Taking a closer look Part 2

Continuing the story of Thomas Hannigan (senior) and his wife, Bridget Brown.

The early years of the new settlement at Launceston would have been very busy. Everything needed to sustain life had to be provided by the occupants, or brought in by ship. Buildings had to be erected, and land cleared for growing food.

By the time Governor Macquarie visited the settlement in 1821, he found various government buildings, erected and occupied since his first visit ten years earlier, including military barracks, commandant’s residence, lime kilns, blacksmith’s shop, stores, watch house and gaol, and a chaplain’s dwelling. The Rev. John Youl, an Anglican minister, had been appointed the first chaplain in 1819. On his arrival, he toured the district for three weeks, marrying 41 couples and baptising 64 children, some of the latter belonging to newlyweds, who had been waiting for an opportunity to be legally married.

On arrival in the colony, convicts were either set to work for the Government, constructing roads and buildings, or assigned to civilian employers. It seems likely that Thomas Hannigan was among the latter, and travelled to Van Diemen's Land as a servant to the free settler in Paterson's party. How he came to be a sailor is a mystery. There is no mention in his records of a conditional pardon, and it would have been many years before he would have been allowed the freedom of going to sea. He must have been fairly well-behaved in the colony, as he attracted no attention until the transgression of 1837.

By 1820, Thomas was married to a convict woman, Bridget Brown. There is no mention in Thomas's records of "permission to marry" and being Catholic, he would not have accepted an Anglican ceremony; so probably Bridget was a 'common law' wife.

I have very little information about her, apart from an entry in the book "Notorious Strumpets and Dangerous Girls" by Phillip Tardif. (This is a history of over 1600 female convicts who were sent to Tasmania between 1803 - 1829.) It makes fascinating reading.

Brown, Bridget (or Wilson)

Convicted at Dublin City, November 1815. Transported for stealing apparel - 7 years.

Trade, servant. Age 24 (1817)

Colonial experience

1817: 27 August arrived at the Derwent from sydney aboard the Elizabeth Henrietta

1820 & 1821 Musters: wife of Thomas Hannigan, Port Dalrymple

1820: 28 December Assaulting Mary Harman. Bound over to keep the peace.

1825: 19 October Wife of Hannigan. Breaking open  box and stealing sundry articles of wearing apparel therefrom, the propert of Mrs. Maxey. Charge dismissed.

1826: 29 March Launceston. Assaulting Isabella Whittingham. Bound over to keep the peace for 3 months.

1827: 8 March. Drunk and disorderly. To find sureties for her good behaviour for 3 months.

1829: 21 October. Being drunk and disorderly. Reprimanded.

1830: 15 November. Using threatening language to Mary Beard and gross language before the Magistrates. To sit in the stocks 4 hours and find sureties to keep the peace.

1836: 29 March. Drunk and disorderly. fined 5 shillings.

1836: 12 October. Drunk and disorderly. Fined 5 shillings.

1837: 21 April. Being drunk. Fined 5 shillings.

We can surmise something about Bridget's life from the record. The second surname, Wilson, may indicate that she was married, or at least living with someone, at the time of her conviction. Did she have children? She was 23 at the time of her trial, so it's quite possible.
If she did, she never saw them again.
Notice the dates of her court appearances - almost always in October or March. Did she celebrate the birthdays of those lost children, perhaps? (All pure speculation, of course).

Returning to the Cornwall Chronicle report of her death, we can perhaps read between the lines:
“It came out in evidence, that deceased ... resided with a man named Thomas Henshaw, upon Mr. Lawrence’s sheep run, about five miles from Launceston. On Thursday evening she was taken unwell; on Friday she became worse, ... on Saturday, about one p.m., as she was gradually sinking, Henshaw went for a Mrs. Smith to attend her, and then made the best of his way to Launceston for a doctor; Mrs. Smith, on her arrival, gave deceased some gruel, and then some tea, upon which she almost instantly expired, in which state she was found by Dr. Grant upon his arrival....”

Reading this report, I am struck by the care Bridget received in her illness. Henshaw "went for a Mrs Smith to attend her" and Mrs. Smith did her best to minister to the dying woman. Henshaw "made the best of his way to Launceston for a doctor" a distance of 5 miles - perhaps he had a horse? The doctor attended, so Henshaw or his employer must have been prepared to pay for his services.
So even in her last moments, Bridget was loved and cared for. That's good to know.

Thomas and Bridget had at least five children, but only two, or possibly three, survived. When Bridget died, their daughter Mary was in gaol, and their son Thomas was about 14 years old.
At that time, only the children of the well-to-do were educated. Poor children went to work as soon as they were old enough to be useful. Thomas may have been employed on the property where Bridget was living with Thomas Henshaw, or he may have already followed in his father's footsteps, and become a sailor.

Taking a closer look

NOTE: this post is about Thomas Hannigan senior.  Wouldn't want you to get confused :-)

A family historian is like a detective, examining the available clues, following up leads, making deductions – and sometimes, educated guesses. The more you know about the general history and events of your ancestor’s era, the more likely it is that his or her activities will make sense to you (and your audience).

Genealogical research is getting easier all the time, due to the increasing amount of material available online – Googling key places and names will often provide more information.

Sometimes you have very little basic, authentic information about an ancestor. In the case of Thomas Hannigan, I have the transcript of his trial in London in 1800, a brief record of his conviction in Tasmania in 1837, and a newspaper paragraph of the same date.

The London trial records, though entertaining, don’t tell us what happened to Thomas in Australia. For that I must rely on a photocopy of an entry in the Tasmanian convict records:

Port Arthur ruins

Name – Hanneghan, Thomas.

Height 5’2”. Age 59. 

Occupation - ??nailor Not a sailor as I originally thought, but perhaps a nail-maker?

Tried at Launceston, Oct. 5^th, 1837. 

Sentence 14 years. 

Birthplace - London. 

Religion RC. 

Read and write – neither. 

Relatives – 1 son, 1 daughter, & wife, in Launceston. 

Ships – Earl Cornwallis and Francis. 

Offence – Receiving.

A further note in the records says: “Transported for receiving part of 2 promissory notes value 3 pounds… monies the property of Wm. King….. 3 years Port Arthur, conducted to be reported.”

Directly above this entry is the record for Thomas’s daughter, Mary Ann, tried on the same day for Larceny, and sentenced to 7 years. From this we learn that Mary Ann was aged 16, and 4’11” tall. Also illiterate, she was employed as a Laundress & House Servant. She was Native-born. Mary Ann’s family consisted of a mother, sister and brother in Launceston.

Inside Port Arthur

 The newspaper article adds little: “Mary Haneghan, convicted of stealing one pair of trousers, value 5 shillings, and various monies, the property of Wm. King. Sentence, 7 years. Thos Hanagan, Hugh McGlocken, and Rebecca Barton, severally convicted of receiving part of this said property. Sentence, 14 years, and the prisoners Thos Hanagan and Hugh McGlocken, be sent to Port Arthur.”

Little enough to go on…but the records do tell us quite a lot about Thomas and his family, and of course, raise questions.

His birthplace is given as London. Was he really born there, or was it just his place of residence when he stole those sheep?

He was a little short bloke, his daughter even tinier. Seems this may have been genetic, not merely the result of a poor diet – my own mother was not much taller than Thomas.

Both father and daughter claimed to be Roman Catholic, despite a lack of Catholic clergy in Van Diemen’s Land at that date. Both were illiterate, (which argues that Thomas Junior was, also).

The family details are interesting, with a discrepancy between the two accounts. Were there 2 Hannigan daughters, or only the one, Mary Ann? The son is presumably Thomas junior.

There is a published passenger list for Earl Cornwallis which list Thomas as one of the convicts on board, along with his co-accused from London, Richard Coleman. I haven’t found any further information for Coleman.

The Francis  is the most interesting, and leads us to a new view of Thomas’s colonial history.

A schooner of 41 tons, the Francis was assembled in Sydney from frames sent out in the Pitt which arrived on 14 February 1792. Launched on 24 July 1793, she departed  Sydney on her first voyage, 8 September, to Dusky Bay, New Zealand.
A little later, in 1801, the Francis accompanied the Lady Nelson on a voyage to Newcastle, collecting 75 tons of coal which were exchanged for nails and iron in Sydney with the master of the ship Earl Cornwallis, Capt. James Tennant. (note the connection with Thomas’s convict transport.)

We next hear of the Francis in 1804, when she formed part of an expedition to Van Diemen’s Land.

Initially the British authorities were uncertain if Van Diemen’s Land was connected to the mainland, or a separate island. The matter was settled by an expedition conducted by Bass and Flinders in 1798, when they explored Bass Strait, and sailed right around the island in the Norfolk. The Tamar River was entered and mapped, and the mouth was named Port Dalrymple. They were followed in 1802 by Freycinet and Faure from the Naturaliste and 1804 by William Collins in the Lady Nelson.

Fear of French settlement led to the Governor of NSW sending an expedition under Lieut. Colonel William Paterson to establish a settlement at Port Dalrymple (in addition to the southern outpost at Risdon, the fore-runner of Hobart).

On November 4th 1804, Lieutenant Colonel William Paterson, and a fleet of ships HMS Buffalo, the HMS Lady Nelson, the Francis and the Integrity, entered the Tamar heads on the north coast of Van Diemen's Land, with a party of 181 including 74 convicts, soldiers, one free settler, and a doctor.  Thomas Hannigan was thus one of the very earliest white settlers in Tasmania!

An outer cove on the eastern side of the Tamar (George Town), was chosen temporarily and the settlers made camp there. George Town is now considered the oldest town in Australia (1804). Only the cities of Sydney and Hobart are older. In fact John Batman sailed from George Town to settle Melbourne.

View of South Esk river

Paterson continued to explore the Tamar for a better area, on findng two good streams of fresh water he named the area York Town (Beaconsfield) and would transfer all the settlers here before Christmas. The following day November 12th 1804, a large group of Aboriginals approached Paterson's camp, appearing to be quite friendly. They attacked a Marine guard and were fired on with muskets by the Marines. One native was killed and another was wounded.

Despite the hostility of the natives, Paterson continued to explore the area without further incident. Good pasture land and thick forests were found at the head of the Tamar (Launceston). Paterson also discovered and named the North Esk and the South Esk Rivers, and he was most impressed with the Cataract he discovered in a gorge of the South Esk river. Choosing to stay at the York Town settlement, Lieutenant Paterson moved the small settlement to a more fertile area he named Patersonia, (Launceston) in March 1806.

Thomas Hannigan Junior

When Bridget Hannigan died in 1840, her son Thomas was effectively alone in the world. His father, Thomas Hannigan Snr., had been sent to Port Arthur, his older sister Mary was serving 7 years for theft. 

Thomas Jr, born in 1826, would have been 14 years old.

 According to researcher Brian Sullivan, Thomas went to sea, working on ships that sailed up and down the east coast of Australia, from Sydney to the new settlement at Port Philip, and on down to Launceston and Hobart. The shipping lanes were busy, as schooners and sloops carried timber, livestock, passengers and mail. There were new settlers and their (mostly convict) employees, intent on making the most of the new land being opened up. Thomas would have watched as horses, cattle and sheep were offloaded for the pastoral runs of Port Phillip. He would have heard talk of fortunes made and lost, and business opportunities aplenty for those who weren’t afraid to work.

He would also have discovered that convicts, and their descendants, were held in much greater contempt in the mainland states.

In the early years of Van Diemen’s Land, convicts at first outnumbered free settlers, and even in 1846, 75% of the adult males were, or had been, convicts.

Most had gained a measure of freedom, those who could find a wife had married and settled down to a measure of working class respectability. Many had started a small business, and were often successful and well-accepted members of the community.

It is important to remember that few of the convicts were actual criminals, as we understand the term today.

Most were ordinary working class people, who had been caught “helping themselves” to something that didn’t belong to them – a few sheep, some game, a pair of trousers – in an effort to make ends meet. The overwhelming majority of those transported to Australia were convicted of fairly minor thefts, and most did not offend again. The really bad offenders – murderers, arsonists, and the like, were summarily executed.

So the residents of Van Diemen’s Land were very willing to live and let live; it simply wasn’t done to enquire too closely into another fellow’s past, for fear of what you might find.

Not so in the other states. NSW had received about the same number of convicts, but had far more free settlers, and there was consequently more freedom for suspicion as to the other fellow’s history. Convicts and their offspring were thought of as belonging, without possibility of redemption, to the “criminal classes” , and thus to be shunned by all right-minded people.

Port Phillip, which would become the colony of Victoria in 1851, prided itself on being free of the convict taint, and the new Government tried to stop ex-convicts from settling there, even passing a law to that effect. They were too late, of course; thousands of former convicts had already moved there, though probably few admitted to their origins.

Thomas was a sensible young man. When he abandoned the sea, sometime in the late 1840's, he too kept his origins to himself.

He began working as a carrier, taking goods from the Port of Melbourne up to the Goulburn river district, and carrying farm produce down to the city. Presumably, at least at first, he was employed by one of the squatters who had settled along the Goulburn. And here he would meet his wife.

A tale of three sheep

This is the story of my great-great-great grandfather, Thomas Hannigan.

We first meet Thomas at the Old Bailey in London on February 14th, 1800. He and another man, Richard Coleman, are being tried before a judge and jury, accused of stealing 3 ewe sheep, valued at three pounds, from the holding pens at Smithfield Market.

Several witnesses testified that Hannigan and Coleman had been found in possession of said sheep, at around 3 am. The sheep were part of a flock delivered to the market at 10 pm, for sale on the following morning.

Smithfield Market, London

Smithfield Market was then on the outskirts of London, and had been a market for hundreds of years. At that time London had a population of around 1 million people, and horses, cattle, sheep and pigs were sold here to meet the needs of the population. In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens described it thus:

"It was market-morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking dogs, the bellowing and plunging of the oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous and discordant dim that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses."

Doubtless the scene was quieter at 3 am, and the two accused had hoped to drive their booty home undetected. But the clatter of hooves on cobblestones alerted a watchman, and the lads – and the sheep – were taken to a local watch house.

 The prisoner Hannigan called five witnesses, who gave him a good character. In his defence, Hannigan stated “I saw these three sheep straying down Chick Lane, and I went after them, but having but one leg, I could not get before them before the watchman laid hold of me; I told him I was going to take them back to the market.”

Hannigan and Coleman were both found guilty and sentenced to death, but the Jury recommended the prisoners to His Majesty’s mercy, on account of their youth. Thomas Hannigan was 24, Richard Coleman was 20.

His Majesty must have been merciful, for neither was hanged, their sentences instead commuted to transportation for life.

Sydney in 1802

On November 18^th, 1800, they left England on the ship “Earl Cornwallis,” bound for Australia. Thomas Hannigan arrived at Port Jackson on June 12^th, 1801 – the first of my ancestors to arrive in Australia.

It seems almost certain that Thomas Hannigan was Irish-born, so what was he doing in London? The answer may lie in a major event in Irish history – the Rebellion of 1798. Long in the making, this uprising against British rule cost many lives, and anyone who was involved, and escaped execution afterwards, may have found it prudent to seek the anonymity of London’s sprawling tenements. Perhaps Thomas had been injured in the uprising (which would explain his claim of “having but one leg.”)

One can only speculate – did he have a wooden leg? Surely he couldn’t have been sheep-stealing on crutches? Interestingly, there is no further mention of a missing leg in his convict records. The records tell us he was a small man, at just 5’2”, and he could neither read nor write. He gave his religion as Roman Catholic.

On arrival in the colony, convicts were either set to work for the Government, constructing roads and buildings, or assigned to civilian employers. It seems likely that Thomas was among the latter, for he next moved to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) sometime before 1820. He travelled on the “Francis”, which was not a convict ship, so he was presumably part of a private settlement party. He lived at Port Dalrymple, at the mouth of the Tamar river to the north of Launceston, and married an Irish convict woman, Bridget Brown. Edited to add: later information about his arrival in this post

Bridget Brown (also known as Wilson) had been convicted in Dublin in November 1817 to 7 years transportation for stealing apparel. She arrived in Sydney in 1817, and was then aged 24.  Immediately transferred to Launceston on the “Elizabeth Henrietta”, she arrived there on August 27^th, 1817.

The 1820 and 1821 musters show her as the wife of Thomas Hannigan, of Port Dalrymple (the early name for Launceston)

Bridget came to the attention of the courts on several occasions, usually for being drunk and disorderly. Unlike many convict women, she was never severely punished, being merely fined, or “bound over to keep the peace” – though in 1830 she was in a bit more trouble:  “November 15^th, 1830. Using threatening language to Mary Beard and gross language before the magistrates. To sit in the stocks 4 hours and find sureties to keep the peace.” She must have had a mouth on her, our Bridget!

Nothing further is known of Thomas until 1837, when he was charged with receiving stolen goods and sentenced to 14 years in Port Arthur. Thomas was then around 60 years of age, and presumably died in Port Arthur.

After Thomas’s incarceration, Bridget did not fare very well.

According to the Cornwall Chronicle, October 31^st, 1840: “Another inquest was held on Monday, at Mr. Nevill’s, White Hart, Elizabeth Street, upon the body of Bridget Hannigan. It came out in evidence, that deceased was of very intemperate habits, and resided with a man named Thomas Henshaw, upon Mr. Lawrence’s sheep run, about five miles from Launceston. On Thursday evening she was taken unwell; on Friday she became worse, and took an emetic, which operated powerfully; on Saturday, about one p.m., as she was gradually sinking, Henshaw went for a Mrs. Smith to attend her, and then made the best of his way to Launceston for a doctor; Mrs. Smith, on her arrival, gave deceased some gruel, and then some tea, upon which she almost instantly expired, in which state she was found by Dr. Grant upon his arrival. On a post mortem examination taking place, Dr. G. gave it as his opinion that deceased had come to her death from inflammation of the lungs. Verdict – Died from the visitation of God, from natural causes.”

Thomas and Bridget had at least five children, but only three survived. Their daughter Mary was tried at the same time as her father, for stealing a pair of trousers and some money, the property of Wm. King. She was sentenced to 7 years. Court records show that Mary had 1 brother and 1 sister, plus her mother, living in Launceston. Nothing further has so far been discovered of Thomas and Bridget’s two daughters, but we know quite a lot about their son, Thomas Hannigan junior.

More of this story soon...

I am indebted to Brian Sullivan, another descendant of Thomas and Bridget, for his research into the family, and for sharing the information with me.