History of Catherine Kiely and William King
Irene’s Maternal Grandparents
I struggled to find much information about William McCray King or Catherine Rose Kiely (or possibly Kealy or Keely), despite trawling Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, and a variety of other sites. If anyone has any other details, please feel free to contact me.
According to the Maryland Births and Christenings, 1650-1995, William was born on 6 July 1817 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. As such, he’s the only one of Bill and Irene’s eight grandparents who didn’t come from England or Ireland.
William’s father was Gideon Terry King, and his mother was Louisa Henrietta Wilhelmina Busch. By chance, I stumbled on a site called The New England Ball Project, which was all about tracking people with the surname “Ball” from the New England region and trying to place them in terms of relationships to one another. I came across Elam King (1769 – 1825) who appears to be Gideon’s Father (William’s Grandfather). If you click here, you can drill back several generations – way back to the 1600’s. Of course, this all needs some additional research and rigour. Stay tuned!
On the basis of information from FamilySearch.org William arrived in New South Wales in 1835, although I’ve been unable to find out anything about which ship he came on, or where it left from.
I discovered the photo below on this family tree in Ancestry.com – it purports to show William in his 30’s.
William McCray King in his 30’s
Catherine Rose Kiely – sometimes referred to as Keely or Kealy – was born in 1824 in Goresbridge, Kilkenny, Ireland.
There’s a note on Ancestry which quotes the New South Wales, Australia, Wives & Children of Irish Convicts, 1825-1840 (page 247d) in support of the fact that Catherine, aged 12, arrived in New South Wales with her mother (Elizabeth Kealy) on the convict ship the Pyramus, which arrived in Port Jackson on 14 December 1836 (click here).
Since I can’t find an Elizabeth Kealy or Kiely or Keely on the list of 11 passengers who travelled as part of the 1836 voyage of the Pyramus, it would appear that Elizabeth was one of the 120 female convicts on board. Those women brought 31 children with them, and Catherine Kiely was one of those children.
This all requires some more investigation. Across the O’Brien Clan website, I often refer to the fact that this ancestry stuff is riddled with false leads and dead ends. As much as possible, I’ve tried to avoid guesswork, relying instead only on what I feel sure is accurate.
The Pyramus
William and Catherine apparently married in Goulburn on 5 June 1840, although the references I found to support that have her surname as “Reilly”, and I can’t find any original source documents, so it seems to me that that may or may not be true.
But if that’s true, then William was 23 and Catherine was just 16.
While I’ve seen some information that the couple may have had 7 children, or possibly 9, the most likely number appears to be 10. John Lister Bertrand (1841–1876), Austin Joseph (1844–1884), Louisa (1846–1847), William (1847-1851), Elizabeth (1849–1932), Caroline Elizabeth (1850–1901), Emma (1835–1932), a second William C (1857–1873), George Washington (1858–1934), Margaret Anne Bridget (“Dolly”) (1860–1902).
The first two children were born in Sydney and Paramatta, with the remaining 8 being born in Goulburn. It’s interesting to note that Catherine and William named one of their children “George Washington”, no doubt a nod to William’s US origins.
Of course, it’s Caroline we’re mainly interested in here, as she was Irene O’Brien’s mother, and it’s Irene who’s at the centre of our story, along with her husband Bill.
Catherine died on 9 July 1863, aged just 39, and just 3 years after the birth of her last child, Margaret. Her place of death is given as Ifield, Goulburn, NSW.
At that stage, 2 of her children had died, and the remaining eight children were aged between 3 and 22, with 5 of them 13 or under, including Caroline (Irene O’Brien’s mother), who was just 13 when her mother died in 1863.
Catherine’s funeral notice was published on page 3 of the Goulburn Herald on Saturday, 11 July 1863:
THE friends of Mr. WILLIAM KING are respectfully requested to attend the FUNERAL of his late WIFE, CATHERINE, which will take place on SUNDAY, 12th instant, at half-past two o'clock p.m. The procession will move from her late residence, Gooley's Cottages, Tuena Road.
Goulburn Herald on Saturday, 11 July 1863
I did a small amount of research on Ifield, Gooley’s Cottages and Tuena Road, but with not much luck. It’s on the ever-growing list of things to follow up.
What happened to William King after his wife’s death isn’t known, but he died 39 years later on 13 March 1902 in Gundaroo, New South Wales, aged 84.
It’s interesting to note that John and Caroline Casey (Irene O’Brien’s paternal grandparents) lived at Gundaroo from 1833 to 1889, so it’s no doubt because both sets of her grandparents were living there that Catherine’s parents, Thomas Casey and Caroline King, met up. But more on them in another story.
Written by Rob Landsberry, last updated 16 May 2023