing is, more and more is discovered all the time.
Using http://mhnsw.au I found that AONSW 4/4635 was now NRS-5247 or rather, Reel 3114. Entering Margaret’s name into the Index search box, I was given the reference to exactly where she appears in reel 3114 and 3115.
Bitten once more by the bug, I delved into the collection of Colonial Secretary papers. I went to the very useful Index to Colonial SecretaryLetters Received 1826-96, created by Joan Reese, Linda Bowman and Aileen Trinder. And there i was alerted to two letters relating to young Margaret Devlin in 1850 and 1851, which i don’t think I’ve seen before. It’s easy to see the attraction for family historians, and others. It is all a very different experience nowadays for researchers. My big hearty congratulations to all our archivists who have made this possible.
That seems to be a good place to stop for now.
May i finish by drawing your attention to this year’s Melbourne Bloomsday celebrations? Exiles by James Joyce looks well worth seeing. It’s on 15th to 25th June. Best check the dates.
From County Westmeath, Ireland to County of Westmoreland, New South Wales.
By Caroline Thornthwaite
This is the story, as much of it as I have been able to put together, of Elizabeth Feeney, a young Irish Catholic orphan who migrated to the Australian colonies under the sponsorship of Earl Grey’s Famine Orphan Emigration Scheme. She is identified as passenger 97 on the Tippoo Saib, which arrived in Port Jackson on 29 July 1850.
Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward Feeny and Jane Thompson, was baptized on 27 June 1832 in the Townland of Mayne (Irish: Maighean), County Westmeath, Ireland.
The Civil Parish of Mayne comprises 19 townlands, including the townland of Mayne. The only village in the Civil Parish of Mayne is Coole, which lies in the townland of Coole (formerly Faughalstown) and borders the townland of Mayne. Geographically, Mayne Townland consists mainly of farming land and low-lying bog land. Its Irish name Maighean literally means ‘farmstead’.
The Catholic Parish of Mayne lies within the Civil Parish of Mayne in the Barony of Fore, County Westmeath. Civil registration of baptisms, marriages and deaths in Ireland did not begin until 1 January 1864. Prior to that, such records were often kept only by the conscientious priests, as they were under no legal or ecclesiastical obligation to do so. Fortunately, the parish priests of Mayne were of the conscientious type, and they kept records from the latter part of 1777. Sadly for family historians, some of the text has faded beyond reading and quite a few pages are missing from the record books.
The names Feeny and Feeney occur in the surviving Church records only on about a dozen occasions, and only between the years 1815 to 1864. This suggests that the family probably moved into the district not long before 1815. There are no Feenys mentioned in the Church records of neighbouring townlands. There are no notations in the church records to indicate where the Feenys came from or what brought them to Mayne Townland. They may, however, have had relatives in the Parish as there are several instances found in church records connecting them to the Tormey family.
There is no record of any Feenys in the Tithe Applotment Books for the Parish of Mayne. These books were compiled between 1823 and 1837 in order to determine the amount which occupiers of agricultural holdings over one acre should pay in tithes (a 10 per cent religious tax) for the upkeep of the Church of Ireland. Their absence from the Tithe Applotment Books suggests the family were probably farm labourers. If the family had leased any land during those years, it would likely only have been a small plot for growing potatos: potatoes and milk having been the staple diet of the agricultural labouring population until the great famine which decimated the population in the mid-1800s.
Only one Feeny is listed in the Griffith’s Valuation of Ireland for the Parish of Mayne. This valuation of tenements was compiled between 1847-1864 and was a uniform guide to the relative value of land throughout the whole of Ireland. It was used to calculate the amount of Poor Rate each occupier of land was liable to pay. The Poor Rate was effectively a tax for the support of the poor and destitute within each Poor Law Union.
The Valuation of Tenements printed in 1854 lists a James Feeny who rented a house, forge and garden from Reverend Thomas Smith in the Parish of Mayne, Village of Upper Coole, Westmeath. Church records show that James died in 1864. The record gives no indication of his age, marital or social status but simply states “1864, February, Jas Feeney, Coole”. At that time Coole was in the townland of Faughalstown (it later became the townland of Coole) and was also part of the Parish of Mayne.
Given the scarcity of Feenys in the church and civil records and, considering the timeline of the records found so far, it would seem safe to make some assumptions about the make-up of the family.
The family patriarch was Richard, who died in May 1820; age not given. Richard’s wife was Anne; maiden name not given. Anne, described as a widow, died in July 1837; age not given. According to the records, both Richard and Anne were parishioners of the local Catholic church and residents of Mayne Townland. Richard and Anne seemed to have had one daughter and three, possibly four, sons.
A son, Edward, first appears in the records as Edward Finey, a sponsor at the baptism of James Tormey in January 1815. According to Catholic Canon Law, a godparent had to be at least 16 years of age, therefore, Edward could not have been born any later than January 1799.
On 6 February 1829, a daughter, Elizabeth Feeney, married Laurence McGrath. The witnesses were John Reilly and Mary Tormey. Their daughters, Mary and Anne, were baptized on 4 October 1829 and 7 October 1829 respectively; no dates of birth given. Mary’s godparents were Francis Gordon and Mary Tormey, and Anne’s godparents were Terence Clarke and Mary Tims.
On 16 February 1829, Edward Feeney married Jane Thompson in Mayne on 16 February 1829 in the presence of the Reverend Francis Sheridan and the Reverend John Leavy. Jane Thompson was a recent convert to the Catholic faith. She made her profession of faith, and was received into the Roman Catholic church, on 2 November 1828 in the presence of Francis Gordon and James Hughes.
In April 1836, the records show a death for a Mary Feeney, married, from the Parish of Mayne, residing in Mayne Townland: no maiden name given. In April 1843 they show a death for an Elenor Feeny, married, from the Parish of Mayne, residing in Mayne Townland; no maiden name given. Presumably both Mary and Elenor had married one of Richard and Anne’s sons. Perhaps one of them had been the wife of James.
Tragedy struck Edward and Jane’s daughter Elizabeth very early in her life. Edward died on 17 July 1832, a mere 20 days after his daughter Elizabeth was baptized. No details apart from the date of Edwards death were recorded. While still in her teenage years, a second tragedy struck young Elizabeth’s life. The Great Hunger of 1845-1852 had a significant effect on the population of Mayne Townland, an area of 541 acres (about 219 hectares). According to the 1881 Census of Ireland (Province of Leinster), before the famine the population in 1841 was 193 people living in 31 dwellings. Towards the end of the famine in 1851, the population was 118 people living in 20 dwellings. Over the next ten years the population continued to fall and by 1861 there were only 56 people living in 12 dwellings.
Just short of one year after her arrival in New South Wales, Elizabeth married Samuel Slater, a former convict who had, having received a life sentence for housebreaking, received a conditional pardon two years earlier. That Elizabeth Feeney, wife of Samuel Slater, is the same person as Elizabeth Feeny, orphan immigrant, is beyond doubt. The only immigration record found in the archives of the State Records Authority of New South Wales that could possibly match Elizabeth’s arrival in the colony of NSW is found in the Assisted Immigrants Index, in the passenger records for the Tippoo Saib, which arrived in Port Jackson on 29 July, 1850.
According to NSW immigration records and Elizabeth’s death record, her year of birth is calculated as 1835; according to her baptism record and marriage record it is calculated as 1832. Her 1901 obituary[1] states Elizabeth was 69 years old when she died and had lived in the Goulburn district for more than 50 years. That would place her approximate year of birth as 1832 and her arrival in the colony before 1851. The original record of the Tippoo Saibship passenger manifest shows:
No. 97 Feeny Elizabeth, age 15, Dairymaid, Native of Mahan Westmeath, Church of Rome, neither read nor write[2].
The Immigration Board passenger inspection list, recorded before the passengers were permitted to disembark, corroborates the data on the ship passenger manifest and describes Elizabeth’s “state of bodily health, strength and probable usefulness” as “good”.
No.97 Feeny Elizabeth, 15, Dairymaid, Mahan W. Meath, parents Edward & Jane both dead, Roman Catholic, neither read nor write, no relations in the Colony[3].
The age discrepancy on her immigration documents may have been a clerical error, or Elizabeth may have lied about her age, particularly if the workhouse Board of Governors favoured selecting younger females for the orphan emigration scheme (her year of birth is calculated as either 1832 or 1835 on all the official records discovered thus far). A further possibility is that Elizabeth may not have known how old she actually was.
Elizabeth’s place of residence in Ireland is given as Mahan in County Westmeath, however, there is no Mahan found on contemporary maps of County Westmeath or mentioned in Griffiths Valuation of Tenements 1848-1864. Possible locations for Elizabeth’s place of residence in Ireland were Mahonstown, about 12km east of Mullingar, and the townland of Mayne (Irish: Maighean), located about 18km north of Mullingar. A search of the County Westmeath Catholic Church records was rewarded by the find of an Elizabeth Feeny, daughter of Edward and Jane, baptized in the Townland of Mayne in 1832. It is likely that Mahan was a phonetic spelling as heard by the ear of the record-taker.
Elizabeth fared better than many of her orphan contemporaries. Because she was a dairy maid, it is likely that her time at the Hyde Park Barracks would have been short; girls with her experience would have been sent directly to a farming area rather than be sent out as domestic servants. From what we know of Elizabeth’s life, it seems that she was transferred from Hyde Park Barracks to the Immigration Depot at Goulburn, probably enduring a long and uncomfortable journey over the Great Dividing Range by bullock dray. From Goulburn, she would have been collected by her new employer and settled into her new life in the farming community at Richlands, about 45 km (28 miles) north of Goulburn. At that time the Richlands estate, including the estate workers’ village now called Taralga, was owned by William Macarthur and managed by his brother James, sons of the infamous John Macarthur – racketeer, entrepreneur, instigator of the Rum Rebellion and pioneer of the Australian merino wool industry. The Series NRS-5240 Registers and indexes of applications for orphans 1848-1851 held by the State Records Authority of NSW archives holds no details specific to Elizabeth Feeney, nor is there mention of indentures for any of the orphans who arrived aboard the Tippoo Saib in July 1850. The index for 1850 does, however, mention correspondence from the colonial Immigration Agent dated 21 March 1850 forwarding a letter from WJ McArthur of Goulburn “enclosing five Indentures completed and six for completion”. Further correspondence is mentioned in July 1850 from the Immigration Agent forwarding a letter from J McArthur Esq., Goulburn, “reporting the marriage of Mary Lanahan (sic) and Mary Leery (sic), Orphan Females per William & Mary”[4]. The J McArthur referred to was probably JF
[3] State Records Authority of New South Wales: Shipping Master’s Office; Passengers Arriving 1826 – 1900; Part Colonial Secretary series covering 1845 – 1853, reels 1272 [4/5227], 1280 [4/5244].
[4] The orphan ship William & Mary arrived in Sydney on 21 November 1849. Mary Lenahan was employed by William King of Goulburn at £8 for a period of 12 months. Mary Seery was employed by Thomas Capel, a brewer from Goulburn at £10 for a 12-month period. Mary, as Mary Saary, married John Steward on 1 July 1850 at St Saviour’s Church of England, Goulburn.
McArthur Esq, a Justice of the Peace and a sitting Magistrate on the Goulburn Bench. He, presumably, was acting on instructions from the Immigration Office in Sydney in the role of a local guardian.
Although the name of Elizabeth’s employer is not known, such correspondence confirms that young women from the Orphan Emigration Scheme had been sent to employers in Goulburn from at least 1849 onwards, as three orphans from the William & Mary are known to have been in Goulburn in early 1850[1].
Of the 297 orphan girls on board the Tippoo Saib, Elizabeth was one of only seven dairy maids, the other girls being mainly general house servants or nurse maids. Elizabeth may have been selected for employment specifically for that reason and employed either by Messrs Macarthur or one of their Richlands tenants, some of whom were dairy farmers[2]. Various birth, death and marriage records confirm that Elizabeth lived on the Richlands estate for the remainder of her life.
On 25 June 1851, one year after her arrival in New South Wales, Elizabeth married Samuel Slater at Richlands homestead, the home of the estate manager, Mr George Martyr. The marriage was conducted by William Sowerby, a minister from St Saviour’s Church of England, Goulburn. Samuel Slater had been assigned to James Macarthur in 1832 and worked between the Macarthur-owned estates of Camden Park and Richlands. On being granted a Ticket of Leave in 1841, Samuel was employed by the Macarthur family and soon relocated permanently to Richlands around 1842. Samuel received a Conditional Pardon in 1848.
At the time of Elizabeth’s arrival in the district, there were about 50 families living on the Richlands estate. They were all tenant farmers growing cereal crops such as wheat, oats and barley, or raising sheep, cattle, pigs and horses. The usual lease arrangements were 20-year leases for £15 per acre. Most of the lots averaged about 500 acres in size and were on what was widely considered to be some of the best land in the colony.
The marriage record of Samuel Slater and Elizabeth Feeney states that the groom was a bachelor, born in Derbyshire, a Stonemason, age 58 [according to the government records Samuel would actually have been 48], residing at Richlands, parents not listed. The bride was a spinster, born in Ireland, occupation not listed, age 19, residing at Richlands, parents not listed. The witnesses were George Martyr (the manager of Richlands estate), Angus Mackay (who would later become Instructor in Agriculture to the Board of Technical Education) and Elizabeth Weeks (wife of one of the tenant farmers), all of Richlands. The couple were married by banns. The bride signed with her mark[3].
The marriage of a 19-year-old girl to a man nearing his 50th birthday would be almost unheard of in our day and age, but at that time marriages were nearly always a matter of convenience. If love were to flower in time, all the better. In the case of Elizabeth and Samuel, the marriage would have been mutually beneficial. In marrying Samuel, Elizabeth would be working for herself and her future family; she need never be at the beck and call of an employer again. On the financial side, Samuel had been a wage-earner for almost ten years and, if he was not already a leaseholder, was probably well on his way to affording to lease his own farm on the Richlands estate. In marrying Elizabeth, Samuel had gained a young and healthy wife; as a dairymaid, Elizabeth knew her way around cattle and would contribute to the work of a farm, as well as provide Samuel with the creature comforts of home and companionship.
[1] In addition to Mary Lenehan and Mary Seery, Mary Ann Long (according to the Famine Orphan Database) on “14 Feb 1850 one of 4 orphans who absconded from Mr Peter’s dray on way to Wagga, returned to Goulburn Depot.”
[2] Dairy products had been produced since the earliest days of settlement in the Taralga district. The 600-acre property granted to Mr Thomas Howe, cheesemaker, in 1828 was later purchased by Edward Macarthur as it joined the northern boundary of Macarthur’s ‘Richlands’ estate. Richlands homestead and its various buildings were subsequently built there. Source: Taralga Historical Society Inc, 83 Orchard Road Taralga, NSW, 2580, Newsletter No 4, 2019, http://taralgahistoricalsociety.com.au/THS%20NEWS%204,%202019.pdf.
[3] NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages, Marriage 434/1851 V1851434 37B, Slater Samuel, Feaney Elizabeth, MC.
Elizabeth and Samuel were married for 18 years and had thirteen children together. Sadly, only seven of their children survived to adulthood. According to Samuel’s death certificate of 1869, two males and three females died in infancy (those births were not registered, which was not uncommon in the remoter areas of the colony) and toddler Samuel Junior, not yet two years old, fell into a well and drowned. Of the remaining seven children, four males and three females, all but Joseph married and had children of their own. The older children seem to have been baptized into the Anglican faith and the younger ones into the Roman Catholic faith. This may have been due to a lack of Catholic clergy in the area in the earlier years, as the first Catholic church built in the area was St Ignatius at Taralga in 1864, and even then, the priest was attached to the parish at Crookwell, 39 km (29 miles) away.
The four surviving adult sons – Thomas, Samuel Francis, Edward and Joseph – initially all lived in the Taralga area on or near the Macarthur Richlands and Guineacor properties; first as labourers, then later as tenant crop farmers and also raising horses, cattle and sheep. The Slater brothers’ personal stock brands were registered and published in the NSW Government Gazette between 1890 and 1921. Thomas, who “was of a retiring disposition” and “well-liked by all who knew him”[2], married Norah Foran, a farmer’s daughter and assisted immigrant from Glasclune, County Clare, Ireland who had arrived in 1881 per Clyde. Thomas and Norah eventually pioneered at Redground, to the northeast of Goulburn. Of Thomas and Norah’s children, three daughters and one son married siblings from the neighbouring Skelly family, whose parents were both of Irish descent. Thomas died at Goulburn in 1939. Joseph remained a bachelor and died at the Rydalmere Mental Hospital in 1944. Samuel Francis, a “widely known stockman”[3] and who was “well known and highly respected throughout the community”[4], married Norah Foran’s younger sister, Catherine. Catherine (known as Katie or Kate) was also an assisted immigrant, arriving in 1886 per Port Victor. Sam and Kate bought a 200-acre grazing property at Wombeyan Caves to the northeast of Taralga in 1910, which they called Wattle Flat. Sam worked his property until shortly before his death at Goulburn in 1950. Edward married Mary Lennam, a nurse, also of Irish descent. He is believed to have died in Tasmania.
One can only imagine Elizabeth’s delight when three of her sons married Irish brides and two of her three daughters married Irish-born or Irish-descended men. Did they speak Gaelic and reminisce about the old country when they were together? Did they sing Irish folk songs and share stories around the fireplace? Perhaps it helped to ease any homesickness or sadness at separation from family, perhaps the Irish commonality strengthened the bond of extended family ties.
Samuel Slater died in 1869, leaving Elizabeth a widow at a relatively young age with seven minor children to care for, one of whom was just a babe in arms. Elizabeth did not remarry, as many of the other Earl Grey orphans were forced to do to ensure some kind of security for themselves and their children. According to Elizabeth’s 1901 newspaper obituary, many years earlier she had been granted a farm free of rent for her lifetime in consideration of the Slaters’ long and faithful years of service to the Macarthur family. That farm and house would have been the property on Portion 3, where the Slaters had been farming and raising stock for some years. This act of generosity was undoubtably at the hand of Mrs Elizabeth Macarthur-Onslow (James Macarthur’s sole child and heir) and would have occurred at the time of Samuel’s death. Mrs Macarthur-Onslow had a reputation as a kind and generous person who had great concern for her employees and their families and “was always devising ways to give them better homes and brighter lives”[10]. Elizabeth remained a widow for 31 years.
In January 1901, Elizabeth contracted influenza resulting in pneumonia. After a nine-day illness, she died in her home at Richlands on 14 January 1901, having been well cared for by her family and attended to by her parish priest. Her death certificate states she was 69 years old, born in County Westmeath, Ireland and that her time in the colony was 56 years[11]. Elizabeth’s son Edward was the informant; however, there are errors in the information he provided. Edward mistakenly attributed his own father’s trade of stonemason to Elizabeth’s father and gave the name of Elizabeth’s mother as Elizabeth instead of Jane. Although Elizabeth did not name any of her daughters after her own mother, three of her granddaughters were given Jane as a middle name (Elizabeth Jane Barry, Bessie Jane Slater and Clara Jane McAleer). It is likely that Elizabeth was, herself, generally referred to as Bessie. Elizabeth was buried on 16 January 1901 in the Catholic section of the Stonequarry Cemetery (now Taralga Cemetery), off Golspie Road near Taralga, NSW.
The day after Elizabeth’s funeral, her house and its entire contents burned to the ground due to an accidental fire. Elizabeth’s orphan box may well have been among the contents destroyed in the fire. That same little box, made to a regulation size of 2 feet long x 14 inches wide x 14 inches deep (61cm x 35.5cm x 35.5cm) and with her name painted on the front, that accompanied her to Australia and was full with treasure in the form of clothes and personal items, all brand new and of good quality in accordance with a list prescribed by the Emigration Commission which was pasted inside the lid.
Only one of the boxes issued to the 4,114 girls participating in the Orphan Emigration Scheme in NSW is known to have survived and was on display in the Hyde Park Barracks Museum in Macquarie Street, Sydney in 2021.
Box belonging to Margaret Hurley from Gort, Co. Galway per Thomas Arbuthnot (arrived Sydney 1849).
Owned by her great-granddaughter, Rose Marie Perry. Photo: Darrell Thornthwaite.
Elizabeth’s obituary was published in The Catholic Press and the Goulburn Herald.
Elizabeth Feeney and Samuel Slater had at least 40 grandchildren. Their descendants include pioneering farmers, stockmen, graziers, votaries, health care professionals, public servants, servicemen in the armed forces and fire brigade, schoolteachers and businesspeople. Although there is little in the surviving records to tell us much about Elizabeth as a person, we can safely deduce that she was level-headed and not fearful of taking big steps to ensure her own survival against huge odds; that she was a dedicated wife and mother who knew the pain of losing some of her children at far too young an age; that, as a young widow, she was physically and emotionally strong enough to bring up her children alone; that her surviving children loved her and cared for her in her old age; that she had a most generous benefactress who deemed Elizabeth, even though she was not yet 40 years old, deserving of farmland and housing free of rent for the rest of her life; that she had brought up her children to be good, kind and charitable people who were well thought of by all who knew them; that she was a woman of faith; and that she was well respected within her community because her funeral was “very largely attended”. Elizabeth will be remembered by her descendants as one of the 4,114 Irish orphan females landed in NSW who truly became the ‘mothers of Australia’.
Researched and written by Caroline Thornthwaite, 2022.
For my husband Darrell and his three brothers, Dennis, David and Bruce; fourth-generation descendants of Samuel Slater and Elizabeth Feeney.
State Records Authority of NSW, Assisted Immigrants (digital) shipping lists 1828-1896, Tippoo Saib 29 July 1850, viewed 2021, https://indexes.records.nsw.gov.au/ebook/list.aspx?Page=NRS5316/4_4786/Tippoo%20Saib_29%20Jul%201850/4_478600555.jpg&No=6
State Records Authority of NSW, Immigration – Registers and Indexes of Applications for Orphans 1848-51, Item 4/4716, Register 1850-51, Volume 3, Reel 3111.
State Records Authority of New South Wales: Shipping Master’s Office; Passengers Arriving 1826 -1900; Part Colonial Secretary series covering 1845 – 1853, reels 1272 [4/5227], 1280 [4/5244].
Sydney Living Museums, Irish Orphan Girls at Hyde Park Barracks, viewed 2021
[11] NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages, Death 3217/1901, Slater Elizabeth, Taralga.
My thanks to Caroline Thornthwaite who has kindly allowed me to put into my blog, her well-researched and finely written orphan story, that of Elizabeth Feeney from ‘Mahan, Westmeath’ per Tippoo Saib. She hopes readers will find it either interesting or useful, or both.
A while back when i asked people to think about how discovering a famine orphan in their family had affected them, I had no idea how rich and varied their response would be. The magnetism of Peter’s Ann Trainer, Brenda’s giving her Julia the dignity and protection she lacked in life, Kaye’s desire to know and understand her Bridget, are now joined by John’s mapping and IT creativity. I’m chuffed that he found something useful in my blog. Here’s John’s suggestions not just for his own orphan and the Earl Grey orphans generally but for all genealogists and family historians.
Part 2: A foray into Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
by John Moon
A GIS Approach (with a little bit of Genealogy)
In his #37 of 24 July 2016 our blog host, Trevor McClaughlin, asked the question “Can we create interactive digital maps?”
He continued, Let me demonstrate how this map business might work. Here is a map of the orphans in Queensland c. 1861. I’ve entered a few numbers. If we had an interactive map, what might appear if we clicked on numbers 1 and 2, at Ipswich?
Could we do something …, such as clicking on the dots in the map to bring up all the information we have about the orphan who resided there at that particular time? Maybe there are some probate records? [or maybe a photograph?]
The short answer is “yes”, as is demonstrated in the following screen shots taken from an application of the free GIS software package QGIS for the nine orphans in Trevor’s example.
In earlier blog posts #12 and #17 Trevor asked further questions related to maps, “scattering” and “family reconstruction”.
<#12.> “In the last post <#11> I mentioned a possible use for completed family reconstitutions viz. maps showing the location of the orphans at particular times in their lives. Here’s a couple I used in Barefoot 2–the location of the orphans in Victoria in c.1861. This one is based on the birth records of their children. The second one is the location of the orphans in Victoria at the end of their lives c.1890-1901; this one is based on their death certificates.” In # 17 similar maps for Queensland and NSW were shown. Towards the end of this blog is Trevor’s map of the three states for 1861.
<#17> Under the title Orphan “scattering”, Trevor mentions that I’ve already mapped the origin of the orphans based on the workhouses they were from (see blogpost 4). Could maps be drawn which show their more precise origins in Ireland, as well as their place of first employment in Australia”, and makes the plea “Is there not a computer programme that would allow us to map their movements over time? We could follow them between places of employment, and through marriage, birth and death records for much of their life.
Again, the short answer is “yes”, as is demonstrated in the following screen shots taken from another application of QGIS. (In fact some of the above maps would be relatively easy to develop if the relevant data, including latitude and longitude of the towns, were available in an Excel spreadsheet. Although there may be a – solvable – problem of displaying an orphan’s details when more than one orphan has the same latitude and longitude).
The following map shows Jane Hutchinson’s movements (as discussed in part I of this blog), numbered 1-7, from her arrival at Melbourne to her death in Wangaratta. As a base map an old geofererenced Map of Victoria, including the Pastoral Runs has been used.
As with all “short answers” there is a “BUT”, in fact many buts.
Some of the “buts” relate to the following questions:
(a) “do you want to develop the map for your own use”?
In Trevor’s post 17 of 25 May 2015 he notes that Barbara Barclay has made excellent use of maps in her study of Famine orphans from County Mayo. (see <http://www.historicalballinrobe.com/page/the_mayo_orphen_gilrs?path=0p3p> http://mayoorphangirls.weebly.com/ ). In a comment on the post Barbara noted that I did my two simple maps with my basic grasp of ArcGIS. Any proficient user of GIS mapping software could easily produce the types of maps you suggest – given the data.
Barbara suggests that to answer this question there is a prerequisite of being a proficient user of GIS mapping software. Whilst not wishing to discourage anybody from using say QGIS (free) or ArcGIS (paid) there is a “learning curve” for them that can be steep. However, there are a lot of good YouTube tutorials available to help going up the curve.
(b) “do you want the map as part of a website (e.g. Trevor’s WordPress Site)”?
This is possible but has resource implications. These include the costs (monetary and person-power) of setting up and maintaining the data bases and software as well as those of hosting of a website.
Concerning WordPress Trevor, in a reply to a comment in blog #37 noted that wordpress.com is different from wordpress.org. The latter is where the map plugins are. (In other words, Trevor’s blog is on wordpress.com so the map plugins can’t be used).
(c) “do you want something inbetween (i.e. a map that is not connected to a website but be can displayed in your web browser).
Many GIS software packages have the facility to publish GIS data to “the web”. In QGIS, the plugin is QGIS2Web. Whilst I haven’t used it, I understand that it generates a set of files and folders that can be zipped and shared with others. Once unzipped, it has an index.html file which, when clicked, displays the map in your browser. This map has all the features included by the developer for example the ability to click on the dots in the map to bring up the information on an orphan.
A major advantage such an approach is that one does not need to be a “proficient user of GIS mapping software” to click on the dots in a web browser. Presumably one could have a link to the zip file in Trevor’s blog.
Whilst this approach makes it easier for the user it still has the person-power costs of setting up and maintaining the data base. I also suspect that the size of the zipped file may become quite large as the number of images of orphan’s information increases (if there was only text data associated with each orphan, then the zipped file size would probably be acceptable – one would have the same facility to click on dots however, it would only be text that is displayed).)
A Genealogical Approach (with a little bit of GIS)
In another blog (#11), Trevor mentions that “One of the research tools I used for the Earl Grey Famine orphans was a modified form of what demographers know as ‘family reconstitution‘.
Family reconstitution is the technique of linking records of demographic events, usually of an ecclesiastical nature, within and between individual lives, in order to recreate individual life histories and the histories of families. While genealogists have always pursued such linking, the intent of demographers is not simply to record chains of descent and marriage but rather to compile information on the demographic rates pertaining to the population of which the individuals and families were a part. E.A. Hammel, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001. (Most social scientists invent new words for the old ways of doing things in an attempt to differentiate their “new” product.)
I pick-up Hammel’s phrase “genealogists have always pursued such linking” and ask myself whether a genealogical software package (with a – limited – GIS capability) may be a better alternative to a full-blown GIS package. Such an approach should in fact have a gentle learning curve as I presume that many readers of Trevor’s blog are familiar with genealogy websites such as Ancestry, My Heritage, Findmypast, Familysearch or WikiTree. I am however thinking of something like the free genealogy software package “Gramps”.
The following screenshots show the output of “Gramps” for Jane Hutchinson, her husband and their children (“family reconstitution” and “scattering”).
The first screenshot shows Jane’s movements from her arrival in Melbourne, employment in Merri Creek and Campaspe River, marriage in Melbourne and movements to Taminick and North Wangaratta. If one clicks on any of the pins a pop-up box appears with details of the events at that pin.
The second screenshot expands the movements to all of Jane’s family including the deaths of two of her children, one in Queensland and the other in New Zealand. Again, clicking on a pin gives details of the event at the location of the pin.
The third and fourth screenshot shows the pop-up box of events at Wangaratta and North Wangaratta.
Jane’s family WangarattaJane’s family North Wangaratta
Further, Gramps can produce various reports and charts and reports including family trees and fan charts as illustrated below.
So, returning to the question “Can we create interactive digital maps?”
As indicated above the answer is “yes”. However what we can display in the maps depends upon the data available. Further, the the development time of such maps depends upon the format in which the data is presented, the preferred format being electronic such as a spreadsheet or other readable database (hard copy printed data, in tabular form, can also be scanned and extracted then read into a database).
An example of a database is that at the Irish Famine Memorial which includes the fields: First Name, Surname, Native Place, Age on Arrival, Parents, Religion, Ship Name and Details (although there are some spelling issues for Surname and Native Place and it is not clear whether the Details field is a text field or a concatenation of other fields such as Employer, Marriage etc.).
Similarly, if the original data from which Trevor drew the maps frozen at specific points in time (1848-50, 1861 and c.1890-1900) for Barefoot vol.2 were available, then these data could be recombined with that at the Irish Famine Memorial to produce a set of general statistics such as age on arrival, age at first marriage, age at death, number of children etc.
They could also be used in a map to view questions such as:
Show me all the girls who arrived on <name of ship>
Show me who married a convict “exile”
Show me which girls were married in <church name>
Show me which girls came from <county or workhouse> in Ireland
Show me first employers and their location
“Family reconstitution”.
The “modified form of what demographers know as ‘family reconstitution‘” that Trevor used for his orphan data cards (see example below) can equally well be represented in a genealogical software package such as “Gramps”. The added advantage of such a package is that various charts and reports can be generated including family trees and fan charts as well as being able to follow the movements of orphans and their families.
Given that such packages are “user friendly”, perhaps their use could also encourage descendants of orphans to provide data on their “family reconstitution”.
John’s suggestions are inspirational. Have a look again at his paragraph just before the last map. A couple of nights ago, about 3am, I even found myself thinking about the possibilities. (It’s an age thing. No it’s not. I spent a lifetime, going through the next day’s teaching in my head during the night.)
One of the interactive digital maps that set me off in this direction some years ago was about the spread of North American railways. The Stanford university interactive map was captivating. I imagined the lives of the orphans could be displayed like that too. Look at the map above. Can you see how the discovery of gold in Victoria has affected where the orphans spread?
Maybe a simpler map to begin with is the way to go. Can we map the movement of the orphans during their lifetime? We have one of the workhouse origins of the orphans already. As John suggests, I’m sure we canalsodraw onerepresentingwhere exactly they were first employed.
Kiss (keep it simple stupid). By happy circumstance my 1991 Barefoot & Pregnant? became part of the Untapped research project out of the University of Melbourne. One result of which is that all the books in the project are being republished by Booktopia. That hard copy should be easier to work with and be the means of identifying the Port Phillip orphans’ first employer. We can then place them on a map of Melbourne and its surrounds, or further afield.
To repeat what John suggested above,thereafter, using my family reconstitutions and the work of family historians, it may be possible to identify where the orphans were, at two or three year(?) intervals, via the birth registration of their children. There are drawbacks of course. How do we find where the married orphans went after their child-bearing years? Maybe their descendants via the Port Phillip Orphans FaceBook page would provide the necessary information? The other most important go-to place, and most up-to-date, is the Irishfaminememorial database.
Some time ago I asked John Moon would he like to write something for my blog, something about his orphan ancestor, Jane Hutchinson, and something about how finding ‘his’ orphan has affected him.He very kindly sent me the following. I’ll keep the two parts he sent, separate. The second one I’ll put up a little later; it’s a little gem of creativity.
Part 1: Jane Hutchinson, Earl Grey Irish Orphan, “Derwent”, Melbourne, 25 February 1850
The basic facts about Jane Hutchinson are contained in her summary at the Irish Famine Memorial Website (which incorporates data from Trevor’s Barefoot and pregnant?). Given the dearth of accessible information about Jane’s life it is difficult to expand upon this summary without repeating some of the more general experiences of other Orphans. Thus all we can do is add some observations and speculations by considering two people living around her which by association adds to her story. These two people are Thomas Buckler, the man she married, and to a lesser extent Michael Madden, her first employer after “disposal”.
Name: Jane HutchinsonNative Place: Londonderry [Derry] [Desertmartin]
Age On Arrival: 16
Parents: Not recorded
Religion: Roman Catholic
Ship Name: Derwent (Melbourne Feb 1850)
shipping: house servant, cannot read or write;
Magherafelt PLU PRONI BG23/G/1(3032), Jane Hutchinson, aged 13, single, RC, servant, from the Union at large, deserted, no means of support, came in with her mother, Ellen, aged 50, widow, mendicant with William 15, Nancy 11 & John all healthy but no means of support, entered 31 Oct 1846, left 6 Jan 1847; (6670) Jane Hutchinson, 15, single, RC, healthy, Desertmartin, labourer, entered 9 Jun 1848, left 30 Oct 1849
empl. by Michael Madden at Merri Creek, £9, 6 months;
married Thomas Buckler (seems to be convict to VDL per Maitland Jun 1846) on 25 Oct 1852, St James CofE Melbourne; 12 children;died 25 Jan 1908 Wangaratta, Victoria. (source https://irishfaminememorial.org/details-page/?pdb=7582
Great Irish Famine Monument, Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney
Jane and Thomas were the “guinea pigs” of two different nineteenth century socio-political experiments. In the case of Jane, it was Earl Grey’s Irish Orphans scheme, and in the case of Thomas it was the “separate system” of the 1839 Prison Act , implemented at Pentonville prison.
Thomas was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England on 3rd December 1826.
From the available records and newspaper reports, it appears that the Bucklers were a “family in distress”. At the age of 12, Thomas’ second sister Rebecca died in the Chilvers Coton Workhouse and by the age of 15, the 1841 Census suggests that his mother and two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, were resident in the same Workhouse. Neither Thomas nor his father appear to be in Nuneaton at the time of this Census which raises the question of where they were, or did they not take part in the 1841 Census.
After a a number of run-ins with local magistrates, Thomas, in December 1844, was tried, along with Joseph Martin (alias Randle), at the Coventry County Assizes for stealing 17 pairs of boots and shoes (value £3. 10s.), a small quantity of cheese and butter and a pair of scissors (value 10d.) and sentenced to 10 years transportation.
He arrived at Pentonville 23 December 1844 and was subjected to discipline under the “separate system”.
“The distinctive characteristic of the discipline was the COMBINATION of severe punishment with a considerable amount of instruction and other moral influences. The elements relied upon for severe punishment were, rigid separation , and a protracted term of eighteen months’ imprisonment, followed by transportation. The moral or reformatory elements were, frequent visitation by superior officers, a considerable amount of moral and religious instruction, combined with industrial training [in Thomas’ case shoe-making], and a reasonable prospect of earning an honest livelihood in the colony, upon the sole condition of steady good conduct. At that time, these elements of severity and kindness were combined at Pentonville in a higher degree than they have ever been combined in any other prison in Great Britain”. See Results of the System of Separate Confinement: As Administered at the Pentonville Prison – available for download in Google Books.
After around 18 months at Pentonville, Thomas boarded the Maitland as an exile, bound for Australia, arriving Melbourne 6 November 1846.
Thomas has the distinction of appearing in a House of Commons Parliamentary Paper, not by name but by number (#741), for the offenses he committed whilst on route to Australia. These included:
17 June 1846 Selling his clothes to a seaman in the prison for a chew of tobacco – put in irons five days.
10 August 1846 Chewing tobacco in the prison and spitting on the deck after bed-time. The second time he has broken through the rules – Bread and water, and made prisoner below for fourteen days.
So much for the intended behavioural changes of Pentonville – or was it a reflection of the severity of the punishment for what would now appear to be minor infringements?
As an exile, Thomas stepped on the shores of Port Phillip as a free man, “on condition that they do not return to “Our United Kingdom during the remaining term of their respective Sentences of transportation”. Initially, he went to work for a well-known auctioneer, founder of Kirk’s Bazaar and prominent turf club member, James Bowie Kirk of Bourke Street Melbourne.
We hear no more of Thomas until his marriage day in 1852.
Whilst I do not have a copy of Thomas and Jane’s marriage certificate (at $20.00 per certificate genealogy can become an expensive hobby), I understand that it states that they were from Campaspe River. So the question arises as to ‘how did they get there?’
For Thomas, as indicated above, we have no information. For Jane, one speculation is that she went there with the Maddens family (her first employer). In this respect, an obituary of Patrick Madden (son of Michael) in the McIvor Times and Rodney Advertiser, Thursday 7 June 1906 reported that:
The late Mr Patrick Madden, whose death was reported in your last issue was the oldest resident of Mia Mia and district. He was born at Campbellfield [Merri Creek], near Melbourne, on the 15th March, 1843, and came to Mia Mia with his parents on 1st February, 1851. … His father (the late Mr Michael Madden) was travelling with his stock from Melbourne to Mia Mia on 6th February 1851 (Black Thursday) and had some trouble to save them from being burnt.
Michael Madden perhaps rented some land from a pastoralist/ squatter in the area to keep his stock. In January 1854 (after Jane was married), Michael Madden and his wife had taken over the license of the Mia Mia Inn. Michael died a couple of years after purchasing the license to the Inn and is buried in Kyleton Cemetery.
The speculation here is that Michael Madden’s farm, where Jane may have been living, was located somewhere between Kyleton and Mia Mia on the Campaspe River.
Jane and Thomas were married on 25 Oct 1852 at St James CofE Melbourne [I notice from Trevor’s blog #58 a contributor stated that “St James in Melbourne was both Catholic and Anglican in the one church” – does anybody have any details of this arrangement?]. Following their marriage, it would appear that they went to Wangaratta, working for the pastoralist/ squatter Benjamin Warby Jnr. on his 23,000 acre run ‘Taminick’ (estimated grazing capability 700 cattle or 4,000 sheep).
It was at Taminick that Jane’s first two children were born – Sarah Jane in 1853 and William 24 March 1855 (details of the births of her remaining ten children are shown in the family tree below…see part 2).
Their third child Abraham was born in North Wangaratta in 1857, suggesting that they moved from Taminick to North Wangaratta some time between 1855 and 1857.
The obituary of William Buckler (son of Thomas Buckler) in the Wangaratta Chronicle, Saturday 1 September 1934, reported that:
The late Mr. [William] Buckler was born at Taminick and at the age of three [maybe two, as Thomas’ second son Abraham was born at North Wangaratta in 1857] he was taken to North Wangaratta by his parents, to property which was afterwards known as the “Old Buckler homestead”.
Here his father was first to grow wheat in the district, and the first year there there was obtained just one ear, and in the following year the whole of the previous year’s production was planted, to gain about one bushel of wheat [probable a little poetic/ journalistic licence]. The ground was tilled by a wooden plough made by Mr. Thomas Buckler.
Details of Thomas’ land acquisition are probably held in the bowels of the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) the location of which could possibly be identified in Nelson, P. and Alves, L. “Lands Guide: A guide to finding records of Crown Land at Public Record Office Victoria”, Public Records Office Victoria, Melbourne, 2009. However, without access to PROV we rely on scattered newspaper reports.
A commission of enquiry into applications for land under the forty second section of the Amending Land Act, was held on Thursday (25 October 1866), at the Plough Inn, Tarrawingee. The commission consisted of Messrs Gaunt, P.M., and Mr H. Morris, District Surveyor. The proceedings commenced shortly before eleven o’clock [one of its decisions being]:
PARISH OF CARRARAGARMUNGEE
Thomas Buckler applied for eighty acres. He has a wife and six children. He has seventy-one acres of purchased land, but none leased – Recommended.
Thus by 1866, Thomas had purchased seventy-one acres and had been recommended for the lease of a further eighty acres.
On his death Thomas had 302 acres of which 282 acres were transferred to Jane and 20 acres sold to his son Abraham (blacksmith) for £70.
By 1879, Jane had had twelve children, eleven of whom lived long lives.
Whilst Jane could neither read nor write (even her will dated 20 December 1907 was read to her before witnesses and signed with her mark), the education of the children was not neglected. In 1867, the Ovens and Murray Advertiser, reported on the examination of pupils attending Wangaratta National School. The subjects examined included: reading, writing and spelling, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, English composition, Latin, and mental arithmetic as well as a prize for girl’s needlework.
Jane died on 25 January 1908 and is buried with Thomas at Wangaratta Cemetery.
Jane, who in her adolescence was a pauper, lived to the age of 75, bore 12 children and owned a farm of 282 acres. This must have been beyond the wildest dreams of the adolescent Jane. When I look at this brief sketch of Jane’s life, I cannot but think “very brave girl and a true Australian pioneer”. When I look back to the Magherafelt Workhouse, I also cannot help thinking that she took advantage of the third Earl Grey’s Irish Orphans scheme, and was not a victim of it.
Thomas on the other hand did not have much choice. He grew-up in a family under stress and once he was caught for stealing the boots and the cheese the system of the day determined his future. After arriving in Australia however he rose to the challenge and through hard work was able to make a success of his life – another true pioneer.
(As a footnote, it is observed that while in Wangaratta he seems to have had only two run-ins with the law: one for being drunk for which he was cautioned and discharged and the other a traffic infringement “leaving a horse and dray unprotected in the public streets” for which he was fined 2s 6d, with 5s costs).
Just a reminder about this year’s annual gathering at the Famine monument.
Recently someone asked me how to find which workhouse their orphan came from. I provided some suggestions, basically how to do the research themselves. Would you like to have a go? Here are some links you will find helpful. https://earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/earl-greys-irish-famine-orphans-20/ Trying to sort out the difficuties that have arisen from the next par below.
The first is to the contents of the blog. It is incomplete but it contains what you need for this exercise. Try clicking on the Contents title below, and then on post number 20, at the HTTP link; it’s the one that begins ‘British Parliamentary Papers’, a fair way down the page. It should tell you the names of workhouses that sent orphans for each ship, the early ships anyway.
A more direct but still quite complex method would be to go to the search box that appears at the end of each post, just after the comments.
Here’s a screenshot. Type what you are looking for into the search box; i typed the words, ‘which workhouse’, and up came a number of places where these two words appear in my blog, posts 62, 64 and 66, for example
Here’s another screenshot showing part of what came up. You need to click on those different links and search for what you are after.
In this case, post 62, scroll down past “Literacy” and “Sydney Legend” and follow my suggestions. Take your time and work through at your own pace. If you you encounter difficulties, I’m sure there is someone at home, or in your orphan Facebook group who will be willing to help. At some stage you will also need ‘Google maps’ and Peter Higginbotham’s great workhouse website. But let’s go slowly.
What you are doing is identifying the workhouses that sent orphans on your orphan’s ship (blog post 20). Then with information about your particular orphan’s native place (see shipping lists, the https://irishfaminememorial.org/ website, or my Barefoot ) go to Peter Higginbotham’s www.workhouses.org and see if you can find the workhouse your orphan most likely came from. Which was closest to her native place? The method is not foolproof. But it is a good start. [You may need to use the search box again to see how to use Peter’s workhouse site].
Best of luck with your quest. Technology can tie us in knots,especially if we aren’t used to it.
I’d be interested in hearing about your experience. Please tell me, and other people by adding a comment at the end of this post.
May i ask if you found any information about your particular orphan when you typed her name into the search box?
What specific words did you use in the search box that directed you to information that was both helpful and interesting? Have you any tips for other searchers? Have you any queries?
Given how close we are to June 16th, it seems appropriate to finish with a quotation from this work,
The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned his face. And if he was alive all the time? Whew! By Jingo, that would be awful!
If an academic historian writes about your ancestor without consulting you, is that appropriation? Or if a family historian ‘borrows’ something written by a professional historian, say, about the Earl Grey scheme, without acknowledgment, is that plagiarism? There are all sorts of tricky questions to explore, are there not?
Here’s the latest story testing the hypothesis raised in the last post. Thankyou for this loving, sensitive tribute, Bren. This is something special that only a descendant can bring to an orphan story.
Bren’s heartfelt story of her Irish Orphan …
One day out of the blue I read an article about the Earl Grey Scheme.
There had been no luck finding my Mum’s maternal side of the family and the joke was they must have swum to Australia, but after reading this story I started researching every Julia that came to Melbourne through this scheme and that’s when I found her.
A 16 year old girl named Julia Keohane. Taken out of the Skibbereen Workhouse, put onto the ship ‘Eliza Caroline’ in 1849 and literally dumped onto the other side of the world.
Others might say ’well that sounds a bit dramatic’ but it’s my take on how my GGGGrandmother was treated, it’s personal for me and my family.
An illiterate, RC girl who lived in rags and walked barefoot all her life was given a box full of clothes, two pairs of shoes and the chance to leave the hell hole that was Skibbereen Workhouse. She didn’t have a clue where she was off to, no concept of distance, gave no thought to how she was to survive, she just wanted to escape the misery of where she was.
Julia became my obsession. I could follow most of her tough life through Trove newspapers. At times she comes across as feisty, cheeky and cocky during her court appearances, but it struck me she was never treated with any empathy or care.
Julia was a loving Mum and I’m pleased to tell her story, though it’s a sanitised version of her life as a means of offering her some dignity that never came her way during her lifetime.
This is Julia’s story … a kid from Skibbereen.
Julia Keohane knew only abject poverty growing up.
Then a miracle occurred in her young pubescent life. Being presented with a box full of new clothes and two pairs of shoes, Julia had never worn shoes before, she was made to feel important and special for the first time in her life. Most of all she was being given the opportunity to escape from the misery that was the Skibbereen Workhouse.
Her adventure began on New Years Eve 1849 when the ship ‘Eliza Caroline’ sailed out of Plymouth.
Julia had no concept of where she was being sent, but it was understood that work would be found, even though she had no skills and had never been employed before. It was also accepted by every girl on that ship that you needed a man to survive in this world, more than employment.
After leaving the Immigration Depot it was the first time in her life that Julia could make decisions on her own. She was employed with a Mrs Andrews of Spring Street, Melbourne and within weeks had somehow met Thomas Connolly and was pregnant! With no thought of the consequences this 16 year old naively rushed and put all her faith and trust into an ex-convict from Tasmania who was 10 years her senior
Julia and Thomas were now a couple with a baby on the way. The summer of 1850/51 has been recorded as long and hot, a new phenomenon for Julia. For days bushfires raged terrifyingly uncontrolled in the Plenty Ranges north-east of Melbourne and this is where the now 17 year old gave birth to a healthy son, John Thomas Connolly.
S.T. Gill, ‘Canvas Town” Yarra River c.1852-3, Wikimedia Commons
Twelve months on and a large tent city called Canvas Town sprung up on the banks of the Yarra River housing all the new arrivals coming to Melbourne. For a few shillings a week you could hire a tent to provide shelter from the elements. This is where the new family settled with Julia starting a small shop from their tent, while Thomas was up to his petty criminal ways.
By 1853 Thomas had a reputation around Canvas Town and had progressed to the more serious crime of robbery and assault.
When Julia heard about the arrest she marched up to the victims tent and tried reasoning with them not to lay charges, but the situation turned ugly with the police now charging Julia with intimidating a witness. She went to court and pleaded for mercy and because of her circumstances, a young girl with a baby, she was given a warning. Thomas got 3 years hard labour on the roads.
Barely 19 years of age, after being dumped in a strange country now with no man or family for support, Julia was totally alone. To make matters worse she was going to lose her home, because the Government had decided to close down Canvas Town which had slowly turned into a slum full of fever and crime. Her only option was to head to the other side of town where all the outcasts lived and the Chinamen welcomed her to their tribe.
The following years had Thomas in and out of jail which left Julia and baby John struggling on the streets. Alcohol became her crutch. There are many articles in the newspapers written of her arrests. She was shown no empathy, given no dignity, and left to endure the hardship of survival on the streets.
In the following ten years Julia did distance herself from Thomas Connolly and left Melbourne moving to another big city, Ballarat. Her son John now a teenager and independent, was working as a Wood Splitter in the Ballarat area. After living such a hard, unstable life with alcohol her only comfort and respite Julia was by this time psychologically damaged.
It was in Ballarat that Julia met up with Tom Middleton through their shared bad drinking habits and arrests.
By 1866 they had set up house together. Tom worked as a fish hawker and was away from home days/weeks at a time. Julia was fearful being alone and slept with a knife under her pillow. Depression and drink often left her talking of suicide.
In 1870, Thomas Connolly the father of her son, died in a horse and dray accident. Two years later Julia’s now partner Tom Middleton lost his younger brother John and buried him in the new Ballarat Cemetery.
It was around this time Julia’s son John stopped using the surname of Connolly and assumed the name of Middleton.
In 1889, after living together for 20 years, Julia and Tom decided to get married. They were living behind the kitchens in a room at the Perseverance Hotel, Main Street, Ballarat.
Julia being illiterate needed someone to complete the marriage forms on her behalf and she wanted it acknowledged that she had given birth to 6 children. Tom Middleton says he had none. Where are those 5 missing children? Only Julia knows, but to acknowledge them on her marriage certificate demonstrates that she had not forgotten them.
A year passes and on the day of Julia’s death Tom had been away working. When he arrived home Julia was across the laneway visiting a neighbour. Tom asked her to go home and make him some dinner while he checked on the horse and from there an argument erupted and Julia got stabbed.
From the Inquest there is evidence from neighbours describing how as Julia lay dying, after saying her prayers, it was her son John who she was most worried about.
Tom did get arrested, but was it manslaughter, murder or suicide?
Three times a jury could not come to a verdict, so the Judge had no option but to give him his freedom.
Tom buried Julia in the Ballarat Cemetery, alongside his younger brother.
He stayed on in Ballarat alone and died in 1906.
Julia’s son John grew into a hard working man employed as a Line Repairer with the railways. He married and had 12 children and lived to the grand old age of 89 years. His first daughter was named after his wife’s mother, his second daughter he named Julia, after his mother.
p.s. The cover image is of Old Chapel Lane, Skibbereen at the time of the Famine, from the London Illustrated News.
Amanda Midlam has kindly allowed me to share this with you. I hope you will find it useful. I have made some very minor changes to titles, and the spelling of names, and added a couple of website links.
DEDICATED TO THE REMARKABLE YOUNG WOMEN WHO CHANGED THEIR LIVES FOREVER – AND SOME OF OURS – BY EMIGRATING FROM IRELAND WHILE STILL IN THEIR TEENS IN 1848 – 1859.
HOW TO RESEARCH AND WRITE THE LIFE STORIES OF IRISH FAMINE ORPHANS
By Amanda Midlam
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
This guide came out of a research project I undertook as part of my studies for a Master of Research, Macquarie University, under the supervision of Associate Professor Tanya Evans. For this project I researched and wrote the stories of Mary Rattigan and Brigid Callery and this guide came out of what I learned along the way.
First of all, I suggest you give this guide a quick read through then keep it as a reference as you research and write your own famine girl stories.
There is currently more information available about conducting research and where to find records than there is about writing up your research, so I have included writing information.
I have a Masters in Creative Writing and love passing on writing skills. The reality is that the research is only half the task. It is what you do with your research that brings the Irish Famine Orphans to life for other people. Best of luck. There are great stories to be found and told.
HOW TO RESEARCH AND WRITE THE LIFE STORIES OF IRISH FAMINE ORPHANS
ACCURACY. Aim at accuracy but keep in mind that telling the story is more important than nailing down a single fact, a feat which sometimes turns out to be impossible. Keep an eye on the big picture instead.
ADDENDUM OR APPENDIX. This is where you can put information that has some relevance or context but is not part of the story, or else slows the story down. Not everything you find has to make it into the story.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Many people will help you track and trace your famine girl and it is a good idea to keep a list of their names right from the start. You might want to write an acknowledgement page thanking the people who helped and from courtesy you should send each person a copy of your work when it is completed. When people hear about these teenage girls travelling to Australia, usually on their own but sometimes with a sister, they almost always become engaged. Convict ancestors inspire interest, these young female free settlers inspire sympathy and empathy along with interest.
ANCESTRY.COM. Some people find this a great resource and others doubt the accuracy of family research found on this site. See Resources – Primary and Secondary.
ARE THERE RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS OF TELLING THE STORY?
No. There is a format that works – born, workhouse, migrated to Australia, worked, married, had children, died – but which parts you focus on and how you ultimately tell the story is up to you. The way you tell the story does not matter but try to develop the skill to tell it as best you can.
ATTRIBUTIONS. This is a way of acknowledging, in your writing, the work or ideas of others. There can be copyright or ethical reasons for this and, I would argue, literary reasons because attributions can make for a better story. Mary Rattigan’s story was enriched, in my view, by naming contemporary family members and quoting them as this provided a strong link between past and present.
AUDIENCE. Think about who are you writing for. The answer to that will affect the tone of your writing. For a start, are you telling the story for children or adults? It can be helpful to imagine a reader while you are writing. This imagined reader may be a partner, a relative, a friend or a version of yourself. Thinking about your audience will guide you in such things as tone, choices of vocabulary, sentence and paragraph length, and focus of the story.
BAPTISMS and BIRTH CERTIFICATES. Baptism certificates are more likely to have accurate birth dates than birth certificates as there was a fine for late registrations of births.
BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT? IRISH FAMINE ORPHANS IN AUSTRALIA, VOLS 1 and 2, by Trevor McClaughlin, are the definitive books about the subject.
BEGETTING. Avoid begetting, a word no-one seems to use any more. What I mean is the long list of names that purports to explain who someone is by listing all the ancestors. Solomon begat Isaiah who begat Shania who begat Kylie… If you want to list the family line, attach it as an addendum. A list of names is not part of telling a story.
BEGINNING. Where do you begin the research? You start with what information you have. The Irish Famine Memorial database gives you barebones information and that is a great start.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. It is important to create a bibliography because it acknowledges the work of others, helps you keep track of the information you have read, and is a guide for future researchers. Generally the bibliography is in alphabetical order but I found it more convenient to divide it into types such as personal contacts, electronic sources and books. I have included the bibliography for Mary Rattigan as a sample in the addendum. Some of the sources listed here will be general to all Irish famine girls while others are specific, but you can substitute my local sources for your own local one, for example historical societies.
BLOG. Trevor McClaughlin’s blog, “Trevo’s Irish Famine Orphans”, at https://earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com/author/trevo1/ is a great resource. You may find other blogs that are helpful too. Do a search using a key word and the word “blog”.
BOOKS. In my attached bibliography I have listed many books and you will find more relating to life in Ireland, migration at the time, Australian history and related subjects.
CHRONOLOGY. It is best to keep your research in chronological order. The Earl Grey Scheme ran from 1848 to 1850, so the information you gather falls before or after that. With the writing you might want to start the story at a dramatic point then backtrack and that is fine. Keep in mind, if you have doubts about how to tell the story, a chronological telling works and is understood by everyone.
COPYRIGHT. Information itself is not subject to copyright but the way it is expressed is. The copyright lies in the words and the ordering of them. You might find information in a book or on a website that you want to use. If you copy and paste without permission that is a breach of copyright. In that case you can either ask for permission to use the material or rewrite the information in your own words. Sometimes the writing of the material is so beautiful it is worth asking permission to use it.
CREATIVE NONFICTION. If you want to improve your writing skills look up creative nonfiction. Life writing – whether it is your life or someone else’s – falls into the category of creative nonfiction and is beyond plain journalism which purports to be objective (although often it isn’t). Creative nonfiction is writing that is factual but it also has narrative elements. Think of the true story you are writing as having a setting, a central character and a plot. Unlike plain journalism you can use descriptive language and metaphors if you like and you can express emotion.
DEATHS. Death is the end of someone’s life but not necessarily the end of their story. You might want to end the story with a description of a famine girl’s legacy whether that is descendants, the Irish Famine Memorial, or a reflection on her life.
DATES. Dates can be rubbery. One source will give one date and second source gives another. Accurate dates can help you find specific documents in your research but in story terms what happened is often more important than the exact date, so don’t get too hung up. Keep working on the story.
DEADLINE. Set a deadline, otherwise you will never finish. There will always be one more piece of information you are chasing. Set a date to have a finished version of the story that stands alone.
DELIVERY. You may want to set a date when you will deliver the goods, whether it is a printed story or a bog post. This will reinforce the deadline and help you to progress. Don’t make the delivery date Christmas. Even if family members are looking forward to reading what you found, Christmas is too busy for everyone, including you. Maybe make it the date your Irish famine orphan arrived in Australia. The dates are on the database.
DISTRIBUTION. Give copies to people and organisations who helped as a thank you and also because it can add to their information base. Give copies to family networks. Also send a copy to the Irish Famine Memorial. You can publish your work as a blog or in print.
ENDING. While you are researching and writing, keep an eye out for a satisfying end to the story. It may be information you come across, or it may be original writing that sums it up. Once you have an ending it can be easier to build towards it, to know what should be included and what is extraneous, and the tone to take in telling the tale.
FACEBOOK. I found the descendent of one orphan within a day by posting on a community page relevant to the locality where the orphan had lived. That is how I learned family members still lived there. I also found Irish community pages on Facebook to be informative and full of insights into the famine and local conditions at the time. It is a simple matter to look up the name of the county on Facebook and look for local pages then ask to join. There is also an Irish Famine Girl Facebook page for descendants in Australia.
FACT OR NOT FACT? Sometimes it can be hard to tell if information you find is a fact or untrue. If you want to include it, you can deal with this by using words “maybe” or “possibly” or “the family believe that…”. That does not confirm nor disprove but leaves it open.
FAMILY LORE. This can be fertile ground for finding gold. One woman told me there is a story in her family that when Grannie, with her tribe of kids, arrived in the remote bush setting where she was to live, she sat on a log and cried. This is a telling detail. She didn’t just sit down and cry. She sat on a log and that tells us there was nothing but bush. Ask family members for any stories they may remember.
FAMILY MEMBERS. Keep a list of family members who help and send them a copy of your finished story. Keep their names in both your Acknowledgements list and your Bibliography and you have twice the chance of not forgetting anyone.
FAMILY HISTORY. Previously researched family history may contain furphies. Or maybe whoever wrote it had access to records that no longer exist. It can be hard to tell. All you can do is try the best you can and remember you can write about anything questionable in a way that makes it clear it is a possibility and not rock solid fact.
FINISHING. You will never finish, there will always be more information. You need to reach a point, or points, when you produce a written story that feels complete in the sense of being a satisfying read.
FREEMAN’S JOURNAL. This is a Catholic newspaper published in Sydney from 1850 and is found on Trove. https://trove.nla.gov.au/
FRIENDSHIPS. One of the frustrating things is that we cannot find much information about friends. They don’t leave certificates like marriages and births do and they don’t make themselves known in census records. You can look out for the same names popping up in different records and explore further. This is one reason why it is good to go back through the records and documents with a fresh eye looking for different information.
GENEALOGICAL SOCIETIES. Whether you are looking for family members who came before your famine girl or after, genealogical societies have a lot of information and expertise.
HISTORICAL SOCIETIES. These, and the people who run them, are often worth their weight in gold. Historical societies may or may not have a presence on the internet. The nearest library to the locality where your Irish immigrant lived, should be able to direct you to local historical societies.
HOLES. There will be holes in your story – big gaps and leaps of years you can’t account for. If you can’t fill these holes, move on. No-one expects you to find information about every phase of someone’s life. You will find enough information about some phases to tell a great story.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE. Too many pioneer stories ignore indigenous people. During my current research, I was dismayed to find settler history and Indigenous history to be largely separate instead of shared – even though in the years 1848 to 1850 people of a variety of cultures shared the same spaces, perhaps not fairly but it would be wrong to assume the traditional inhabitants have nothing to do with your immigrant’s story. Check with the local cultural centre and/or land’s council for information and gain an insight into what the locality was like from an Indigenous perspective at the relevant time.
IRISH FAMINE MEMORIAL DATABASE. https://irishfaminememorial.org/orphans/database/ This is a great resource that has some information on over 4000 Irish famine girls. From the data base you can see first name,
surname, native place, age on arrival, names of parents, religion and ship name. If you
click on the surname of the girl more details come up.
IMMIGRATION CORRESPONDENCE. The details on the Irish Famine girls data base may refer to “im cor” followed by numbers. This refers to Immigration Correspondence which is held on microfiche at the NSW State Library.
INTERPRETATION. All history is interpreted. The past happened – and that doesn’t change – but any story we tell about the past is not an exact replica of that past. It is an interpretation.
INTERVIEWING. You may need to interview people who have important information. If the word “interview” is daunting use expressions like “talk to” or “have a chat”. Know what it is you are after and have specific questions ready, so you don’t waste the person’s time while you try to figure out what to ask next. Two questions I ask that sometimes provide new insights and telling details are, “What interests you most about the famine girls/ the locality at that time/ the treatment of the Irish…”. And a similar question that sometimes yields surprising and valuable results is, “What surprised you the most about…”
LIBRARIES – LARGE. The NSW State Library has lots of information of use to family historians and you can ask librarians for assistance in finding what you want. You can apply for a library card online or in person. The National library also has great family history resources and again you can apply for a library card which allows you to access online resources.
LIBRARIES – LOCAL. You might not be able to join the local library where your famine girl lived if you live out of the area but it is worth visiting. Let them know you are coming and make an appointment. Tell them you would like to look at their historical collection and give them information about your particular interest. Your own local library can arrange interlibrary loans if there is material held in other libraries that you’d like to borrow. Unfortunately this often does not apply to historical collections as often there are materials that are fragile and irreplaceable.
LIFE WRITING. Life writing means writing from life. It does not mean writing a whole life. Do not think you need to show all phases of a famine girl’s life in the same amount of detail and length. If one phase really fascinates you, you might want to write just about that.
MAPS. Try to find old maps of where your famine girl came from and where she settled. There are plenty of maps on line. It helps to visualise places and gives insights for example on how isolated she may have been.
MUSEUMS. There are many museums that can help with your research. Before visiting larger museums do some research to know what it is you want to see in their collections. Go looking for smaller museums too. These are varied but can give insights into lives and times. Some of these museums may be in localities you are interested in but others may be elsewhere but have themes of use such as pioneering.
NEUTRAL TONE. There is no need to adopt a neutral tone. Your interests will show up anyway. You are an individual. The famine orphan you are writing about was an individual. If everyone wrote their stories in the same neutral tone, there would be a sameness to their stories and what we want is richness and that comes from a variety of voices. So be yourself.
NOTEBOOK. I am old fashioned and keep a notebook just for this project and I jot down everything from research ideas to contact details. I like paper and pen and can carry the notebook around with me. Others may prefer to keep everything on their computer.
ORGANISING INFORMATION. Keep your research in chronological order. It will help you find it and you can see where everything fits in. With the writing chronological order may not be imaginative but it works and it does not confuse readers. If you have a better way of organising the material and it works, go ahead, if you don’t stick to chronological order.
PERMISSIONS. You may need permissions to use items such as photographs. It is best to ask as you go and keep a record.
PHYSICAL RESEARCH. It is useful to walk in a famine girl’s footsteps. On a site visit to the Kiah River I discovered how quiet it was. There was nothing to hear except birdsong and the breeze in the trees. Mary Rattigan had come from the Parramatta hospital which would have been busy and noisy. Before that she was on the Digby with 200 other girls. Before that in an overcrowded workhouse. Before that in a small community where land holdings were tiny and neighbours were close. I doubt she had previously ever experienced such quiet.
QUOTES. Quotes enliven writing. As you research make notes of great quotes you come across that you would like to use. A couple of Irish people I found on Facebook gave great quotes about conditions during the Famine in the localities where my famine girls came from. I asked for and was granted permission to use them. These quotes were far more colourful and deadly than any description of the Famine that I could have written myself.
RACISM. The English in Australia looked down upon the Irish and Catholics. If this aspect interests you will find a lot of information.
READ ALOUD. It is very important to read your written work aloud before you show it to someone else. You catch many typos and clumsily expressed phrases this way. It is far more effective than reading silently. I rely on the Read Aloud function on Word which is found under the Review tab.
REFERENCING. Do you have to use references? It depends on the audience for your written work. Certainly keep up with referencing during the research. Later on you will want to check something and it is really frustrating when you can’t figure out where you got certain information from. The easiest way to keep information and details of where you found it together is to put the details in brackets immediately after the info.
REFLECTIVE WRITING. Writing about your experience of researching can be revealing. You can reflect on your thoughts and feelings and it can help you to clarify and focus. It is up to you if you use reflective writing as a tool or include it, or some of it, in the story you are writing. See Voice.
RESOURCES – PRIMARY AND SECONDARY. Primary sources are documents like birth, wedding and death certificates, shipping and census records, and any other records from the time of the life you are writing about. I would include Trevor McLaughlin’s books and blog as primary resources too. Secondary sources are what other people have put together from primary sources. Blogs, family history websites and previously compiled family histories are secondary resources. If you have a primary and secondary resource with conflicting information, rely on the primary.
REVIEWING and RE-READING. Along with researching and writing, reviewing is an important task. Don’t store your records away from sight assuming you know what’s in the documents and images. You may think you’ve got the information you wanted from a baptism certificate, but it is extraordinary how many details hide that later pop out. I had that happen when family members and I wondered what help, if any, Mary Rattigan had when giving birth. I looked again at the birth certificate of her son and spotted a squiggle next to the witness’s name. A magnifying glass showed the squiggle said “Nurse”.
SCHOLARLY WRITING – Unless you are a scholar or aiming at a scholarly publication, don’t try it. Scholarly writing is written for scholars, not general readers. It is tedious and avoids surprises. The surprising twists and turns of someone’s life are going to be a feature of the story you write and does not suit scholarly writing.
SHIPPING LISTS. The Irish Famine Site database has information about which ship each girl arrived on.
SKIMMING. Develop skimming skills for looking through masses of information. You develop these skills by doing it. For electronic sources you can use the search function but many old records are not digitised. It was by skimming that I learned the ships surgeons the girls travelled with were not employed by the ship but were hired to look after their health. They were not answerable to the captain.
SOCIAL MEDIA. If you have social media skills, use them. Social media is a great way to network. I found it helpful to use Facebook to make contact with people living in the Irish communities Mary Rattigan and Brigid Callery came from. For these people in Ireland, the past and the Famine was still fresh in memory and they gave me insights.
SOUND LIKE YOURSELF. Your writing will be stronger if you sound like yourself. Try not to write the story in the way you imagine a family historian should write. You want the story to be engaging and fluent. You don’t have to sound authoritative; sounding interested or passionate about your subject is fine.
SPECULATION. It is fine to speculate but make it clear that is what you are doing. To say your orphan was heartbroken at leaving Ireland may make a strong impact but, if you don’t have any evidence for this, you have strayed into fiction. Some girls actually lied about their age and even their marital status in their eagerness (or maybe desperation) to be accepted in the Earl Grey scheme. Use words like “maybe”. “Maybe she was heartbroken, or maybe she was relieved that she was escaping starvation and a hopeless future…”. In Mary Rattigan’s story, I quote a descendent saying she liked to think Mary had a friend because she could not bear to think of her all alone. She and I speculated about who such a friend could have been, a couple of possibilities having turned up in the research. This does not mislead anyone but the speculation raises the important issues of loneliness and friendships.
STARTING POINT. Start the research with whatever information you have. The database on the Irish Famine Memorial was the start for my research. I suggest you start the writing sooner, rather than later. There are three reasons for this. The more you write, the more writing skill you develop. Secondly, as you find more information you can fit it in into the framework of the writing you have already done. Thirdly, writing is a form of thinking. Writing forces you to find the words and make sense of what you are learning.
STICKING POINTS. There will be times when you get stuck either in the research or the writing. The solution is to work on what you can. You move on to something else. Later on you can come back to the sticking point and decide what to do with it. No story is going to contain all details of all phases of someone’s life
STRUCTURE. Structure in writing is equal to architecture in building. It is going to work better if you have a plan, even if that plan needs to be re-worked. Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. Readers expect this. The difference between a list of events and a story is structure. Develop an idea as soon as you can of where your story begins, where the middle is, and where it ends. Also look for turning points, places where the story changes direction, for example a move to a new location.
STORY. Try to have an idea of the story as soon as you can. That is, not just a list of dates and names and places, but some idea of how her life, or part of it, was shaped. Remember always that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Look for those beginnings and ends.
VOICE. Most stories are written in the first person voice, using pronouns such as “I”, or third person, using pronouns such as “she” and “her”. The big difference is that in third person, the person telling the story is invisible. It is up to you if you want to be part of the story, a path that allows you to reflect and explain how you found an important piece of research, or if you prefer to write in third person, in which case you don’t appear in the story at all. Some people will instinctively know which voice is right for them, other people might like to experiment and write a sample of each to decide.
VOLUNTEERS. Usually historical and genealogical societies are run by volunteers and often they are older people who may be frazzled by technology. They are incredible sources of information about particular and general research. Treasure these resources.
WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW – If you are a farmer and your Irish famine orphan was a farm servant, research farming methods at the time. What did they grow? How did they sell their produce? If you love the sea, maybe focus on the voyage. You don’t have to write what you know but it can be an interesting angle and add breadth.
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? If you are a fan of this show or others like it, keep watching. If you are not, try viewing some episodes. They are really good examples of what information is found and where it is found. Importantly they also use experts to interpret the material. You can follow this idea by asking historians (from the library or historical society) and genealogists (from a genealogical society) to interpret documents and explain context. These programs build a strong story about some information, rather than trying to find every single detail. Also, importantly, they look at the relevance, how what they have found has importance and impact today.
WONDER. It was wonder that got you interested in the first place and it is wonder that can drive you forward and give you direction to tell a unique story. You can revive your wonder by writing a list of questions that begin with “I wonder…” Here are some examples. “I wonder how her diet changed from Ireland to Australia” – you could research this. “I wonder if she was religious” – church records may provide an answer. “I wonder if she left siblings behind in Ireland and if so what happened to them” – you could search for the answers.
Best of luck with finding and telling stories.
All the best,
Amanda
Amanda Midlam is a freelance writer of Irish descent who has Roscommon ancestors on both her mother and father’s sides. She is proud to be a member of the same family as John Hubert Plunkett who prosecuted the perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre. She has not found any Irish famine orphans in her ancestry.
I did find a couple more orphan stories tucked away in unlikely places on my computer. Before sharing them with you allow me to revisit two issues that have been troubling me lately. (1) How best can we encourage family historians to take up those things ordinary historians do? Things like setting one’s family history in a broader historical context, or even as mundane as referencing something found on the internet.
Here’s a post from May 2016 that will explain further what I’m on about https://wp.me/p4SlVj-Gf
Do click on the link. [I’m also trying to see how many people click on the links i provide, and how many use the search box widget].
Setting your Irish orphan into her historical context may be something you resist. Or you feel you don’t have the skill. I hope you give it a go, nonetheless. Launch yourself into space, a safety-net will appear. Take your time. Work up to it slowly. Maybe start with a blank piece of paper and writing down things you are curious about. It’s your piece of paper. No one but you needs see what you’ve written. Here are a few examples to start you off.
‘How did my orphan end up in a workhouse? That particular workhouse? Why was she in Dunwich Benevolent Asylum, or Aradale Hospital, or Goodna in the last years of her life? Why did relations between the Belfast orphans and the Matron, the Captain and the Surgeon on the Earl Grey turn sour? Where did the orphans who went to the Moreton Bay District after disembarking from the Thomas Arbuthnot get their feistiness from? Why was she still living in a tent in Ballarat in 1862? How did she manage with such a large family? How did they travel all that way to the Darling Downs? What was her family life? Why did she have so many husbands, and so many children? Was she religious? Describe her life on the Victorian goldfields, in Port Fairy/Bendigo/Bathurst/Balmain/Adelaide/the Clare Valley/Wollongong/Toowoomba [insert the place(s) where your orphan lived]? What emotional turmoil did she experience appearing before the Ipswich Petty Sessions court? Or living on a remote sheep station? How do i include First Nations people in my family history? May i suggest not being afraid to use ‘hypotheticals’? “Ed was in Brisbane town that day in January 1855, when Dundalli was executed. He came home physically shaken, and told me all about it. Every time i see a Wonga pigeon i think about it”.’ We may need to cast our net imaginatively to find information that fits into our history. Recognition and truth telling are vital characteristics of every family history.
You’ll think of other questions, peculiar to you, to pursue, I’m sure.
From The London Illustrated News
Historians involved in public history, teaching family history courses, or providing expert advice for television programmes such as “Who do you think you are?” will be very much in favour of your placing your orphan ancestors in their appropriate historical context. ‘Am I right, or am i right?’ as my stepdad used to say. Maybe we should ask some of them for tips, Naomi Parry Duncan at the University of Tasmania family history course, Rachel Murphy at Limerick, or Tanya Evans who recently was elected President of the Federation of Public History, for example.
Maybe look for a course you could enrol in. You’ll learn what kinds of questions to ask, what sources are available, and how you can question, and use them. It’s a great way forward.
A student at Macquarie University, Amanda Midlam, has written some tips for writing a Famine orphan ‘girl’s family history. I wonder how you might gain access to this. I believe Trish Power was trying to include it in the latest GIFCC newsletter. Check out the www.irishfaminememorial.org website.
My second issue (2) follows from the first, and concerns ‘ethics and family history’. As Alison Light put it in her Common People, “The central moral or ethical questions of historical enquiryare unavoidable and immediate infamily history:why does the past matter? How much and what do we owe the dead? “ I have also written about some of these ethical questions elsewhere in my blog.
Let me see if i can find what I’ve said via one of the Search boxes at the bottom of a post, even if it is just to repeat the message. Do any of you use the Search Box? Here’s the link to some questions I posed earlier. Do click on the link, and scroll down https://wp.me/p4SlVj-I0
Scroll down to the very end and read the comments people made. The suggestions from Jenny Coates, Barbara Barclay, Julie Poulter, Janeaology, and others are very helpful. Janeaology recommends that we ‘publish and be damned!’ and refers us to http://genxalogy.blogspot.com/2013/09/ethical-dilemmas-2-geneabloggers-open.html What a delight. You might like to follow her blog, yes?
I even entered the twittersphere and typed ‘ethics and family history’ into the Twitter search box. Jeepers, it really can be helpful. I found blogs, podcasts and even books. A discussion in the HistoryWorkshop via Julia Laite’s @julialaite podcast circa September 2021, or Penny Walters’ book, Ethical dilemmas in Genealogy are two to explore further.
Of course, you may be lucky, and never have to confront any kind of ethical dilemma in writing your family history. But it is something many of us will face at one time or another. I’m really interested in your take on this issue; how do you deal with ‘difficult’ stories? Do you exercise self censorship? Keep the ‘scandalous’, ‘unwelcome’, ‘contentious’ information private, for fear of hurting someone? Or do you forge ahead, providing evidence for what you are prepared to say? Let me know your views, please.
Personally, I’m doing a bit of soft shoe shuffle at the moment by letting family historians speak for themselves. The advantage is that descendants are engaged with their orphan ancestor in ways others of us are not. It is a very personal, sometimes passionate engagement. Have a look at the orphan stories that appeared in https://www.tintean.org.au between September 2019 and July 2020 and you’ll see what i mean.
A few more stories
Most of the stories i have remaining on my computer did make their way to the www.Irishfaminememorial.org website
Here’s one by Rebecca Mahoney, about her ancestor “Fanny” Young. Alas I have lost touch with her, and she did send a pic with her story. Ah, found it. What a fine looking couple.
I previously put up Frances’s ‘family reconstitution’ at bogpost 31 see https://wp.me/p4SlVj-Ji
[You may wish to click on the link and have a look at some of the other family reconstitutions that are there, Bridget Fallon, Sarah Hare, Anne Maroney, Ann Nelligan, Sarah O’Brien, Bridget Dowd, for example.]
Frances Young per Tippoo Saib
by Rebecca Mahoney
“Frances Maria Young was 17 when she was selected from the workhouse to be part of the famine orphan scheme in 1850. She was a Protestant, and both her parents had apparently died that year in Mt Nugent, County Cavan. I’m having some difficulty tracing them but having visited famine sites in Ireland. I know that many victims were not officially buried. Some went into unmarked mass graves, and there are accounts of corpses being eaten by dogs etc. In this context, one shouldn’t be surprised that records aren’t easily found, I suppose.
Frances, known as Fanny, was illiterate. She worked, presumably in domestic service, until her marriage in October, 1856. Her husband, William Melbourne (the surname is sometimes transcribed as Millborn when traced back through preceding generations in England) was a free settler from Stebbing, a village in Essex.
According to my grandmother, William owned a property in Parramatta and was a dray driver. She said he was the first man to deliver milk to the Sydney area. After his marriage, he decided to move to Yackandandah, following a friend that he had met on the “Garland” on his passage to Australia in 1851. The lure of the area was gold, according to my grandmother. Although he didn’t make a fortune, both he and his friend bought land there and settled. Fanny apparently didn’t travel overland on the dray as William did, but went by ship to Melbourne first. On this journey, she was robbed of all her possessions. Together, they had ten or eleven children. There is possibly a child born in Sydney in addition to the ten born in Yackandandah. Their second son, Sydney (yes, his name was Sydney Melbourne!!) was my maternal great grandfather. Fanny and William went on to have 73 grandchildren, one of whom was my grandmother.
The above is a combination of documented data and oral history, some of which is contradictory. I found it interesting that in the oral history, there is no mention of the Irish Famine Orphan Scheme. In fact, my grandmother, who was born and raised in Yackandandah, was sure that she had been told that her grandmother Fanny and grandfather William had been married in England prior to coming to Australia. She knew Fanny was Irish, but not the orphan / workhouse part of the story. I’m wondering if Fanny saw this as something embarrassing and not to be discussed? About forty years ago, I had my Nanna write down what she knew about her family’s background and I have kept it. She was as sharp as a tack and had a great memory, so she wouldn’t have forgotten something like the Famine Orphan Scheme if she had ever heard of it”.
Rebecca Mahoney
Eliza Christie from Armagh per Diadem
Allow me to include this one by Di Samter. Di sent it some time ago, about the same time as another friend was having great fun getting in touch with relatives throughout the world by means of her DNA tests. Gerry even had me travel St John’s point in Donegal and take pictures of a Bronze Age burial site near Dunkineely.
Bronze Age tomb at Dunkineely, County Donegal
I haven’t included Di Samster’s family tree but you will detect her enthusiasm for DNA analysis, something family historians are using more and more these days. Have you tried doing a DNA test? What test would you recommend?
Eliza’s Legacy by Di Samter
“My family history has, in one leap, taken me back 20,000 years, when recently I had a section (referred to as HVR1) of my maternal DNA analysed. With the more readily available access to DNA analysis, my apprehension gave way to excitement when I decided to give it a go. Having traced my ancestors’ journeys from Europe to Australia for many years, I thought this was a completely different way of gaining information. As a young child I always wanted to know how, when, from where and why my ancestors had come to Australia. In 1981 my Aunt (my father’s sister) introduced me to family history and from that moment on I was hooked on genealogy. During the mid 1980s another Aunt (my mother’s sister) started tracing my maternal ancestors. On my direct maternal/maternal line Eliza Christy is as far back as we could find.
It is my understanding that research has shown that most native Europeans have descended from seven ancestral mothers. These mothers have been given fictional names and I wondered – to which “Mother” did I belong? I used the internet to find a company that provided a DNA analysis service by Googling ‘family tree DNA sequencing’. Having decided which provider to use, I placed my order over the internet. Two swabs were posted to me to scrape a sample of DNA from the inside of my cheek and then return to them. About two months later I received the results revealing “Helena” to be my ancestral mother. I was able to access this provider’s DNA database and find others who identically matched the mutations of my maternal DNA sub-group (sub-clade). Although “Helena” represents around 41% of native Europeans, those who exactly match my sub-clade appear to be quite small – so far. This small group trace their ancestors back to Ireland, Scotland, England and one from France. Some people did not know the origins of their maternal ancestry. One such person comes from Australia and has chosen not to be contacted by other users. I am now having a further section of my maternal DNA analysed, referred to as HVR2 – and with hindsight I possibly should have done it all in the first instance.
With this new information to hand, my next step was to reassess our research back to Eliza Christy(ie). Years ago we had found the marriage of my gg-grandmother, Mary Jane Jones to William Bright in 1872, which gave her parents’ names John Jones and Eliza nee Christy, but we have never found Mary Jane’s birth entry, which would have divulged more clues about her parents’ origins. I knew the Jones family had settled in the Clunes area and I decided it was worth further investigation into the Victorian State Registers of Births, Deaths & Marriages to see if I could discover if Mary Jane had any siblings. I searched for the births and deaths of children with the surname Jones and the father John – the mother Eliza with maiden name Christy (varying the spelling of her maiden name). Being able to search the State registers on-line and have an instant entry downloaded to my computer made the process very easy. I found and bought a number of downloadable birth and death entries of the siblings of Mary Jane Jones. Mary Jane, born in 1854, is listed on the subsequent birth entries of her siblings and this is where I discovered that Eliza Christy had come from Armagh in Ireland and her husband John (Fras/z/er) Jones from Liverpool. Their ages and date and place of marriage in 1852 in Kilmore, Victoria were stated on the birth registers. The family tree below shows Eliza’s female line descendants coloured in red – these relatives should have the identical comparative DNA sequence to mine. (However, I guess it is possible there has been a mutation from Eliza to myself, but apparently this section of DNA is very stable and doesn’t often mutate). The sons, coloured in pink, should also inherit the identical section of maternal DNA to mine, but it is only mothers who pass it on to their offspring. Eliza and her husband John Jones had 12 children that I know of – the youngest being George Edwin Jones born on 3.6.1877 in Clunes, and died the 30.8.1916 on a WW1 battlefield in France.
Eliza’s family had unexpectedly captivated my attention. Through the wonders of the internet, I managed to make contact with Trevor McClaughlin – author of “Barefoot & Pregnant?”- who has written about the orphaned Irish girls who were shipped to Australia following the Irish Famine. He kindly provided me with more information about my Eliza. She was described as “thinly dressed” and came from Charlemont, Killalyn, Armagh. She entered the Armagh Workhouse on 9th January 1849 leaving 4th October 1849 for Plymouth to set sail for Australia. Eliza arrived in Port Philip, Victoria on board the Diadem on 10th January 1850, along with other orphaned girls from Ireland.
As time went by, many of Eliza’s children and grandchildren migrated to NSW. Eliza’s grand-daughter, Mary Ann Oberg (nee Bright), my g-grandmother, went to NSW with her husband, Malcus, in the early 1890s. The large family eventually settled in Inverell, where my grandmother, Tyra, was born. My grandmother was always keen to talk about her Swedish father, but was evasive about her mother’s side of the family. Both my elder sister and I recollect that – when we were quite young – and she was once again telling us about her father – we asked her “where does your mother’s family come from”? She pensively stated “France” then completely changed the subject. When I mentioned to her, in the 1980s, that her mother was not French and on her mother’s paternal side of the family we have two convict ancestors, her face looked ashen and she was lost for words – it was unprecedented for her to be speechless! I tactfully left the subject alone, as she was clearly upset about these skeletons creeping out of the cupboard. Hence the subject of her mother’s family became taboo and I never managed to talk to her about it again.
I am still hoping to find out more about Eliza and her husband John Jones. I did find a death entry for an Eliza Jones (her parents names unknown, lived 53 years in Victoria) who died on 23.10.1902 in Maryborough Hospital, but her age was stated as 10 years older than I expected her to be – the age could of course be an error and this may really be my Eliza, but at present I am uncertain. No records have been found of the death of John (Frazer) Jones, nor do I know when he arrived in Australia, but it was obviously before his marriage to Eliza in 1852. John’s middle name Fraz(s)er was only used occasionally on official documents. I would be pleased to hear from someone if they are connected to this family, or know of details about the deaths of Eliza (nee Christy) and John Jones. Although my Mother and Grandmother have passed away, their maternal DNA identifies and connects the generations, being passed down through the female line descendants, ensuring the continuity of Eliza’s daughters.
b. ca 1823-8
b. ca 1833/4 Charlemont, Parish of Loughgall, Armagh – Presbyterian – signed her children’s birth registrations
Liverpool Lancashire
Armagh Workhouse BG2/G/3 Eliza 16 years old Presb – thinly clothed from Charlemont Killalyn entered workhouse 9.1.1849 left 4.10.1849
Carter/Digger
m. 1.4.1852 Kilmore Victoria Australia
his children’s birth regs
Arrived in Port Philip on 10.1.1850 on the “Diadem” which sailed from Plymouth [Assisted emigrant passengers] Eliza Christie aged 16
Upon arrival in Melbourne she was apprenticed to Thomas Scales for a year at 6 pounds
? d. 23.10.1902 Maryborough Hospital- 1 day in hospital- Heart Failure, Injury & neglect- parents & marriage details not known- 53yrs in Victoria – age stated 78 -but believe this could perhaps be my Eliza
“
Catherine Moriarty
Finally, a family history that Mike Vincent sent to me way back in the noughties. It is the story of Catherine Moriarty from Dingle in county Kerry who travelled with her sister Mary on board the Thomas Arbuthnot under the care of one of the best Surgeon Superintendents in the ‘Earl Grey scheme’, Surgeon Charles Edward Strutt. The Moriarty sisters were to prosper in their new home in what was to become Queensland. {I’ll be keeping an eye out to see if any of you use the search box to look for Catherine Moriarty and her sister Mary elsewhere in my blog}.
My sincere thanks to Mike for allowing me to reproduce his family history here. Parts of it are in Kay Caball’s Kerry Girls, should anyone have a copy. Best wishes Mike for recovery from your operation. The little gym i go to, Active Seniors, has some gentle exercises on YouTube at “Active Seniors exercise online”. There might be something there which helps. I took the liberty of removing your phone number and address from your original family history. I hope that’s okay. Fingers crossed my technologically challenged attempt at formatting holds.
“Catherine Moriarty from Dingle per Thomas Arbuthnot
by Mike Vincent
ORIGINS
Catherine Moriarty was born in Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland on March 17, 1831 to Maurice Moriarty and Margaret Cahalane(1), who had married at St. Mary’s Church Dingle on February 21, 1827.(2) A brother John had been born on May 31, 1828(3), a sister Mary April 8, 1833(4) and a brother James on February 28, 1836, all at Dingle.(5) Nothing has been found about these brothers.
By 1849 the sisters were classified as orphans and were residing in the workhouse in Dingle. They were sent to Australia on the Thomas Arbuthnot, arriving in Sydney on February 3, 1850. At this time Catherine and Mary were actually aged 19 and 17 years respectively, and had been previously employed in Dingle as a house servant and a nursemaid. Catherine could neither read nor write, but Mary was able to read.(6) After a short stay in Sydney (11 days) they moved to Brisbane, on the steamer Tamar(7), where after 13 days Catherine was employed by John Bruce at North Brisbane.(8) By the 9th of June 1852 Mary had met and married James (Samuel) Brassington, a resident of Ipswich. Catherine Moriarty was a witness at this ceremony in St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, Brisbane.(9) Catherine Moriarty and Thomas Elliott were the sponsors at the baptism at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Ipswich, of Mary’s first child on February 15, 1853.(10) On June 7, 1853 Thomas and Catherine were married in St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, Brisbane.(11) They returned to live in Ipswich where their first child was born on June 7, 1854, and baptised Thomas James at St. Mary’s Church on June 25.(12)
Thomas James ELLIOTT
In the June sessions at Westminster assizes, Thomas Elliott, apprentice tailor, aged 15 years, was found guilty of ‘larceny from the person’, as pickpocketing was then known, and was sentenced to imprisonment for four months.(13) Baptised Thomas James Elliot on August 16, 1818, at St. Clement Danes Church, London, his parents were James Elliot and Mary Ann Whitaker(14). He was caught again for pickpocketing, tried in the Westminster sessions on June 25, 1835, and acquitted for lack of evidence.(15) However on a third occasion, though calling himself James Elliott, his previous conviction was noted, and he was again found guilty of ‘larceny from the person’ in the Central Criminal Court, Middlesex, on August 15, 1836. Since he had a previous conviction, he was sentenced to 14 years transportation.(16) He was held in prison until, on March 29, 1837, along with 199 other convicts, he sailed in the 403 ton barque Lloyds from the Downs.(Offshore from the town of Deal, just north of Dover.)(17)
Thomas James arrived at Port Jackson, Australia, on July 17, 1837, where his description was recorded thus – ‘ 5 feet 4 inches tall; brown hair and eyes; brown complexion; missing front tooth in upper and lower jaws; M E inside lower right arm; T J inside lower left arm; able to read; single; trade – tailor.'(18)
He was then assigned to work for Charles Kelly at Ham Common in the Windsor district of New South Wales.(19) By 1841 it seems he had left the employ of Kelly (20), and in 1848 was residing in the Parramatta District when granted his first ticket-of-leave, No. 48/181, on May 31st. This was cancelled in September 1850 for his ‘being absent from the District’, but later that year this was reissued after this absence had been explained. He again had his ticket cancelled then reissued in January 1852 presumably for the Parramatta district.(21) He must have been somewhat successful in Sydney, probably as a tailor, for by November 1852 he was working as a tailor in the town of Ipswich, to the west of Moreton Bay. At this time still holding a ticket-of-leave, he was arrested for some unknown minor offence, and sentenced to a month in Brisbane prison, being released on December 18 for ‘good conduct’, after serving three weeks.(22) He returned to Ipswich where he was soon to meet his future wife, the young Catherine Moriarty.(10)
PROSPERITY
After their marriage the Elliotts continued in the tailoring trade in Ipswich for more than 20 years, until at least 1874. But they also invested in land, and rented out houses they had built. In may 1855 Thomas purchased an acreage allotment (no. 103) in Williams Street, West Ipswich, for £21(23), and another (no. 85) in the same street in November 1857 for £22-16-9.(24) These blocks were in a rural area of West Ipswich which did not develop quickly, and have been subdivided for suburban housing in only the last 30 years. (Details of the Elliott properties are shown in Table 1.) He next purchased a 32 perch town allotment in Ellenborough Street for £27 in 1858, but this was resumed when the railway line came through the town in 1865.(25)
By 1861 the Elliotts (Details of the Elliott children are shown in Table 2.) were living in Waghorn Street and renting premises for the tailoring business on 16 perches in Bell Street from Mr. F E Bigge. With the advent of the railway and associated construction of Union Lane, the address of this building in Bell Street was changed to Union Lane by 1865, and later to Union Street.(26) Meanwhile Thomas had also purchased a cottage in Pelican Street, North Ipswich, which he was renting to Walter Male in 1863, as well as a block of land nearby in Canning Street.(27) By 1865 allotment 85 in the western suburbs had been sold to George Frost, and allotment 103 divided and sold to W Duggan and J Flynn.(28)
The tailoring business was continued in Union Street until moving to premises in East Street in 1874.(29) This business must have been successful, for between 1854 and 1874 it was able to support his wife and eight children, and allow him to purchase and improve various properties around the municipality. Founding his business in the very early days of the town must have helped establish his reputation as a tailor, for he did not advertise in the local paper, The Queensland Times, nor anywhere else, so he must have relied on word of mouth and the passing customers for his trade. His tailoring business also provided training for his elder daughters, while his contacts enabled his youngest daughter, Elizabeth, to obtain employment at Cribb and Foot’s dressmaking department, where by 1906 she was supervisor.(30) Tailoring and dressmaking became traditional family skills for which even his grand-daughters were noted.(31)
About 1865 he sold the cottage in Pelican Street (32), and on the Canning Street property built a wooden house, which was rented in turn over the next two decades to Joseph Harrower, James McGaw and Joseph Halstead.(33)
Thomas decided to leave the tailoring trade, and to retire to the more comfortable hotel accommodation business. Ipswich had always been a centre for accommodation and hotels, and in 1859 for example, when Brisbane had 18 hotels, Ipswich could boast 26.(34) To this end in 1874 he obtained an hotel licence and rented large premises on three adjoining allotments, each of 32 perches, in East Street, Ipswich, from George Thorne. These comprised an hotel and other buildings, one of which was used for the tailoring business for a short time. This hotel was The Cottage of Content, which had been occupied by Godfrey O’Rourke since before 1859.(35) The Elliotts ran The Cottage of Content as an hotel for three years(36), then in 1877 took up the licence of The Carriers’ Arms, which he transferred to The One Mile Hotel, which he had rented from Robert Cribb. This hotel was at Little Ipswich, now known as West Ipswich, on the corner of Brisbane Street and Moore Lane, now Hooper Street. This old brick building was at a major intersection, diagonally opposite the Ipswich pound, and overlooking the One Mile Bridge across the Bremer River.(37) This was the area where in the earliest days of Ipswich the bullock wagons halted on their journeys to and from the Darling Downs. There is a One Mile Hotel on the same site, and the pound is still diagonally opposite in June 2000.
In the period between 1866 and 1875, the family also lived in rented homes in Elizabeth Street opposite St. Mary’s Catholic Church.(38) During the 1870s they also owned a residential allotment in Pine Street, North Ipswich between Fitzgibbon and Lawrence Streets.(39)
On September 17, 1874, while renting The Cottage of Content, Thomas had purchased at a crown land auction, a block of land in Brisbane Street, one allotment west of Waghorn Street. This 32 perch allotment cost £20 pounds, with an additional deed fee of £1, and a survey fee of 12 shillings. The original ledger book recording these details shows the signature of the purchaser as ‘Thos. J. Elliott’, in very shaky handwriting.(40)
By 1878 with nine unmarried offspring ranging in age from two to 24 years, the family had sufficient experience, confidence and staff to invest in the hotel business. They took out a mortgage for £200, at ten percent interest, with the newly formed Ipswich and West Moreton Permanent Building, Benefit and Investment Society, on the 5th of February, to build a wooden hotel on the Brisbane Street land, purchased four years before.(41) This must have been a substantial building, for at this time a typical wooden house, including detached kitchen, cost £100 to build.(42)
This was licensed as The Prince of Wales Hotel, and was located next to James Real’s Ipswich Hotel, which had been built on the corner of Brisbane and Waghorn Streets in 1875.(43)
One young lad, Bernard Gallagher, had come down from the Bundaberg district to begin work in the Railway Department at Ipswich. His mother (another Irish orphan?) wrote to Catherine Elliott asking her to look after him while staying at their hotel. His stay was worthwhile, for in 1882 he married the Elliotts’ second eldest daughter Margaret Jane, and his job in the railway became a lifelong career, in which he became Supervisor of Railway Stores in Queensland.(44) At least three other daughters, Mary, Elizabeth and Catherine also married railway employees, while all three Elliott sons began their careers in the railway as well.(30, 31, 44, 45)
It is also of interest that two children married into hotel families. Catherine into the Real family, who had hotels and shops in Ipswich(46), and George into the Lynch family, who at one time held the licence of The Bull’s Head Inn, at Drayton.(47)
At the end of 1879 the licence of The Prince of Wales was not renewed, and until 1888 the building in Brisbane Street was operated as a boarding-house, no doubt providing useful ’employment’ for some of the seven daughters in the family.(48) During this period one of the guests announced that he was unable to pay his substantial accommodation bill. Thomas Elliott proceeded to have him thrown into the street, but the quick thinking lodger suggested that the building needed a coat of paint, and that he would apply it in exchange for his accommodation. An agreement was reached, the guest’s dignity was preserved, and the wooden boarding-house was repainted.(49) About 1885 the family moved into the Canning Street residence with Margaret and Bernard Gallagher, while the boarding-house was managed by a Mrs. Cook.(50) With a large family of eight, apparently little income from the renting of the boarding house, and Tom’s failing health, the Elliotts’ financial circumstances declined during the 1880s, and they found it necessary to secure additional mortgages on the Brisbane Street property from the Building Society.(51) These were as follows:- in 1879 £40; 1885 £45; 1886 £20; 1887 £20; 1888 £50; and 1889 £60.
When Tom died of cancer of the jaw at his Canning Street residence in August 1888(52) there were arrears of rates owing on that property (£4-5-3), and the boarding-house (£6-13-9).(53) When his will was proved for probate, leaving all his possessions and property to his wife Catherine, she signed an affidavit stating that at the time of his death he had less than £10 in cash(54) The mortgage figures and rate arrears indicate that this was probably a fair assessment of his financial situation. Catherine retained possession of the Canning Street home and the boarding-house, which continued to operate.(55) She was now responsible for five daughters and two sons, between the ages of eight and 23 years, and though some of them were employed and she obtained a loan for £60 in 1889, there were still rates of £7-15-7 and £11-18-7 owing on the two properties in 1890.(56) During the next two decades, daughter Lucy entered the Sacred Heart Convent at Dalby, and the other children were married (see Table 2), most moving away from Ipswich. The Canning Street residence was sold about 1900, and Catherine later moved into a house in Martin Street with her youngest daughter, Elizabeth O’Grady, who had married in 1908.(49) It was here that Catherine died as a result of a gastric infection in August 1909.(57) On her death the boarding-house passed into the possession of the Ipswich Building Society, and was run for a year or two by Mary Hammill, before being sold in 1911 to Matilda Rae.(58) After passing through several owners, the site, along with the corner allotment, was purchased in 1962 by the Caltex Oil Company, who erected a petrol station there.(59)
The Ipswich daily newspaper, The Queensland Times, carried the following notices in its edition of Tuesday, August 24, 1909.(60)
DEATH.
ELLIOTT.- On the 23rd August, at
her residence, Martin-street, Ips-
wich, Catherine Elliott, relict of
the Late Thomas James Elliott,
aged 76 years.
FUNERAL.-The Friends of Messrs.
T. J., G. P., and J. A. EL-
LIOTT, are respectfully invited to at-
tend the Funeral of their Deceased
Mother, CATHERINE ELLIOTT (re-
lict of the late Thos. James Elliott),
to move from her late Residence,
Martin-street, at 3 o’clock, THIS
TUESDAY AFTERNOON, for the
Ipswich Cemetery.
J. W. REED, Undertaker.
Plate 1 The Elliott family about 1886.
This photograph shows some members of the family taken about 1886 (as estimated by their ages) by George Patrick Elliott. Seated are the parents, Thomas James and Catherine(Moriarty). Standing are some of their children. From left to right they are (most likely) John Alexander, Margaret Jane(Gallagher), Agnes, Thomas James junior, and Catherine. The location is probably the rear of the Canning Street residence.[Copy from original glass negative in possession of Monica Elliott, of Brisbane, grand-daughter of George Patrick Elliott.]
A glimpse of the Elliott family,(though inaccurate in some details and spelling; reproduced exactly as in the newspaper), can be gained from Catherine’s obituary in The Queensland Times. (7)
THE LATE MRS. ELLIOTT
The late Mrs. Catherine Elliott.. ,.. whose death was recorded in our last issue, arrived in Sydney in the ship Thomas Arbutnott, coming to Bris- bane in the Tamir the same year. She was married in 1851, her hus- band predeceasing her by 20 years. She leaves 10 children-three sons and seven daughters. The sons are Mr. T.J. Elliott ( Childers ), Mr. G. P. Elliott (Brisbane), and Mr. J. A. Elliott (Ipswich); and the daughters are Mrs. T. J. Hurley, Mrs. B. Gal-lagher, and Mrs. S.Murphy (Brisbane), Mrs. J. Real (Clayfield), Mrs. S. Tur- ner (New Zealand), Mrs A. O’Grady (Ipswich) and Sister Mary Scholastica (Convent of the Sacred Heart, Bowen-ville), besides 42 grand children, and three great-grand children. The funeral took place yesterday afternoon, and was largely attended, amongst those pres- ent being a considerable contingent from the railway workshops at North Ipswich-where Mr. J. A. Elliott is employed-and representatives of the Ipswich Technical College committee of which he is a member. The rite at the graveside was performed by the Rev. P. J. Murphy. Wreaths were forwarded by Mr. G. Evans and fam-ily, Mr. And Mrs. S. Palmer, Miss Ethel Sheppard, Mr. and Mrs. Little-ford. Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Bunnett, carriage, trimming, and saw-mill em-ployees, (Ipswich Railway Workshops), Ipswich and West Moreton Rugby Un-ion, and Goods-Shed employees(Ips- wich railway station). A great many telegrams and messages of sympathy were also received.
TABLE 1 Details of properties owned and/or occupied by the Elliott family in Ipswich, Queensland
LOCATION DESCRIPTION AREA USE TENURE SOURCES
A:R:P
Williams St. West Ipswich Alot. 103 3:8 land owned 1855 – c. 1864 2, 13, 15
Williams St. West Ipswich Alot. 85 2:2:6 land owned 1857 – c. 1864 2, 14, 16
Ellenborough St. Ipswich Town Por. 4 Alot 20 32 land owned 1858 – c. 1864 2, 17
Bell/Union St. Ipswich Town Por. 2 Alot. 12 16 cottage, shop rented c. 1861 – 1873 2, 11, 3, 5
Waghorn St. Ipswich Town Por.? Alot. ? 32 house owned? c. 1861 – 1862 10
East St. Ipswich Town Por. 1 Alot. 10, 11, 13 Cottage of Content 2:16 hotel, shop rented 1874 – 1876 2, 12, 6
Pelican St. North Ipswich Por. 4 Alot. 20 32 cottage owned c. 1863 – c. 1865 1, 19
Canning St. North Ipswich Por. 9 Alot. 16 40 house owned c. 1863 – c. 1900 2, 18
Pine St. North Ipswich Por. 16 Alot. 9 1:32 land owned c. 1876 – c. 1878 2, 20
Brisbane St. Ipswich Town Por. 28 Alot. 2 Prince of Wales 32 hotel owned 1874 – 1909 2, 21
Brisbane St. Little Ipswich Alot. 16 One Mile Hotel 1:0:0 hotel rented 1877 1, 8
and Moore Lane
Elizabeth St. Ipswich Town Por. 10 Alot. 13 32 house owned c. 1866 – c. 1868 2, 4, 9
Elizabeth St. Ipswich Town Por. 10 Alot. 14 32 house rented c. 1868 – 1875 2, 7
SOURCES
1 ITM 1875, A 1/16. 9 IMC RB 1866, B/321 no. 327. 17 Ibid. p 146.
Clara Alice 16- 1-1876 c 1960 16- 5-1903 S Turner 4, 8 Alma
Elizabeth Moriarty 25- 6-1880 5-10-1960 18- 5-1908 A T O’Grady 4, 9 Veronica(nm), one male(di)
Sources. Personal records and/or birth, death and marriage certificates held by #1 Rolly Burgman #2 Mike Vincent; Josie Gleadhill. #3 Nell Ries #4 Inscriptions in prayer book of Sr. M. Scholastica; Monica Elliott #5 QBDM Marriage 1892/928; Robert Lingard Snr(dec. 1995) #6 QBDM Marriage 1891/B14969; D Frawley; Jim Lyon #7 E Duncombe #8 QBDM Marriage 1903/1042; Obituary C. Elliott 1909 #9 QBDM Marriage 1908/1193; Vonie O’Grady, 1985(dec. 1987). For details contact author. KEY: nm not married; ? nothing known; (Lee 4) married Lee 4 children; d died; di died as infant; nc no children.
SOURCES
1 Baptismal Cert. Catherine Moriarty, St. Mary’s Parish Dingle, 1831
2 Marriage Cert. M Moriarty & M Cahalane, St. Mary’s Parish Dingle, 1827
3 Baptismal Cert. John Moriarty, St. Mary’s Parish Dingle, 1828
4 Baptismal Cert. Mary Moriarty, St. Mary’s Parish Dingle, 1833
5 Baptismal Cert. James Moriarty, St Mary’s Parish Dingle, 1836
6 Immigration Board Inspection Sheet – Thomas Arbuthnot. February 6, 1850. AONSW Reel 2461 p 4/4919.
7 The Queensland Times, Ipswich, August 25, 1909, p 4.
8 Reid, R and Mongan, C 1996 ‘a decent set of girls…’, p 108, Yass Heritage Project: Yass.
9 Marriage Cert. James Brassington & Mary Moriarty, 1852, NSW BDM.
10 Baptismal Cert. S W Brassington, 1853, NSW BDM.
11 QLD BDM Letter addendum to Baptismal Cert. T J Elliott (junior) 1854.
12 Baptismal Cert. T J Elliott(junior) 1854, QLD BDM.
13 Criminal Convictions Middlesex 1833-1836. HO/26 Series 40, p 74, 78.
14 Baptismal Record, no. 2081, T J Elliott 16/8/1818, St. Clement Danes Church, London.
55 QPOD 1888, p 53a; PUGH 1889, p 97; PUGH 1890, p 106.
56 IMC RB 1890, B/344 nos. 1219, 2311.
57 Death Cert. Catherine Elliott, 1909, QBDM.
58 ICC VR 1910/11, West Ward A/27991 no. 335.
59 Certificate of Title, Queensland, Vol. 1697 Fol. 175, transferred from Vol. 244 Fol. 136.
60 The Queensland Times, Ipswich, August 24, 1909, p 4.
ABBREVIATIONS
£ pounds-shillings-pence
Alot. allotment
A:R:P acres roods perches (land area)
c. about
HO Home Office
ICC VR Ipswich City Council Valuation Register
IMC RB Ipswich Municipal Council Rate Book
IMC VR Ipswich Municipal Council Valuation Register
ITM Ipswich Town Map
NSW BDM New South Wales Births Deaths And Marriages Registrar
Por. portion
PUGH Pugh’s Almanac and Queensland Directory
QBDM Queensland Births Deaths and Marriages Registrar
QGG Queensland Government Gazette
QPOD Queensland Post Office Directory
QSA Queensland State Archives”.
Thanks Mike. Please let us know if there is anything you’d like to correct, or to add.
My very best wishes to everyone about to plunge into the joys and frustrations of researching and writing their family history.
A tweeter asked recently what is the best first line/last line in any book you’ve read? I took ‘line’ to include ‘sentence’ and answered with the last sentence of Flann O’Brien’s At Swim Two Birds.
“He went home one evening and drank three cups of tea with three lumps of sugar in each cup, cut his jugular with a razor three times and scrawled with a dying hand on a picture of his wife good-bye, good-bye, good-bye“. A bit grim?
One of the advantages of growing older is that the urge to go minimalist grows stronger. The other day I was clearing out some cupboards and examining computer files located in different places, some of them with strange, unrecognisable names. And lo, i came across some orphan stories I think, i hope i forwarded to the new people looking after the irishfaminememorial website in about 2009. Most of the stories had come to me when i was responsible for the first version of the website. One disadvantage is that i don’t always have the names, or know how to get in touch with those who sent them to me. Forgive me then if these stories are not new to you, and if the people to whom they belong are not properly recognised. Maybe they will get in touch again.
My other good news is that Barefoot & Pregnant? volume 1 has been digitised as part of a research project at Melbourne Uni https://untapped.org.au You can find it under the Non Fiction category and the date of publication, 1991. It will be available in some libraries and on other platforms from 6 December, I’m told. How i got into such illustrious company, heaven knows.
The stories below, sent to me by orphan descendants in the noughties, are not in any order.
Here’s the first one. I’ll keep searching for more. If any of the authors wants me to remove any of this, please just ask. And please excuse my rubbishy attempt at formatting.
(1) Eliza Caroline orphan;Mary Ann Minahan from Skibbereenby Kathleen Newman
“Trevor I’m updating the latest information online about the Irish Famine Orphans because an Irish researcher has contacted me through Vol 2 of Barefoot & Pregnant about my great-grandmother, Mary Ann Minihan (Minnahan) p.392. I found your entries on this forum.
After you published Vol 2, I found that Mary Ann died at Yarra Bend Asylum on 10 May 1901 having been taken there from the Melbourne Hospital. After ruling out all other possibilities, I am 99 per cent sure she is the Mary Brown whose Inquest papers are at the Victorian PRO.
She also had 10 children, not just the 8 I had previously found. Through the records of her last child I found my grandfather’s record as a Ward of the State as well. The first of her many convictions appears to coincide with the date of her youngest child being made a State Ward in 1878.
Looking forward to Vol 3?
Kathleen Newman”
Anne Cooney from Antrim per Earl Greysent to me by ???
It is always fascinating to see how others record their research.
(2) <<BELFAST ORPHAN REFERENCE SHEET (BORS)
Name: Anne Cooney
DOB: 1828(?) POB: Antrim, County Antrim
Calling:
Education
Reads: Writes:
Religion: RC
Physical Description
Height: Hair: Eyes: Complexion:
Family
Father:
Mother:
Siblings:
Belfast Poor Law Union Workhouse
When Arrived: Reason for Entry: Age:
Duties:
When Left: May 1848 Reason for Leaving: Emigration Age: 20
Emigration
Ireland Departure Port: Belfast Ship: Athlone Date: May 1848
Arrive England: May 1848
UKDeparture Port: Plymouth Ship: Earl Grey Date: 5 June 1848
Arrive Sydney: 6 Oct 1848 Housed: Aboard Earl Grey
Depart Sydney: 17 Oct 1848 Ship: Ann Mary Arrival Brisbane: 20 Oct 1848
Housed: Brisbane hospital until indentured
Indented To: George S Le Breton, North Brisbane, £14, 3 months (he was a trustee of the Brisbane Hospital)
Close Associates/Friends
Name: Belfast Girl:
Name: Belfast Girl:
Name: Belfast Girl:
Name: Belfast Girl:
Name: Belfast Girl:
Marriage (in Australia)
Annie Cooney
DOM: 1849 (NSW V1849153 96/1849) (QLD 1854/BMA0345) QLD reference is for Annie Cooney and John Ibell
Where: Roman Catholic church, Brisbane
Banns/Licence: Celebrant:
Witnesses:
Sign/Made mark:
Spouse: John Ibell Religion:
Occupation:
Convict: Ex-convict: Believed to be (Portsea 1838) Free Settler:
ToL:45/811 CoF:
Location at Freedom: Moreton Bay
Note: The name Ibell is so unusual that the probability of there being two John Ibells in the Brisbane area in the 1848/49 period is fairly remote and therefore believe that the convict John Ibell is the man who married Anne Cooney.
Residences
Children
No QLD or NSW birth or death records have been found for any children born to Anne Cooney and John Ibell
DOD: Anne seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. No QLD or NSW death record has been found for Anne Cooney or Anne Ibell.
A John Ibell married a Mary McGill in Ipswich in 1857 (QLD 1859/C000098) (NSW 1849/1857) and had at least two children by her, both born in Drayton.
Sources
Barefoot and Pregnant? Vol 2
NSW and QLD BDM
Libby Connors’ address to the 2006 ABC Christmas broadcast>>
(3)
<<Eliza Icombe per Lady Peelby Roland Webb
My Great Grandmother, Eliza (Elizabeth) Annie Icombe aged 15 at the time, came to Australia on the ship the “Lady Peel” arriving in July 1849. I believe she could read and write although the marriage licence (No 504) (Index V1853738 39C/1853) indicates differently. She married a Thomas Francis Regin from Port Jackson in Sydney on the 22 December, 1853. Witnesses to the wedding were her sister Catherine Icombe of Little George Street who came to Australia on the ship “Kate” in 1851 and James Keem of Port Jackson.
Eliza and Thomas apparently set out for Ballarat, Victoria in 1854 by oxen and dray despite Thomas having a maritime history. They first settled in a tent at Burnt Bridge between Ballarat and Geelong and later at Yendon in a hotel near Buninyong. There first baby Charlotte Regin was born in 1856. Records after this indicate that Thomas Francis Regin became Thomas Francis Webb. I am not sure of the reason for this but when Eliza had her first child she was nursed by a Mrs Regan. The following 8 children were “Webb”s.
Thomas’s father was a sea captain and died at sea. His mother may have been Mrs Regin the person who nursed their first child. Perhaps she was initially Mrs Webb and as a result of her husbands death at sea remarried and became Mrs Regin. Maybe Thomas at first took his mothers remarried name but for legal or other reasons reverted to the name “Webb”. However, at this stage this is all speculation.
Eliza Icombe’s sister Catherine who came to Australia on the Ship “Kate” died at Bathurst in 1876.(NSWbdm Reg No 4956/1876). Eliza had another sister Ethinda Icombe who came to Australia by ship which landed at Geelong, Victoria in 1856/7.
The marriage of Eliza Icombe in Sydney in 1853 and the travelling from one state to another plus the changing of the family name from Regin to Webb would make it a difficult for any Genealogist (especially from overseas) searching the “Icombe” line.
My query in “The Female Irish (Potato Famine) Orphans list is under the heading “Other” where it states Eliza’s Employment by a J Hunt from Balmain, 9 Pounds, 3 yrs Appendix J No 139, 28 Jun 1850 Mr J Hunt Balmain, returned to service promising to behave better. Is this a court record and where could I locate it?
Roland Webb
10 Hillside Drive
Ballarat Vic 3350.
Dear Trevor,
The detective work started in 1972 and was initially commenced by my cousin Glenis Rusca (nee Webb) while I tagged along. Sadly, Glenis passed away after a long illness. Others have since contributed along the way and I believe may be further advanced than I.
I mentioned that one of Eliza’s sisters was Ethinda and this should be corrected to Ethelinda. Ethelinda came to Australia on the ship Persia which landed at Geelong. Documentary proof of this was obtained in 1972 from the original books in the State Library of Victoria. The thermal copy that was taken at the time has deteriorated such that it is difficult to read. “On line” I have had difficulty finding a copy of the original ships passenger list.
Eliza’s parents were Thomas Icombe and Mary Maria Murray and they lived in Ireland. Your book “Barefoot and Pregnant? Vol.1″ shows Eliza was from Bartinglass, Wicklow. Eliza claimed she was from Honiton, Devon and her father was a Major Icombe who had spent some time in Ireland. Eliza claimed, according to one of her grandchildren, “living in County Wicklow was the highest feather in her cap.”???
The National Archives (England) show that a Thomas Icombe born at Spittalfields, London and Middlesex served in the English 15th Foot Regiment from 1814 to 1835 and was discharged at 39 years of age. This Regiment I believe spent most of its time in Canada and Ireland during his period of service. This Thomas is believed to be Eliza’s father. Research by other members of the family concur with this but I have not yet been able to substantiate the links with documentary evidence.
According to the Church of Latter Day Saints, Brisbane records Eliza was christened Ellisa Hicomb on the 27th September, 1837. Eliza died on the 16th May,1911 and was buried on the 18th May, 1911 at the Ballarat New Cemetery 2A No. 01. During her life Eliza had 7 children, and shared a hotel, grocery and butcher business with her husband Thomas. At first they lived at Burnt Bridge (before the Ballarat to Geelong railway) and shortly after they moved to Yendon. The family purchased many blocks of land surrounding Yendon (mostly small) and Eliza lived in the Yendon area all her life.
Trevor, adding a few lines alongside Eliza’s name on your website I hope would be helpful to others. However, I feel you would be more adept than I in formulating the words as I guess you are restricted by how much and what should be written. If any information I have supplied proves to be incorrect I will inform you and hope that it is easily changed. In relation to an address I find the internet convenient and hope that most people have access to the internet and therefore please place my internet email address on your website.
Thank you for the information on Volume 2. I have been to the Ballarat Library to check it out and at some time in the future intend visiting the Mitchell Library in Sydney. I obtained Volume 1 in 1999 from the National Library in Canberra whilst I was working there. I copied the pages relevant to Eliza at the time. While there, I also found on microfiche a copy of Eliza’s Marriage Licence and reference to her sister Catherine in an alphabetical list of “Assisted Passengers” into Sydney or Australia.
Happy hunting
Roland Webb
Ballarat>>
(4)
JOHANNA SMYTH/SMITH per “Elgin” to Adelaide 10 September 1849 by ??? (possibly Heather Sushames?)
Johanna could have come from around Bandon, Cork but I have not found any Workhouse records relating to her. Her traveling box which had been passed down to one of her daughters was always called “The Bandon Box” which her family thought she brought out full of monogrammed linen etc. She told them grand stories of her wealthy background but as she signed her marriage certificate with a cross, she’d obviously had not been educated. No mention was ever made that she had come out as an orphan.
No records have been found as to where Johanna worked after arriving in Adelaide.
She first turned up in a passenger list in the South Australian newspaper as Mrs. Creasey arriving in Adelaide per “Emu” schooner from Port Lincoln on 7 November 1850. A Mr. Creasey was also with her. Perhaps she had been working at Port Lincoln and met George there.
George Creasey and Johanna Smith were married in Kooringa Church of England near Burra, on 15 March 1851. George was probably working in the Burra copper mines. George is thought to have arrived in the Colony as a ships carpenter, but no record can be found. His seaman’s papers at Kew are incomplete and do not show how he signed off from his last voyage, but he probably ‘jumped ship’ and this could be why he altered the spelling of his surname. I haven’t been able to verify any of the stories he told my mother about his English family and feel he, like Johanna, had a vivid imagination.
A George Creasey traveled to Melbourne from Adelaide on the “Fanny” on 12 November 1851 and sometime after that Johanna must have followed as a son George Thomas was baptised at St. James Church, Melbourne on 27 January 1852. Date of birth was shown as 7 January 1852, but doesn’t state where.
George apparently then went to Tasmania – probably working his way over as a crew member of the “City of Melbourne” under George Smith. He returned to Melbourne as George Creasey per “William” on 9 February 1852. The couple may have then gone to Ballarat but on 14 January 1853, the Adelaide Observer lists them as arriving in Adelaide from Melbourne on the “Dreadnought”. It was noted they had a letter from Captain Laurie.
They left for Tasmania sometime in 1854 as the birth of a daughter Maria Jane was registered in Launceston on 12 September 1854 giving a birth date of 7 July 1854, but not stating where. On Maria Jane’s marriage certificate she stated she was born at Ballarat.
The couple settled on a farm in Winkleigh, northern Tasmania and in all had 13 children, all except the eldest who was accidentally killed when he was 11, lived until adulthood.
Johanna died in Launceston Hospital of cancer on 16 May 1896 and was buried in the Catholic Cemetery, Launceston which later became a bowling green. I believe there was a headstone on her grave but they were all destroyed when Patons & Baldwins took over the land many years later. A sad end to a very courageous lady.>>
(5) The following one was originally a PDF file. I haven’t converted it to the standard of Fiona’s original. The footnotes are interleaved with the text, for example. Persist with it. It is a good story well put together.
Mary Jane Magnar (aka Mary McGuire)by Fiona Cole
(Born: c1832 – Died: 1 December 1882)
Mary Jane McGuire (Magnar) was born c.1837 to parents Thomas Magnar and Johanna
Frein, Tipperary, county Tipperary, Ireland. 1
Mary Jane came to Australia on the “Pemberton” as a Female Orphan at the age of 17.
On the register, she is initially listed as Mary McGuire, with the name Magner written
beside the first surname in smaller print. Mary Magnar was received into the Depot on
26 May, 1849 by “A. Cunningham” of “Kinlochewe,” a village just outside of Melbourne
on the old Sydney Road, near Donnybrook in the district of Merriang in the electorate of
Whittlesea. She was licensed out (hired) to the Cunningham’s for a period of six months
on the 31st of May, 1849, at the rate of 10 -0-0. Her usual profession is cited as being a
‘child’s maid.’2
Andrew Cunningham held a freehold in the district of Merriang at the time he enrolled on
the Australian Electoral Roll 1 May, 1849 and on the 1851 roll held a freehold in the
Plenty Ranges in the district of North Bourke. In the Victorian elections of 1856, he is
listed as a freeholder at Merriang, Whittlesea Division. This is believed to the same ‘A.
Cunningham’ who received Mary Jane Magnar from the Port of Melbourne. A
Cunningham is listed in the Banniere’s directory of 1856 as a farmer at Whittelsea3. It is
likely therefore, that Mary Jane was employed as a farm maid and worked on the
property north of Melbourne from 1849 until she left the Cunningham’s employment.
Andrew Cunningham, born around 1811 would have been approximately 38 years of age
when Mary Jane Magnar came to work for him and his wife, Martha (nee McDougall) at
Kinlochewe. Although Andrew and Martha Cunningham had a son (Charles Andrew)
born in 1851 at Merriang (who died in 1860 (aged 10)) it is possible that Mary Jane was
the child’s maid for a period of time, but more likely that she worked on the farm as a
domestic.
In 1861, the Cunningham’s had another child, Martha Eliza, but by this time, Mary Jane
Magnar had well and truly left their employ.
Sometime before 1856 Mary Jane Magnar left the Whittlesea district and moved to
Beechworth, possibly under the influence of friends she had made while on board the
Pemberton. The 1856 marriage register showing Mary Jane’s marriage to Richard Young
Trotter also shows that the next marriage to be performed was for that of her shipmate,
Mary Collins.4
1 Richard Youngtrotter and Mary Jane Magnar Marriage Certificate –
2 Shipping List – Pemberton, 14 May, 1849, pg 13 (PROV- Microfiche)
3 PROV XXXXX
4 Marriages solemnized in the District of Beechworth, 1856, nos 73 & 74
The marriages were performed by Rev John C Symons, an evangelical minister who
spent several years ministering on convict ships and throughout the gold fields, trying to
bring God to the lives of the poor.
Mary Jane and Richard Young Trotter lived at Beechworth and had at one child5, Mary
Jane Youngtrotter (who would go on to become Mary Jane Harrison and then Mary Jane
Gould).
Mary Jane’s husband, Richard worked as a carrier and a teamster during their short
marriage. He died by accidental drowning in the Mitta Mitta River at Morse’s Station on
5 November 1857.6 Surprisingly, there was no inquest into his death, Richard and Mary
Jane Youngtrotter appear to have been living at Yackandandah at this time, but after his
death, Mary Jane appears to have returned to live in Beechworth.
Mary Jane Youngtrotter registered the birth of three children (1858, 1862 and 1865) after
the death of her husband in 1857. None of these children survived more than a few days.
The first of these children, Thomas, was the subject of an inquest and Mary Jane was held
accountable for Manslaughter by Neglect. The charges were dropped and the coroner
found that she had no case to answer. Witnesses were brought before the court both for
and against Mary Jane, for the prosecution, a witness by the name of William Hughes
testifies that Mary Jane was frequently drunk and ‘could not even hold a glass of brandy
without spilling it.’ In her defence, Thomas Conway, apparently the father of the child
and her civil union partner claimed that while Mary Jane was known to drink, she was
not incapable of looking after the child, nor was she drunk the night the child died. He
testified that when he returned home on the night the child died, he found Mary Jane
sitting on a stool, crying. She said to him “Thomas, my child is dying.” at which point,
he left to find the doctor to help the child, but by the time they returned it was too late.7
Mary Jane Youngtrotter appears to have lived a somewhat depraved life after the death of
her third baby, as she was incarcerated from 1865 for larceny (stealing)8 and vagrancy9 (a
term often applied to women of no means, and who often resorted to prostitution). It
appears that Thomas Conway either died or did not stay with her after this point as he
does not feature as a near relative of next of kin on her admittance records to the
Beechworth Asylum.
Mary Jane Youngtrotter’s only surviving daughter (Mary Jane Youngtrotter (Harrison,
Gould) was admitted as of the state to the Industrial School in 1865 and then assigned to
the Browns of Curyo station in 1868.
5 Richard Trotter Death Certificate
6 Ibid
7 Thomas Young Trotter Inquest VPRS30/PO Unit 219 File NCR 2339
8 VPRS 516/P1 Central Register of Female Prisoners, Mary Jane Youngtrotter, Prison Reg. No 573, Vol 1,
pg 573
9 Mary Jane Young Trotter – Industrial School Records VPRS 4527, Vol OS2, pg 147 (No 633)
On 12 August, 1871 Mary Jane Youngtrotter was admitted to the Beechworth Lunatic
Asylum and released a month later on 26 September 1871.10
On Thursday 6 September 1873 Mary Jane Youngtrotter appeared before Judge Bowman
at the Beechworth General Sessions. She was charged with Attempted Suicide. The
prosecutor told the judge that her crime was a misdemeanour and recommended no heavy
penalty. The Judge ordered that she be released to enter into her own recognisance
provided she pay a 20 surety (or as the Wodonga Herald claims, a 90 surety11) and a
50 fine to keep the peace for six months, or in default, one month’s imprisonment.12
It appears that Mary Jane Youngtrotter could not afford the surety or the fine and was
remanded at Beechworth Prison as this is listed on her subsequent admission to the
Beechworth Asylum as her last known place of residence.13
Mary Jane Youngtrotter was admitted to the Beechworth Asylum 2 October, 1873 (a
month after her court appearance before Judge Bowen – the time prescribed by Bowen
that she should serve in default of payment of the surety and fine) and she remained there
until her death 1 December 1882.14
Mary Jane Youngtrotter’s death certificate states that she died aged 45,15 however, her
marriage certificate to Richard Youngtrotter, provides an alternative and more realistic
date of birth, stating her age as 23 in 1856, making her 59 when she died.
Fredrick Western (Medical Superintendant) at Beechworth Asylum noted that Mary Jane
Youngtrotter ‘suffered from delusinal [sic] insanity and delicate bodily health.’ and that
10 months before her death she was ‘somewhat feeble and unable to go about.’16 By the
20 November 1882, Mary Jane Youngtrotter was ‘rather ill and confined to bed on the
23rd she was transferred to the Hospital. She did not improve and got gradually worse and
worse [?] and died and her death was reported to have taken place at 5.30am.’17
There are no case notes for Mary Jane Youngtrotter time incarcerated at Beechworth
Assylum – PROV holds female case books 1878 – 1912.
10 VPRS 7446 P1 Alphabetical Lists of Patients in Asylums (VA 2863)
11 The Wodonga Herald, Saturday 6 September 1873
12 The Ovens and Murray Advertiser, Friday 5 September 1873
13 VPRS 7446 P1 Alphabetical Lists of Patients in Asylums (VA 2863)
14 Ibid
15 Mary Jane Youngtrotter death certificate – Appendix XX
16 Public Records Office Victoria (VPRS 24/P/0000 – Unit 446, 1882/1373).
17 Ibid.
(6) Finally, here is another interesting one, evidently written by a genealogical expert, that came to me originally as a PDF file. There are two lovely photographs at the end i’m still trying to capture. Fingers crossed. The covering letter that accompanied some of these great stories has disappeared into the aether, alas. I wonder who wrote this one.
<<PROFILE of Ellen EAGAN/EGAN per “Lady Kennaway” Arrived to Hobson’s Bay – 6th. December 1848 Ellen EAGAN/EGAN, aged 16 years, from Barney, Louth, Cornwall, departed 11th September 1848 from Plymouth, England on the “Lady Kennaway”, one of the Famine Orphan Girl Ships to Australia, arriving into Hobson’s Bay, Victoria on 6 December 1848. She was admitted to the depot in King Street, Melbourne on the 13th. December 1848. I firmly believe Sarah EAGAN/EGAN aged 19 years, from Ballinasloe, Galway who travelled on the same ship was Ellen’s older sister, because at a later date family relationships were confirmed. A brother, Patrick EGAN was also located at Whitehead’s Creek.. (Note: Extracts about Ellen EAGAN/EGAN & Sarah EAGAN/EGAN compiled initially from article by Trevor McClaughlin, ‘Barefoot and Pregnant’ Female Orphans who emigrated from Irish Workhouses to Australia, 1848- 1850′, in Familia: Ulster Genealogical Review, incorporating Ulster Genealogical & Historical Guild ‘Newsletter’, Vol.2, No.3, 1987, pp.31-36 and updated from shipping lists in New South Wales and South Australia. Shipping List :”Lady Kennaway”- Arrived 6 December 1848: Admitted to depot 13 December SRNSW 4/4816 Reel 2144 (with thanks to Ada Ackerley, Linda Paoloni and to Dr Pauline Rule) We know little or nothing about Ellen’s life in County Galway, other than the names of her parents: James EGAN (occupation:Farmer) & Ellen WHITE (Ellen’s Death Certificate), and what has been recorded about other young women from similar circumstances who survived during the ‘famine’ years. Ellen is recorded as being from Barney, Louth, Cornwall. During those devastating years she may have been employed in County Louth, and in Cornwall, England while awaiting her departure on “Lady Kennaway”. The “Lady Kennaway”, a barque of 585 tons, measuring 38 metres long, 9 metres wide and 5 metres deep, was built of teak timber in Calcutta in 1817. The ship’s Master was – James SANTRY for a voyage of 89 days, with a total of 256 passengers – 191 female orphans, 25 free settlers and 40 crew members. She carried a cargo of -306 casks of Beer; 12 hogsheads of Beer; 55 cases of Wine; 10 hogsheads of Brandy; 12 quarter casks of Brandy; 10 hogsheads of Rum; 9 trunks of Merchandise; 5 cases of Merchandise; 11 cases of Printing Material; 7 hogsheads of Tinware; 1 case of Tinware; 18 crates of Earthenware and 4 cases of Books, and enough water and food for 95 days. There was enough clothing for 256 people. ( Contributed by Laurie Thompson (PPPG Member No. 944) http://home.vicnet.net.au/~pioneers/pppg5bg.htm) The “Lady Kennaway” made three voyages as a convict transport to Hobart in 1835 and 1851 and to Sydney in 1836. She also made voyages with Government assisted emigrants – to Sydney in 1841, and to Port Phillip in 1848, 1850 and 1853. www.findboatpics.com/wpct.html
“Lady Kennaway” a barque of 585 tons. Artist: William Adolphus Knell Date: 1840 Source: http://www.nmm.ac.uk
A Report by The Immigration Board of Inspectors under the chairmanship of Dr John Patterson on the “Lady Kennaway’s” arrival to Hobson’s Bay (Williamstown) reveals that “on board this 1 vessel were 7 families, 191 girls, and one child died on the journey. The people arrived in excellent health and exhibited the appearance of having been on full allowance. Not a single complaint was made”. Ann KELLY, an orphan from Letterkenny wrote to her family: “I have arrived safely at my journey’s end after a very good voyage of 3 months. We were all very well treated on board the ship by every person, the doctor, Captain and Matron being all very kind to us” Apparently girls aged between 14 and 18 years had been selected from several poorhouse unions of Ireland. Generally they were ‘Roman Catholic, were low in stature, of stout make, had been in service previously before leaving their native land’, and were healthy enough to endure the rigors of the harsh sea voyage of three months. ‘Most of them were illiterate, although the authorities issued them with a Prayer Book and a Testament’.¹ An experienced naval surgeon Dr Henry G BROCK and 48 year old English matron, Christine ENSOR were appointed by the British Emigration Commission to supervise the voyage. The girls are described as ‘generally of a stout make, rather low in stature and endowed with strongly marked Irish features’, anxious to please their employers and would keep in the paths of virtue.² (Sources:(1)-Female orphans from Donegal Dispatched to Australia 1848 – 1850 – Part 2 By May McClintock) & (2)-‘Perilous Voyages to the New Land’ by Michael Cannon, page 139-140 On her arrival to Melbourne in December 1848, Ellen EAGAN/EGAN was employed by A. WREIDE, Altona for £14 for 6 months. Sometime, possibly mid 1849, Ellen was engaged by Thomas WADE, a widower, to care for his two sons – William aged 6 years & Henry aged 2 years. Family hearsay said that Ellen accompanied them on a ship to Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania). Although Thomas had been discharged in Sydney in 1847, as being medically unfit for duties (with the 99th. Regiment of Foot after 22 years of service), he may have been seconded to temporary duties in Tasmania. On return to Melbourne, Ellen married Thomas WADE, at St. Peter’s Church of England, Melbourne – 9 December 1850, and again – at St. Francis’s Catholic Church – 2 February 1853. (Marriage Certificates) There are two possible explanations for their two marriages to each other. Their first marriage was by Banns in St Peter’s Church of England in 1850. Thomas was an Anglican, and because he (aged 42 years), was literate and had more life experiences, one could assume Ellen adopted a subordinate role as an 18 year old inexperienced country girl living in a new land. Their second marriage at St Francis’s Catholic Church, was 15 days prior the death of their first child, 8 months old son- Thomas James WADE who was buried 17 Febuary 1853 (Document: New South Wales Roman Catholic Burials, Parish of St. Francis’s County of Bourke No.45333-1853). The church was opposite their Boot and Shoe Store in Lonsdale Street (part of the back section of Myer Stores). Also at this time Sarah EAGAN/EGAN (Ellen’s sister) married Patrick McCARTY/McCARTHY at St Francis’s Church. It could be said that strong coercive influences from her sister Sarah; and the Catholic Priest. The priest would have claimed that Ellen’s first marriage to Thomas was not in the Catholic church, and she was not really married in the eyes of God. One can only speculate as to their reasons. Between 1850-1854, they were living at 14 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Thomas, a Master Bootmaker in the Army, manufactured Wellington boots and shoes. In 1847, Thomas operated a Boot and Shoe Shop in Pitt Street, Sydney to raise £18, the amount he was required to pay for the purchase of his discharge from the Army (Document: 5 years service:Enlisted 25 July 1842-Discharged 31 December 1847). Thomas was granted a Pension for Life as an Out-Pensioner. According to the Melbourne Rate Books -1853, the shop was a three room brick dwelling Lot 13 near to Elizabeth Street. It was during this time that their first son – Thomas James WADE (1851-1853) was born, and she also had the additional care of her two stepsons – William and Henry. 2 In 1853, a crude water colour drawing of their likenesses was done and signed by a T. HARDY. This drawing is now in possession of Michael WADE, the last WADE of Thomas & Ellen’s descendants. It is said to be of Thomas WADE handing Ellen (EGAN) an envelope said to contain the deeds of some property. It may have been a small allocation of land given to those who had given long military service (22 years) in the 99th. Regiment of Foot. They were both dressed in black. Ellen held a red rose, and Thomas wore a cravat and brown floral patterned waistcoat. Judging by her appearance, Ellen was of slight build and diminutive, probably around 5 feet in stature because Thomas’s records state he was 5 feet 11 inches tall. (Pension Document -1868). It could be suggested that during these years, Ellen developed self confidence and a higher level of social standing in the community. She had the security of her husband’s army pension, and accumulated a moderate level of comfort. Some kinfolk who were privy to early family information, said that Ellen was not only able take on the responsibility for the two sons of her husband’s first marriage, and that of her own seven children, but also the care of her elderly husband as his health declined following a severe stroke. All of her other six children – Ellen(1854), Mary(1857) , Sarah(1859), Thomas James (2)(1862), Patrick (1864), & Michael (1868) were born Kilmore to Broadford. On part of the 19 acres at Sugarloaf Creek, Ellen was the Licencee of the Sugarloaf Creek Hotel from 1882. (The hotel was near the three Chain Road – once the main route from Port Phillip to Sydney). She, with the assistance of her three youngest sons, was able to operate any endeavors they undertook on this and two other nearby blocks on the Sugarloaf Creek, raising cattle involving dairying which had developed in the Broadford district. Part of the 19 acres she leased out to Hunt & Ahern for a Cattle Auction Yards. Another part, was let for a good rental to a Saw Mill Proprietor. The whole WADE family became fully integrated into this and nearby communities. Cousins claimed that the WADEs “mixed with the upper class families such as– Turnbulls, Grimwades, Michaelis Hallensteins, in silks and satins at weekends” It was said that the Turnbulls were first cousins to the Wades. After the death of her husband, Ellen continued to operate her enterprises with the assistance of her children. One interesting Report in the Seymour Newspaper is indicative of the strong, fearless and assertive person Ellen had become. “In my thirty years in this colony, this is the first time I have been summoned to the Court by any man”, was the reply to the Magistrate in the Seymour Court where Ellen appeared over a legal battle with a neighbour over accusations of broken fences and straying cattle. The diminutive Ellen was quite indignant about the matter. At another appearance – 3 February 1885 in the Seymour Court; M. J. McCULLA v Ellen WADE in which £5 was claimed for damage of a bull trespassing …… was heard with this one. “Ellen WADE deposed: “Occupy a paddock joining Mr McCULLA. Never asked him to let his bull into paddock.”.. “On 9th. Inst. saw the beast in the yard with some cows. When Mr McCULLA called for cattle, I demanded £5 damage for the bull. Gave Mr Mc CULLA a receipt on account showing balance of £5 due. No cattle but his ever got into my paddock.” A written notice was served on McCULLA to put up a fence but he refused. McCULLA was laughed out of court because a WADE bull about he lodged a complaint had been dead for over five years. Incidentally, other neighbours had court battles with the same man over exactly the same situations. One of Ellen’s grandchildren, Ellen Veronica Wade recalled visiting other EGAN family members at Whitehead’s Creek. She said that an Uncle James EGAN was the one-armed mail coach driver referred to in a history of Seymour by Martindale, “A New Crossing Place”. A Patrick EGAN, a 3 farmer of Seymour was an Executor of the Will of Ellen WADE in 1892. Although Ellen had operated the Sugarloaf Creek Hotel since 1882, the hotel was auctioned on the 1st June, 1892, to pay creditors of her insolvent deceased estate. Ellen had to reestablish herself after the death of her husband in 1885, when the income from his military pension ceased. Because she had initially lived in and was familiar with central Melbourne, she returned there, and relocated to a tenement residence at- 19 Provost Street, North Melbourne, with her daughter Sarah & grand daughter Mary WADE, and her grandson John Michael David MORRISSEY (1880-1945). In 1908, after the death of Ellen’s son Michael aged 40 years, his widow Sarah Maria, with four young dependent daughters resided in a rental dwelling in Little Provost Street which backed onto Provost Street. Ellen died: 19 Provost St. North .Melbourne aged 57yrs-10.2.1892. Cause of Death: Apoplexy (serous) THOMAS James & ELLEN WADE are buried at Dabyminga Cemetery (Tallarook Cemetery) Victoria Photograph of Water Color of Thomas & Ellen (nee EGAN) WADE c1853 signed T. HARDY.
Watercolour c. 1853
4 Photograph -Ellen (nee EAGAN/EGAN) WADE c. 1890. Melbourne.
Ellen Eagan/Wade c. 1890
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I’m looking forward to seeing Matt Rubinstein’s great work in digitising Barefoot 1. Information about individual orphans has been updated more than once since the book was first published by the Genealogical society of Victoria in 1991. And here in this blog I’ve added some “footnotes” relating to the documents about the Earl Grey scandal. But having a digital version of the original available for everyone is a delight.
It is now available on Amazon.com, Apple Books and Kobo books. If there are any royalties, they should go to the charities i was involved setting up with GIFCC members, Tom Power, Marie Tunks and Perry McIntyre at the end of the noughties . See the Irishfaminememorial.org website
You may remember a few posts ago (post 76 ‘Re-defining the task’ https://wp.me/p4SlVj-2sJ ), i suggested we look at the Freeman’s Journal to understand the Sydney Irish community’s response to the unfolding scandal about the Irish orphan ‘girls’ in the late 1850s. Why did they take so long to respond to an 1855 Immigration report condemning the Cork women who had recently arrived by the Lady Kennaway? Two of my earlier posts, 26 and 28, about the ensuing 1858-9 NSW Government enquiry had tried to put that enquiry into context, suggesting we do not accept it at face value. See https://wp.me/p4SlVj-BT or/and https://earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/earl-greys-irish-famine-orphans-28/
The enquiry had morphed into looking at the ‘Earl Grey Irish Female orphan scheme’.
The article shows how long it took for the Blue Books , that is, the published reports of British Parliamentary committees and royal commissions, to reach Sydney. The ‘tyranny of distance’ had struck again. It was not until 1857 that Governor Denison’s and Immigration Agent H.H. Browne’s condemnation of Irish female immigration became widely known. Or is that too simple? Browne’s report on the alleged scandal associated with the young Irish women from Cork Workhouse who arrived in Port Jackson by the Lady Kennaway in 1855 finished with,
Orphan immigration having been so distasteful to the inhabitants of this colony, the Board did not contemplate the arrival of any fresh drafts of that class of immigrants. This feeling against them still exists, and the Board feel that they should ill perform their duty were they not to bring this fact pointedly under the notice of his Excellency the Governor-General, with a recommendation that instruction be given to the Commissioners not to continue this description of emigration, it being most unsuitable to the requirements of the colony, and, at the same time, distasteful to the majority of people.
Freeman’s Journal, 5 December, 1857, p.2.
The Journal continued to print extracts from the Blue Books, the following from Lord John Russell via the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners to Sir William Denison,
We learn from the report…that the conduct of the young women on the voyage was good; that the care with which they had been selected was apparent…We shall act on this expression of opinion (that is, that of H.H. Browne, which was supported by William Denison, asking for an end to this sort of migration) although we may be permitted to observe that the readiness with which the young women in question obtained situtations, and the wages paid them, are scarcely reconcileable with the statement that they are”most unsuitable” to the wants of the colony.
Freeman’s Journal, ibid.
The author goes on to accuse the Governor-General of acting too hastily in support of the Sydney Immigration Board, and to raise the issue of prejudice against Roman Catholics. Sectarianism was never far from the surface of colonial politics, and beyond.
Without accusing the gentlemen constituting this Board, viz., Messrs. H.H. Browne, Gother G. Mann, and Haynes G. Alleyne, of having been influenced by undue motives in coming to their expressed conclusion, yet, when it is remembered that they are all identified with the modern Church of England party in the colony, it is not unfair to conclude that they suffered themselves, maybe unwittingly, to have been betrayed by their prejudices into the commission of this act of injustice towards a defenceless class, adherents of the ancient faith…
We expect, nay we demand–to use the language of the illustrious O’Connell– for the Irish the right to “a clear stage, and no favour”.
Freeman’s Journal, ibid.
We’ll need to do further research on the Journal and its contributors. Was the author of this article the founder of the Journal, Archdeacon McEncroe, himself? or perhaps it was from Daniel Deniehy? There were plenty of willing contributors at the time. And there were plenty ready to push for a parliamentary enquiry. And soon would do so, through the Celtic Association.
trevo's Irish famine orphans 
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