Autumn welcomed us to Adelaide, it was like arriving in my own personal heaven, streets lined with historical avenues of deciduous trees every day turning even more brilliant colours of my favourite season.

This post is an ode to Margaret Maloney, my Great x5 Grandmother.

I remember, as a child, asking my mother if we had any convicts in our family. She said, ‘yes’, my eyes wide, ‘really! What did they do?’. ‘Stole a cow’, my mother replied.

I don’t know if my mother was having fun with me, or if there is any truth to it, I certainly haven’t found anything to prove or disprove it…yet…

But I have found some convicts, let me introduce you to Margaret Maloney 🍀

Margaret was born in Ireland in 1771.

Her parents, siblings and childhood are mysteries to me, every rock I find I wish for a clue, turn it and find nothing.

Her childhood? At a minimum, I hope she was safe, warm and fed.

We don’t know if Margaret came from a poverty stricken family, middle of the road or a family of note but we do know that her life wasn’t about to get easier.

In April 1792 she was tried for a crime in County Carlow.

There are no surviving records of what she was found guilty of, but guilty she was found and seven years transportation she received.

An explosion destroyed the Irish Public Records Office in 1922, lost that day were thousands of documents, many dating to the 13th century, a trove of historical treasure, including sadly for us, the record of what Margaret Maloney was found guilty of that day in April 1792 (and perhaps more information about her life and family?).

About a year after her arrest, 21 years of age (and 6 months pregnant), she boarded the ship Boddingtons and on 15 February 1793 departed Cork with 19 other female convicts and 125 male convicts, bound for Botany Bay.

At sea in May 1793 Margaret gave birth to a son, John O’Brien. She listed the father as William O’Brien. Another William (O’Neil) features later in her story…I can’t help but wonder if they were the same person?

It was an eventful 173 days journey from Cork to Port Jackson interspersed with alarms of mutinies and conspiracies among both soldiers and convicts.

But, under the charge of Captain Robert Chalmers, a convict ship it remained and on the 7th August, 1793 the Boddingtons sailed safely into Port Jackson, just five years after Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet rowed to shore and set foot on the coastal wilderness that would become Sydney.

Some convict ships had devastating numbers of death, especially the notorious Second Fleet with ships run by the slave traders. Thankfully Boddingtons was not one of those, she dropped anchor at Sydney Cove just one convict less (and four babies more) than when they left and it was reported on their landing that they were mostly in good health.

In September 1793 Margaret baptised her son John in Sydney.

I can find no further record of John O’Brien, it has been suggested by one researcher he died in infancy.

Upon Margaret’s arrival in Sydney, she met John McDuel.

My early research indicated John arrived as a private for the newly established New South Wales Corps in 1791 on the ship Matilda. However, I’ve since found alternate research that suggests he arrived as a convict and upon arrival enlisted as a soldier. To find the truth from the old country, I’m searching shipping records, prison records, military records and court records, but the truth alludes me at the moment…

One thing my research has told me is that the journey onboard Matilda was horrendous, 25 lives lost and the majority of convicts sent directly to the hospital upon arrival ‘the greatest part of them are so emaciated, so worn away by long confinement, or want of food, or from both these causes, that it will be long before they recover their strength, and which many of them never will recover’. Governor Phillip to Lord Grenville, November 5th 1791.

In trying to understand the unfolding (unravelling) of John’s life, I find this information valuable…I wish I could find more about his life before his journey to Port Jackson, his family, siblings, career…to further understand…

Margaret & John’s journey together started with a son, William McDuel (May 1795) and then a daughter, Jemima McDuel (5 November 1796).

Then, like something from your worst nightmare, just days after his daughter was born, John (with several others) was arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced to death for robbing the public stores.

Two were swiftly put to death on November 30, 1796 and another two followed on December 1, 1796.

Terrifying for John.

Terrifying and devastating for Margaret and her two babies.

But incredibly, on the 12 December, 1796, John and two others were ‘granted a colonial pardon by Governor Hunter when favourable circumstances [were] represented to him, on condition of remaining in the colony’.

I can’t help wonder if, for John, those ‘favourable circumstances’ were Margaret and his two wee babes in arms, William (1) and Jemima (just days old)?

I found this an interesting read from The Works of Jeremy Bentham published 1843:

Suffice to say, John was discharged from the NSW Corps on 25 November, 1976.

I’m super grateful to Governor Hunter for showing mercy to my Great x5 Grandfather that day because two years later my ancestor was born, Lydia McDuel (29 July 1798) and then a little sister, Elizabeth McDuel (1800).

But then some not great news, a record in 1801 of John McDuel owing Richard Tuckwell £5.17.4. I wonder how Margaret was coping?

Then this glimpse into Margaret’s personality…on February 2, 1802 Margaret Maloney & Margaret Murphy were confined by His Excellency’s order for riotous behaviour. They were reprimanded and discharged.

She still had her fighting spirit in 1802 🍀.

I wish I knew what she felt so passionate about that day?

My research revealed these two things happened around that time:

1801 – Governor King introduced a 5 shilling fee for a ‘night’s lodging’ in Sydney’s gaol (the fee was divided between the arresting constables and the gaoler).

1802 – Governor King introduced a tax on ‘strong drinks’ (this was to help pay off the remaining debt of building the new stone Sydney gaol).

I also wonder if this gives us a hint as to what her crime was that warranted seven years transportation? Riot? It’s on the list of common crimes in Ireland at the time…? Or was it the cow…?

Sadly her fighting spirit didn’t last much longer, in 1804 she died, leaving her four young children.

Following her death it was reported that:

…a presentation was made to the Provost Marshal by William Neil stating the death of Mrs McDuel, of the Back Row East [was] in consequence of violent treatment received from her husband. Neil’s declarations were calculated, however they might have been designed, to excite strong suspicion whence, after the most minute enquiry, [the authorities] were decidedly of the opinion that the declaration of the above informant was false, infamous and malicious and that no symptom of violence whatever appeared on the body – and the persons who attended the deceased during her illness protested solemnly when examined separately, that no violence whatever had been offered her.

Neil was summoned, ‘…stood confounded and abashed and returned with a severe reprimand. The deceased had four children, the oldest not more than 8 years old’.

It has been suggested that the man named as William Neil was William O’Neil who had been in prison with Margaret in Carlow. He arrived on the ship Marquis Cornwallis at Port Jackson on 11 February 1796.

I can’t help wondering if William O’Neil was the father of Margaret’s son born at sea? Were they parted young lovers/soulmates. Was he anxious to follow his beloved to Botany Bay, but sadly forced to wait three long years before being put on a ship, only to discover on his arrival that she was with another man, not only pregnant but also with a babe in arms?

Heartbreaking if this was their story.

Whoooaaa there imagination…

Thank you William O’Neil, I am grateful to you for being Margaret’s friend, standing in her corner, loving her and valuing her life enough to stand up and speak the truth. I know you would have known that you couldn’t change anything at that point, or prove anything. I see you a bit like her guardian angel, I have some of those in my life for whom I’m more grateful than words can say.

Okay, back to the facts…

In 1805 we find some more not great news, John McDuel registers a promissory note to Thomas Rose for £9.15.5.

And then in October, 1806 this notice appeared in the Sydney Gazette:

All persons are forbid harbouring, encouraging, employing or accrediting John McDuel, cabinet maker, on any pretence whatever on pain of prosecution with the utmost rigour of the law, as also for a breach of existing Public Orders, the said John McDuel being bound to me by Articles of Indenture the conditions whereof have not been fulfilled. I. Nicholls.

Sadly we then find John McDuel listed as a convict on the 1811 Muster in Hobart, Van Dieman’s Land.

When did they transport him to Van Dieman’s Land?

What happened to the children left behind in Sydney?

Were William and Jemima able look after the younger ones?

Knowing what we know about John, did they have to take on the role of parents when Margaret died in 1804, when they were just 8 & 7?

Did William O’Neil help?

I’ve found it recorded that Lydia had a very strong bond with Jemima and lost her will to live after her beloved big sister passed away. In my heart I believe it was the older children who kept the family together and Jemima became the mother figure.

A couple of months before her 19th birthday Jemima married Edward Eager on July 10, 1815. Edward arrived as a convict in 1811, he came from a land-owning family in Ireland and was a solicitor before he received a death sentence for forgery, with his family’s influence his sentence was commuted to transportation for life. He had a noteworthy life after he received a conditional pardon in 1813, one area of significance was his work surrounding the rights of ex-convicts.

And good news for my ancestor. Reverend George Erskine, the son of 1st Baron Sir Thomas Erskine, arrived in a fast developing Sydney town on June 26th, 1822. Shortly after his arrival our Lydia caught his eye, they were married April 2, 1823 at the Church of St Philip. Published in the Sydney Gazette: “Immediately after the ceremony, the happy pair set out for Windsor”

Rev. George Erskine is mentioned on the Australian Royalty website and the suburb Erskineville in Sydney was named in his honour, it was where he built a home for his family, Erskine Villa, in 1830.

Sometimes when I look in the mirror I see my mother in my expressions, I wonder, could that mean I’m also looking at my grandmother(s) too? Next time I see those expressions I’m going to look closer…

Thank you Margaret Maloney, for so much, your strength, courage, fighting spirit…for your legacy and my tiny place in it.

And thank you too John McDuel, I’m sad your life held so much pain, may the joy that has been born through you rained peace upon you. (John passed away in New Norfolk, Van Dieman’s Land in 1827)

Have a wonderful day!

(most of my research has come from online genealogy sites but there has also been one additional source where I found valuable new snippets of information, Barbara Hall’s self published book, ‘Of Infamous Character, The Convicts of the Boddingtons, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1793’. Thank you for your research Barbara, from a very grateful descendant of a convict who made her journey on the Boddingtons.)