Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (90): Mapping with John Moon

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?

https://earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/earl-greys-irish-famine-orphans-37/.

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&gt; 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 Wangaratta

Jane’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 can also draw one representing where 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.

You may wish to say, ‘Tell him he’s dreamin’.

A reminder, https://irishfaminememorial.org/invitation-to-attend-commemoration-ceremony/

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (89): Jane’s story by John Moon

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 Hutchinson Native 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 3^rd 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 15^th March, 1843, and came to Mia Mia with his parents on 1^st February, 1851. … His father (the late Mr Michael Madden) was travelling with his stock from Melbourne to Mia Mia on 6^th 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.

The Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic.: 1855 – 1918), Saturday 27 October 1866 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198659284 reports that:

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.

The impact of this education was passed down through two generations where Jane’s Daughter Louisa insisted that during her annual six week Christmas holiday visits, her granddaughters could recite by heart a poem. Two of these were Ella Wheeler Wilcox’ “The Two Glasses” http://www.ellawheelerwilcox.org/poems/ptwoglas.htm and George Webster’s “The Story of Rip van Winkle” https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/08/54/12/00001/UF00085412_00001.pdf (Louisa was a teetotaler).

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.

Invitation to attend Commemoration Ceremony

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (86): Ann Trainer per Derwent

Peter has kindly allowed me to share this version of his orphan ancestor’s story. (see Blogpost 84) Ann was another Port Phillip arrival.

Ann Trainer or Traynor per Derwent

Born c 1833 Ireland. Died 1874 New Zealand

Her story

by great great grandson Peter James Hansen, February 2022.

Ann Trainer, my great great grandmother, was unknown to my family until the early 1990s. My discovery of her was a huge surprise as my parents prided themselves as having no benighted Irish or Roman Catholics in their ancestry. I found an Irish Roman Catholic ancestor on both sides of our family. Both were Irish female famine orphans, each with sad stories to uncover.

This story is about Ann Trainer on my mother’s side.

Born out of wedlock, institutionalised, living much of her youth in a workhouse. Shipped to Australia under a British Govt scheme to provide domestic servants & wives. The Victorian gold rush in Australia from 1851-late 1860s.  Marriage to a sea captain, three children, prostitution, drunkenness & finally an early death in a rip-roaring frontier gold rush town on New Zealand’s wild West Coast.

According to the Magherafelt Workhouse records, Ann Trainer’s mother was Catherine Cassidy b c 1797, single spinster Roman Catholic who had three illegitimate children, Samuel Cassidy b c 1830, Ann Traynor b c 1833 & Patrick Henry b c 1839.

Sam’s father is unknown but Ann & Pat both had surnames acknowledging the putative fathers, Traynor/Trainer & Henry.

The Magherafelt Workhouse records usually name Ann as Ann Traynor but occasionally as Ann Cassidy.

The Magherafelt Workhouse opened in March 1842.

 A few weeks later Catherine Cassidy aged 45 single spinster Roman Catholic, clean, from the Electoral Division of Tobermore townland of Drumreany was admitted 26 March 1842 with two bastard children. Ann Traynor aged 9 & Patrick Henry aged 3. They were discharged on 5 August 1842.

Further transcriptions of the Magherafelt Workhouse records reveal the following

Entering the workhouse 23 August 1842, leaving 16 Sept 1842. Catherine with two children. Ann’s age was recorded as 10.

In 16 Dec 1842 & out 3 April 1843 when Catherine 46 is described as single, a spinner, Roman Catholic woman with 3 bastard children. Ann described as being 9.

In 25 Sept & out 14 Oct 1843. Catherine Cassidy aged 48, single, with children all very wretched. Samuel Cassidy 12, Ann Traynor 10 Pat Henry 4.

In 4 Feb 1845 out 24 March 1845. Catherine Cassidy single mendicant, clean of Tobermore with two children. Ann Traynor 10 & Pat’k Henry 5.

In 12 July 1845 out 28 July 1845. Catherine Cassidy 49 single mendicant having one child clean & healthy of Tobermore. Patrick Henry 7.

(Where were Ann Traynor & Samuel Cassidy?)

Autumn of 1845 saw the first failure of the potato crop.

In 2 Dec 1845 out 26 Jan 1846. Catherine Cassidy 40! Single with 2 children. Clean, of Tobermore.  Samuel Cassidy 15 occupation out of service escaped over wall 25 Jan 1846.  Ann Traynor 12 out of service.

In 15 May 1846 out 24 Aug 1846. Catherine Cassidy labourer,49, unable to support herself and her children. Tobermore townland of Ballinderry, clean. Ann Cassidy (Traynor) 12 & Pat Casidy (Henry) 8.

Autumn of 1846 saw the second failure of the potato crop.

In 26 Sept 1846 out 6 Aug 1847. Catherine Cassidy 48 single labourer unable to support herself and children, clean from Tobermore. Samuel Cassidy 15 escaped over the wall 2 Oct 1846 (for the second time). Ann aged 12.

The winter of 1846/47 was severe and fever was rife.

Patrick Henry aged 8 died 21 April 1847 in the Magherafelt Workhouse.

In 24 Dec 1847 out 7 July 1848. Catherine Cassidy 52, single no means of support mendicant with one child healthy.  Ann bastard child healthy.

In 4 January 1849 out 30 Oct 1849. Anne Cassidy listed on her own aged 16 single destitute. (Where was her mother?)

Nothing more is known of Catherine Cassidy. Had she died by Jan 1849?

What happened to Samuel Cassidy after his second escape over the workhouse wall 2 Oct 1846?

Ann Trainer was selected from the Magherafelt Workhouse to be part of the ‘Earl Grey scheme’.

On 9th Nov 1849 she and 135 other female orphans from northern Ireland left Plymouth in the 365 ton barque ‘Derwent’ for Port Phillip. There was the usual problem of the crew fraternising with these young girls on the long voyage. There is no record of Ann being involved in any incidents on the 78-day trip.

The ‘Derwent’ arrived at Port Phillip Bay on 25 February 1850.

The Derwent’s manifesto names Ann,

No 121 Trainer, Ann, House Servant, age 16, Native Place and County – Maherfelt, Derry, Roman Catholic, Read & Write – both. (Ann only signed with an ‘X’ on her marriage registration)

 On the Disposal list she appears as ‘Trainer, Ann, 16, RC, House Servt., Employer – Andrew Doyle, Carpenter, Collins St. at the rate of £8 per annum for 6 months.

There is no further record of Ann until her marriage in January 1854.

In the meantime, the Victorian goldrushes commenced in 1851 and literally hordes of mostly males seeking their fortunes arrived at Melbourne from the world over and dispersed throughout the diggings in Victoria. Melbourne became deserted as goldrush mania affected many. Crews deserted their ships including that of Ann’s future son-in-law William McKechnie from Dundee, Scotland. It was probably there that he first met Captain Whitford, Ann’s husband and also Richard Seddon, future Prime Minister of New Zealand. They were all ‘mates’.

On 18 January 1854, St James Church Melbourne Ann married George Whitford. The marriage certificate describes George as,

George Whitford, Bachelor, born At Sea, Master Mariner, age 23, residence Russell Street, parents John Whitford, deceased, Master Mariner, Mary Whitford maiden name unknown.

And Ann as, Ann Trainer, spinster, born Belfast, Ireland, occupation ‘Independant’, age 21, residence Russell Street, parents James Trainer, Schoolmaster, Catherine Kessedy maiden name.

They married in the Cathedral Church of St James according to the Rites of the Church of England.

Signed-George Whitford & Ann ‘X’ Trainer

George Whitford was master of the lighter “Allegro” which traded around Port Phillip Bay. Ann went to live with him on the ship and their three children were born on board at nearby Hobsons Bay.

Their first child George Arthur Whitford was born in Hobsons Bay 20 August 1854.

Their second child was born on the lighter ‘Legro’ (the “Allegro”) Hobsons Bay 23 May 1856. She was registered on 24 July 1856 by Ann as Winefred Elizabeth Whitford. Father, George Richard Whitford, 25, Master Mariner, born at sea Malabar Coast (India), mother Ann Whitford formerly Trainer, 22 born Belfast Ireland. Informant-The X mark of Ann Whitford, mother, Hobson’s Bay.

No trace of Winefred Elizabeth exists after this. However, on 15 October 1856 a baptism took place in St James’ Cathedral of a Mary Jane Whitford with the same birth date 23 May 1856, same parents & their abode is given as Yarra Yarra (Melbourne wharves). Baptismal names take precedence over registered names. Mary Jane is my great grandmother.

Their third child James Richard Whitford was born on the ‘Allegro’ 5th May 1858. Ann again signed X Her mark. 

George Whitford then went on to be master of the paddle steamer ‘Lioness’ for seven years. It seems that the Whitford family then moved into a cottage at Port Sandridge near Melbourne.

In Oct 1865 at Hokitika, Westland, New Zealand, Capt George Whitford met his former ship ps ‘Lioness’ to take up duties as a tug master towing sailing ships over the dangerous Hokitika river bar. Hokitika and Greymouth became the centres of a goldrush. There are numerous recorded accounts of Capt Whitford and his superb seamanship.

Ann and the three children followed at a later date & lived in a house Capt Whitford owned near Gibsons Quay in the town.

In 1869 Capt Whitford was appointed as Pilot for the Ports of Westland. However soon afterwards he disappeared. A George Whitford seaman died in a Melbourne infirmary in 1879.

George Whitford, Master Mariner, Ann’s husband.

Family tradition is that Ann and her children were left unsupported and destitute. However, the children appear to have received an education.

Shortly before she died in 1874 Ann featured in a sordid court case held in the Magistrates & then Supreme Court. March & September 1874. It was reported in salacious detail in the West Coast Times.  A sad finale to her life. Ann was acquitted of charges but was a witness to a theft in a brothel where she was staying.  She’s described as being very drunk.

Finally, in the West Coast Times 8 Sept 1874

“In the case of Annie Haines tried yesterday for larceny, a most material witness, a woman named Whitford, was unable to attend, being ill in Hospital……”

Annie Cassidy/Trainer/Whitford died on 8th October 1874, Hokitika Hospital aged 36 (sic) years, actually c 41) married, of Phthsis (Tuberculosis), informant NR Goodrich, Carpenter, Hokitika.

Annie Whitford was interred in Hokitika Cemetery 13 October 1874. The plot in the Roman Catholic section was purchased by her husband’s friend William McKechnie.

Annie’s grave set apart from the row of nuns nearby.

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (78): my first dip in the water.

I hope this post will be of some interest; it is my first publication about the Famine orphan ‘girls’ that appeared in 1987 in Familia the Journal of what was then the Ulster Historical Foundation. I gather the Foundation still exists. See http://www.ancestryireland.com

There are another sixteen interesting articles in this particular issue including a review of Patrick O’Farrell’s Irish in Australia, Trevor Parkhill on Ulster emigration to Oz, Richard Reid on Irish chain migration, and Desmond Mullan on Father Willie Devine who among many other things was appointed as chaplain to the Australian forces in 1914 by Archbishop Mannix.

You will notice i had already decided on Barefoot and Pregnant? as a title for my work, a title that not everyone has understood. So let me explain once more. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the “Earl Grey Scheme” will know of Surgeon Douglass’s scathing dismissal of the young women in his charge. They were he said “professed public women and barefooted little country beggars”; some of them had had a child, and many were not orphans at all! See my earlier blogposts 43-47, beginning https://earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com/2017/01/21/earl-greys-irish-famine-orphans-43/

So the first element to my title is a question (note the question mark, Barefoot and Pregnant? How many of you noticed it? How many did not?) I’m simply asking, was Surgeon Douglass right in condemning the Earl Grey workhouse orphans as he did?

Another element, though perhaps not so pertinent for everyone nowadays, stemmed from my being a fan of a number of singers, Bob Marley, Sam Cooke, Nina Simone, and Joan Armatrading, for example. Do you remember Joan Armatrading’s “Barefoot and Pregnant”? It had particular moment for all the women who were fed up being kept ‘barefoot and pregnant’, and ‘in the kitchen’.

The third interpretation of my title then, and i was hoping people would think about how the title was phrased, that they would ask for themselves, did these Famine orphans come from a society where their choices and opportunities were limited? Would there be greater choices and opportunities for them in Australia? Or would social structures, lack of economic opportunities, and the weight of cultural mores limit what they could do in Australia also? Could they become literate? What chances did they have of going to a university? Could they buy land on their own? Could they pursue a career of their own? Could they vote? Could they sit in parliament? Or were they sent into another confinement (pun intended) by the patriarchal nature of Australian society?

Alas i think i failed with that title.

What follows is the short piece i was urged to write by the then Deputy Keeper of the Public Records of Northern Ireland (PRONI), Dr Brian Trainor. I had just spent a short period of study-leave among the archives testing out my theories of how to find the Famine orphans among the workhouse records that have survived. It is thanks to Brian Trainor that so many of the Indoor workhouse registers have survived. Without his understanding and agitation many would have ended up in the tip. Sadly, present day politicians and bureaucrats in Australia are allowing our precious records to perish. 21/6/21 Fingers crossed. There may be some last minute funding on the way.

It is a tentative effort, and concerns only the first vessel, the Earl Grey, that arrived in Port Jackson 6 October 1848 . Nowadays thanks to heaps of people, writers, historians, genealogists, family historians, archivists, holders of the public records torch, much more is known about the Irish Famine orphans. One error that struck me in this piece was my inclusion of the Ramillies to Port Adelaide as part of the ‘Earl Grey scheme’. The error carried over to Volume one of my Barefoot. That ship may indeed have carried a number of Irish born workhouse women but they were mostly from Marylebone workhouse in London, not from any Irish workhouse. I remain to be corrected on this.

Bloomsday is upon us.

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (72): Mental Asylums

Woogaroo Asylum was built at Wacol, Queensland in 1865

Let me continue with the fiction I created last time, a researcher wishing to find out more about the Irish workhouse orphans who went into institutional ‘care’ in Australia. This time, I’ll suggest we search for orphans who went into mental hospitals, whether in Fremantle, Sunbury, Woogaroo, Ararat, Yarra Bend, Adelaide Lunatic Asylum, Callan Park, Goodna, Gladesville, Ballarat, or wherever. It won’t be an easy task.

In these days of ‘quarantino’ Kirsty and myself shall communicate via Skype, Zoom or FaceTime. I told her ‘ Kirsty, there is no easy access to secondary sources, or to some of the people you need to meet. Neither is there access to the very rich archive of different Mental Hospitals across the country. None of this has been digitised as far as i know. Even at the best of times you may not have access to these records. When I did a teeny bit of work in this area some years ago, most Victorian records were on open access; NSW records had the rider that one should be careful not to hurt anyone; and Queensland records sometimes were available, sometimes not. I’m not sure what the position is with regards to West Australia and South Australia or Tasmania. I’d love to think these records are readily available. I believe the healthy option is to be up front and open about mental illness, yet always careful of an individual’s needs. Not everyone agrees with that.

‘I have a number of books on my shelves’, says Kirsty, “hysteria is the dis-ease of women in a patriarchal culture“, according to Claire Kahane. ‘That and other interpretations of the history of insanity will be worth pursuing if you decide to pursue this further’, said I. ‘It could be a very large subject. The sheer size of original sources, never mind secondary ones, is daunting. Here are a couple of examples from case histories which by law, these institutions were required to keep. [For example, 1845 Act for the regulation and care and treatment of lunatics, 8 and 9 Vic . c. 100].

The following case is from Woogaroo which later became  Goodna and then Wollston Park Mental Hospital in Queensland.

‘With this kind of detail in the records, surely we can find Earl Grey orphans who went into these institutions, when the time comes’ says Kirsty?

‘Do you think we can’? I replied. ‘I never went through these records searching for orphans in any systematic way. One would need to know the young women’s marital history in great detail, including their common law marriages, and know about all the uncertainties relating to their age, place of origin, who provided the information to the authorities, and the like. Anyway, here’s the handful of examples I happened across. I’ll start with the Port Phillip examples’.

Bridget Ferry and Eliza Armstrong

A while ago, in blogpost 54, https://wp.me/p4SlVj-1G0 i drew readers’ attention to Professor Malcolm’s important work on Yarra Bend Asylum where she identified two Port Phillip orphans, Bridget Ferry per Lady Kennaway, and Elizabeth Armstrong per Diadem. [Or should it be Derwent]? I happened to come across these two cases myself.

From the Lady Kennaway shipping list we know that Bridget was a 14 year old nurse from Dunfanaghy, Donegal, RC, who could neither read nor write and who brought with her a prayer book and testament. In the record above she is described as a ‘congenital idiot’.

Eliza Armstrong per Diadem was a 16 yo Anglican from Enniskillen, Fermanagh who had entered the workhouse without any fixed address. She was described in the Yarra Bend record as suffering from paralysis and dementia.

Interestingly I recorded in my own notes (VPRS 7417/P1/1A p.88, at number 37) Eliza Armstrong, from the Colonial Surgeon’s Hospital, 17 yo pauper per Derwent 1850. There was a Bessy Armstrong on board the Derwent who hailed from Lisnaskea, Fermanagh. And to complicate matters even further, there also was an Eliza Armstrong admitted to Yarra Bend 26 October 1848 (before the official arrival of any of the Earl Grey orphans). She was described as suffering from chronic dementia, dangerous, and being ‘not in a good state of bodily health’. That poor woman stayed in Yarra Bend for 64 years until she died in 1912.

Professor Malcolm tells us both our orphans, Bridget and Eliza, were released ‘cured’ after only a few months stay in Yarra Bend Asylum, suggesting the young women may have used the asylum for their own ends, “as a means of escaping from intolerable living conditions”. But you will notice how tricky it is to confirm we have found an Earl Grey orphan in the Mental Asylum records. The next couple of cases did not end up in an asylum but they so easily could have done so.

Margaret Gorman from Donegal Union per Lady Kennaway

Something has gone wrong here. i’ll see if i can find out what it is.

This 15 year old was described  by the Port Phillip authorities as an 'imbecile' who suffered from fits. She would most likely have ended up in an asylum, perhaps even a mental asylum, had it not been for the Chief Matron, Mrs Ensor.
Have a look at my blog post 35, https://earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/earl-greys-irish-famine-orphans-35/ and scroll down to item 50/93, to a  letter dated 20 /3/1850. There is information there from Irish authorities defending their sending Margaret to Australia under the Earl Grey scheme. They eventually found that information about her being subject to fits had been 'carefully kept from Captain Herbert, Lieutenant Henry, and the Medical Officer' of the workhouse. 
Thanks to the inimitable Kelly Starr who is a whiz at finding what's available online, we know that Mrs Ensor came to the rescue. Kelly provided the link to VPRS19 Inward Registered Correspondence regarding the return of Margaret Gorman to the Immigration Depot. 
The letter from James Patterson to the Superintendent recommends, and i quote, "Mrs Ensor will take charge of this orphan for a period of twelve months, and will feed and clothe her and endeavour to instruct her so that she may be able to go into service in return for a small remuneration". As Kelly says,'Thank Goodness for kindly Mrs Ensor'.

Anne Muldoon from Ballyshannon workhouse  per Inchinnan

For information about Anne I am indebted to Brian Harris. See her story in Brian's brilliant blog, 'From Prisons and Poorhouses',
https://harrisfamhistory.com/2019/09/10/trove-tuesday-a-cry-for-help/
Anne committed suicide in September 1872  'throwing herself into a well whilst being of unsound mind'.

Ellen Leydon per Thomas Arbuthnot

Ellen was to spend some time in Goodna Asylum in Queensland towards the end of her life.

You may have met Ellen before, in the previous post on Benevolent Asylums, as Ellen Hickson, and more of her story in my blog post 9 under ‘A Hard Life’.

https://wp.me/p4SlVj-dQ

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine orphans (69): some bibs and bobs, and Irish roots.

A Chance Encounter

Memory is a funny thing. I just knew i had collated some of my early findings in Workhouse Indoor Registers on a file for the journal Familia, and whilst searching for that, i came across these pics. They were from Paula V., whose Dutch surname i cannot spell. There was an accompanying letter too. Now where is that? Did i give it to Marie and Perry back in the day with my other 800 or so letters from orphan descendants? Nah. I’m sure i saw it later than that. But where on earth can it be? Do i have to rely on my memory for its contents? Let’s hope my memory is reliable.

Paula even mentioned she had sought assurance from a former colleague and good friend of mine, David Bollen, in Goulburn. Yes, David said, she was on the right track. Her orphan descendant, Eliza Mahon from Carlow had arrived by the Lady Peel in 1849. Paula and her husband even went to Ireland, and visited Carlow in search of Eliza.

Eliza Mahon from Carlow

Paula and her husband at the site of Carlow Workhouse which was demolished in 1960

Now the thing is…

Eliza Mahon is also the Irish Famine orphan ancestor of two well-known Australians, Mike and Julia Baird. Here’s the link to the Irish Echo article reporting the work of Perry McIntyre confirming this. https://ie2015.irishecho.com.au/2014/08/29/nsw-premiers-irish-orphan-girl-ancestry-revealed/32568

The ancestral link is along the female line. Can you see any resemblance between Eliza Mahon above, and Dr Julia Baird? The eyes? The forehead? The cheekbones? Or, to quote “The Castle”, should I “tell him he’s dreamin'”?

Paula’s letter, if i remember correctly, told me she employed a researcher in Ireland. But he found no records of Eliza in Church of Ireland (Anglican) records, and suggested she may have ‘converted’ during the Famine in order to receive some food. Yet there’s no trace of Eliza’s baptism in Catholic records for Carlow either.

When she arrived in Sydney in July 1849, according to the Lady Peel shipping list, Eliza was only fifteen years old, from Carlow, the daughter of James and Catherine Mahon, and a member of the Established church (Anglican).

Taking up the suggestion of Paula’s researcher, I looked for Eliza in the Catholic baptismal records for the parish of Carlow and Grague https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0697 and found 5 January 1830, Mary Mahon daughter of James and Ann Mahon, and 5 December 1836, John son of John and Catherine Mahon of Pollardstown Road. Neither one had the appropriate pair of parent’s names.

Does anyone have access to the baptismal records of St Mary’s Anglican church in Carlow? Can we check again to see if there’s any trace of Eliza?

Or should we be looking elsewhere? Does anyone have access to things like ‘Find my Past’?

Irish workhouse indoor registers

Here, from my 1987 Familia article, are a few more examples of Earl Grey orphans from extant workhouse Indoor Registers mostly in the north of Ireland. One of the things i value most about these workhouse registers is that they bring us close to the orphans themselves, for a moment. And they allow us to review the question, “who were the female orphans”?

Jane Bing or Byng per Diadem from Enniskillen

Have a Go

I can almost feel the quickening of your pulse when you discover something new about your orphan ancestor. It can be a wonderfully inspiring feeling. But before you view the examples i’ve provided below, may i ask you to try something challenging? That is, take off the blinkers you wear when you are chasing your own particular orphan ‘girl’. Look around. Use your peripheral vision. Let’s see if we can set aside the saccharine formulae, and imposition of present-day values on the past that are part and parcel of genealogical service providers, and television programmes. Set aside the sugar coating and feelgood elements we all prefer to find. Try putting ourselves in the shoes of the “others”.

‘Your’ orphan was one of the Famine survivors, after all. Unlike Paul Lynch’s Colly, the young brother of Grace, the subject of his moving 2017 novel. The four jet-black pages towards the end of the novel are preceded by four or five pages of young Colly dying of hunger.

…gagsmell — that was a rat are the rats not all eaten–don’t sick all over yourself the smell—there it is now bring to mouth–

…listen listen listen listen listen–why can’t I hear me–why can’t you hear me…mister don’t lift me..don’t lift don’t lift not into this cart…

Paul Lynch, Grace, pp.293-4.

Or if you are feeling ambitious, put yourself in the shoes of Garry Disher’s Her in country Victoria in the first years of the twentieth century. “Her”, she has no name, sold for a pittance, a young life tied together with pieces of foraged string. Novelists often bring us closer to the emotional life of the past, than do historians, do they not?

Varied circumstances; what did the orphans bring with them?

What we find in these Workhouse Indoor Registers is not just an understanding of how many– large numbers of– people lived at or below the poverty line. They show the variety of circumstances ‘our orphans’ emerged from as well.

Some ‘orphans’, not many, were in the workhouse from their early childhood, almost as soon as the workhouse opened its doors, confined by its walls, imprisoned by its regulations. What did that experience do to your soul, your outlook on life, your mental state?

Other young women, as Dympna McLoughlin suggests, lived a life on the begging road, only seasonally entering the workhouse, out of the cold at winter-time, leaving when they were ready, or seeking the emigrant’s escape if it was offered.

See Dympna’s chapter on ‘Subsistent Women’ in the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine or my blogpost at https://wp.me/p4SlVj-4X

about half way down.

Or there, look, that is a little family isolated or abandoned by other family members, battered by illness, or unemployment, or infirmity, getting up, knocked down again, and again, and again, and again, until ground into the dirt, swallowed by the poverty trap.

The orphans did not start out with the same ‘mentality’, or the same outlook on life. And what of those who left behind a young brother who had ‘gone over the wall’, their mother and sickly sister still in the workhouse? Inside their ‘luggage’, that 6″ X 12″ X 18″ wooden box, was their ‘outfit’ and Douay Bible. But hidden inside there was also a parcel of guilt, and bereavement.

And after viewing the examples below, you may be inspired to ask if the impact of the Famine on these northern Irish orphans was very different from that experienced by other orphans, from Galway, or Mayo, or Cork, or Tipperary, for example. There are lots of things you can explore to help you place your individual Irish orphan in her appropriate historical context

Anne Lawler per Lady Kennaway from Galway

Let me show you these examples from my file. (Some people may not have access to that 1987 Familia article of mine). At last! i hear you say. Not all the examples are connected to a present-day descendant. Nor is this one,

Mother and Daughter: Catherine Tomnay from Armagh per Earl Grey

Catherine appears in PRONI record BG2/G/1 as Catherine Tomaney. At entry 456 she is described as the child of entry 322, Elenor Tomaney, a 59 year old RC widow, no calling, healthy, Armagh, coming in to the workhouse 1 February 1842 and leaving 14 October that year. Catherine was 16 but left the house earlier than her mother, on 15 August.

Yet soon after, at entry number 1166, Catherine re-enters the workhouse 1 September, and this time is described as ‘destitute’. She and her mother are regular ‘visitors’ to the workhouse throughout the 1840s until Catherine leaves 25 May 1848 to join other Earl Grey orphans on their way to Australia.

Having entered 1 September 1842, Catherine leaves again with her mum on 14 October. Then at entry numbers 1474 and 1475, 12 January 1843, Ellen is described as being ‘delicate’, and Catherine ‘unhealthy’. This time, the mother leaves 10 April 1843, Catherine not until 8 April 1844.

Once more at entry 3899, Elenor re-enters the workhouse 29 November 1845. This time she is described as a 62 year old widow who is “tolerably well”, from Armagh City. She leaves 16 March 1846.

Independently of her mother, (3967) Catherine comes back into the workhouse 13 December 1845 and is described as a 19 year old single Roman Catholic without calling who is thinly clothed and dirty, from Armagh City. This time, once again, she leaves with her mother 16 March 1846.

Finally, at entry 4536, Catherine is registered as Catherine Tamoney a Roman Catholic single female 19 years old who is thinly clothed and hungry, from Armagh City, entering the workhouse 7 March 1846, and leaving 25 May 1848. [Note the discrepancy re her surname and her date of entry].

My early findings, with a few annotations

I did find the file i was looking for. So here at last are some more examples of young female orphans inside their Ulster workhouse. They originally appeared in my 1987 Familia article. Since then, independently too, some of them were researched by their descendants. Some were not and still are not. Maybe more descendants will emerge as new generations are bitten by the family history bug.

The examples here are all Port Phillip arrivals, coming by the Derwent, and a few by the Diadem. They are from Indoor workhouse records for Armagh, Ballymoney, Downpatrick, Enniskillen and Magherafelt held in PRONI which is nowadays in the Titanic Centre in Belfast, should anyone wish to view the original records for themselves. Let me know if you have trouble reading them. My annotations are pretty scrawly.

It would be well worth checking out Peter Higginbotham’s great website for more information about each of these workhouses. See http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Ireland/UnionsIreland.shtml

Armagh: thinly clothed, hungry.

Ballymoney: ragged and dirty

Downpatrick: homeless

Enniskillen: deserted

Enniskillen cont.

Magherafelt: a medicant life

Happy hunting! Tóg go bog é agus lean ar aghaidh.

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (66); More Irish Sources

May I invite readers to have a look at Kay Caball’s ‘Comment’ to my blog post (64)? Kay outlines her method for tracing the “Kerry Girls”, the subject of her book, and stresses how important it is to get in touch with someone local who can help find your particular Earl Grey orphan in Ireland.

Let me return to what I’ve been trying to do in the last couple of blog posts viz. place an orphan in the workhouse where she lived before coming to Australia. I know full well I’ll repeat some things I’ve said before, or to put it more politely, reinforce what I’ve said before.

For instance, for this post which intends focusing on workhouse Indoor Admission and Discharge records, you may wish to review my https://wp.me/p4SlVj-4X

Towards the bottom of that one you will see how i found some of the Earl Grey orphans in Indoor Workhouse Registers. There’s a brief mention of Letitia Connelly and Alice Ball from Enniskillen, Maria Blundell and Mary Dowling from North Dublin, Marianne Howe and Mary Bruton from South Dublin, Sarah and Margaret Devlin, and Charlotte and Jemima Willcocks from Armagh, and Cathy Hilferty from Magherafelt. The orphans can be elusive. They are sometimes difficult to find. [Karen S. tells me she has found some Lady Peel orphans in the Cashel Registers].

Should you intend retracing your orphan’s steps in Ireland, it is very important to do all the homework you can before you leave for the Emerald Isle. Exactly which workhouse did she come from? What records have survived for that workhouse? Can I get access to them? Do i need to apply for a reader’s ticket? Can I find her baptism in church records? Is any member of her family mentioned in Tithe Applotment Books or in Griffith’s Valuation? Even send an email to a local history society. That kind of thing. Nowadays there is an ever increasing number of records being put online which will help you do this.

My aim in this post is to introduce you to information found in Workhouse Indoor Admission and Discharge Registers. Whet your appetite if you will. Let me pull together some of the things I’ve suggested recently. I’ll start by using the third example from a couple of posts ago.

Margaret Love from Enniskillen per Diadem 

Margaret married in July 1851, shortly after arriving in Port Phillip. She would have been about 17 years old or so. {Thanks Perry}.She married William Hargrave, a blacksmith from Leeds, England, a man of different religion from her own, and six years older. They had twelve children, six boys and six girls. But their first five girls and one boy died in infancy. That is a high infant death rate.

“The night your sister was born in the living-room

you lay on your bed, upstairs, unwaking,

Cryptsporidium frothing and flourishing

through the ransacked terraces of your small intestine...”

Sinead Morrissey, Home Birth

First settling in Geelong, the couple tried their hand at the gold diggings in Ballarat. Most likely with little success since William took up smithy work again in Moomambel, Mosquito and Maryborough. Margaret herself died in Maryborough Hospital of tertiary syphilis at the end of April 1877 when she was about 43 years of age. Margaret did not have an easy life.

• 

  Maryborough District Hospital c. 1866 courtesy State Library of Victoria

Let’s see if we can turn her life clock back and locate her in Irish workhouse records. Try typing “Church Hill Fermanagh” into your search engine. (You’ll need to skip Winston Churchill’s relationship with Fermanagh). And lo, there is a place spelled both Churchill and Church Hill in the parish of Inishmacsaint. Unfortunately its baptismal records do not cover the period we want. Churchill is some distance from Enniskillen workhouse where I found Margaret and her siblings, Sarah and Thomas, and Mary their dropsy afflicted mother. More of that in a moment.

Margaret Love

and from the database,

• Surname : Love
• First Name : Margaret
• Age on arrival : 16
• Native Place : Churchill, Fermanagh
• Parents : Mary
• Religion : Roman Catholic
• Ship name : Diadem (Melbourne Jan 1850)
• Workhouse : Fermanagh, Enniskillen
• Other : shipping: house servant, reads; PRONI Enniskillen PLU BG14/G/4 (3251) Union at large, sister of Sarah (also on Diadem) and Thomas, daughter of Mary who was disabled from dropsy. Empl. John Buckland, Geelong, £8, 12 months; apprentice; married William Hargrave in Geelong 1 Jul 1857, husband a blacksmith and miner; 12 children; lived Geelong, Ballarat; admitted Maryborough Hospital 27 Feb 1877, died 30 Apr 1877.

Margaret’s sister Sarah

• Surname : Love
• First Name : Sarah
• Age on arrival : 15
• Native Place : Fermanagh
• Parents : Mary [PLU records for sister Margaret]
• Religion : Roman Catholic
• Ship name : Diadem (Melbourne Jan 1850)
• Workhouse : Fermanagh, Enniskillen
• Other : shipping: nursemaid, reads; Enniskillen PLU PRONI BG14/G/5 (2238) servant out of place, Union at large (see sister Margaret also on Diadem) brother Thomas entered workhouse 3 Aug 1849, left 3 Oct 1849. Empl. John O’Loughlin, Point Henry, £7, 1 year, apprentice; married James Barry, Geelong, 2 Jun 1851.

Enniskillen workhouse

For some ‘recent’ news about the workhouse see https://www.irishnews.com/news/2017/11/21/news/enniskillen-workhouse-to-be-brought-to-life-with-lottery-funding-1192436/

There are a number of other Irish workhouses being restored, refurbished and turned into heritage sites. I know of at least two; Carrickmacross in County Monaghan and Portumna in County Galway. Readers may know of others?

Enniskillen workhouse is well served with surviving records . To find out more about its history try the following two links. Or type ‘Enniskillen workhouse’ into the search box at the end of this post to see what i have said about it already.

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Enniskillen/

https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/wpaper/200315.html

In this second link Cormac O’Grada , Timothy Guinnane and Desmond McCabe provide information on ‘Agency and Relief’ in Enniskillen, stressing how a ‘careless, incompetent, penny pinching‘ administration of the workhouse exacerbated the Famine throughout the Poor Law Union, and led to the dissolution of the Board of Guardians in March 1848. That was a lucky strike for Margaret and Sarah Love who were to leave in late 1849, by which time administration of the workhouse was in the hands of ‘professional’ Vice-Guardians, Gowdy and Trevor. Do have a look at that working paper. It may help you understand why so many Earl Grey orphans went to Australia from Enniskillen.

In the Board of Guardian Minute Books, 17 November 1846 [BG/XIV/A/2 page 490] and 16 March 1847 [p.572] we read that a Visiting Committee reported on the abysmal state of the workhouse. They found the house “in a miserable state of filth and irregularity” and complained “it must eventually result in fever and other diseases“. By March 1848 signs of the new reforming broom were being felt: “Resolved…that a pair of sheets be used in each bed, instead of one as at present; that a pauper be appointed to place a clean pair on each bed every fortnight and a clean shirt or chemise every week.

Resolved that the Schools of the Enniskillen workhouse Union be placed under the National Board of Education…” 

New buildings, better financial management, and administrative reform not only reduced the number of fever cases but prepared the way for Enniskillen workhouse being a major source of Earl Grey orphans going to Australia.

Indoor Registers : Enniskillen

To repeat what i said in blogpost 5, these are large heavy volumes containing plenty of information about inmates. They have space to record by number, the name and surname of each ‘pauper’, their sex, age, whether married or single, if child whether orphan, deserted or bastard,

widower or widow;

their employment or calling; their religious denomination,

if disabled, the description of their disability,

the name of their wife or husband, number of children,

observations on the condition of the ‘pauper’ when admitted,

the electoral division and townland where they lived,

the date when admitted or when born in the workhouse, and the date when they died or left the workhouse.

Potentially a goldmine of information, they are certainly worth ‘mining all within’. Yet such was the crushing day-to-day pressure of the Famine, not all registers were so meticulously kept, and relatively few have survived, most of them in the North of Ireland, and held in PRONI in the Titanic Centre in Belfast.

My own research notes written on cards in pencil are not as legible as i would like. I was determined to catch as many Earl Grey orphans as possible. I certainly did not research each orphan in detail. Tracing their whole workhouse history was not always possible. But those descendants who wish to visit Ireland and walk in the same space as their orphan ancestor, or breathe the same air, surely will have more time to comb these records, should they have survived. May i wish you every success?

What do i have for Margaret and Sarah Love in my notes?

My search in volumes BG14/G/4 and 5 in the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) was principally for those Earl Grey orphans who left Enniskillen workhouse on 3 October 1849 en route to Plymouth to join the Diadem, and those who would leave on the 26th of the same month to join the Derwent.

At BG14/G/4 No. 3249 Mary Love entered the workhouse on the 15 June 1848 with her children, Thomas (14 year old) and Margaret and Sarah who were described as twins and as being 16 years old. Note the discrepancy with Port Phillip shipping records. Their place of residence was Union at large, that is, they were homeless.

Mary was a 59 year old widow, Roman Catholic, who was disabled from dropsy, all of her family living from hand to mouth. Most likely they had survived by begging. And whilst Mary was recorded as being from the Union at large, alongside that entry appears the name of a townland which in my spidery handwriting looks to be Coldrum. We’ll need to check the names of townlands. Here’s a possibility https://www.townlands.ie/fermanagh/magheraboy/inishmacsaint/caldrum-glebe/

Mother Mary left the workhouse 12 October 1848, leaving her children still in the workhouse. Young Margaret stayed there until 3 October 1849. Sarah left 4 July 1849 but (at BG14/G/5 no. 2238) re-entered a couple of weeks later, 3 August ’49, before leaving with her sister on the 3rd October to join the Diadem.

There is another record at BG14/G/5 no. 1238 for a 65 year old Mary Love, Roman Catholic, no calling, aged and infirm, who entered the workhouse 1 May 1849 and left 30 July. She can hardly be the mother of our sixteen year old twins but as Kay Caball suggests, ages were not reliable. If we believe the entry we have above at no. 3249, our Mother Mary would have been about 45 years old when she gave birth to her son Thomas! More conundrums to resolve.

at Ulster Folk Museum, Cultra.

Here are a few more examples from Irish workhouse Indoor admission and discharge records relating to orphans who came to Australia per Diadem, Derwent and Earl Grey .

McManus families in Enniskillen workhouse

My first example is one that demands another visit to the archives. I’ve misplaced some of my notes, and the remaining ones are in a state of disarray. There was evidently more than one McManus family in Enniskillen workhouse. My surviving notes however do underline how desperate these families were. The McManus females were not long term residents of the workhouse but they frequented it on numerous occasions during the Famine years. {I’ll highlight the dates of their entry and leaving to help you trace that frequency}. They came in when they needed to, or when they were desperate enough. Using a bit of historical license, one might even imagine the emotions involved in their family breaking apart. But I’d be careful about ascribing my own emotions to people in the past.

Here, from my surviving notes, are references to them as they appeared in Indoor Registers BG14/G/4 and 5. {I’ll also highlight their place of residence. Remember what i said in an earlier post about the importance of geography. Type the townland name along with County Fermanagh into google or your alternative search engine and you will find exactly where the townland is}.

• No. 210 Mary McManus and 211 (?) Margaret McManus 15 yo single RC Laragh entered 4/7/1847 left 30/08/47
• 470 Mary McManus 18 yo RC 4/7/47 to 27/7/1847
• 947 Ann McManus 15 RC Letterbreen in 4/7/1847 out 18/09/47. She had entered along with her 9 yo, 5 yo and 3 yo siblings.
• 1185 Margaret McManus 16 s deserted by mother RC clean Laragh entered 3/09/1847 along with Mary 12 yo and Thomas 7 yo
• 1441 Mary McManus 14 yo entered with her 30(?) yo mother Mary(?) and her siblings Margaret 12, Eliza 8, Pat 5, Thomas 2 and Redmond 2 mths. Husband in Scotland. Laragh Cleenish Island entered 12/10/47 left 7/04/1848. Two members of this family were to come to Australia by the Derwent.
• 1474 Margaret McManus 12 yo orphan RC mother in house Ballycassidy Twy.
• 1797 Anne McManus 20yo paralyzed
• 2315 a Mary McManus (mother?) left the workhouse in 1850.
• 2362 & 2615 Mary McManus
• 2648 Ann McManus
• 2728 Mary McManus 12 yo daughter of 38 yo Ellen RC Florencecourt
• in 25/04/48 out 25 May 48
• 4060 Margaret McManus 16yo single RC Rahalton Derrygonnelly in 24/10/48 out 26/10/49 the date other orphans left Enniskillen to join the Derwent at Plymouth
• and 4064 as part of the same family group Mary 14 yo who entered on this occasion 24/10/48 and went out 9/11/48. This is looks to be Margaret’s sister who was also to join the Derwent.
• and just to confuse matters further in BG14/G/5 number 15 Margaret MacManus 17 yo s. RC Union at large Drumbeg, in 23/1/49 out 3/10/49 which is the date others left to join the Diadem. But there was no Margaret McManus on the Diadem.

One would need some time in the archives to find which of these McManus women and children belonged to whom. Notice how they moved around from townland to townland during the Famine years. {Remember how far the young hero traveled during the Famine in Paul Lynch’s brilliant novel, Grace}. It would appear that Margaret and Mary McManus per Derwent were sisters. Ann McManus may have belonged to a different family.

Ellen and Mary Fitzsimmons

Just a couple more for the Diadem, at BG14/G/4 nos 464 and 465, as part of a family, with mother Grace a 45 yo widow, Established Church, and a 15 yo brother Robert, Ellen Fitzsimmons 14 yo and Roseanne 12 yo entered 4 July 1847 and left 16 February 1848 ; nos 3592-5 Grace Fitzsimmons 45 yo widow no employment Aghnaglack in 10/08/1848 entering with Mary 17 yo no employment, along with Ellen 11 and Rose Ann 9, all of them leaving four days later on the 14th August. Then in BG14/G/5 at nos. 254-5 Ellen Fitzsimmons 18yo Protestant Carn Blacknett and Mary Fitzsimmons 16 yo Protestant entered the workhouse 26 January 1849 and left 3 October 1849, the same date as other orphans leaving to join the Diadem at Plymouth.

Armagh Indoor Registers BG2/G/1 and 2. Mary Littlewood

Let me finish with a couple more from Armagh Indoor Register where you can find many more Earl Grey orphans. The first relates to Mary Littlewood whose story i recounted in blogpost 9 https://wp.me/p4SlVj-dQ

I included a synopsis of her stay in the workhouse there. Here are further details that i hope help us understand young Mary a bit more. {I’ll continue highlighting the family’s dates of entry and leaving, and the townland where they resided}.

BG2/G/1 Unfortunately I didn’t always note down the numbers and there seems to be some duplication of entries in the second volume BG2/G/2.

BG2/G/1 nos. 5440-44 Mary Littlewood 54 yo married, husband Samuel, Protestant, enters with her four children from Rich Hill Ragged and dirty 1/11/1846 leaves 28/12/46; Mary, 15 yo thinly clothed and hungry 29 Nov. ’46 to 28 /12/46; Thomas William 13 yo leaves 1/12/46; John 11 yo and Ann Eliza 9 yo who leave 28/12/46. {Incidentally Richhill and Ballybreagh are not too far from Portadown, the birthplace of that great poet i quoted earlier, Sinead Morrissey}.

No 6159 Samuel married to Mary 57 yo Established Church from Rich Hill enters the workhouse with one of his children 13 yo Thomas William 12/12/46 leaves with his wife and the rest of the family 28 December 1846. The family all left on the same date. I wonder did they not like being separated from each other in the workhouse.

Nos. 7532-36 Mary Littlewood married no calling Protestant delicate husband Samuel Rich Hill Ballybreagh enters 16/2/47 leaves 14/08/47. No.7533 is 11 yo John followed by Ann Eliza 9years old, Samuel 57 yo married weaver very ill died 25 February 1847, and finally Mary 15 yo single leaves 10/08/1847.

• 

  Meenagarragh Cottier’s house for widow?

• 

  both taken at Ulster Folk Museum

Then in the next volume BG/G/2 nos. 1469 et seq. Mary Littlewood 54 yo married Established Church, thinly clothed and quite destitute, from the Union at Large (now she has nowhere to live) re-enters the same day 14/08/47 along with 11 yo John and 9 yo Ann Eliza. They all leave a few weeks later on 6/09/47. The family is only staying in the workhouse for very short periods.

We see the remainder of the family again at No. 2076 et seq. Mother Mary is described as a 52 year old widow a member of the Established Church (Church of Ireland or Anglican) from Rich Hill Ballybreagh coming in to the workhouse 5 October 1847. But she dies on the 10 March 1848. Shortly after, her eldest daughter Mary 15 yo leaves the workhouse 24 May 1848 en route to Plymouth to join the Earl Grey. She leaves behind her siblings, all of them described as thinly clothed and destitute, thirteen year old Thomas who absconds from the house 11 July ’48, 11 yo John who leaves 10 September 1850 and Ann Eliza 9 years old who leaves 18 July 1851. Bit by bit the family falls apart. I wonder what became of them. Mary Littlewood’s story, Earl Grey orphan, is recounted at https://wp.me/p4SlVj-dQ

Mary Anne Kelly per Earl Grey

Finally, the ubiquitous Mary Kelly. This one is Mary Anne Kelly who also came on the Earl Grey with her sister Rose. I did have some loose sheets with specific references to entries in the Indoor Registers that i used for the second volume of Barefoot & Pregnant? But they’ve gone missing. Here are the references from Barefoot; BG2/G/1 3119, BG2/G/2 439, 1417and for Rose BG2/G/2 439, 1418, 1819.

From my early numberless notes, BG2/G/2

Mary Anne Kelly single female 19 yo. Established Church, Thinly clothed and hungry, resides Middletown, entered 30 April 1847, left 6 May 1847. She had come in with her mother 40 yo Rose Kelly along with her siblings, sister Rose 15 yo and two brothers Patrick and Michael, all of them described as thinly clothed and hungry.

Three months later Mary Anne re-enters the workhouse but this time is described as a single female 19 yo Roman Catholic, recovering from fever thinly clothed and hungry, residing Middletown. She enters along with her younger sister Rose who is 15 years old. She too is recovering from fever. They enter 7 August 1847. Rose leaves 13 September 1847, Mary the 8th November.

But Rose comes back one day later, 14 September 1847, along with her two brothers 12 yo Patrick and 10 yo Michael. Rose is described as s f 15 reduced to 14 years old, Fatherless RC thinly clothed etc. Middletown. Rose will leave the workhouse on 24 May 1848 the same date other Armagh orphans leave to join the first orphan vessel, the Earl Grey. Patrick and Michael will leave the workhouse 26 September 1849.

Finally, Mary Anne Kelly single female 19 yo RC thinly clothed and destitute residing Middletown comes back to the workhouse 28 December 1847 and she too will leave 24 May 1848 en route to Port Jackson. The shipping record in Sydney will state her parents are called James and Rose, her mother being still alive and living in Middletown.

——————————————————————————————————————–

I can think of more things we might do. For example, see what we can discover about Armagh during the Famine. Or about the changes happening to the weaving industry in this densely populated county. Or about the workhouse itself.

Obviously the content of this post will be of particular interest to the descendants of Margaret and Sarah Love or Margaret and Mary McManus, and the others. Nonetheless i hope it encourages you to research ‘your’ own particular orphan inside the workhouse, in Downpatrick, Magherafelt, Ballymena, Dublin, Cashel or wherever. Be warned though, if Indoor Registers have survived, you may discover only a brief reference to your orphan. Yet nothing ventured, nothing…

“…discover by your grave cloths a replica of yourself

in turquoise faience, fashioned with a basket.

Here, it says. I’ll do it. Take me“.

from The House of Osiris in the field of reeds in Sinead Morrissey’s Parallax

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (64): some Irish sources.

Before returning to sources for researching the Irish background of the Famine ‘girls’, I’d like to draw readers’ attention to a reference provided by Shona Dewar (see comments to post 63). It concerns a question raised in the previous post, why family history is so popular. Here’s the link from Shona . It’s an essay by psychiatrist Chris Walsh. https://www.mbsc.net.au/genealogy-and-family-constellations/

Let me know what you think.

WORKHOUSE RECORDS

Here is something else from my old research notes. I’m assuming the classification is much the same nowadays for records both in Northern Ireland and the Republic. Best not to get too excited. These records may not exist for the workhouse in which you are interested.

AJ Dispensary Minute Books

BC Letters from Poor Law Commissioners

BGMB Board of Guardian Minute Books

BGG Indoor Admission and Discharge Registers

EG Relieving Officer’s Diary

F Workhouse Master’s Diary

HD Medical Report Books

It is the Board of Guardian Minute Books and the Indoor admission and discharge registers that I’ve used most of all. Australians descended from the Earl Grey Famine orphans who visit Ireland will want to see these for themselves. But it is best to do plenty of homework before going to Ireland, finding exactly where the records are located, and what you need to do in order to gain access to them, for example. Some records may even be available online, though not always for the time you want. These links may take a while to download. https://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2018/12/more-workhouse-registers-online-at.html

Let me return to one of the cases mentioned in my previous post to illustrate further some of the problems associated with researching Port Phillip arrivals. I hope it will suggest ways of researching the background of the orphan that interests you, and help you prepare for a holiday-family history visit to Ireland.

Killybegs, Donegal

CATHY TYRELL from Donegal per Lady Kennaway

In 1854 just over five years after arriving in Melbourne, Cathy Tyrell married a young bricklayer who was originally from Bedford, England. They settled in Carlton, North Melbourne where together they had seven children, three girls and four boys. Sadly in 1860 they lost a son Frederick when he was only six months old. When her husband died aged 58 in 1887, Cathy had thirteen years of widowhood ahead of her.

“…I know nothing of my country. I write things down. I build a life & tear it apart & the sun keeps shining“. (from Daily Bread by Ocean Vuong)

HELP PLEASE

May i ask readers for their help? Let me set out the problem. How do we find out more about Cathy’s Irish background? She supposedly came from a workhouse in Donegal but if we look at the following record we’ll see that on board the Lady Kennaway were orphans from four different Donegal Poor Law Unions; Donegal, Dunfanaghy, Letterkenny and Milford. And very rarely are these names specified alongside an orphan’s name on shipping records.

https://wp.me/p4SlVj-rc

To complicate matters even further, Castleblackney also appears alongside Cathy’s name. Surely this isn’t Castleblakeney not far from Mountbellew in County Galway? Or maybe it is.

and from the database,

• Surname : Tyrel (Tyrrell)
• First Name : Catherine (Katherine)
• Age on arrival : 16
• Native Place : Donegal [Castleblackney]
• Parents : Not recorded
• Religion : Roman Catholic
• Ship name : Lady Kennaway (Melbourne1848)
• Other : shipping: housemaid, reads & writes; empl. Edward Pope, Melbourne £10, 6 months; married Frederick Elmore Taylor, a bricklayer, in Melbourne May 1854; 7 children; died 19 Apr 1900.

What should we do?

Donegal fields

Check out the Board of Guardian minute books that have survived for the four Donegal workhouses mentioned above? Where are they held?

Peter Higginbotham’s great website may give us some clues. http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Donegal/

which takes us to http://www.donegalcoco.ie/culture/archives/countyarchivescollection/

http://www.donegalcoco.ie/culture/archives/countyarchivescollection/poorlawunionboardsofguardians1840-1923/

Before going any further, we’d need to confirm the Archives centre at Three Rivers in Lifford holds Poor Law records for the period we’re interested in. There are in fact Board of Guardian Minute books for all of the Donegal workhouses except the one that sent most of the Donegal orphans on board the Lady Kennaway, Donegal itself! Lawdy, lawdy. And if a visitor wanted to see any of these records she or he would be advised to write to the Lifford Archives centre beforehand to arrange a viewing.

Most of these workhouse records are now held in county record offices and libraries in the Republic of Ireland. But for the six counties of Northern Ireland they are held in the Public Records Office in the Titanic Centre in Belfast. One is a decentralised system, the other is centralised.

Now perhaps you noticed from https://wp.me/p4SlVj-rc

there were some orphans on board the Lady Kennaway from Ballinasloe workhouse in Galway. That’s not far from Castleblakeney the place name associated with Cathy. I wonder if there is an error in the shipping record. Or maybe Cathy was born in Castleblakeney but somehow ended up in Donegal workhouse before leaving for Australia.

What records have survived for Ballinasloe? The wonderful thing is that more and more of these records are appearing online. Check out this link below by clicking on the plus sign alongside Ballinasloe.

http://www.galway.ie/en/services/more/archives/digital/

It is also probably worth searching the baptismal records for the Parish of Ballinasloe to see if Cathy appears there, https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0324

Baptismal records have survived for the dates we want but they aren’t easy to read. They are a bit of an eyestrain. We’d need to take things very slowly and carefully. I suppose it comes down to how desperate we are.

Maybe all of this is to draw too long a bow, and we’d be better off checking http://www.findmypast.com.au, www.myheritage.com, www.irelandxo.com, www.ancestry.com, and the like.

Could someone help us here, please? I’m not a member of any of these. See if you can find anything about the young famine orphan, Cathy Tyrell?

(Have a look at the comments section below. Kay Caball has found her).

Recapitulation

To recap, what i’m trying to do is demonstrate what might be done for each and every orphan. Have a look again at what i said a couple of posts ago when i asked ‘which workhouse?’ It is more than half way down the post. https://earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com/2018/08/10/earl-greys-irish-famine-orphans-62-stories-revisions-and-research-tips/

Once you have found ‘your’ orphan’s workhouse you’ll need to find what records have survived. Again Peter’s http://http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

will be the place to start. There will be disappointments. No records may have survived for the period you want. But you may find Board of Guardian minute books that take you into the world where your orphan lived before she left for Australia. Most likely you will not find her name in these minute books but you will discover other fascinating details about her workhouse surroundings.

“…and my dead father’s voice,

which I’d forgotten I’d loved,

just singing a foolish song”.

(from Birthday video by Penelope Layland)

 

Board of Guardian Minute Books

May i suggest you don’t carry preconceived notions of workhouse life with you into the archives. You know the kind of thing i mean, most of it imprinted on the common memory by the works of Charles Dickens. Most of these young Irish Famine women were but short term residents of recently built institutions, institutions that were bursting at the seams, and severely strained by the crisis of the Great Irish Famine.

Here’s an earlier post with examples relating to arrangements for sending young orphans to Australia, http://earl-greys-irish-famine-orphans-3

The Board of Guardian minute books vary considerably from workhouse to workhouse. Guardians were legally required to keep a weekly record of the state of the workhouse: how many people received relief, both Outdoor relief and indoor relief, how many died in the workhouse, and what rates were collected and how much was not collected. Their minute books tell us what illnesses there were and how they were being treated; how discipline was maintained in the house and what punishment was meted out; what food there was for inmates, what bedding, and were teachers available for children. We see how well they coped with the shocking tragedy of the Famine, and how well they did not.

Let me give a few more examples of the kind of thing you might find, beginning with Belfast workhouse.

Belfast Workhouse

Belfast was one of the better-off and better organized workhouses. In early 1847, the Irish Poor Law Commission refused the Guardians’ request for more money to extend its fever wards, on the grounds “the town of Belfast is so wealthy and its inhabitants so enterprising, and the funds and credit of the Union is in such excellent condition that if assistance was given to the Belfast Board from the public purse by way of loan, it would be impossible to refuse a similar application from any Union in Ireland“. (BG7/A/5)

On the first of March 1848 (BG7/A/7, p.27) the diet for able-bodied inmates was changed to,

two days a week there would be

• Breakfast consisting of 6 oz meal and one third of a quart of buttermilk
• Dinner would be one quart of soup and 9 oz bread

three days a week there would be

• Breakfast 6 oz meal and a third of a quart of buttermilk
• Dinner would be 6 oz rice and an eighth of a quart of sweetmilk
• Supper 4 ox meal and one fifth of a quart of buttermilk

and two days a week able-bodied inmates would receive

• Breakfast 6 oz meal and a third of a quart of buttermilk
• Dinner 8 oz meal and a third of a quart of buttermilk
• Supper 4 oz meal and one third of a quart of buttermilk

Indian and oatmeal were to be used in equal proportions.

As you can see, it was not a nutritious diet.

Belfast did have its own problems: it was ‘peculiarly pressed by paupers from other places’. In 1847, authorities in Scotland, facing famine of their own, deported the Irish-born poor in their parish to the nearest Irish port which was usually Belfast. Those from Edinburgh, Paisley and Dundee were given bread and cheese for their voyage and day of landing. Those from Glasgow were given nothing. Such an influx of extra people put an enormous strain on Belfast’s local charities and public works programmes. In turn, many of the new arrivals were moved on, out of town.

Disease

In the workhouse itself the Medical Officer complained that “treating several contagious diseases in the same place is attended with very great risk to the patients”. He treated smallpox patients in a small bathroom, those suffering from erisipilas (a bacterial skin disease) in the straw house, and asked for another place for dysentery patients. In August 1847 there were 337 patients in the fever ward.

In May 1848 just before the first contingent of Earl Grey orphans left the workhouse for Plymouth a number of syphilis cases were admitted (BG7/A/7, p.153) . In November there were 30 cases still under treatment. And then, in December of the same year, the Medical Officers had their first scare of cholera, a disease that would add many more to the Famine death toll.

Belfast workhouse would be an important ‘staging post’ for Earl Grey orphans setting out to join ships that would take them to Australia, the Earl Grey, the Roman Emperor, the Diadem and the Derwent.

Cashel workhouse, Tipperary

At the other end of the country, Cashel workhouse guardians were to buckle under the pressure of the Famine in 1847 and 1848. At the end of 1847 the Matron of the workhouse wrote a damning report. “I again beg to call your attention to the state of the House. It is in such disorder and confusion that it is impossible to stand it… The pints and quarts are taken away and in consequence the children are not getting their rights. Several sheets and other articles were lately stolen. The bad characters in the House are at liberty to go out and return when they please…”.

And on the first of January 1848, the Medical Officer was equally distraught, “your Hospital is crowded to excess and the paupers are falling sick in dozens. I cannot admit anyone into the hospital for want of accommodation”.

There was such distress in the area there was an immense shortfall in the rates being collected, (Week ending 15 January 1848 Collected  401 pounds and seven pence, 401.0.7, Uncollected ten thousand eight hundred and ninety four pounds fifteen shillings and two pence, 10,894.15.2). The situation was not helped by the likes of Michael Lyons, Collector for Clonoulty and Kilpatrick, collecting some of the arrears, and absconding.

11 October 1848, the Guardians were dismissed. The Board was dissolved and semi professional bureaucrats, or Vice-Guardians, took over running the workhouse–fortunately for the female orphans who would set out for Australia the following year. To give you an idea of the scale of demands, provisions for the workhouse in the last week of October 1848 included,

• 6,000 lbs bread
• 300 lbs meat
• 5,200 gallons milk
• 224 lbs salt,
• 2 lbs tea,
• 14 lbs sugar
• 40 lbs sugar surrup…
• 7 lbs candles
• 1 1/4 cwt soap
• 6 lbs starch
• 21 lbs washing soda

Re the female orphan emigration itself in 1849, such was the work, and such a large amount of monies required for

sending the female orphans to Plymouth,

with wooden boxes,

properly clothed, (3 Feb. 1849 Resolved that the tender of John O’Brien be accepted for the supply of 100 pairs of women’s shoes of the required sizes equal in quality and workmanship to the sample lodged with the Clerk of the Union at 4 shillings a pair”…
Resolved…that advertisements be issued for other articles viz, twilled calico, twilled linen, whalebone, cheap quilts, cheap bonnets, printed calico for wrappers and gowns, wool plaid for gowns and cl0aks, neck handkerchiefs of various qualities, pocket handkerchiefs, gingham for aprons and boxes)

and equipped with Bibles, Prayer books and other religious books,

that the local economy must have benefited. Yet this benefit may not have outweighed the burden imposed on the workhouse itself. It could ill afford the expense of sending the orphans, given its other commitments. I wonder did some of the young women feel guilty about their emigration?

Some online workhouse records

Why not have a go yourself? Here is a backpack, a compass, and a toasted vegemite and cheese sandwich to help you with your ‘virtual’ exploration of some Irish workhouse records.

http://tipperarystudies.ie/poor-law-union-records/

https://www.limerick.ie/discover/explore/historical-resources/limerick-archives/archive-collections/limerick-union-board

This next one contains something from Ennistymon, Killarney, and Kilrush BGMB (Board of Guardian Minute Books). It may take a while to download any of these.

http://www.digitalbookindex.org/_search/search010hstirelandworkhousea.asp

And this one repeats a couple of the links above. It has Indoor Registers for Cashel and Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

http://tipperarystudies.ie/workhouse-registers/?fbclid=IwAR2r9dTVP1ir7UGK-d63gMZhSGU0hdiAsLokGUhFJuWVE9KqJUm4WOmdxU0

Go well.

“What a strange thing,

to be thus alive

beneath the cherry blossoms”. (Kobayashi Issa)

I’ll say something about Admission and Discharge Registers next time.

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (63): a couple of questions

a dog’s breakfast

I’m afraid this is just bits and pieces, some more chunky than others. I intend posing some questions,

Why is there such an interest in family history in [Australia]? Enter whatever term you wish instead of “Australia”.

What are some of the problems in identifying the Earl Grey orphans who arrived in Port Phillip?

And for those wanting more on their orphan’s Irish background, what’s available for researchers?

FAMILY HISTORIES

Over twenty years ago when researching my chapter in Irish Women in Colonial Australia, I visited the Kingston Centre in Melbourne. I was looking for records of the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum. Sadly, few records have survived. Yet the keeper of the records, Sandy Forster, told me how much family history helped with the rehabilitation and palliative care of those in the Centre. It was wonderful to hear that. I hope it still helps patients in the Hospital. That’s one good reason for encouraging family history.

For background to the Kingston Centre, see http://localhistory.kingston.vic.gov.au/htm/article/302.htm

Why do so many people become hooked on the family history line? Is the following a major reason? A member of my own family told the story of a relative from overseas standing in the middle of a road and saying, “so this is where I come from”.  That is, the perennial search for “roots”.

What is the attraction of family history or genealogy? Not everyone is so smitten, me being a case in point. Maybe readers would share the reasons for their own interest? Or try giving an answer to the first question above? Or explain the appeal of the Irish Famine orphans?

I’ve made suggestions about writing orphans’ stories throughout this blog. You may like to refresh your memory of some of them. See the post titled ‘Where to from here?’ https://wp.me/p4SlVj-Gf

Or for some specific examples, the refulgent history of Bridget McMahon from Rathkeale, Co. Limerick, https://wp.me/p4SlVj-PV

or the story of ‘Belfast Girl’ Mary McConnell, https://wp.me/p4SlVj-LL

Maybe you can find something there to act as template for your own orphan ‘girl’?

Port Phillip arrivals: some problems

Some of the excellent research done on the Port Phillip orphans since my efforts last century can be viewed at http://wiki.prov.vic.gov.au/i,ndex.php/Irish_Famine_Orphan_Immigration

Was this the work of Christine O’Donnell at the Public Records Office of Victoria?

What’s been achieved since my own and Ada Ackerley’s efforts in the 1980s and 1990s is now on the database at http://www.irishfaminememorial.org/orphans/database/

But let me take you back to some of the issues i had when i began. Most of them are still relevant.

Without an orphan’s parents’ names, how did i know i had identified an Earl Grey orphan correctly?  When i first used Victorian birth, death and marriage records, for example, i began with what i thought were ‘distinctive ‘names; Sarah Totten, Susan Sprouls, Mary Birmingham, Arabella Kelly, Dorinda Saltry, for example. Maybe i was influenced by my own name. It’s much easier searching for trevor mcclaughlin, with the extra ‘c’, than it is for trevor mclaughlin.

Obviously other things were involved in identifying Port Phillip orphans. I looked at their place of origin, their age, the address of their employer, if their shipmates witnessed their wedding and the birth of their children, that kind of thing. How many of these could i line up? Did i have enough evidence to say i had ‘found’ one of the “lost children” or was there an act of faith involved? These are questions still worth posing, i believe, especially for anyone ‘discovering’ a famine orphan in their family tree.

Here are a couple of my research cards when i was working with Victorian vital statistics. You can imagine the ‘fun’ i had. I still believe i achieved a high degree of accuracy for the Victorian orphans especially in the first volume of Barefoot and Pregnant?

Presumably in working back through your own family history the level of certainty increases. A direct ancestral line may convince you that is all you need. But does that mean you should have no doubts at all? The sheer number of Irish women arriving in Port Phillip as assisted immigrants during the 1850s may be problematic.

Common names

Look at how many ‘Mary Howes’ or ‘Mary McGraths’ arrived in Port Phillip shortly after the orphans arrived, for example. https://prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/explore-topic/passenger-records-and-immigration/assisted-passenger-lists

That particular example may not apply to you personally but it surely does to many, to the Kellys, Egans, Connells, Reillys, McNamaras, Murphys, Byrnes, Ryans and Dunns to name a few?

Ages

Especially when we remember how iffy an orphan’s age could be. Kay Caball explains it in one of her blogposts https://mykerryancestors.com/kerry-19th-century/

“Very few Irish people knew (or even cared about) their exact year/date of birth. Even when they wrote down a definite date, that was just a guess.  They weren’t trying to fool anyone or be evasive, it was just never of any importance at home and only on emigration did it become necessary in the new country for identification purposes.”

Other tripwires

What if your orphan’s ‘native place’ recorded on a shipping list differs more than once from that recorded at the birth of her children (as in the Margaret Sheedy example below)? What if she marries more than once, or takes the name of her ‘de facto’ husband? Or constructs a new identity for herself? Or adopts an alias to escape from the law?

Now our orphan has become more elusive, raising questions and leaving us with more and more room for error. She is slipping through our fingers. We all should be willing to check the evidence we have, question ourselves, identify when we have made ‘a leap of faith’ because we want such and such to be true, or desire an Irish Orphan in our family tree. Sometimes we just do not have the certainty or evidence we would like. In the end, it is up to us to be honest with ourselves.

 

Irish sources

There are still a number of things keeping me close to the Famine orphans; an historian’s interest in the subject, naturally, a desire to help Australians find more about their Earl Grey orphan ancestors, and stronger than ever, an interest in helping refugees through the outreach programme associated with http://www.irishfaminememorial.org

“Concern and fear are clear in the eyes of the young Rohingya boy. He looks around the group with his dark eyes, looks around with his almond-shaped eyes, searching for potential sanctuary in the faces of strangers”. (from Behrouz Boochani, No Friend but the Mountains, Picador, 2018, p. 87.)

Lately a number of people have approached me for help finding out more about the Irish background of their orphan. So here is a bit more of that dog’s breakfast. I’ll use examples from my research cards above. And I’ll be going back over some of the things said previously .

Here’s the first case, Margaret Sheedy from Clonmel per New Liverpool.

Margaret was to marry fellow Irishman Daniel Corbett shortly after arriving, and together they had ten children. She lived her short life as a farmer’s wife in Kilmore. She died aged 36 or 37, a month after the birth of her last child, a little boy called Thomas.

From the family reconstitution form below Margaret is listed as having come from Limerick–Tipperary, reflecting what was stated at the registration of the birth of some of her children. In the excerpt from the database, and indeed on the New Liverpool shipping list, her place of origin is Clonmel, Tipperary. If we want to know more about Margaret’s Irish background that would be a good place to start.

• Surname : Sheedy
• First Name : Margaret
• Age on arrival : 15 or 16
• Native Place : Clonmel, Tipperary
• Parents : Not recorded
• Religion : Roman Catholic
• Ship name : New Liverpool (Melbourne 1849)
• Workhouse : Tipperary, Clonmel
  Other : shipping: house servant, cannot read or write; probably sister of Ellen; Clonmel PLU 14 Apr 1849, BG67/A/9 p.257 list of 28 orphan girls about to leave the workhouse, includes Margaret Sheedy, aged 18, left workhouse on 18 Apr 1849; Empl. Henry H Nash, Stephen St., £8, 6 months; married Daniel Corbett, 23 May 1851, Melbourne; husband a farmer; 10 children; lived Kilmore; she died 12 Sep 1870, one month after the birth of her last child.

Note the reference to Clonmel Board of Guardian records. This is one of the many workhouse records held in Irish repositories. As per my last post, post 62, my first port of call is Peter Higginbotham’s great website. See http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Clonmel/

Even if Peter no longer gives details of what sources have survived, his site is still a mine of information. Click on the “Tipperary Studies” link at the bottom of that page, and may i wish you good luck with your hunting and exploring? If you are thinking of making a trip to Ireland one day, make sure you find where the records are stored, and write to the relevant library beforehand.

Clonmel Board of Guardian Minute books are exceptional in that they include the names of famine orphans who came to Australia. That is rarely the case elsewhere. Yet they will always take you into the world ‘your’ orphan occupied in the days before she left Ireland.

Here is what appears on that page (257) in the Clonmel workhouse Board of Guardian Minute Books,

“Names of twenty-eight females who have emigrated from this Union on the 18th April 1849,

Ellen Sheedy 16 years, Katherine Dunne, 16, Margaret Walsh, 16, Margaret Greene, 17, Margaret Sheedy, 18, Mary Ann Butler, 17, Bridget Gearon, 18, Mary Goggin*, 18, Catherine Ryan, 18, Catherine Hickey, 19, Bridget Flynn*, 18, Margaret Purcell, 18, Mary Murphy*, 19, Margaret Dyer, 18, Ellen Preston*, 18, Anne Gillard, 19, Ellen Nugent, 17, Mary Ryan, 16, Mary Noonan, 17, Margaret Dempsey, 19, Katherine Castell*, 16, Margaret Hughes, 17, Bridget McDermott, 16, Mary Grady*, 18, Honora Farrell, 16, Ellen Fraher, 17.

NB. Number 28 on this list Ellen Fraher is the person to make up the twenty-eighth emigrant to go. Her certificate has already been sent amongst the thirty two. I now send a certificate for Mary Murphy to replace that of Mary Farrell the latter having declined to go and Mary Murphy being now sent in her place. The general certificate of health will be taken tomorrow by the Ward Master in charge.

The six marked with an asterisk had smallpox. The rest were vaccinated. Thomas Scully, Medical Officer.

Names of female emigrants approved of to go from Clonmel Union workhouse by the next opportunity: Bridget Farrell, age, 18, Alice Crotty, 15, Judith Crotty, 17, Margaret Long, 19, Mary Crimmin, 17, Katherine Ryan, 17, (Mary Ann Willis*), 15, Judith Shugrue, 18.

There are several other females in the workhouse eligible and willing to go, and for whom the guardians are satisfied to defray the expenses of outfit etc when sanctioned by the Commissioners”.

What I’d do next is have a look for Margaret’s baptism in parish records. Maybe she was born in Clonmel St. Mary’s https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/1102

or in Clonmel Ss Peter and Paul. But alas the baptismal records that survived for this parish begin in 1836.

Or try contacting a local historical society to see if anyone might help. They’d be only too willing I’m sure and would be a great help in finding out more about the Famine in Clonmel and surrounds. That workhouse.org website mentioned above will direct us to the excellent Tipperary Historical Society for example.

That is enough for now. I’m tempted to put this in the rubbish bin. I’ll continue another time.

Btw, The featured image of this post is the cover of The Great Famine. Irish Perspectives, edited by John Gibney, Pen & Sword History, 2018, isbn 9781526736635. They’ve given me a promotion.

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (61); some more orphan stories

SOME MORE ORPHAN STORIES

Visitors to the Irish Famine Monument at Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney will know well the glass panels where names of about 400 Earl Grey’s famine orphans are inscribed. As the late Professor Joan Kerr put it, “the transparent screen that takes its place bearing the names of…the Irish migrant women who lived at Hyde Park is a tribute to those whose journey created this bridge between a fondly remembered yet tragic past and a more promising yet alien future”.

Perhaps you noticed how the names fade away at the edge of the panels. That ‘fading’ is the artists’ intent.

“The fading is part of the memorial – as their names fade on the glass so does the memory of some of these young female immigrants”.  http://www.irishfaminememorial.org/en/about-monument/

I imagine this first example is one of the ‘fading memories’ the artists had in mind.

Jane Lidd(e)y per Diadem from Leitrim

Before the nineteenth century wore out, there would be few people in Australia who would remember young Jane Liddy (Liddey) from Leitrim. She may have come from Carrick on Shannon workhouse, http://www.workhouses.org.uk/CarrickOnShannon/

When Jane arrived in Port Phillip as a sixteen year old she was apprenticed to William Brickwood of Brighton, being promised £7 per annum. In 1852 she married, and married well, to a man from Denmark nearly eighteen years her senior. Like many who profited from the Victorian goldrush of the 1850s, Charles Christian Frederick Stander, or Stender, provided goods and services to miners, and for a while had success as a miner too. When their last child was born in 1868, Charles Frederick was describing himself as a ‘Gentleman’. The family owned a hotel, The Golden Age, at Knockwood.

Here is the family ‘reconstituted’ from my days working in Victorian records.  Note how young Charles and Jane were when they died. Very few, if any, of their children would survive to adulthood. According to the ‘Account of Administration’ of the estate only one child, Joseph William, was still alive in 1889, and had reached the age of 21.

Here is the database entry.

• Surname : Liddey
• First Name : Jane
• Age on arrival : 16
• Native Place : Leitrim
• Parents : Not recorded
• Religion : Church of England
• Ship name : Diadem (Melbourne Jan 1850)
• Other : shipping: nursemaid, reads & writes; Empl. William Brickwood, Brighton, £7, 12 months, apprentice; married Charles Frederick Stander/Stender 3 Feb 1852, husband a carrier, miner, publican & gentleman; 9 children most did not survive to adulthood; Jane died 28 Feb 1881, 3 months after her husband. Husband’s estate valued at £1759. Owned the ‘Golden Age Hotel’ in Knockwood. The inheritance was swallowed up in the maintenance and medical care of the children.

By the time of Charles’s death in November 1880 his estate was valued at £1759, a considerable sum for those days. Jane’s estate would be valued at £338. Yet little of that would make its way into the pocket of any surviving children.

Here is the ‘Account of Administration’ of their estate which shows you where the money went. Quite a few people laid claim;

• monies owing to various people;
• commission to those who arranged sale of their assets whether it was the Golden Age Hotel at Knockwood, their furniture or cattle or personal effects;
• lawyers fees,
• sundry disbursements,
• doctors fees,
• and regular sums for the board and lodging and maintenance of their young children at the Melbourne Orphan Asylum.

By June 1889, eight years after Jane’s death, Joseph William Stander having reached 21 was entitled to one fourth of the remaining estate, £102 2 shillings and 5 pence halfpenny. I wonder what became of young Joseph. Did he remember much about his mother? How loving she was? Where she came from? Did he know anything of her past?

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Just a couple more brief histories. These ones are remembered.

Catherine Naughton from Tynagh, Galway per Inchinnan

She may have come from the Loughrea workhouse http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Loughrea/

Or Ballinasloe?

Catherine married John Broderick in 1852 less than three years after her arrival. John was also from Galway. Together they had eight children, six girls and two boys. Her father Edward, convicted of Whiteboy activities, was transported to Sydney in 1832 and was supposedly living in Sydney. One hopes Catherine was able to find him. Irish birth dates and ages, especially for that era, are notoriously flakey. If Catherine was indeed only 18 when she joined the Inchinnan she may still have been in her mother’s womb when Edward was tried and transported. Like many of her compatriots Catherine knew the importance of ‘family’. Her sister Mary was also part of the Earl Grey scheme, arriving in the next vessel to Sydney, the Digby. Another sister Bridget who arrived by the Sabrina in 1854 may have been sponsored by Catherine and her husband.

Catherine and John had ten, or was it eight? children, and prospered in the Goulburn area of New South Wales. When John died in 1912, nearly eleven years after Catherine, his estate was valued at £2124. At one time I did have a photograph of Catherine’s grave in Laggan, Crookwell. I only hope i gave it to someone who cherished it.

From the database, originally in Barefoot vol.2, p. 166 which lists my informant Pat Astill of Narromine.

• Surname : Naughton
• First Name : Catherine
• Age on arrival : 18
• Native Place : Tenagh [Tynagh], Galway
• Parents : Edward & Bridget (father living in Sydney)
• Religion : Roman Catholic
• Ship name : Inchinnan (Sydney 13 Feb 1849)
• Workhouse : Ballinasloe or Loughrea PLU
• Other : shipping: nursemaid, cannot read or write, relation in colony: father living in Sydney – Edward Naughton had arrived per Eliza in 1832, whiteboy; Catherine married John Broderick in Goulburn in 1852; 10 children; died 1901, buried Crookwell; gravestones in Laggan cemetery. Her sister Mary also arrived by the ‘Digby’ 4 Apr 1849 and sister Bridget by the ‘Sabrina’ 10 Jul 1854. Her husband’s estate was valued at £2,124, mostly real estate.

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The next one is a tale of acculturation, two of Catherine’s children organised the Gilgandra Coo–ee recruitment march in the spring of 1915 during the First World War, shortly after their mother had died. I wonder would she have approved. Would she have voted against conscription? Or perhaps she too, like her sons, became caught up in defence of the British Empire.

Catherine Guare from Askeaton, Limerick per  Lismoyne

Catherine may have come from Rathkeale workhouse http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Rathkeale/

From the database

• Surname : Guare
• First Name : Catherine
• Age on arrival : 16
• Native Place : Eskeaton [Askeaton], Limerick
• Parents : Richard & Bridget (mother living at Eskeaton)
• Religion : Roman Catholic
• Ship name : Lismoyne (Sydney 29 Nov 1849)
• Workhouse : Limerick, Rathkeale
• Other : shipping: nursemaid, cannot read or write, no relatives in colony; empl. Mr de Phillipsthall, Bathurst, £8, 1 year; mother’s name Mary according to Askeaton baptismal records; married George Hitchen, Bathurst 1850; 10 children; husband ex-convict and gold digger on Meroo River, 1854-83; two sons, Richard & William, organised the Gilgandra Cooee Recruitment March in the spring of 1915; grandson, Roy Munro, was awarded a DCM for conspicuous gallantry in France in 1917. George died in 1902; Catherine died 1913, buried Gilgandra.

My Barefoot volume 2, p.218 has a bit more. “Catherine died 27 October 1913, buried Gilgandra; her estate valued at £1049. Their present descendants number in the region of 1200 people. Her obituary is in The Leader and Stock and Station News, Morning Daily, Orange, 29 October 1913. There is an excellent family history by her descendant David Leese”. I see David did a good job of filling out my family reconstitution form in April 1986!

Catherine’s obituary appears in Barefoot vol.2, p.136. It begins “There crossed the bar, at the ripe old age of 80 years, on Monday night, Mrs Catherine Hitchen, one of the grand old pioneers, who “won the land from the bitterest wastes out back“. Like Charles Stander, George Hitchen would make his fortune as miner and later hotelier, first in Tooraweenah, then ‘at Collie, on the Marthaguy Creek, mid way between Gilgandra and Warren’, and finally Dubbo. According to The Leader and Stock and Station News, “Mrs Hitchen was well known for her charitable deeds and actions, and many a western man and woman of the old and sturdy stock will shed a silent tear to the memory of the departed lady“.

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Finally just a couple of extracts from the wills of orphans who prospered in Australia. They are a contrast with the sad lives of those on the streets of Sydney who appeared in the last couple of posts. Neither epitomizes the history of the orphans in Australia.

The first is of

Letitia Connelly from Enniskillen, Fermanagh per Derwent

From the database,

• Surname : Connelly (Connolly)
• First Name : Letitia
• Age on arrival : 16
• Native Place : Enniskillen, Fermanagh
• Parents : Not recorded
• Religion : Roman Catholic
• Ship name : Derwent (Melbourne Feb 1850)
• Workhouse : Fermanagh, Enniskillen
• Other : Shipping: house servant, reads & writes; Enniskillen PLU PRONI BG/14/G/4 (2065) orphan, Ballyreagh, Salry, entered workhouse 2 Feb 1848 left 26 Oct 1849. Empl. L Tweedy, Lonsdale St., Melbourne £7, 12 months; 18 Mar, returned to depot; 29 Apr reassigned Mr & Mrs McClelland, Collins St., Melbourne £5, 3 months; 3 Jul ‘still not returned’; married William Hayes, 4 May 1856 at Brighton; 5 children, husband a storekeeper, lived Dunolly; she died 13 May 1899; husband was an astute businessman whose wealth was from dividends of Goldsborough Mining Company, his estate valued at £7487 in 1890; See ‘Barefoot & Pregnant’, vol. 2, pp.134-6 for details of Wills, funeral and death notices.

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Finally, a Queensland success story,

Margaret Blair from Ballymena, Antrim per Earl Grey

From the database,

• Surname : Blair
• First Name : Margaret
• Age on arrival : 16
• Native Place : Ballymenagh [Ballymena], Antrim
• Parents : Charles & Elizabeth (both dead)
• Religion : Presbyterian
• Ship name : Earl Grey (Sydney 6 Oct 1848)
• Workhouse : Antrim, Ballymena
• Other : shipping: house servant, reads only, no relatives in colony. PLU Ballymena PLU BG/4/G/2 (49) Union at large; empl. Mr P Friell, Paddington, near Sydney, £9, 2 years indenture; Register No.262 30 Nov 1848, transfer from Philip Friell to Rev Charles Woodward, Headmaster, Sydney College, Hyde Park, allowed by committee; orphan wages: Empl Rev Charles Woodward in 1849 & empl Elizabeth Underwood, Ashfield by Oct 1849; Rev John McGarvie applied for her as house servant 12 Mar 1849, response was to send her to the country, No.901 2 Oct 1849 Moreton Bay; married John Hardgrave in Brisbane in 1850, husband a shoemaker, 8 children; died 1924, buried Toowong. Husband’s estate valued at £9250.

What a turn up for a youngster who was of no fixed abode in 1848!

Please excuse the quality of these scans. At least they should give you an idea of the Hardgrave family’s  extensive landholdings.

“What is it that we really know anyhow? We cannot hold the truth of this world in our hands. And this word truth, what can a word measure? The truths that men hold solemn, their beliefs and their doctrines and their certitude, all of it is but smoke on the wind. And so I am happy to as I am in this not knowing…”. Paul Lynch, Grace, p.353