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Workhouse orphan girls

The saga of the sixteen Ballyshannon Workhouse orphan girls sent to Australia under the Earl Grey emigration scheme in the midst of the Great Famine in Ireland continues to reveal fascinating details of their fate, years after their names were listed on this web site, courtesy of Anthony Begley and Soinbhe Lally. Tantalising clues about one of the orphans, Mary Allingham, came to light, culminating with an item in the May 2005 issue of the Canadian Vindicator e-zine. Now comes a glimpse into the lives of two others, following their arrival in Australia.

Rhondda Martel of Sydney, Australia, in the first of two e-mails has written:

"I have been doing my family history which includes outer family, like brothers and sisters of my 5 x grandfather who was sent to Australia as a convict, and we have found that his youngest son, Edward Henry Williams, married Mary Jane McBride who was one of the sixteen girls sent to Australia from Ballyshannon Workhouse under then orphan immigration scheme."

In a second e-mail she revealed that:

"Edward Henry Williams was actually my gggg greatgrandmother's brother and whilst my family went to NZ, Edward who was only a baby when his father died must of stayed here, although, we do not know where….His father and mother were both convicts, but his father was educated in the sense that he could read and write, and in England he had been a waterman on the Thames. He went on to become the 1st Govt Coxswain under Lachlan Macquarie and was in charge of the small boats. Unfortunately he died in 1822, just 6 months after Edward was born. I guess this would account for the son not being able to read and write as Ann his mother could not read or write.

He married Mary Jane McBride in the Parish of St Thomas in Port Macquarie by Banns with consent of the Orphan Immigration Committee on the 24th February 1851, by Thomas O'Reilly. Neither could write as they both signed with an X as making their mark. The witnesses were John McDonogh and Mary Ann Bows They went on to have 6 children, 4 girls and 2 boys, Matilda, Selina, Agnes Mary, and Annie, and Edward H and Thomas J Williams.

So far we have not been able to find Mary Jane's death certificate and when the children were born or married they listed her name as Jane, Mary, Ann, and the latest I believe is Sarah Jane on Selina's marriage certificate. This makes it very hard to trace…. There was also a Margaret McBride who came as well and we are guessing that she was her sister.

Judith (a descendant of Mary Jane) and I found a Charles McBride who was born in Carrickmoss (I think that's how you spell it) who had the same name for parents as both Margaret and Mary Jane. We wondered if they were one and the same family. Also Margaret, we found, was a Margaret Maxwell McBride.

We must admit what information we have is not much, and I guess we will just go on looking."

Since three of the sixteen orphans sent from the Ballyshannon Workhouse to Australia in 1847 have been traced, and the immediate descendants of two have been identified, the services of a Canadian expert in demographics were secured in an attempt to ascertain a reliable estimate of the total number of descendants of the original sixteen.

Based on life expectancies, verifiable generation spans, and quantifiable birth rates, it is now calculated that if all their descendants remained in the southern continent, they account for a grand total of ……43,200.

Put simply, some 43,200 Australian citizens over the passage of the years could attribute their very existence to the exportation of the Ballyshannon Workhouse orphans. The contribution of those sixteen to the growth of Australia is astounding.

To assist genealogy researchers, their names are listed once more:

ALLINGHAM Mary McCREA Letty
CARBERRY Jane McCREA Mary
CARLETON Jane McDERMOTT Mary Anne
FEELY Margaret McDERMOTT Sally
LENNON Sally REID Rose
MAGUIRE Mary ROONEY Anne
McBRIDE Ann SMITH Biddy
McBRIDE Margaret SWEENEY Margaret

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