More Molloys in the Curragh

In July of this year the National Library of Ireland launched their website of Catholic parish registers showing baptism and marriage records for parishes across Ireland, previously only available on microfilm onsite in Dublin (http://registers.nli.ie).  This treasure came with some drawbacks – none of the names in the registers are indexed, so finding an entry means paging through the register for the relevant years looking for a familiar name. And some of the pages themselves are deeply unreadable, splodged or obliterated by ink marks, with entries written in close, crowded script.

Nevertheless I had a happy time looking for Molloys in the parish covering the locality of Brownstown or the Curragh, the locations given by the Molloys in Australia as their place of origin.  This parish turned out to be called Suncroft, in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.

The Curragh, according to Wikipedia, is a flat open plain of 5,000 acres of common land, comprising well drained sandy soil ideal for horse breeding and training.  It hosts the premier race course in Ireland and the National Stud is located close by, on the outskirts of Kildare town.  The Curragh Camp has been a site of military training and barracks for centuries, historically for the British army and more recently for the Irish Defence Forces.

Brownstown lies to the south of The Curragh, and to the south east of the town of Kildare. In terms of the townland system of civil divisions, there were a number of variants of Brownstown –  Lower, Upper, Great and Little.

Ordnance Survey Kildare-Wicklow map, 1985

Registers for Suncroft parish in the National Library collection run from 1805 to 1880 for baptisms and from 1805 to 1881 for marriages. I located the baptismal record for Patrick Molloy, my great grandfather, recorded on 5 August 1840.  HIs parents’ names are given as John Molloy and Sarah Byrne, and baptismal sponsors were Pat Walsh and Eliza Doyle.  His parents’ abode was given as Brownstown.

His parents, John and Sarah (also known as Sally), were married in 1839, on 23rd April in Suncroft parish, with witnesses John Keegan and Mary Fitzgerald.

Registration of marriage of John Molloy and Sally or Sarah Byrne, 23rd April 1839

Patrick was obviously their eldest child.  He was followed by two Molloy children I had not previously known about:

• Mary, baptised 27 May 1842; sponsors were Garrett Byrne and Mary Coman. Parents Jno. & Sally Byrne. Abode Brownstown.
• James, baptised 27 April 1845; sponsors were James Keegan, Mary Byrne. Parents John & Sally Byrne. Abode Brownstown
• John, baptised 6 August 1848; sponsors were Patrick Molloy and Cath. Byrne. Parents John & Sally Byrne. Abode Brownstown
• Eliza, baptised 6 March 1851; sponsors were Martin Doyle and Mary Molloy. Parents John & Sally Byrne. Abode Curragh
• Peter, baptised 8 July 1855; sponsors were Edward and Jane Byrne. Parents John & Sarah Byrne. Abode Brownstown

All siblings except for Mary and James are known to have migrated to Australia (their migration story is in this post).  I have not yet been able to find further information about Mary or James.  In the parish records, there is a Mary Molloy marrying a Patrick Fitzgerald in Suncroft parish in 1876, when she would have been 34, but I don’t currently have any further information to verify that this Mary Molloy is from our Molloy family.

John Molloy’s occupation was given by his children on their marriage and death certificates in Queensland as either a labourer or farmer.  His name doesn’t appear on Griffiths Valuation as a tenant farmer in any of the Brownstown townlands at the time it was published for County Kildare in 1853.

My mother spent a happy time with friends visiting the Curragh area of County Kildare in March 1983, knowing that her Molloy ancestors were from Kildare, a time made even happier by news of the birth of her first grandchild, far away in New Zealand.

In Memory of Veronica Buchanan, nee Molloy (1923 – 2015)

The Black family migration from Port Appin to Aberdeen

In my earlier post on the family of Duncan Black and Mary McKay, I was unable to provide a complete description of their family as I was not able to identify the whereabouts of their son, George Black. I have since found George and now have the details of his family and descendants for two further generations. George also migrated to Aberdeen from Port Appin, following his brother Archibald.

I located George in the 1861 census, living in Archibald’s home in Aberdeen at 12 Yeats Lane, working as a labourer at a chemical works, possibly the same workplace as Archibald.  1861 was also the year George married, on 5th July, to Christina (her name is also given as Christian) Thomson, a native of Aberdeen and a woollen mill worker.

Christina’s father John Thomson was a farmer and the family appear to have lived for a while in Banchory, about 18 miles west of Aberdeen.  Two of Christina’s elder siblings, John and Isabella, were born in Banchory, although her parents were married in Aberdeen.  By the time of Christina’s birth in 1836, the family was living in Aberdeen.  Christina’s mother was Elspet or Elsie Falconer, born about 1800.   She supported the family for many years after the death of her husband and was living with Christina and son-in-law George when she died in 1875.

George Black and Christina Thomson lived initially at 2 Windy Wynd and later at 184 Gallowgate, Aberdeen. They had eight children at these addresses:

• George, born 10th January 1862
• Isabella, born 13th October 1863
• Christina, born 22nd June 1865, died 26th April 1870
• Mary, born 10th September 1867
• John, born 27th September 1869, died 6th December 1870
• Elsie Falconer, born 16th March 1872 (named after her maternal grandmother)
• Margaret (Maggie), born 6th January 1874
• John, born 18th May 1876.

Christina lived to the age of 70 in 1906.  The information on her death certificate was provided by her daughter Elsie Rippon, nee Black.

George died in 1918, at the age of 85, at his daughter Margaret Ingram’s house in Ashvale Place, Aberdeen.  He died on 13th April.  The day before on the 12th, one of his grandsons, Lawrence Rippon, was killed in action in France, fighting with the Royal Scots 2nd Battalion.

Of George and Christina’s children, all married and had families, except for Christina and the first John who both died young.

• George, a plumber,  married Catherine Skakle Mitchell from Cullen in Banffshire in 1887 and they had four children, all living in Aberdeen.

Family of George Black (1862 – 1937) and Catherine Mitchell (1860 – 1943)

• Isabella, a flax mill worker,  married William Beattie Duncan, a gardener, in 1882.  They moved to Ayr in Ayrshire where the youngest of their three sons, John, was born.
  • John, a telegraph messenger in the post office, joined up as a rifleman in the London Regiment (Post Office Rifles) 1st/8th Battalion in World War 1.  He was killed in action on 15 September 1916 in France.  He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, the memorial to the Missing of the Somme, near the French village of Thiepval.

Family of Isabella Black (1863 – 1938) and William Duncan (1860 – 1935)

• Mary, a cotton mill worker, married Edward Masson, a stone polisher at the granite works, in 1889.  At the 1911 census she reported that she had had 10 children born alive, of which four were still living.  She and her husband migrated to Canada in 1921, following her eldest surviving daughter Margaret there, and settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Family of Mary Black (1867 – 1934 and Edward Masson (1863 – 1936): four surviving children

• Elsie, a cotton spinner, married Ernest John Rippon, a French polisher from Callington in Cornwall, England,  in 1892.  They were living in Beith, Ayrshire at the time of their third child’s birth in 1896, but when Ernest died in 1904, the family returned to Aberdeen.  Elsie remarried in 1906 to John Jeffrey, a widower with six children, and continued to live in Aberdeen.
  • Elsie and Ernest’s second child, Lawrence, initially enlisted on 30th November 1914 in the Cheshire Regiment 16th Service Battalion but was discharged in February 1915 because of flat feet. However he re-enlisted in May 1915 in the 17th Royal Scots. He was killed in action in France/Flanders on 12 April 1918.  He has no known grave but is memorialised on the Ploegsteert memorial, south of Ieper (Ypres) in Belgium.

Family of Elsie Falconer Black (1872 – 1959) and Ernest Lawrence Rippon (1857 – 1904)

• Margaret (Maggie) married Charles Ingram, a coach finisher in the coach building industry and tramway car repairer  (once also described as a  blacksmith’s viceman) in 1897.  Maggie also worked as a cotton spinner. They had a family of three sons and one daughter, another Maggie, all  born in Aberdeen.  Charles Ingram’s mother was a Rippon from Callington in Cornwall and appears to have been a cousin of the father of Elsie’s husband, Ernest Rippon.

Family of Maggie Black (1874 – 1932) and Charles Ingram (1870 – 1940)

• John, an iron moulder, married Isabella Cochrane from Aberdeen in Beith, Ayrshire in 1900.  They had a family of five children, born in Scotland and England.  They were living in Aberdeen at the birth of their last children in 1910 who were twins, but one child lived only nine days.  They migrated to Toronto in Canada in 1921, where their eldest son George also lived.

Family of John Black (1876 – 1946) and Isabella Cochrane (1877 – 1959)

So George’s branch of the Black family became fairly firmly established in Aberdeen, with some later generations attracted to migration to Canada.

Between them, Archibald and George Black had 19 children and 59 grandchildren.  It’s just as well they left Port Appin for the larger metropolis.

A Buchanan at Gallipoli, Queen and the Queen

My grandfather Charles Richard Buchanan enlisted in the 1st AIF in 1916 and served on the western front in France and Belgium in 1917.  He was not at Gallipoli, but there was a Buchanan who fought there – his third cousin, Richard Brendan Buchanan, born in 1894 and so a contemporary of my grandfather.  Were they ever aware of one another?  They are both mentioned within a couple of pages of each other in the Buchanan Book, published in 1911 in Montreal, but were a continent apart at that time.

Richard Brendan Buchanan was born in Londonderry (Derry city in Co. Londonderry), the second son of Robert Eccles Buchanan and Ethel Maud Williams.  Robert, a civil engineer and architect working for the civil service, was the great grandson of Dr George Buchanan of Fintona, Co. Tyrone and was himself born in Fintona.

Richard attended Foyle College in Derry and Bedford School in Bedford, England from 1909 to 1911.  He was enrolled as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh, from October 1911 to September 1914.  He passed all his exams except the final, with first class honours, being awarded the Bronze medal for Zoology, Practical Anatomy and Surgery.

Photograph of R. B. Buchanan from the University of Edinburgh Roll of Honour 1914 – 1919, published 1921

According to the Diamond War Memorial Project website from Londonderry (http://www.diamondwarmemorial.com/soldiers/view/125):

On the day after the Great War was declared he applied for a commission, and, having some time previously obtained certificates A and B of the Officers’ Training Corps, Medical Unit, was gazetted to a lieutenancy in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Special Reserve, on August 16, 1914. Finding a few weeks later that he could not be sent on active service until he had received his full medical qualifications, he applied for transfer to the Royal Scots Fusiliers, and was in due course gazetted second-lieutenant, and went into training at Cambusbarron, Stirlingshire.

In May 1915, the Royal Scots Fusiliers 1st/5th battalion left Liverpool for the Mediterranean, arriving at Mudros on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea on 29th May.  On 7th June they landed at Gallipoli and engaged in various actions against the Turkish Army.

Richard Brendan Buchanan was killed on 20th June 1915 while in a support trench and was buried on a cliff overlooking “Lancashire Landing”, one of the beaches on Cape Helles taken by the Lancashire Fusiliers. His permanent grave is in the Lancashire Landing Cemetery at Gallipoli, grave reference A 31.  He was 21.

Commemorative certificate from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Lancashire Landing Cemetery, Gallipoli

Richard’s elder brother survived the war. He was Edgar James Bernard Buchanan, two years older, a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in India and Egypt before returning to England in September 1915.  In WW2 he served as Brigadier, Royal Engineers, in the War Office.

And Queen and the Queen?  The Queen in question was Queen Victoria.  Richard Buchanan’s mother, Ethel Maud Williams, was a daughter of the photographer Thomas Richard Williams, who had a studio in Lambeth and later in Regent St, London. In the 1850s Williams developed a popular business in making high quality stereographic daguerreotypes as a portrait photographer and also made a number of series, including of the Crystal Palace in 1854, and of scenes of English village life.   HIs reputation as a portraitist led to commissions from Queen Victoria for photographic portraits of members of the royal household in the mid to late 1850s.

Dr Brian May, guitarist with Queen amongst his other achievements, has an interest in and is a collector of 1850s stereo photographs.  In 2009 he and Elena Vidal published the book A Village Lost and Found, including fifty-nine hand-coloured albumen prints on cards made by Williams of scenes in the village of Hinton Waldrist in Oxfordshire, and through their research, revived an interest in this 19th century photographic pioneer.  He is also remembered through their website at http://www.londonstereo.com/trwilliams/biography.html.

Irish naming patterns and our mob

Apparently in the nineteenth century and perhaps earlier, there was a set tradition for the naming of children born to Irish families.  The usual patterns were:

• the first son was named after the father’s father
• the second son was named after the mother’s father
• the third son was named after the father
• the first daughter was named after the mother’s mother
• the second daughter was named after the father’s mother
• the third daughter was named after the mother.

Having exhausted these possibilities, for the 7th child and beyond (and in these times there usually were 7+ children)  parents may have applied the following patterns:

• the fourth son was named after the father’s eldest brother
• the fifth son was named after the mother’s eldest brother
• the fourth daughter was named after the mother’s eldest sister
• the fifth daughter was named after the father’s eldest sister.

Presumably after the 10th child, you could be creative. Often the name of a child who died in infancy or early childhood would be applied to the next child born of the same gender.

Families with a number of siblings all following these naming patterns would consequently end up having cousins within a single generation with a number of common first names, making the job of a family history researcher trying to distinguish between them, rather difficult!

How do the Irish families of our ancestors stack up against these ‘rules’?

Looking at the Molloys first …

Patrick Molloy and Ellen Fearon families

Patrick and Ellen Molloy’s  male children were named as:

1. John Augustus Molloy
2. Patrick Molloy
3. James Thomas Molloy
4. Daniel Peter Edward Molloy.

Girls were named as:

1. Mary Margaret Molloy
2. Ellen Teresa Molloy
3. Sarah Elizabeth Molloy.

So the Molloys have re-jigged these patterns slightly to push the parent’s names up the list, and in the case of James Thomas, the parents may have been remembering an as yet unknown Molloy, or either of Ellen Fearon’s grandfathers, who were both named James.

What about the Egans?

Patrick Egan and Mary Coyne families

I’m a bit stymied here as the names of Patrick’s  and Mary’s parents are not fully known.  Mary’s father may have been John Coyne (yet to be confirmed).  The naming of the children went as follows:

1. John Patrick Egan
2. Thomas Egan
3. James Vincent Egan
4. Joseph Francis Egan.

The girls were:

1. Mary Lucy Egan
2. Margaret Egan
3. Ellen Josephine Egan
4. Agnes Veronica Egan.

The origins for the first two male names may be for the grandfathers, although not in the order expected, and the patterns for the girl’s names are not clear, apart from Mary being named for her mother.  If only they had stuck rigidly to the rules, I would have been able to hypothesize backwards to predict the names of the unknown grandparents!

The Buchanans do appear to have played by the rules  … almost.

Charles Todd Buchanan and Arabella Hardinge Going families

Their children’s names were:

1. George Charles Buchanan
2. William Alexander Going Buchanan
3. Thomas Hardinge  Buchanan

and for the girls:

1. Matilda Emily Hannah Buchanan
2. Anna Buchanan
3. Arabella Caroline Going Buchanan.

Dr George Charles Buchanan’s name combines both the paternal grandfather’s and father’s name in one.  The name Thomas doesn’t occur in the Buchanan family, so Thomas Hardinge may be named for Arabella’s brother closest in age to her, Thomas Hardinge Going.

These naming patterns illustrate the continuation of the surnames from the mother’s family as part of the child’s name, which also happens in the Scottish branches of the family.

Arabella Caroline Going Buchanan: her name carries on her mother’s surname

 

 

 

 

Molloys across the seas: From the Curragh to Queensland

I grew up hearing about Patrick Molloy, my maternal great grandfather, one of the pioneers of the Atherton Tablelands in North Queensland, and accidental discoverer – while carrying with a bullock team over the ranges from Port Douglas, so one story goes – of a copper deposit in the area where the town of Mt Molloy was subsequently established.

Memorial to Patrick Molloy at Mt Molloy, North Queensland. Photo: Jack Buchanan

My aunt Mary had mentioned another Molloy brother, Peter, also being in Queensland but it is only in the last couple of weeks that I have located specific information about all the Molloys, two brothers and one sister besides Patrick, who migrated to Queensland.

Patrick Molloy came from Brownstown or the Curragh, in County Kildare, Ireland, an area renowned for horse racing and breeding.  His parents were John Molloy, a farmer, and Sarah Byrne (or Byrnes) and he was born about 1840 – 1842.  His published obituary in the Cairns Post in October 1923 indicated that he arrived in Queensland in 1863.  There is a Patrick Molloy arriving in Brisbane on the Saldanha ship in September 1863.  He paid his own way which meant that he was eligible to claim the government incentive of 18 acres of land initially and a further 12 acres after two years.   By 1874 he had married Ellen Fearon in Rockhampton (her arrival story is here).  The birth places of their seven children show a move away from the existing townships to the more isolated locations only then being opened up by early settlers and gold strike outbreaks:

• John Augustus born 1875 in Townsville
• Mary Margaret born 1877 in “German Gardens”, Townsville
• Patrick born 1879 at Rifle Creek on the Hodgkinson Rd
• Ellen Theresa born 1880 at Leadingham Creek on the Hodgkinson goldfield
• James Thomas born 1882 at Fernvale near Northcote, Hodgkinson goldfield
• Sarah Elizabeth born 1883 at Fernvale near Northcote, Hodgkinson goldfield
• Daniel Peter Edward born 1887 at Rocky Plains, Port Douglas Road.

Dan Molloy’s birth in 1887 was at a time when Patrick’s working of the copper mine at Mt Molloy was coming to an end and he established the grazing property at Rocky Plains near Tolga, on the Herberton – Mareeba road.

Just before the time of John’s birth in 1875, Patrick was joined by two other siblings – Peter and Elizabeth Maria (or Eliza Mary, ‘Lizzie’ on the ship’s passenger list) who arrived on the ship Isles of the South, which had departed London on 15th June and arrived on 9th October, 1875.  They were both single and remittance passengers, meaning that their passage was sponsored, most likely by Patrick.  Peter was 14 years younger than Patrick and aged 19 at the time he migrated.  Eliza was 20 (shown as 24 on the ship’s list).

Peter Molloy worked as a miner initially, resident in Charters Towers.  At the age of 25 he married Mary Jane Casey.

MARRIAGE.
On the 9th February, at St. Columba’s Church, Charters Towers, by the Rev. Father McDonough, Peter Molloy, of County Kildare, Ireland, to Mary Jane, second daughter of Patrick Casey, Warrill Creek, Ipswich.
The Queensland Times. IPSWICH, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1881.

They were to have five children, all born in Charters Towers, between 1882 and 1892:  John Patrick, Rose Josephine, Sarah, Norah and Gladys.  Peter seems to have done well enough at mining to enable an entry into the hospitality industry.

The Southern Cross Hotel, Charters Towers
Amongst some of the oldest residents on the goldfield is Peter Molloy, the well-known host of the Southern Cross Hotel. His first arrival on the field dates as far back as 1874—17 years ago. For 14 years he followed the occupation of a miner, at which calling he worked assiduously until two and a half years ago, when he made up his mind to start on a more easy mode of living, and became a boni face. The house which he then took, and still occupies, was the Southern Cross Hotel, Mosman-st., and which, during his occupation, has gone through an entire renovation. It includes 40 bedrooms, six parlors, and spacious bar, besides ample dining room, sample rooms, &c., and forms a complete quadrangle, the premises fronting Bow-street as well as Mosman-street.

The Northern Mining Register (Charters Towers, Qld. : 1891 – 1892) Thursday 24 December 1891

However all was not well and in August 1893 he was facing insolvency.  The family moved to Cloncurry sometime after 1913.   Mrs Molloy (Mary Jane Casey) died in 1938 at Cloncurry and at Peter Molloy’s death in Mt Isa in 1939, the Cloncurry Advocate remembered him thus:

Cloncurry Advocate Friday 28 July 1939
There passed away suddenly in Mount Isa on Monday afternoon another respected old pioneer in the person of Peter Molloy. Deceased, who was close on 80 years of age, was a very well known identity on Charters Towers in the heydey of that town and was mine host of several hotels. It was Mr. Molloy’s proud boast that he attended the first race meeting ever held in Charters Towers. Coming to Cloncurry district many years ago he followed mining, mostly seeking the elusive yellow metal and when Mt. Isa opened up he was employed by the company as caretaker at the dam, and afterwards at the mine. Mrs. W. Seymour and Mr. John Molloy, both resident of Cloncurry are children.

A CORRECTION.
In our last issue in reporting the death of Mr. Peter Molloy we said his children were Mrs. W. Seymour and Mr. J. Molloy of Cloncurry. In addition to these we should have mentioned three other daughters namely, Mrs. J. Warman (Brisbane), Mrs. J. Ford (Tennant Creek) and Mrs. J. Hamilton (Cloncurry).

He is buried in Mt Isa.  As the obituary indicates, the children of the family had in some cases spread beyond Cloncurry to Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory (Norah’s family) and Brisbane (Sarah’s family).  John Patrick did not marry. Rose married William Seymour, had a large family and lived all her life in Cloncurry, as did Gladys, married to James Hamilton.

Eliza Molloy married at Herberton in 1883 to James McCloskey, who died the following year and then in Cairns, in 1889, to Patrick McHugh, a police constable.    She had two children from this second marriage, John Patrick Joseph, born 1890 and Elizabeth Mary, born 1892.  Eliza and her family were living in Petrie Terrace, Brisbane when she died in 1917 aged 66.  She is buried in Toowong Cemetery.

Patrick Molloy. Photographer Richard Isherwood Jnr, 154 Fletcher St Bolton. Photo courtesy of second cousin Kathryn

The photograph shows Patrick Molloy at the age of about twenty.  He was photographed in Bolton, Lancashire prior to migrating to Queensland in 1863.  What exactly took him to Bolton I am yet to discover, but there was at least one other family member living there, if not in 1863, then later in that decade.

His brother John Molloy was resident in Bolton with his family, from at least 1869 to early 1887.  In 1884 he had placed the following advertisement:

Advertisement: PATRICK, PETER, and ELIZA MOLLOY, your brother JOHN would like to hear from you. Patrick, formerly carrier Charters Towers. Address JOHN MOLLOY Bolton Iron and Steel Works, Bolton, Lancashire England.

The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 – 1939) 20 December 1884 (repeated 27 Dec 1884, 3 Jan 1885)

All of the siblings’ marriage and death certificates indicate that their parents were John Molloy and Sarah Byrnes (with some spelling variations), from County Kildare, but this advertisement is further proof confirming their relationship.  It appears that John’s advertisement may have been successful in reaching the intended audience, as he and his family were sponsored as remittance passengers when they sailed from London to Queensland, on the ship Jumna in February 1887, arriving in Townsville on 1st April.

John Molloy was also younger than Patrick, but only by about six  years.  He had married Eve Hardy in Bolton in 1869 and they had five children born in Bolton between 1870 and 1878 : John (Jack), Robert, Sarah Veronica, James and Eva Monica.  John was working as an iron forgeman at the iron and steel works in Bolton.

The family settled in Charters Towers but John Molloy died in 1902 at the age of 55.  He is buried  in Charters Towers cemetery.  Subsequently the remaining family moved to Townsville.   The two elder boys, John and Robert, died relatively early in Townsville at the ages of 49 and 46.  The two girls, Sarah and Eva, married and their later years were spent with their families in Collinsville working in the mining industry.  James died in Townsville in 1942 at the age of  66.  Neither James nor Robert married.

Known descendants of John Molloy and Sarah Byrnes as at March 2015 (Click to open in new window)

 

Distant correspondence: Letters to McAnally relatives

One of the delights of making contact with distant cousins is uncovering new information about the family, sightings of photographs of relatives never before seen, and copies of correspondence which reveal something about the personalities of the writers who have since departed, particularly if distant from the memory of more recent family members.

Such was the case with these two letters from two McAnally brothers.  Both examples are courtesy of distant cousin Meagan from New York city.

The first is from John McAnally, my paternal grandmother’s father, writing from his parents’ home in Dalry, Ayrshire, to his sister Anna in New York, to convey to her the news of the death of their youngest sister, Catherine (Kate).  She died on 27th February 1906, aged 33.

56 North Street, Dalry

March 3, 06

My dear sister,

I am in the habit of writing to Mamie but on this occasion I think it right to address the letter to you. As you see by the enclosed card sister Kate died on Feb 27^th. Heart disease was the cause of death. She had been troubled with it for some considerable time but had only been seriously ill for a little over a week. She has left four little ones behind her the oldest a boy of seven and the youngest a girl of a little over two years. The poor things whole trouble was the future of her children but for that she was quite prepared to die – I am quite confident she is now in the presence of her saviour — she was a fond sister — a good daughter and an exemplary wife. It is a hard blow to the old folks. The more so as she was the only one who was always with them. Robina is very much upset – they were firm friends long before they were more nearly related. All of us were with her before she died and Robina and I held her hand till the very end – God help us all – we do not know how pitifully weak and helpless we are until we are placed in such a position – You dear sister will know how to sympathize with those most deeply affected as you are still smarting under your own great trouble. There is only one course of comfort at such a time and I pray that none of us may ever fail to turn there now and at all times. Give our united love to Mamie, Rose and the boys and accept same for yourself from all of us – Tell Mamie to write me soon and believe me always

Your affectionate Brother

John McAnally

This is touching to read even 109 years later!

Catherine (Kate) McAnally, courtesy of Meagan, New York

The sister John is writing to is Anna McAnally, the eldest child in the family of Daniel McAnally and Catherine Mooney and the only child born in Ahoghill, County Antrim, in Ireland before the family moved to Dalry, Ayrshire in Scotland.  Anna had married Alexander Donelin in Dalry in 1875 and sometime between 1879 and 1881 they migrated to the U.S.A.  At the time they left Scotland, John would have been around 12 years of age.  The ‘Mamie’ who he more usually writes to, is the nickname for Anna’s daughter, Mary, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1882.

Kate McAnally was the youngest daughter and third youngest child of ten children, born to Daniel and Catherine between 1856 and 1878.  By 1906 when she died, many of her siblings had dispersed to other parts of the world, hence John’s phrase that ‘It is a hard blow to the old folks‘ – his parents – who would have relied on her.  The four eldest children, Anna, Sarah, Bridget and James migrated to the United States.  John and his family were living in Glasgow. Next brother Daniel had migrated to Australia in 1890.  Hugh and his family were also in Glasgow.  The second youngest, Charles, had migrated to the U.S.A., leaving the youngest Alexander, who was living in Glasgow with his newly established family.

John refers to ‘Robina’ in the letter – his wife and my great grandmother, Robina Kerr.  She, John and Hugh McAnally and their families were to migrate to Australia in 1913.  Robina was part of the family group that established a farm in Jimbour on the Darling Downs and later lived at Imbil in the Mary Valley, with daughter Margaret (Peggy) and her family.

John in his letter also extends sympathy to his sister Anna who had lost her husband Alexander seven months before.  His letter refers to Mamie, Rose and the ‘boys’ (John and Daniel), Anna’s surviving children.

Kate McAnally had married James Gallagher in 1899 and the four children that she left were James, Catherine, Hugh and Helen, born 1903.  It appears that James remarried and the evidence is that Helen at least went on to marry (twice) and have eleven children.

The second letter was written 17 years later, in 1923. It is from Hugh McAnally, writing from his farm, Onslow, in Jimbour on the Darling Downs, to respond to the letter he’d received from Mary (Mamie) announcing the death of her mother,  Anna.

Onslow, Jimbour  Oct 4/23

My dear niece

We have your letter and sorrow with you in the loss of your mother. Thanks for writing to us. It is some consolation to know that her end was peaceful. She would be 67 years of age. Death has been very busy amongst us of late. Father, John, Alex and now your mother. You have the sympathy of all of us and we pray that strength will be given you to bear your afflictions.

I was a very little boy when your mother left us but I quite remember her when she paid us a visit with one of the boys, I think John. And you say your aunt Sarah was with you. I have never had any communication with her. I had a visit from her husband in Glasgow. Charlie I hear about sometimes.

We came out here nearly eleven years ago and engaged in farming. I have 1700 acres dairying, lamb raising and wheat growing.

I do not know if Peggie has given you a summary of our family.   You should have a photo of us all taken just before we left home. I gave Father one each for your mother, Sarah, Bridget and Charles. We have six of our family, Esther, Kate, Maggie, Dan, Mary and Ena. Maggie died in Glasgow.

Esther is married and has had a family of six. She lost a little one too. Kate is 23, not too strong, went through an operation for appendicitis a year ago. Dan 19 a hefty lad at present sheep shearing. Mary just on 17 should have been a boy and Ena the baby rides four miles to school daily.

I don’t know if you have heard of the McKinleys our cousins and Dan came out to this country some twenty years ago. I had a letter from his wife telling me of his death. She had seen my photo in the press and enquiring found my address.

If you have any communication with Sarah and Charles give them our love. Also your brothers and sisters. Please write again and give us all the news.

Your loving aunt and uncle

Hugh and Mary McAnally

Hugh’s letter covers a number of recent family events – Death has been very busy amongst us of late.  He refers to the death of

• his father Daniel who died on 6 January 1923 in Dalry, aged approx. 84 (Hugh’s mother Catherine had died in 1909),
• John, his brother, my great grandfather, who died on 20th February 1922 at ‘Ryeside’ Jimbour aged 54,
• his youngest brother Alexander, who died on 26 March 1923 in Glasgow, aged 44 and
• his eldest sister Anna, who died in the Bronx, New York on 9th February 1923 aged 66.

Hugh mentions his other siblings Sarah, Bridget and Charlie who live in the U.S., but there is no reference to his other brother James, who also migrated to the U.S.  This may be because, as is suspected by my consortium of cousins, he died in Seattle, Washington in 1899, aged 34.

Hugh’s reference to Dan McKinley (or McKinlay) is in relation to cousins on his mother’s side. Catherine Mooney’s sister Agnes married John McKinlay and they had ten children, six born in Ireland and four in Dalry after the family moved there sometime between 1861 and 1864.  The youngest son was Dan.

Dan, his wife Agnes McGoogan and two sons migrated to Queensland, arriving in Townsville in June 1899.  The family settled largely in Ayr, but were located in Nymbool, a now deserted mining area near Mount Garnet on the tablelands west of Innisfail, when Daniel died on 17 May 1923, aged 55.

His wife Agnes would have seen Hugh McAnally’s photo in a newspaper because of his position in various agricultural bodies representing primary producers.  His obituary in 1927 states:

During the life of the Farmers’ Union he was an active official, and was keen in the organisation of the Union. Later he transferred his energies to the L.P.A., and was secretary of the local branch. At one time he was a member of the Western District Agricultural Council, and was also a member of the Wheat Board. In 1923 he contested the Dalby seat in the interests of the Government, but was defeated. (Brisbane Courier 27 June 1927)

His defeat was in spite of a rather partisan support from the paper, The Worker:

HUGH McANALLY (Dalby) Farmer Labor candidate, resident of Jimbour, in Dalby district, for many years. One of the organisers of the primary producers under the Labor Government’s scheme. Representative of Dalby district on Wheat Board, Keenly interested in all local and public matters. Sound, logical reasoner, whose speeches are bound to carry weight with all sensible electors, and particularly with farmers, against the verbal froth of solicitor Vowles. (The Worker Brisbane 26/4/1923)

Daniel McAnally and wife Catherine Mooney, photo courtesy of Meagan, New York

John McAnally and wife Robina Kerr, photo courtesy Florence McGahan

Buchanan medicos … volcanoes, dragoons and the Tasmanian wild

A review of the occupations of the (male) Buchanans living in Ireland in the late 18th and 19th centuries shows a concentration of professions.   Quite a few doctors, a couple of coroners, clerks in holy orders (of the Church of Ireland), stockbrokers and insurance agents, and military men and some whose occupation was ‘gentleman’ – occupations reflecting the generally middle class status of those descended from the Scottish arrivals in Ireland as part of the English-engineered “plantation of Ulster”.

The earliest known of the doctors was Dr. George Buchanan.  He was born about 1740 in Fintona, Co. Tyrone, the son of Beaver Buchanan.  On 11 March 1774 he married Ann Mullan, and they had 14 children, all but three surviving to early adulthood.

There were a number of typhus fever outbreaks in Ireland during the 19th century.  According to Wikipedia, epidemic typhus is caused by a bacteria (Rickettsia prowazekii) and is spread by the human body louse. Outbreaks tend to occur during times of malnutrition and concentrated conditions of poor sanitation and hygiene.   From Wikipedia:

A major epidemic occurred in Ireland between 1816 and 1819, during the famine caused by a world-wide reduction in temperature known as the Year Without a Summer.

This period of climate-change-induced famine is now thought to have been caused by the explosive eruptions of Mt Tambora volcano in April 1815, in Sumbawa Island in Indonesia, the largest eruption in over 1600 years, which sent large amounts of volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere and caused a temporary reduction in the average land temperature of 1 degree C, with consequent impact on largely subsistence agricultural societies around the world.

Many priests and ministers, doctors and others providing services to the sick and poor were amongst those who died [Hugh Fenning, Typhus Epidemic in Ireland 1817-1819: priests, ministers, doctors. Collectanea Hibernica No. 41 (1999)].

The journal The Patriot recorded on 22 September 1818, the death of …

in consequence of fever, caught in the discharge of his professional duties, Dr Buchanan, of Fintona, Co. Tyrone (father of Mr. William Buchanan, of Grafton St).

It is interesting that Dr Buchanan was still discharging his professional duties at the age of 78!

One of his sons was Bever Buchanan.  The Buchanan book claims him to be the first president of the Apothecaries Hall of Ireland, in Dublin.  Again from Wikipedia:

The Apothecaries’ Hall of Ireland is an association of apothecaries of Ireland, founded in 1791. The Apothecaries Hall was erected in Mary Street, Dublin, in 1791, at a cost of £6000. It contained a spacious chemical laboratory where medical articles were prepared. Part of it was a wholesale warehouse, where the apothecaries could procure their medicines. Lectures were delivered there. The principal duty of this society was the examination of candidates for the rank of master apothecary, without which no person could open an apothecary’s shop in the city. It could also confer medical students with a degree that enabled them to practice.

Surprisingly the right of the Apothecaries Hall to issue licences to practice medicine was not legally removed until an Act of Parliament in 1971, although it had long ceased to have that function. However our Bever Buchanan would have been only about 14 in 1791, so any association with the Hall would have come later.

In 1815 Bever Buchanan was practising as an apothecary at 80 Grafton St, Dublin.  He died aged 38 on 2 July 1815 (pre-deceasing his father) according to his burial record in St Anne’s Church, Dublin. At the same time, there was also the burial of an infant son (probably also named Beaver).  No information is available as to the cause of his death.

He had married Elinor Hodgson in 1795 and had five children.  One of these children was another Dr George Buchanan.

This George Buchanan was born about 1800.  In 1824 he was a physician in Warrenpoint, Co. Down and for 14 years he was the surgeon to the County Down Infirmary in Downpatrick.    On 11 December, 1824 he married Anna Wright, daughter of Richard Wright of Dublin.  The Westmeath Journal published the details of their marriage (23/12/1824):

On Saturday, the 11th inst. at Mary’s Church, by the Rev. Charles Bardin, George Buchanan, Esq., M.D. of Warrenpoint, to Anna, daughter of Richard Wright, Esq. of Lower Ormond Quay.

Like his namesake grandfather, he also died of typhus during the 1841 epidemic which swept through the country.  He is buried in the Downpatrick Church of Ireland graveyard, with the following inscription:

Sacred to the memory of George Buchanan, M D , L R C S I , for fourteen years surgeon to the County of Down Infirmary who departed this life the 19th day of October A D 1841 aged 41 years

(L.R.C.S.I. = Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland)

In Ireland, typhus had appeared again in the late 1830s, although the major typhus epidemic did not occur until the Great Irish Famine between 1846 and 1849.  He and his wife had seven children, including the Rev. Charles Todd Buchanan, the father of Dr George Charles Buchanan, my father’s grandfather.

Amongst other medicos in other branches of the family were:

• Robert Buchanan, another son of Dr George Buchanan (1740 – 1818) of Fintona, a younger brother to Bever Buchanan, the apothecary.

He was born in approximately 1787. The Buchanan Book records him as being a physician and surgeon to the Royal Scots Greys, a cavalry regiment of the British army, and as residing at Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire, but as this castle has been in ruins since the English civil wars of the 17th century, it can’t be correct.  However he did live in the town of Pontefract.

He obtained his medical qualifications at the University of Edinburgh, studying over five non-consecutive years from 1810 to 1820 and graduating M.D. in 1820.  At that time the university’s medical faculty was regarded as one of the best in Europe and many graduates subsequently established medical faculties at other universities around the world, including at the University of Sydney.  He graduated as Robertus Buchanan, Anglus. de Scarlatina – ‘Anglus’ identifies him as English in spite of being born in Ireland (Hiburnus).  De scarlatina – denotes a thesis on scarlet fever?

Before he graduated, he had married in 1814 Sophia Theresa Wharrey of Selby, Yorkshire, and had had two children, Robert born 1816, also a doctor, and Eliza, born 1817, who married a surgeon.  His first marriage notice (Leeds Mercury):

On Thursday se’nnight at St Andrew’s, Canterbury, Robert Buchanan, Esq. to Sophia Theresa, youngest daughter of the late Morley Wharrey, Esq. of Selby.

Sophia died in 1817, and Robert remarried in 1822, in Edinburgh. His second marriage notice (The Scots Magazine):

Marriage at Leith, 18th inst. Robert Buchanan M.D. to Ellen, eldest daughter of Capt Robert Fraser and neice and co-heiress of the late Major William Fraser of the Hon. East India Company’s service

He and second wife Ellen had seven children.  All children of both marriages were born in Yorkshire, and while he was living in South Leith, Edinburgh at the time of his second marriage, his time in Scotland and perhaps his connection with the Scots Greys appears to have been limited.  The Scots Greys were involved in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, but otherwise were not engaged in other conflicts until the Crimean War in 1856.

Memorial statue for the Royal Scots Greys, Princes St, Edinburgh (2010) – officially at the time, the 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys)

The family was living in Featherstone, Yorkshire from 1823, then in Pontefract, Yorkshire for most of his career.  His wife Ellen died in 1860 in Yorkshire.  From the 1861 census he is recorded as living in London, Middlesex. His final address when he died in London in 1872, aged 84, was 2 St Leonard’s Villas, Bloomfield Rd, Maida Hill, London, Middlesex.

• Stanley Buchanan: a grandson of Bever Buchanan, through his son William.  He married Sarah Hare in Dublin in January 1846, and was living in Newport in South Wales at the time of the census in 1851.  He died in July 1851 at the age of 29 and is buried at St Woolos, Newport, Monmouthshire.  There appear to have been two children born in Wales.  His wife Sarah remarried in Dublin in 1853 to a William F Buchanan (I’m yet to determine if he is from the same family).

• John Robert Hamilton, M.D.: a son of Emily Buchanan, a grand-daughter of Dr George Buchanan of Fintona (1740 – 1818), through his son James.

Emily had married on 15th June 1852 to John Eccles Hamilton, a surgeon:

In Fintona Church, on Tuesday week, by the Rev. Thomas Maunsell, JOHN ECCLES HAMILTON, ESQ., Surgeon, R.N., to EMILY, second daughter of JAMES BUCHANAN, ESQ., Fintona

John Robert Hamilton was born in 1857 but died in 1883 in Londonderry at the age of 25, so his medical career would have been short-lived.

• Dr. Alfred James (Bruce) Hamilton, another son of Emily Buchanan and John Eccles Hamilton, migrated to Tasmania and was practising from at least 1898, principally in Queenstown and later Penguin.  He is listed in the Tasmanian Post Office Directory for 1904 with the following qualifications:

Hamilton Alfred .James L.R.C.P. & L.R.C.S. Edin. 1887, L.F.P.S. Glas. 1887; Queenstown

(ie licensed by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons at Edinburgh, and a Licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow)

The Tasmanian newspapers of the era provide occasional reports where he acts as a medical witness, as in the following case:

The Mercury (Hobart) 12 February 1898
SCOTTSDALE.
On the 7th inst., before the Hon. C. O’Reilly, Coroner, an inquest was held on the body of Dr. E. Jas. Cheetham, who was found dead. …. Dr. Alfred James Hamilton, legal qualified practitionor, Derby, gave corroborative evidence, and the jury returned a verdict that the deceased died from using alcohol and narcotic poison, administered by himself.

The U.K. Medical Register for 1927 records him as being at Strahan, Tasmania.  Alfred James Hamilton was born in 1861 in Ireland.  He married in 1898 in Melbourne to Victoria Alice Geoghegan, also born in Ireland, and died aged 75 at Penguin, Tasmania.

Advocate (Burnie, Tas) 25 August 1936
HAMILTON.-On August 24, at his late residence, Penguin, Dr. Alfred James (Bruce) Hamilton, beloved husband of Alice Hamilton, and eldest son of the late John Eccles Hamilton, Surgeon, R.N., of Omagh, County Tyrone.

I

Buchanan of the Montreal bar …. and Marble Bar

The information which I have about the ‘deep’ history of the Buchanan clan comes from the Buchanan Book, or to give it its correct title, The Buchanan Book. The life of Alexander Buchanan Q.C. of Montreal, followed by an account of the family of Buchanan, by A. W. Patrick Buchanan K.C. Montreal, 1911.   The author of this book was Arthur William Patrick Buchanan (1870 – 1939), a grandson of the titular Buchanan, who printed 300 copies of the book for private circulation. He also published The Later Leaves of The Buchanan Book (1929).  He was admitted to the bar of the province of Quebec in 1894 and was appointed a KC in 1908. He later published a history of the early judiciary in Canada: The Bench and Bar of Lower Canada Down to 1850 (1925).

I was the fortunate recipient of a copy of a chapter of the Buchanan Book –  dealing with our branch of the family (Family of Dr George Buchanan of Fintona, Co. Tyrone)  – back in the 1980s, courtesy of Marjorie Buchanan Benson (sister of my grandfather Charles, who was living in Vancouver at the time). One of the informants for ‘our’ chapter was Thomas Hardinge Buchanan, brother of my great grandfather, Dr George Charles Buchanan, and of the Rev William Alexander Going Buchanan.

Now in the digital age, this book can be accessed on the web, courtesy of the University of Toronto at https://archive.org/stream/buchananbooklife00buchuoft/buchananbooklife00buchuoft_djvu.tx. It was also reprinted in 2009 and can be purchased from online booksellers such as the Book Depository, Amazon, etc (for a rather large sum).

A. W. Patrick Buchanan seems to have gone to some lengths to gather the material for the book.  He was a member of the Buchanan Society in Glasgow, a charitable organisation founded in 1725 to assist the needy of the Buchanan clan, and was interested in heraldry.  In 1937 he advertised for documents in relation to a submission to the Court of the Lord Lyon, the heraldic authority for Scotland, for a coat of arms for his Buchanan family:

WANTED

£5 WILL BE PAID for the FIRST CERTIFICATE received in respect of each of the following:


(1) Marriage of John Buchanan (born at Eccles Green, Fintona, co. Tyrone, Ireland), Hospital Mate, or Assistant-Surgeon, or Surgeon, and Lucy Richardson about 1790-97, (possibly in London);

(2) Baptism of their son Alexander Buchanan, born 22 April 1798 (probably at Gosport or Canterbury), and

(3) of their son John Buchanan about 1800 probably at Ipswich.

BUCHANAN & BUCHANAN, Solicitors,

276 St. James Street, W., MONTREAL, Canada.

He was successful in this pursuit, and the arms were registered in 1937.  A. W. Patrick Buchanan’s family is very distant from ours; the last common ancestor would have been in the 18th century, although we do have some Buchanans named Eccles, and also come from Fintona, Co. Tyrone.

I am hardly in a position to confirm the accuracy of all the Buchanan genealogical information in the Buchanan book.  For ‘our’ branch, however, at least for the generations between my grandparents and great-great-grandparents, most information has been presented correctly as far as I can tell, except for the fate of my great grand-uncle, the Rev. William Alexander Going Buchanan, who is said to have been the rector at Marble Bar, in Western Australia, at the time of his death in 1906.

Marble Bar!! Hottest place in Australia – or close to it.  According to Wikipedia, it set a world record of most consecutive days of 100 °F (37.8 °C) or above, during a period of 160 days from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924.  Isolated and distant from any major towns –  what was an Anglo-Irish person doing there?  This seemed such an unlikely event that I investigated further.  I was able to follow up from information received from the archivist at the Anglican Archdiocese of Western Australia.  Indeed, he was at Marble Bar, but he did not die there.

According to Crockford’s Clerical Directory (1905), William Buchanan had studied at the Theological College in Manchester in 1898 and had been ordained a priest in 1901.  His subsequent appointments were as curate at the Holy Trinity Church in Bolton, Lancashire, then at Dronfield in Derbyshire, and at The Limes, Bitton, near Bath in the Diocese of Bristol.

He sailed on the Ortona of the Orient Pacific Line from London on 25th August,  arriving in Fremantle on 28th September 1905.  He was one of three English ministers who travelled to Western Australia in 1905 to join the Anglican diocese of Bunbury, which then included Marble Bar and other northern locations.  The book, A hundred not out, Anglican Clergy in Western Australia 1829-1929, by Ted Doncaster, notes for W. A. G. Buchanan: September 1905 – 1906: R. Marble Bar [Bunbury].  He was not to stay long in Marble Bar.

Although the population of Marble Bar township at the 2006 census was 194, in 1891 after the discovery of gold nearby, it was estimated at 5,000.  A big enough population to support a newspaper …

The Pilbara Goldfield News (Marble Bar) reported

• on Saturday 11th November 1905: The Rev. Mr Buchanan, who has been appointed to this district, has, we believe, gone on to Derby to officiate at the marriage of the Rev. W G. Haynes. He cannot, therefore, reach Port Hedland until the Bullarra returns from Wyndham, about the 22nd inst. Mr. Buchanan, we learn, was previously in charge of Bitton Parish, near Bath (Eng.) and has not been long in the State.
• on Saturday 2 December 1905: The Rev. Mr. Buchanan will conduct his first service in Marble Bar on Sunday next.
• on Saturday 30 December 1905: Divine services will be conducted in the Miners Institute tomorrow morning and evening by the Rev. Mr. Buchanan.
• on Saturday 20 January 1906: The Rev. Mr. Buchanan, who has been in Marble Bar about seven weeks, leaves by coach to-day for the metropolis. The Bishop is endeavouring to secure another man for this portion of the diocese …
• The same paper later made a reference to the fact “Rev. Mr. Buchanan was sent to this parish, who was physically incapable of attending to the work the office entailed“.

The Western Mail (Perth) reported on Saturday 27 January 1906:

Marble Bar.  The cool weather of last week has been followed by trying days. The shade temperature on Monday was 110 degs., and on Tuesday it was 111 degs. Last week the shade temperature fell to 92 degs. Several places have received splendid rains, but a general downfall is badly needed. The De Grey River ran past De Grey Station last week, for the first time in three years. Rev. Mr. Buchanan, who has been stationed here for about six weeks, will shortly leave the district.

It is likely that he was already in very poor health and the discomforts of living in Marble Bar would not have helped.  On his return to England in April 1906, he was admitted to the Sanatorium in Maldon, Essex and died there on 28th May 1906, of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Rev. William Alexander Going Buchanan. Photograph is marked as from a Maldon, Essex, studio, so is likely to have been taken not long before his death.

The book Ritualist on a Tricycle  by Colin Holden (1998) is a biography of Frederick Goldsmith, the first Bishop of the Diocese of Bunbury, W.A., which included responsibility for the North West, prior to its establishment as a separate diocese in 1910.  The fate of Rev. Buchanan is used as evidence of the hostile environment which they were forced to endure.

… a ten-week visit in 1906 beginning on 15 June took Goldsmith to Carnarvon, Onslow, Cossack, Port Headland, Broome, Derby – and from there on a camping tour of more remote centres, and to Marble Bar and Roebourne. Death must have appeared an uncomfortably close companion in the north: during his visit to Derby, the magistrate, Dr McQueen, collapsed and died on the verandah of the Institute as a congregation of almost sixty gathered for a Sunday evensong.

At the beginning of the next year Goldsmith wrote to Montgomery that W.A.G. Buchanan, a priest who had been at Marble Bar ‘was invalided south, and had died shortly afterwards’. Climate and isolation took their toll in due course on Archdeacon Brooks, who arrived in 1906 and was sent to Broome, but by the end of 1909, his health too had been seriously affected.

In an essay on the church in Australia written at the end of his life, Goldsmith expressed a commonly held view of the north: it was an area hardly fit for European habitation. The physical problems experienced by his skeleton staff could only have encouraged him in making this conclusion.

It is not known how long William was suffering TB symptoms but given that he died within such a short space of time after leaving Marble Bar, it is more likely that it was this illness rather than the conditions of the north that caused his invalidity.

He was 38 when he died.  He was buried in All Saints and St Peter Anglican Church yard, Maldon, Essex.

All Saints and St Peter’s Church, Maldon, Essex. Photo by J Buchanan, 2006

Unlike his siblings who were all born in Ireland, William’s place of birth was given as Peckham, Surrey on census records, but as yet I have not been able to locate his birth record.  He was known to the family as Willie.  The ‘Going’ part of his name is his mother’s maiden surname; the Going family will be covered in a later post.

Children of Charles Todd Buchanan and Arabella Hardinge Going (click to open in a new window)

 

 

At sea: Ellen Fearon, Mrs Ellen Molloy

Patrick Molloy, my great grandfather (maternal), arrived in Queensland in the 1860s.  According to his obituary he is reported to have arrived in 1863, but as he paid his own fare (rather than being an assisted immigrant) his actual arrival date is not so easy to track down.  On the other hand, the journey of his future wife Ellen Fearon is more easily documented.

Mrs Ellen Molloy, her children and Miss Duggan (governess?) at their Rocky Creek home, 1891 (Courtesy State Library of Queensland)

Ellen (sometimes called Eleanor) Fearon came from Cargans or Tandragee Townland, County Armagh in what is now Northern Ireland.  The birth registration for her third child, Patrick, pinpoints her place of birth as Terryhoogan Farm, Tandragee, Co. Armagh.  She was one of at least seven children of father Daniel Fearon, farmer, and mother Mary Farrell, of Tandragee. Three of her siblings also migrated to Queensland.  According to Wikipedia, earlier spellings of the town’s name include Tanderagee and Tonregee (Ellen’s birthplace on her marriage certificate is given as Condriggy – could this be a misspelling or misheard pronunciation of Tonregee?).

Ellen aged 24, travelled on the ship Southern Belle, departing London on 16th November 1873, and arriving in Rockhamption over three months later, on 6th March 1874.  There were 418 “souls” on board, with three births and five deaths during the voyage.

The account of the ship’s journey in the Rockhampton Bulletin (Monday 9 March 1874) starts well:

The ship Southern Belle, 1128 tons register, William Addison Carpenter, commander, left the East Indian Docks on the 14th and Gravesend on the 16th November ; passed Lizard Point (the southern most point of Cornwall) on the 18th, at 7 a.m. ; crossed the Line on the 17th December : passed Fernando Noronha [islands approx 350 km offshore from the coast of Brazil] on the 23rd ; was off the Cape of Good Hope on the 15th January, and made east in latitude 41°; passed South Cape (southern most point of Tasmania) on 17th February; sighted the east coast of Tasmania on the 19th ; and on the 25th sighted Moreton Island, about twenty-five miles distant. Up to this date, had generally fair and agreeable weather.

From this point on the ship encountered bad weather and it was obviously the experience of its mariners that kept it safe for the remainder of its journey up the Queensland coast.

On the 25th February, when off Moreton Island, had light northerly winds, and made no progress, although carrying all sail ; thc barometer was steady at fair ; about 4 p.m. black clouds began to rise from the southward, the wind varied to all parts of the compass, heavy squalls and calms alternating, sometimes with great suddenness and rapidity ; about 8 p.m. the wind began to blow hard from the southward, and a strong sea making, the ship laboured heavily ; at 11.30 p.m., carried away the main topgallant and royal masts, the sea still making and the ship labouring very heavily, and taking on board large quantities of water.

At midnight it blew a hurricane ; to ease the ship cut away foretopsail and the rigging of the mainmast, which immediately snapped off close to the deck, taking with it the mizmtopmast, and all the mizenmast yards ; at 4 a.m. on Friday, the foretop-gallant and royal masts carried away, the ship still labouring heavily ; set foresail to steady the vessel ; afterwards the sail was blown to pieces, but was soon replaced by another ; of seven boats on board, three were smashed by the falling spars, and one of the remaining four was only a dingy ; the pumps were also broken below the deck, and rendered temporarily useless ; by the evening of Friday the weather moderated ; cleared away a great deal of wreck, got temporary stays up, and set sundry stay sails ; on Saturday morning made for Curtis Channel, the wind being S.E., but afterwards finding that the ship was too far to the northward to work into Curtis Channel, and taking into consideration her crippled condition, the attempt was abandoned, and she ran for Capricorn Channel ; on Sunday, 1st March, sighted Barren Island, S.W. by W., distant about eighteen miles ; finding the wind not fair for Keppel Bay, shaped the ship’s course northward, until at 11.30 a.m. she reached a point about three miles southward of the Bluff,
beyond Waterpark Creek (north of Yeppoon – the ship’s original destination was Townsville), where she dropped anchor in ten fathoms of water, paying out sixty fathoms of chain ; the ship here rode at anchor until Wednesday the 4th March, when she was taken in tow by the steamer Mary. Her position was about twelve miles north-east of Bald Hills, and 37 miles from the Keppel Bay Pilot station.

At the time when the ship anchored, the wind was moderate from the S. E.; on the following morning (Monday), sent the lifeboat in charge of the second officer, four seamen, and two passengers (one of whom had formerly visited Rockhampton), to endeavour to obtain assistance ; after the boat left, the wind blew strong, from S.E. to E. throughout Monday and Tuesday ; the Mary hove in sight on Wednesday about 11 a.m. ; the passengers became greatly excited with the prospect of relief ; the guns were got out, and half-a-dozen cartridges fired off, and on the steamer coming alongside, it was welcomed with hearty cheers. Pilot Haynes, who was in charge of the tug, said  he would try to tow the ship. A hawser was quickly attached, the anchor came up cheerily, and the ship moved on in tow of the little steamer at a speed of about three knots an hour, reaching Sea Hill (on Curtis Island in Keppel Bay, at the mouth of the Fitzroy River) in safety at 1 a.m. on Thursday.

It would have been a worrying final week for Ellen and the other passengers onboard. Just as well the anchor came up cheerily!

The family story is that Patrick Molloy and Ellen Fearon met and married in a few weeks.  The dates bear that out – she disembarked in Rockhampton on 6th March and was married to Patrick in St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Rockhampton, on 19th March 1874.  They were married for 49 years until both died in 1923 within a few months of each other.

Three of Ellen’s siblings also migrated to Queensland (ages given are those on the passenger lists):

• Sister Margaret Ann Fearon had travelled out in 1869 aged 22 on the Royal Dane, sailing from Plymouth on 2 July and arriving in Brisbane, Queensland on 25 September 1869.
• Brother Bernard Fearon, aged 18, arrived on the ship Darling Downs in the same year as Ellen, departing from London on 25 July and arriving in Brisbane on 5 November 1874.
• Another brother, John Fearon who lived near the Molloys at Rocky Plains near Mareeba, arrived on the Kapunda, departing from Belfast on 25 July and arriving in Townsville on 17 November 1875.  He was 21.

More about the Molloy family in a later post.  As regards Margaret Ann Fearon, she married Martin Hind in 1877 in Townsville, had six children (Ellen, Margaret, Edward, James, Rose and Mary) and seems to have settled in Townsville where she was living when she died in 1927, aged 73 years.

John Fearon worked as a grazier in the Mareeba area but did not marry.  He died in 1912.  His headstone in the Pioneers Cemetery in Mareeba reads:  In loving memory of John Fearon who departed this life 23rd Oct 1912. Aged 56 years. R.I.P. Erected by Daniel P.E. Molloy, Rocky Plains.  My grandfather was the executor of his will (Townsville Daily Bulletin, Monday 9 December 1912):

Probate of the will of John Fearon, late of Rocky Creek, near Mareeba, grazier, deceased, was granted by the Registrar (Mr Chas. S. Norris), at the Supreme Court on Saturday, to Daniel Peter Edward Molloy, of Rocky Creek, stockman, the sole executor named in the will. (Messrs MacDonnell, Henchman and Hannam, as town agents for Mr E. L. Havard, solicitor for executor.) Realty under £101; personalty under £2120.

Bernard Fearon does not appear to have married.  He died in 1928 at about 72 years of age at the Eventide Home, Glenrosa Road, Red Hill, Brisbane and is buried in Toowong Cemetery.  Electoral roll records indicate that he was living in Brisbane since at least 1913.

The family that Ellen left in Tandradgee in Armagh consisted of at least seven children.  A search through the Irish Family History Foundation (RootsIreland) website shows the following records for Daniel Fearon and Mary Farrell, with varying name spellings:

• Church record – Marriage: 16 November 1835 at Ballymore Parish, Co. Armagh – Danl Feran and Mary Farrel; witnesses Thos Vallely, James Farrel
  • Edward Fearon born about 1838; baptism not located.  Church and civil marriage record: Married in 1879, address Terryhoogan; father’s name Daniel Fearon
  • James Feron: Church record – Baptism: 23 Feb 1838, at Ballymore Parish, Co. Armagh. Father Danl Feron; mother Mary Farrell; sponsors Elizabeth Lay
  • Mary Feron: Church record – Baptism:  21 June 1840, at Ballymore Parish, Co. Armagh. Father Daniel Feron; mother Mary Farrell; sponsors Roseanne Farrell, John Feron
  • Elenor Fearon: Church record – Baptism:  18 June 1842, at Ballymore Parish, Co. Armagh. Father Daniel Fearon; mother Mary Farrell; sponsors Patrick Farrell, Elenor Fearon
  • Margret Fearon: Church record – Baptism:  10 Sept 1846, at Ballymore Parish, Co. Armagh. Father Daniel Fearon; mother Mary Farrelly; sponsors Alice Fearon, John Fearon
  • John Fearon: Church record – Baptism: 4 June 1851, at Ballymore Parish, Co. Armagh. Father Daniel Fearon; mother Mary Farrelly; sponsors Thomas MacKan, Margaret McKan
  • Bernard Feron: Church record – Baptism:  13 July 1855, at Ballymore Parish, Co. Armagh. Father Daniel Feron; mother Mary Farrelly; sponsors Joseph Rice, Bridget Walsh.
• Civil record – Death: Daniel Fearon, age 62, date of death 5 July 1873, address Terryhoogan, Banbridge Parish, Co. Down, occupation farmer
• Civil record – Death: Mary Fearon, age 78, date of death 27 Sept 1886, address Terryhoogan, Banbridge Parish, Co. Down, occupation farmer’s widow

According to the FamilySearch website, the Catholic parish of Ballymore in Co. Armagh is the head of a district called Tanderagee that also includes the parishes of Acton and Mullaghbrack.   For civil registrations, the place name of Terryhoogan occurs within the poor law union of Banbridge, within the civil parish of Ballymore, in the registrar’s district of Tanderagee, and in the county of Armagh.  Banbridge civil parish may have extended across the border with Co. Down, which adjoins Co. Armagh to the east, which accounts for Daniel and Mary’s death records falling within Co. Down rather than Co. Armagh.  Ellen’s place of origin was also sometimes given as Cargans, Armagh – this was another townland within the Tanderagee rural area.

The Griffiths Valuation published its census of Co. Armagh in 1864.  At that time there was a Daniel Ferrin occupying land leased from the Duke of Manchester at Terryhoogan townland, consisting of house, offices and land, with a total annual valuation of rateable property of £28 10s.  Amongst neighbours there were Farrells as well as Thomas Vallely, witness at Daniel’s marriage.

Assuming that this is the correct family, there appear to have been seven children born to Daniel Fearon and Mary Farrell, of Ballymore parish.  But the dates of birth conflict with stated ages for those siblings who migrated to Australia.  For a birth in 1842, Ellen (Eleanor) would have been 32 rather than 24 when she migrated and married Patrick Molloy, aged 45 when she had her last child Daniel, and aged 81 years rather than 79 years when she died.

Of Ellen’s remaining siblings in Ireland:

• her older sister Mary Fearon married John Woods in 1877, also farming in Cargans in Tandragee.  They had one daughter, Isabella or Bella, who married James McKiernan in 1899 and subsequently had three sons (if not more children).
• her eldest brother Edward Fearon married Mary Donnelly in Tandradgee in 1879.  He was then 42. When he died in Tandragee in 1894, his executor was his brother-in-law, John Woods.
• I have yet to identify the details for James Fearon, Ellen’s second eldest brother, but so far have not located any marriage or death records.

Ellen’s experience on board the Southern Belle did not dissuade her from further voyages.  According to the Molloy obituary in the Cairns Post (30 October 1923), she returned to the old country by ship with her daughter, Ellen Teresa Molloy:

In 1907 Mrs. Molloy, who had been in indifferent health for some time, went for a trip to Ireland; taking her second youngest daughter, now Mrs. W. Hayes, with her. Mr. Molloy, who
could not be persuaded to overcome his dread of a long sea voyage, would not go. Mrs. and Miss Molloy stayed away 12 months and landed back in time to have Christmas at Rocky
Plains in 1908.

Possibly the family they were visiting were the remaining Fearons at Tandragee (as well as any Molloys in Co. Kildare).  Ellen’s father had died the year before she migrated to Australia and her mother had passed away in 1886.

Family of Daniel Fearon and Mary Farrell (click to open in new window)

Ellen’s sister Mary had died in 1894.  According to the 1901 Ireland census, her husband John Woods was a widower, living at Cargans, Tandradgee with their daughter Isabella and her husband James McKiernan, and an Ellen Fearon, age 17, born in Liverpool.  John Woods and the family were present in the same location at the 1911 census, now with three grandchildren added.  Edward had died in 1894, and I am unsure of when his wife Mary died.  She was still alive in 1886 as she was the informant for her mother-in-law Mary Fearon’s (nee Farrell) death certificate.

The ages of Mary Coyne: Granny Egan

My great grandmother was Mary or Maria Coyne.  She may have been born in 1858 … or 1864 …  or sometime between 1853 and 1867.  What is known is that she died, Mrs Mary Egan of Herberton St, Mareeba, North Queensland on 22 August 1942, and is buried in the Mareeba Pioneer Cemetery in Costin St, Mareeba.

Her death certificate gives an age of 84 for her, making the year of her birth about 1858.  The informant was my grandmother, Mrs Margaret Molloy (“Nanna”).  Mary was married in 1883 in Philadelphia to Patrick Egan.  Family lore says she was “sent for from Ireland as a bride” and was married at the age of 19 – that would make her year of birth about 1864.  When she arrived in Australia in Townsville in February 1900, her age on the passenger list was given as 30.  This was most likely incorrect, as it would have made her year of birth about 1870, clearly a very young child bride in 1883!

Her only child born in Australia (of eight children in total) was Agnes.  When Agnes was born in April 1902, Mary’s age on the birth certificate was given as 37, making her year of birth about 1865.  The informant was husband Patrick who gave his age as 49 – implying approximately a ten year age difference between them.  This squares with his reported age of 76 years at his death in 1929, or a year of birth of 1853.

Various documents state that she came from Multyfarnham, or Mullingar, in County Westmeath.

On the Irish Family History Foundation website (http://www.rootsireland.ie/index.php?id=home) of Catholic baptismal records , there are a number of Mary Coynes born in Westmeath, the county she originated from, in the years 1850 to 1867.  Which one is our Mary?  She had (I believe) a sister, Anne [Anna or Anney May], who was also living in Philadelphia in the 1880s, married to Thomas J. Cavanaugh.

Looking for births of Anne Coyne and Mary Coyne in Co. Westmeath to the same parents, there is one match:  Ann Coyne born 31 March 1850 and Mary Coyne born 21 April 1853, to parents John Coyne and Eliza or Elizabeth Kelly.  But this early date of 1853 would mean that Mary was 30 when married and 88 when she died which doesn’t fit well with the other known facts.  On the other hand, the family bible recorded the death of a John Coyne on 23 March 1898.  It is possible that Mary’s father was a John Coyne (or if not, then this was a close relative) but this needs to be confirmed.

There are nine other possibilites for Mary Coyne, ranging from births in 1855 to 1867.  There is only one Mary Elizabeth Coyne, her full name, born on 27 September 1863, to father Patrick Coyne and mother Elizabeth Gowran.  Maybe this is her?  There is no record for a Mary Coyne for Multyfarnham parish or Mullingar parish, although there is one for Ann Coyne for Mullingar, born 1855 with parents Patrick Coyne and mother Bridget Slavin.

Without definitive names for Mary’s parents, it will be difficult to identify exactly what her date of birth is.  More research to do!

Mary Egan nee Coyne with her daughters, from left, Mary Lucy, Margaret, Agnes