Orphan Number: 5195
| Orphan: | Catherine SULLIVAN |
|---|---|
| Mother: | BYRNE, Jane |
| Father: | SULLIVAN/KARGEEG, John |
| Mother's ship: | Arabian |
| Father's ship: | Anson |
| Age when admitted: | 8yrs 10mths |
| Date admitted: | Feb 1865 |
| Date discharged: | |
| Institutions(s): | Queens Orphan School |
| Discharged to: | |
| Remarks: | mother dead -1/2 brother to Hugh Quin |
| References: | SWD26/8, 27 |
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Mary Vanderfeen wrote:
Orphan Index number: 5195, “Kate” Catherine Sullivan was born at Abyssinia, a large grazing and agricultural property 8 miles from Bothwell where her father John Sullivan worked for some years as a shoemaker. Her mother, the Dublin born convict Jane Byrne, died when Kate was 8.
Her father remarried quickly, and it was this union that was the catalyst for Kate’s entry to the Queen’s School. Her father deserted the blended family. leading to a maintenance order issued by the courts. This, in turn, led to his imprisonment and the enrty of the children to the orphanage.
John Sullivan, her father, reunited with second wife Bridget and three half siblings were added to the 8 children already in the blended family.
Kate moved to Melbourne earlier than her Daley and Sullivan half siblings, her father John Sullivan and stepmother Bridget. Having worked in service, Kate married, in 1889, Irish born James McAdam a fireman.
Kate and James McAdam lived in South Melbourne and within the city grid itself. There were no children. When Kate McAdam died a widow in Melbourne in 1932, the informant was Hobart born Frank Gormley, the husband of Kate’s youngest half sister Sarah.
Father, John Kargeeg [Anson 1844] had adopted the name Sullivan before his marriage to Jane Byrne in 1852. Born ca 1824 and convicted of the theft of a beaver coat in 1841 at Penzance, Cornwall, John Kargeeg, formerly a shoemaking apprentice, spent time on the hulk for boys Euryalus as well as the adult male hulk Fortitude. Possibly still a teenager when he left for Hobart on the Anson, John spent time at the Jericho and Brown’s River probation stations. John Sullivan died at Ballarat in 1889, and is buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery. (family name also spelled KIRKEEK, KERKEET).
Mother, Jane Byrne arrived in Hobart, 26 February 1847 on Arabian with two children. Son Hugh Quin appears in the records of the Queen’s Orphan School, he was discharged in 1855. Jane was free by servitude, 8 May 1853 built her family at the inland property Abyssinia. Times in Hobart were more fraught, she was briefly imprisoned where 3 month old daughter Harriet died on her third day in the female factory nursery. Jane died at the Hobart Hospital, of an abscess on her leg, November 1864 aged 42.
Stepmother Bridget Dooling b ca 1829 Coppoquin, Waterford, Ireland, was convicted of arson at Waterford in 1849. Caught setting a fire Bridget, after 6 years ‘on the town,’ received a 15 year sentence. A convict on the Australasia 1849 to VDL Bridget was to become a three time absconder from contracted work as a pass holder. Bridget spent more than ten years on the run, reappearing in Hobart to collect her Certificate of Freedom when the 15 years had ended. 5 children were born while Bridget and her partner Michael Dawley worked the timber camps of the Tasmanian bush. With 4 surviving children Bridget and Michael left a productive leased farm at Duck River to head to Hobart. They married but Michael was already terminally ill. Destitution followed and interactions with bureaucracy worsened over time. A rocky beginning to a second marriage and a blended family of 8 aged 10 and under meant tough times became tougher. Bridget, back into old Hobart haunts, returned to an old habit, alcohol. The blended family, grew with three more kids. Bridget and new husband John survived. Bridget died in her own bed in Brunswick, Victoria, 1892.
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