Orphan Number: 5201
| Orphan: | Frederick SULLIVAN |
|---|---|
| Mother: | BYRNE, Jane |
| Father: | SULLIVAN/KARGEEG, John |
| Mother's ship: | Arabian |
| Father's ship: | Anson |
| Age when admitted: | 5yrs 5mths |
| Date admitted: | Feb 1865 |
| Date discharged: | |
| Institutions(s): | Queens Orphan School |
| Discharged to: | |
| Remarks: | mother dead - 1/2 sister to Hugh Quin |
| References: | SWD26/8, 27 |
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Mary Vanderfeen wrote:
Frederick Sullivan was born in October 1859 on the rural property Abyssinia, a large grazing and agricultural property 8 miles from Bothwell where his parents John [1] and Jane Sullivan [2] worked for some years. John was a shoemaker.
Frederick was probably too young to remember life in the bush at Abyssinia, the Sullivan family moved into Hobart in the early 1860’s. Life as a little kid in Hobart was difficult. His mother was hauled before the courts more than once. Excitingly, a baby sister was born in May 1852. When Jane was briefly gaoled, seemingly for non payment of a fine, baby, Harriet died of convulsions. Mum goes away with a baby and comes home with none, and you are nearly 3! Another issue faced by the young Frederick was his father. John, his dad, was a former teenage tearaway from Penzance, Cornwall. Convicted just after the 1841 census, John had spent years on the hulks in England. Having arrived on the Anson in 1844, aged about 20, John senior had developed an official reputation as a drunk. These circumstances must have impacted family finances and the life of the young Frederick.
Only 5 when his mother, Jane Byrne, died, Frederick’s older sister Elizabeth was only 10, he had another sister, Kate 8, and older brother, John was only 7. His dad remarried quickly.
The marriage of John Sullivan and Bridget brought four little Murphy kids into the house.[3] It was a rocky beginning. In tiny accommodation with 7 other kids the next blow was when his step mother, Bridget [4] was deserted. His dad, John Sullivan, was arrested and hauled before the courts. Issued with a maintenance order, Fredericks dad, John, was subsequently gaoled. That’s how Frederick arrived at the Orphan School. After his discharge from the institution, Frederick must have settled in with a re reunited, blended, family. Three half siblings joined the 8 kids in the household. Trouble in the household continued but his parents [just] managed to stay out of gaol.
It is not known how quickly Frederick struck out on his own, but his older sister Catherine, half siblings Mary-Ann, Daniel and Sarah, as well as the Daley's — John, Charles, James and Rachel all moved to the mainland. Parents John and Bridget Sullivan also left Hobart some time in the 1880's. By the early 1890's most of the Daley-Sullivan siblings were married and bringing up families. Eldest sister Elizabeth had married and in the 1880's lived at Jerico in Tasmania, sister Kate lived in Melbourne, but neither Frederick or brother John have been found interacting with any Sullivan or Daley family members. It date, Frederick has not been definitively traced at any time after he left the orphanage.
[1]Father, John Sullivan, arrived with the original name of Kargeeg in the Anson in 1844. John 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).
[2] 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. She 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 the third day in the female factory nursery, Jane died at the Hobart Hospital, of an abscess on her leg, November 1864 aged 42.
[3] These were the Daley kids, John, 10, Charles 6, and Rachel 4, who all appear in Queens Orphanage records as Murphy] as well as baby James 2. Murphy was an alias used by Frederick’s stepmother, Bridget Dooling Australasia 1848.
[4] Stepmother Bridget had arrived as the convict Bridget Dooling Australasia 1849. Born about 1829 in Coppoquin, Waterford, Ireland, Bridget was convicted of arson at Waterford in 1849. Caught setting a fire Bridget, after 6 years ‘on the town,’ received a 15 year sentence. Bridget was to become a three time absconder from contracted work as a pass holder. Having spent more than ten years on the run, she reappeared, family in tow, 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 and tough times got tougher. Bridget, returned to old haunts in Hobart, returned to an old habit, alcohol. The blended family, Bridget and new husband John survived. They all died at home in their own beds. Bridget died in Brunswick, Victoria, in 1892.
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