History of Caroline Purcell and John Casey
Irene’s Paternal Grandparents
This is the story of Caroline Purcell and John Casey, Irene’s paternal grandparents. It’s about two people who travelled from Ireland to Australia as convicts. Who met, married, and had eight children. In one sense, their story is similar to many of those who came to Australia in the early 1800’s. But what makes it exceptional to us is that, without them, none of us would have existed.
I want to start by trying to clarify a couple of details about both Caroline and John. If you’ve read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section of the website, you will have seen that I talk about the quality of the data available via sites like Ancestry and My Heritage. They’re fabulous resources, but they can also be a little challenging.
Such is the case when it comes to John Casey and Caroline Purcell and their dates of birth.
Most of Ancestry shows John Casey as having been born in 1794, with the day and month generally not shown. Some records show him as being born “about 1794”.
Caroline Mary Purcell is sometimes referred to as Mary Caroline Purcell, and her birth date is shown as both 5 February 1813, and “before 5 February 1813”. It’s possible that that date is the date of Caroline’s Baptism, which would likely be why the word “before” has been used. However, I did discover this site which listed her birth date as 5 February 1813.
Caroline Purcell’s baptism record
To some extent precise dates aren’t that much of an issue. What IS important is to make sure you have the right people, with the right events and family relationships. So, I don’t want to spend a huge amount of time on this, other than to say that, of all the documents I found, I’m going to rely on those that have a legal impact.
In Caroline’s case, I’m using the Old Bailey as the source – you’d have to hope that they got their facts pretty well right. In 1829 at the Old Bailey in London, Caroline Purcell was convicted of theft and sentenced to 7 years transportation. You can read the whole story here. At the end of the sentencing, it’s noted that Caroline is 19 years old. This puts her birthdate in 1810, not 1813.
If we jump forward a few years to 1831 and 1832, we find John and Caroline in NSW, where they applied several times to be allowed to marry. More on that a little later. One of those applications is dated 1832, and it shows Caroline’s age as 20, and John’s as 33. If we accept the Old Bailey age for Caroline, then there was no time in 1832 when could she have been 20 – even in January she would have been 21. And of course, if John was really 33 in 1832, then he would have been born in 1798 or 1799, not 1794.
And then there’s the couples ‘tickets of leave’ when they were given their freedom - Caroline’s shows her birth year as 1808, while John’s shows his as 1800.
You’ll see later that there are other documents which mention dates and ages, but they don’t really clarify much.
It’s all quite confusing, but I guess record keeping and cross checking wasn’t so precise back then – the banking industry’s “100 points identification system” was 150 years or more away. So, faced with all of this, let’s assume this for now – that John Casey was born in 1798, and Caroline Casey was born in 1810. If more information comes to light further down the track, then we can modify those dates.
The Caseys had established themselves in the farming community of Tipperary in the late 18th century. John Casey was born in Loughmore in County Tipperary, Ireland in 1798. His parents were Mark Casey and Mary Ellen Maher.
These were turbulent times in Ireland, although “turbulent” has been a word often used to describe Ireland in the two centuries since. There were not only the sectarian issues between Protestants and Catholics, but also the Irish desire to see England withdraw from their country so that a true Irish Republic could be established. In some cases religious differences were put aside to present a unified front against the British, but inevitably those differences would resurface.
Violence and insurrection became more common across Ireland as the 18th century drew to a close, culminating in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. And it was into that environment that John Casey came into this world. As John grew to adulthood, he worked as a farmer’s labourer, a poorly paid job that no doubt saw John side with those who were looking for fairer treatment and a better deal from the British.
John married Mary Doran in Cashel, Tipperary in either 1812 or 1817, although the latter seems more likely if we continue to assume he was born in 1798. Some records show that Mary’s name may have been Cath and not Mary, but given what follows, it doesn’t have any impact on our story.
John and Mary had two children – Patrick (born 1823) and Ellen (born 1824). During this time, John appears to have become involved with the Whiteboys, a secret Irish agrarian organisation in 18th-century Ireland which used violent tactics to defend tenant farmers’ land rights for subsistence farming. Their name derives from the white smocks that members wore in their nightly raids. John would no doubt have known that the penalty for his actions would be serious if he was caught, so his beliefs must have been strong.
In 1823 or 1824 John played a minor part in the Irish uprising, and on the 10th of April 1824 he was convicted of rioting (or insurrection) at Cashel and was sentenced to 7 years transportation to NSW. Of all of the convicts transported to Australia, Casey was one of just 148 convicts whose crime was “riotous conduct”.
At the time John was described as: “age: 30, height: 5 ft 4 inches, complexion: fair ruddy, hair: dark brown, eyes: dark hazel, temperament: quiet, distinguishing features: mole on right knee.”.
Casey was transported to Australia on the Sir Godfrey Webster, which departed Cork on 11 July 1825 with 196 convicts. For almost all the convicts this would be the last time they’d see Ireland.
For the first fortnight, most of them were quite ill. The ship’s surgeon, William Evans, attributed this to the different food they were being given. On the hulk back in Ireland where they awaited transportation, the men had not been allowed any solid animal food.
For more about the voyage, click here.
The ship arrived in Sydney in January 1826. It was reported at the time that:
The men were mustered on board on Thursday 12th January 1826 by the new Colonial Secretary Alexander McLeay. The indents include the name, age, marital status, native place, trade, offence, when and where tried, sentence, physical description, remarks regarding their conduct on the voyage and where they were assigned on arrival. The prisoners were landed on Monday 16th January. Their healthy and orderly appearance was attributed to the care of surgeon William Evans, to whose humanity and attentions during the passage, the prisoners themselves bore testimony to in an address.
Casey was initially allocated to a Mr Wild in Parramatta, although that was a brief assignment, with Casey later allocated to the Broughton family on their property Tamnangoro on the recently settled Goulburn plains, where he worked as a bullocky. The 1828 Census shows that John Casey was one of 27 people working on the Broughton farm, and he was listed as a bullock driver aged 28 (there’s that damned age thing again…now they’re saying he was born in 1800!!).
At some time during these early years in Australia, Casey's wife and his two young children died in Ireland. Patrick died in 1830, aged just 7. The dates aren’t clear for the deaths of either his daughter Ellen, or his wife Mary – although some records show Mary dying in the same year as her son.
Eventually, towards the end of the 1820’s, Casey was allocated to Joshua Moore. Moore had a 500 acre farm at Liverpool, along with a new land grant of over 2,000 acres called Canberry Station, in the district that was later to become Canberra. Moore was the first European landholder in the area, although he never lived there. Casey worked as a shepherd and a bullocky at both the Moore stations.
While at Canberry Station, John had a bit of good luck. Remember that at this stage, he was only in the second year of his seven-year sentence. As chance would have it, in 1826 and into 1828, escaped convict John Tennant was stealing his way around the Canberra district, along with his partner John ‘Dublin Jack’ Rix. These were the days of truly excellent nick names. I think mine would be Rob ‘Too Much Time on the Computer‘ Landsberry.
The pair stole from local travellers, camp sites and homesteads. Local overseer, James Ainslie, organised a party to capture Tennant, and the colonial authorities advertised ‘tickets of leave’ for any convicts willing to assist in Tennant's capture. A ‘ticket of leave’ gave freedom to a convict.
Casey volunteered. The fact that he knew Tennant, and that he had a good knowledge of the region would be critical to the party's success. After a bloody shoot-out, Tennant and Rix were wounded, captured, and transported to Sydney, where they were tried and sent to Norfolk Island. And for his part, John Casey became a free man. You can read a full account of the capture here.
Of course, at this stage, John and Caroline were yet to meet. Before that happens, we need to see how Caroline came to be in NSW.
Caroline Purcell was born in either 1810 or 1813, in Birmingham in England. By the time she was just 17 years old, she’d moved to London. We know this because she was charged with burglary and appeared at the Old Bailey in January of 1827 to face that charge. She was eventually found not guilty, although the whole of the proceedings – facts, evidence and judgment, appear in just a few short paragraphs. For more on those proceedings, click here.
The next we hear of Caroline, is two years later in February 1829, when she’s once again before the Old Bailey facing a charge of stealing. This time she wasn’t as lucky, and at the age of just 19 she was sentenced to transportation to NSW for seven years. Seven years seemed to be the sentence of choice. Stole a few bits and bobs? Seven years. Called someone ‘Big Nose’? Seven years. Flashed your willy? Seven years – and for God’s sake put that thing away!
You can read more about Caroline’s trial and conviction by clicking here.
I know…this seems extreme. But I’m looking at this from a purely selfish point of view. If punishment had not been that severe, then Caroline would never have met John. Let’s face it, there was no chance that a poor and broken woman in London was ever going to have a chance encounter with a similarly poor young man from Ireland. It was only their “crimes” such as they were, and the overly enthusiastic British sentencing regime, that saw their paths cross at all. And without that happening, there would be no “me”, and you wouldn’t be reading this, not just because I wouldn’t have written it, but because it’s as likely as not as that you’re also a descendant, and you would also be a non-entity.
And so it was that Caroline Mary Purcell boarded the convict ship Sovereign in 1829, along with 118 other convict women, 23 free children (belonging to around 15 of the convicts), and 10 passengers. The ship departed The Downs (which was a sheltered area near Deal) on 23 April 1829, and it took 102 days to make the trip, arriving in Port Jackson on 3rd August 1829. You can find out more about the voyage here.
Caroline Purcell’s entry in the Manifest of the Sovereign
So, in 1829 both Caroline Purcell and John Casey were in NSW, and closer to one another than they’d ever been.
Neither of them would ever return to their home countries. John was working driving bullock teams between Joshua Moore’s two properties, while Caroline was assigned to the Moore’s Liverpool property, where she worked as a domestic servant. It’s here that the pair met. Yet to marry, they had their first child while in Liverpool – William, who was born in December 1831.
Of course, by now John was a free man, but Caroline was still a convict, and in these early years of the colony, it was mandatory for convicts to apply for permission to marry. The couple did so at least three times across 1831 and 1832, and each time they were denied with the same reason being given “Not allowed – Casey being already married”. I would imagine that proving the death of his wife and children in Ireland wouldn’t have been an easy task.
Application to Marry No. 1
Application to Marry No. 2
Application to Marry No. 3
During this time, Caroline was granted her freedom, via her own ‘ticket of leave’ in March 1832, having served just 3 years of her 7-year sentence.
Caroline’s Ticket Of Leave
One of two things then happened. Either John was eventually able to prove that he was free to marry as his first wife had died, or given that both Caroline and John were now free, they didn’t need permission to marry. Whatever the case, the couple married on 4 February 1833 in St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney. Some family trees which include a reference to the marriage refer to the couple being married in Gundaroo (or Gondaloo as it was sometimes referred to in error), but the marriage certificate below, shows otherwise.
Of course, this wasn’t the St Mary’s Cathedral we all know now, but the first of the iterations of the Cathedral which burned down in 1865. In fact, at the time of their marriage it was known as St Mary’s Chapel. It didn’t become a Cathedral until 1835. One possible explanation for it being referred to as a Cathedral in relation to this 1833 marriage is that the marriage wasn’t registered until after it had become St Mary’s Cathedral.
Note that on the Marriage Certificate below, ‘Casey’ is incorrectly recorded as ‘Casy’. This error also ended up on the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages making it a little awkward to find.
Caroline and John’s Marriage Certificate
The couple moved to Tallagandra, near Gundaroo, a district to the north of Mulligan’s Flat. In James McDonald’s book The Caseys and Canberra's Convict Past, he notes that:
The Caseys found themselves a small leasehold at the Back Creek end of Tallagandra which they called 'Sugarloaf', just north of the current ACT border. They flourished. John must have sung the praises of the new country and its pastures, so much so, that his brother, Thomas, came out as a free settler to join him in 1841. Tallagandra became predominantly Catholic and known as a 'stronghold' of the closely related Casey and Reid families.
Despite their very different backgrounds, John and Caroline built a happy family life together, rearing eight children, all of whom survived into adulthood. A family anecdote, collected by Casey descendant and Canberra historian, Lyall Gillespie, recalled John's difficulty with the English tongue. He said that older members of the families (ie their daughter Mary and her son, Richard Reid) had reported that the family used to tease John for being unable to pronounce the second syllable in Caroline's name; running the first and third into each other.
Settlers like John Casey and Caroline Purcell must have considered their new life in Tallagandra a paradise after their earlier struggles and years in servitude. But with their limited access to pasture for their flocks, John agisted or used roadways and common land; once being fined for not being able to contain his stock. Primarily, his income came from his work as a bullocky and as a ploughman or shepherd for other men. Nevertheless, John Casey managed to collect enough hard-earned cash to purchase two small selections of 60 and 40 acres.
The eight children referred to above were William (1831-1903) who had been born before they were married, Mary Caroline (1835-1910), Thomas (1837-1917, birth may be 1834), James (1839-1883), Elizabeth Mary (1841-1931), Joseph Andrew (1845-1915), Mark (1847-1926) and Michael James (1848-1939). While I’m confident of the names and number of their children, there’s some confusion about the dates across three family trees in Ancestry.com, but I believe this to be as accurate as I can get it for now.
Of course, it’s Thomas Casey who interests us as we wander through the generations. It’s his daughter, Catherine Irene Casey, who’s at the centre of our story along with her husband Thomas Bede O’Brien. But we’ll cover them in another story.
As an interesting aside, Casey appeared in Court in 1861, but this time as the plaintiff and not the defendant as had been the case 37 years prior in Ireland. The case involved Samuel Spalding, who was charged with maliciously and unlawfully maiming a working bullock that belonged to Casey, by breaking its near hind leg with a tomahawk. District Constable Joseph Tinge, William Casey, James Casey (sons of John Casey) and John Casey all gave evidence. Spalding was committed for trial at the quarter sessions. A subsequent trial jury found Spalding not guilty.
As you can see on the copy of Casey’s death certificate below, he died 'of general debility' in 1882, with some reports stating he was 88. As noted at the start of this story, there’s a lot of contradictory information around his date of birth. Suffice to say, he was in his mid to late 80’s, so a little “general debility” is to be expected. He’d been confined to his home for some time.
John Casey’s death cerificate
Casey is buried in the Gundaroo Catholic Pioneer Cemetery where 6 Casey relatives are buried. I visited the Cemetery in October 2022, and you can read more about that here.
John Casey’s headstone
at Gundaroo Catholic Cemetery
The Goulburn Evening Penny Post of 30 May 1882 printed the following:
Died at his residence 'Sugarloaf' on Monday night 22nd May at the age of 88. He was among the earliest arrivals in the district and settled many years ago in close proximity to his present residence where he followed the occupation of farmer and grazier. The funeral took place on Thursday, and despite torrential rain some 200 people followed the funeral to the RC Cemetery, Gundaroo.
That’s a pretty good crowd, considering that the town’s population was just 331 over 120 years later in the 2006 census, and that Gundaroo and surrounds was shown as having a population of only 1,146 in the 2016 census. I’m pretty sure I’d be pushing it to get 200 at my funeral, and travel was a lot more difficult in 1888. Ah well.
The Queanbeyan Age of the day ran a column called District Intelligence, and this was what they wrote:
AN OLD RESIDENT – One of the oldest, if not the oldest, residents has passed over that bourne from which none return. Mr John Casey, of Sugarloaf, was 88 years of age, and had been confined to his residence for a long time, but he was released from his sufferings last Tuesday night, and was buried on Thursday when, not withstanding that it was a very wet day, a large number attended the funeral.
John Casey’s death notice in the Queanbeyan Age
I love that expression “that bourne from which none return”, a reference to Hamlet referring to death as “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns”. A “bourn” in old English was a destination or a goal.
Six years later, on 13 November 1888 it was reported in the paper that Caroline was unwell:
ANOTHER OLD RESIDENT – Mrs John Casey who has spent over half a century about Gundaroo, is in a very low state, and is not expected to recover. Of course she is very old – 89, I am informed. The priest from Gunning was out yesterday to see her.
Notice of Caroline’s illness in the Queanbeyan Age
Despite that somewhat disturbing prognosis, Caroline lived on for ten more months, eventually dying on 13 September 1889, 7 years after John’s death, with the couple reuniting with one another in the Gundaroo Catholic Pioneer Cemetery. Caroline had lived to 76 (not 89 as stated above) at a time when the average life span for women was just 55 years.
Written by Rob Landsberry, last updated 17 May 2023
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Casey_(Australian_convict)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteboys
https://www.freesettlerorfelon.com/convict_ship_sir_godfrey_webster.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_John_Moore
https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t18270111-56
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Casey_(Australian_convict)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tennant_(bushranger)
https://museum.hall.act.au/display/1939/person/2096/john-casey.html
https://boundforsouthaustralia.history.sa.gov.au/journey-content/the-downs.html
McDonald, J. (2016). The Caseys and Canberra’s Convict Past. Canberra Historical Journal, (77), 16–21. Although it seems that there are a number of factual errors in this account.
Celtic Knots – A book tracing the history of the Flanagans and the O’Briens, and which was compiled/written by Mary Zabell (nee O’Brien – Jack O’Brien’s daughter)
An eleven page document I found amongst Gwen Landsberry’s papers which included Casey history starting with John.