2a — Irish again – new light on Jacob Whitfield’s 1820 crime?

A good example of how our family historians Bob Starling and Stuart Daniels are still adding to our knowledge. Recent family history research has William Whitfield aged 10 on arrival in the colony, as indeed he is in the “Thames” passenger list. Also, it appears Jacob Whitfield’s first wife, Mary, was Goss not Gowrie.

Posted originally on April 23, 2015 by Neil.

This series of posts is the most comprehensive I have done on family history. I am doing them backwards here so that in due course they will appear sequentially.

On St Patrick’s Day I posted:

As you may recall my father’s family descended from an Irish convict who arrived in Sydney 10 March 1822, and his son who joined him age 14 as a free settler in 1826. They came from this bit of Ireland, or nearby [followed by a scene from County Cavan].

Reminder of what constituted Ulster in 1820:

I needed that to follow a marvellous document sent to me by family historian Stuart Daniels that came his way through the research of Bob Starling. It is a transcript of a petition relating to a trial in County Tyrone in June 1820. The petition is addressed to Charles Chetwynd, 2nd Earl Talbot, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at the time.

Charles Chetwynd, Earl Talbot

Here is a key part where my ancestor is mentioned:

The document goes on to argue that Fisher (the petitioner) is not getting a fair trial in County Tyrone because a number of witnesses for the defence are in County Cavan.

I am not sure what light this casts on my ancestor Jacob Whitfield, who was convicted in relation to this matter and sentenced to life in New South Wales. I am inclined to read it as suggesting that Jacob Whitfield framed the petitioner. Stuart Daniels reads it differently:

Also I have been reading the trial of Jacob Whitfield in Cavan Ireland , and I don’t think he got a fair trial. One of his witnesses could not travel to the court room that was 40 miles away. The trial was held in Tyrone and the witnesses lived in Cavan. Both men protested about the restriction of their witnesses. Makes you wonder was it a kangaroo court, or the Irish equivalent. Was he innocent? We will never know. Our ancestor might not have been such a bad person. The writing is very hard to decipher.

…the original copy of the trial is VERY hard to read as it is in a yellow and faded copy, but Bob [Starling] did a good job of getting a readable copy.

I found also this account of County Cavan in those days.

Cavan, the southernmost county of the old province of Ulster, was a bleak inland region of limited agricultural and commercial development, but it was populous and contained the disfranchised boroughs of Belturbet and Cavan, where county meetings and elections were held. The Catholic population greatly outnumbered, yet were electorally in thrall to, the almost exclusively Protestant gentry, of whom none individually had a sufficient interest to return a Member. The leading figure since the Union had been the only resident nobleman, the 2nd earl of Farnham, a Tory representative peer and joint-governor, whose large and comparatively advanced estate at Farnham gave him an interest which was described by the Irish government in 1818 as ‘very great’. His estimated 1,000 electors were enough to ensure control of one seat, since the potential electorate was only about 6,000 (although one calculation put it as high as nearly 8,000) and in practice was probably far smaller…

2b — Irish

NOTE: Recent family history research has William Whitfield aged 10 on arrival in the colony, as indeed he is in the “Thames” passenger list. Also, it appears Jacob Whitfield’s first wife, Mary, was Goss not Gowrie.

Posted originally on March 17, 2015 by Neil.

As you may recall my father’s family descended from an Irish convict who arrived in Sydney 10 March 1822, and his son who joined him age 14 (or 10) as a free settler in 1826. They came from this bit of Ireland, or nearby:

I am not sure where they would have stood on St Patrick’s Day – which is of course today. See National Museum of Australia.

St Patrick’s Day has always been the day for the Irish in Australia. On 17 March 1795 there were rowdy festivities among the Irish convicts, and the cells were filled with prisoners. Later the occasion gained in respectability, marked by formal dinners attended by the colonial elite, many with no Irish connections.

By the early 20th century, parades were held in capital cities and rural centres. These were demonstrations of connections with an Irish Catholic past, or support for Irish political causes.

Today, St Patrick’s Day in Australia has evolved into a fun day marked by revelry, green beer and comical hats. On that day, some say, there are only two kinds of people — those who are Irish, and those who wish they were.

While “the wearing of the green” apparently commemorates the United Irishmen of the late 18th century, many of whose leaders were Protestants, it is now rather associated with the Catholic majority. My ancestors were not Catholic, presumably descended from the 17th century Plantations. They certainly lived in the Six Counties. The picture above is near Cootehill in County Cavan.

Whatever, I refer you to an item in today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

From its humble St James Gate brewery beginnings in Dublin to its position as one of the world’s most recognised beer brands, the black brew with the stark white head can come with some turf wars. Some Guinness enthusiasts may cry “It tastes better in Ireland!”, but the black stuff is now brewed in more than 55 countries and the distinction is best settled from pub to pub.

Sydney’s raft of Irish pubs may lay claim to the best Guinness in town, but it’s sometimes in the spots you least suspect it that the black nectar finds its best expressions. Sydney’s pubs host a wealth of bartenders serious about their Guinness pouring but, in the end, the cream rises to the top.

Surry Hills pub The Porterhouse heads the list. Now that brings back memories!

Sunday lunch was at the Porter House

Posted on December 14, 2008 by Neil

How long have we been coming here, I asked Sirdan. We couldn’t remember for sure, but suspect it may go back to last century… It certainly goes back to 2000 or 2001, as I recall The Rabbit coming here… This is a real Irish Pub with real Irish people, and a great $12 Sunday roast.

3 — 1835-6 — Whitfields

NOTE: Recent family history research has William Whitfield aged 10 on arrival in the colony, as indeed he is in the “Thames” passenger list. Also, it appears Jacob Whitfield’s first wife, Mary, was Goss not Gowrie.

Posted originally on January 11, 2015 by Neil.

This series of posts is the most comprehensive I have done on family history. I am doing them backwards here so that in due course they will appear sequentially.

Or thereabouts. Very significant for Victoria:

On 10 May 1835 John Batman set sail in the 30-tonne schooner ‘Rebecca’ on behalf of the Association to explore Port Phillip for land. After entering Port Phillip Bay on 29 May, Batman and his party anchored their ship a short distance from the heads and made several excursions through the countryside. On 6 June, at Merri Creek near what is now Northcote, Batman purchased 600,000 acres of land, including the sites of both Melbourne and Geelong, from eight Aboriginal chiefs. The Government later cancelled this purchase and, as a result, had to compensate the Port Phillip Association.

On 8 June 1835, Batman and his party rowed up the Yarra River and landed near the site of the former Customs House (now the Immigration Museum). John Batman recorded in his journal: “about six miles up, found the river all good water and very deep. This will be the place for a village.” Batman left three white men of his party and five Aborigines from New South Wales behind with instructions to build a hut and commence a garden, and returned to Launceston to report to his association.

Do see James Boyce’s excellent 1835: The founding of Melbourne and the conquest of Australia. (That’s a very left-wing review; it really is a great book.)

And another noteworthy event of this era: 1834 – Six English farm labourers (Tolpuddle Martyrs) sentenced to transportation to the Colony for organising trade union activities.

The population (non-Aboriginal, and rounded figures) of Australia in the decades we have come thus far was: c. 1815 – 25,000; c. 1825 – 35,000; c.1835 – 128,000. The present population of Wollongong is c. 282,000.

This was an interesting decade for my Whitfield ancestors. The convict Jacob got his Ticket of Leave in March 1834.

Then, as I have noted before:

[Jacob] witnessed the wedding on 20 June 1836 at St Andrews Presbyterian Church of William Whitfield and Caroline Philadelphia West, along with the other witnesses Maria Burgess and William Burgess. On 18 September 1836 (yes, I can count!) the baptism is recorded at St James Church, King Street, of William Joseph John Whitfield, son of William and Caroline. William gave his profession as carpenter, and his address as Elizabeth Street. The child had been born on August 14. (By the way, it snowed in Sydney on June 28 1836.)

At that wedding the minister most likely would have been John McGarvie, the second Presbyterian minister in colonial Sydney. The much better known John Dunmore Lang was around at the time, but at Scots Church. Lang had arrived in Sydney a year after Jacob, became a member of the NSW Parliament, and died in Sydney in 1878. The baptism on the other hand was in the Church of England. St James’s remains a very notable part of Sydney’s architecture and life.

Jacob Whitfield had a bit of an adventure in 1834:

The story goes on:

Deneen was not in the room at the time of the robbery, and he was not at all like the man whom complainant gave into his charge; the man was a stranger to him, and afterwards left the house. Whitfield was again examined,and swore positively to the prisoner Coch-rane, but knew nothing of Deneen. There being no evidence against Deneen, the Magistrates discharged him, and committed Cochrane, to take his trial for the offence. As soon as Cochrane had been removed from the bar, Whitfield was placed in the dock, and sentenced to be confined in a solitary cell for seven days, for being in a  public-house tippling on Sunday. The Magistrates, Messrs. Slade and Benington,also remarked that they considered the conduct of the publican highly reprehensible, in not taking the fellow into custody who robbed the old man, and stated, that it was not only the duty of publicans as special constables, to assist in the apprehension of robbers, but any Citizen was bound to do so, and uphold the laws of England.

Yes, by now Jacob had been assigned to his son William! The source is the Sydney Herald, 2 October 1834.

Jacob may never have been in the following pub, but I and my friend Sirdan and his friend Penny were in 2010:

Yes, that is the Surveyor-General Inn at Berrima, NSW, established in 1834 and licensed in 1835 – the oldest continuously licensed pub in Australia. Jacob’s children, who ended up in the County of Camden,  may well have called in — as has this great-great-great grandson more than once.