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Article in Armidale Express prior to Book Launch in Uralla
Four thousand Irish orphan girls were shipped to Australia in the mid-19th century under the Earl Grey Scheme to work as servants. Many led wretched lives, marred by violence and abuse.
It's a fairly safe bet Michael and Bridget were married about 1826 or 27, and that Ellen was born about 1828. The baptisms of their next two daughters in 1830 (Catherine) and 1832 (Eliza), plus a further six children before 1845, were recorded at St Colmans Church, a few kilometres to the south of Birr.
We can also surmise that the family was caught up in the famine that haunted Ireland between 1845 and 1850. We can be fairly sure that, in desperation, Michael and Bridget sought sanctuary in the workhouse in Parsonstown. They must have entered in 1847 or 48. We can infer all this from the fact that Eliza and Catherine told immigration officials that both their parents had died in the workhouse.
There may be one trace left of Ellen in Ireland. Surviving records of the Parsonstown Workhouse show that two Ellen Dooleys were discharged from the workhouse in Parsonstown within a few weeks of each other in late 1849. This may well have been the future Mrs Murray and the future Mrs Flynn, but there is no way to link either girl with subsequent events in Australia.
There is no record of Mrs Murray entering the colony. When Eliza and Catherine arrived in July 1850, they told officials they had no relatives in the country, so we can assume the person who would marry John Murray arrived in the colony after that date. If she did, her disembarkation was not recorded in surviving lists of assisted migrants.
Government bureaucracy being what it is, this is strange. After 1850, assisted passages were paid from a fund administered by the colonial government. Residents in the colony paid the government passage money so their friends or relatives could join them in the new land. The government gave a ticket to the prospective immigrant. Rigorous record keeping was a necessity to avoid abuses of the system.
On the other hand, she might have bought her own ticket. In modern terms, that would be about as likely as someone on the minimum wage buying a first-class ticket on Qantas to London. It’s possible, but not likely.
There is plenty of documentary evidence as to what she did after she got married. She was pregnant, more or less continuously, until 1873. Eight children are recorded to the couple. Her husband died in 1903. She followed him in 1919.
We can follow Mrs Flynn as well. She had at least two children in the Dapto region, before moving to Tenterfield, where John, who had been transported for theft, became the resident constable. Another two children are recorded in Tenterfield. In 1885 she married Michael Cunningham. Presumably this was a bigamous marriage; John Flynn died in 1888 and there is no record of a divorce. She died in 1895.
The girl from the John Knox remains a mystery. She did not become Mrs Murray, or Mrs Flynn, so what happened to her? She disappears from the record after immigration. Her marriage does not appear on the register of Births, Deaths and Marriages in NSW, Queensland or Victoria.
