(In the early 1980s, Father Peter Murnane (a descendant of Cornelius Murnane), visited Ireland and drafted a short outline of his research findings under the title "Fruitful Exile." Peter made the crucial discovery of the 1835 newspaper report of the convicts’ trial and researched some of the early convict history of the three Murnane brothers in New South Wales.
By the time the first Murnane family reunion was held in Colac (western Victoria) under the leadership of Joan Finlayson in 1986, much more family tree research was available. The combined results of the patient research of Joan, Jim Flahavin, Peter Murnane, Marie Jeanne Murnane and many others were combined by Paul A. Murnane in an enlarged family history retaining the title "Fruitful Exile" and some draft extracts are set out below.
Work continues on this project and a professional genealogist has been retained to assist in delving through the early Australian convict records. No firm publishing date has been established. All and any contributions, suggestions, criticisms etc will be gratefully received by Paul A. Murnane, pmurnane@bigpond.com.)
Fruitful Exile (a work in progress) The Story of
Jeremiah, Cornelius, Michael,
Thomas, Patrick and John
Murnane
In Australia
by
Paul A. Murnane
1998
****
(Not more than fifty years after the colony of New South Wales was established, three Irish convicts, brothers with the family name Murnane, arrived in Sydney.
Another three brothers and various other family members were to emigrate as free settlers in subsequent years and today the six brothers' ancestors number many thousands, scattered around Australia and overseas. Other family groups with the same surname also came to Australia, many of them undoubtedly related to these Murnanes although in most cases this has not yet been conclusively proved by research.
Until the early 1970s the Murnane convict ancestry went unacknowledged by many family members, in common with many other Australians for whom convict origins were regarded with shame and something not to be publicly discussed.
The 150th anniversary in 1986 of the Murnanes' arrival in Australia, together with an emerging pride in our convict ancestors' achievements, triggered much genealogical work on the Murnane clan. This short outline of its Australian history, compiled from a wide range of family, official and other sources, summarizes our findings to date.)
Contents
Introduction
1. Arrival in the Colony.
2. Ireland in the 1830s.
3. Life in Sydney Town.
Arrival in the Colony
Slowly the convict transport ship "Earl Grey" tacked onto a port course for the widening gap between the two headlands of Port Jackson. Captain James Talbot and Surgeon William Evans joined Lieutenant Ronald MacDonald and several members of the on-board guard regiments and their wives to glimpse the immense harbour beyond the heads. It was Saturday December 31st, 1836, and the last day of a year in which Halleys Comet was making one of its infrequent appearances. Four and a half months after leaving Cork in Ireland, the "Earl Grey's" human cargo of 384 persons, including 282 Irish male convicts (among them the three Murnane brothers), was about to start the new year, and new lives, 13,000 miles from their homes and families.
Below deck, the convicts peered through small barred scuttle holes at the first sight of their new "home". Those on the port side saw the south headland of the harbour with Francis Greenway's lighthouse built of white washed stone, still operating today. Beside it stood a wooden semaphore that was already signaling their arrival to Sydney Cove seven miles up harbour.
Inside the heads, a small pilot boat rowed out from Watsons Bay to meet the ship near the Sow and Pigs reef in mid channel. Flights of rainbow lorikeets and other brightly coloured parrots could be seen and heard in the thick tree-lined shores. Seagulls wheeled and dived over the harbour waters. Small streams trickled through dense bracken fern and trees down to the rocky shoreline. The monotonous drone of cicadas in the bush was the first strange sign of an Australian summer for the travelers. Looking higher up the shoreline, the convicts saw the mansion of Sir Henry Brown-Hayes (today Vaucluse House) sitting alone surrounded by miles of strange looking olive greenish bush.
The first distant sight of white settlement after leaving Cape Town was a faint line of windmills on Woolloomooloo Hills. As the "Earl Grey" slowly sailed up harbour in a light south easterly wind, those on deck then saw the copper clad spire of St. James Church and more scattered small houses. A few small rowboats with fishing convicts drifted by.
As they drew closer to Sydney Cove the sentries on the battlements of Fort Macquarie (now the site of the Sydney Opera House) waved and yelled greetings. A band from the 4th (or King’s Own) Regiment played for guests in a marquee within the fort watching a number of sailboats and boatmen gathering for a weekend regatta. Several dozen ships of various sizes and nationalities were moored around the mouth of the Cove. The steam-powered "Australian" boat was seen getting up steam.
Sydney Cove of 1836 was not the smooth semi-circular layout that is Circular Quay of today. It curved roughly around from Fort Macquarie along the shoreline until it met a small bay where the Tank Stream entered the Cove (roughly where Pitt Street today commences at Alfred Street). Overlooking the King's Wharf (near today's Museum of Modern Art building) was Fort Philip and the jumble of lanes, pathways , rundown huts and terraced houses that was The Rocks. The windmills along York Street slowly turned in the still early morning air.
By late morning the "Earl Grey" was probably moored just off the Sydney Cove shoreline. The pilot had disembarked and a rowboat of Government officials came aboard. Other smaller boats bearing convicts and other settlers probably drew alongside asking the crew for news of home. Convicts rowing by called out asking where those below came from.
Surgeon Evans presented his report of the voyage to the Colonial Surgeon and port health officials and answered questions on the crew and cargo's health. (Only three convicts had died en route). Once the health clearance was given, Captain Talbot presented his package of warrants and indents containing the convicts' details to the Principal Superintendent of Convicts. Below decks the convicts chatted among themselves anticipating a quick disembarkation.
It was probably late afternoon, however, before the first load of convicts, after providing more personal details to the Government clerk sitting at his desk on deck, was rowed ashore. (All convicts in theory were allowed to register any complaint against the captain or surgeon – there is no record of any).
After nearly 140 days on a slow, rolling, wallowing ship, the convicts must have stumbled on the firm ground. (All the convicts were able to walk although one was sent to the Colonial Hospital immediately on arrival). Manacled together, they were formed into columns and marched off under army guard. The groups passed Government House (at the corner of today's Bridge and Philip streets where the Museum of Sydney is located), along the dusty Macquarie Street, past the School of Industry (now the site of the State Library) and the General Hospital, usually called the Rum Hospital (now housing the New South Wales State Parliament) to the Hyde Park convict barracks.
The barracks stood at the end of Macquarie Street, at the northeast end of an area of bushland called Hyde Park, where horse races were also held. Built eighteen years before by Governor Macquarie to convict architect Francis Greenway's plan, the three storied redbrick structure was the centre of a compound surrounded by a ten-foot high, solid sandstone wall. All newly arrived convicts awaiting assignment, and all local convicts, were housed there. (Today the barracks, restored in 198 , house a museum and only the barracks building, the stone gate piers and a solitary cellblock survive).
Past the two guardrooms at the entrance gate marched the convicts. They were unchained and marched past the offices of the Assignment Board on the ground floor, an office that would shortly determine their fate in the new colony. In one of the crowded dormitories (convicts slept in hammocks in one of the four large rooms on each floor) they were issued with blanket, pannikin and canary yellow or gray cloth suit and cap. Back into the yard, where a blood-spattered whipping triangle stood in the corner, the freshly clothed convicts had red or black arrows painted onto their clothes by other convicts. The Murnane brothers and their shipmates had finally assumed their new markings for their new lives. Governor Bourke inspected the newly arrived convicts later that day, again explicitly asking for any complaints.
Ireland in the 1830s.
The Murnane brothers left behind an Ireland with truly wretched living conditions for the unpropertied peasantry. (For a detailed description of Ireland in the early 1800s, see "The Great Shame – A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New" by Thomas Kenneally, Random House, 1998). In many districts the only food was potatoes, the only beverage was water, rough cabins seldom offered weather shelter and a bed or blanket was a rare luxury.
Notwithstanding the appalling lifestyle of the Irish peasantry, the Irish population was rapidly increasing in the 1830s. People married young and had large families. Between 1770-1841 the Irish population doubled, putting incredible pressure on the country's limited land resources.
Over the preceding centuries the English had dispossessed the Irish landowners. Peasants like the Murnanes were obsessed with securing and hanging onto a piece of land, even if it was only the size of a postage stamp. Land was regarded as the first necessity of life.
The result was a crazy system of renting land from English landlords. Absentee landlords and large farmers were subletting and conacring ( sub-subletting annually a small area of land prepared for crops) land on a huge scale. If a peasant's land was taken, a tenant evicted at the whim of his landlord or a labourer dismissed, Irish vengeance was usually violent. Convict records show that only three percent of all convicts were convicted of assault. However, over half of all Irish convicts were convicted of crimes of violence, usually triggered by land disputes.
The Murnane brothers were typical Irish convicts. Uneducated and unable to write or read, older than the average (26 years) convict and making a living as unskilled farm labourers, they were convicted under court procedures not very much different from those of today. The brothers were sons of William Murnane, a farm labourer born about 1768, and Ellen (nee Keogh), both County Limerick natives who married around 1790.
Their surname, as far as can be ascertained, derives from O'Manannain, a name ancient in Thurmond (North Munster, near Limerick) and meaning son of the ancient Celtic god of the sea ( Manannain Mac Lir). It predates the arrival of Christianity in Ireland and there are references to variations of the name as far back as the ninth century. The brothers had different surname spellings at various stages of their lives – they were charged and convicted in Ireland as "Mornanes", arrived in Sydney as "Murnanes" and buried in Victoria as "Marnanes"!
All the brothers were born in County Limerick, two of them in Ballybricken. John and Michael were married with children while Thomas (or Tom as press reports of the trial referred to him) was still single. Michael, at thirty years, was the oldest, five feet three inches tall, with dark brown hair, brown eyes and a "dark sallow" complexion. John, twenty eight years old, was two inches taller and with similar colouring. Thomas, aged twenty nine, was the shortest at five feet and half an inch, with gray eyes and lighter hair and complexion.
On New Years Eve in 1835, Michael, Thomas and John Murnane met up with a friend, John Walshe. Armed with a scythe, a stick and a pitchfork (Thomas was unarmed), their apparent intention was to redress some grievance against William Day, a landlord at Solahed near Tipperary. John Walshe was a tenant of Day but we do not know if the Murnanes were. At the subsequent trial, Day claimed that the group "had a spite against him " because he had called the police against them on a previous occasion when they had attacked a neighbour.
Arrested in late February for their New Years Eve actions, the Murnanes (but not Walshe) were tried before Chief Justice Doherty at the Clonmel Summer Assizes on Thursday July 19th, 1836. (Clonmel is a small town in Tipperary and the brothers were probably imprisoned there awaiting trial). In the Clonmel courthouse (still in use today) the court sat all day from 9.30 am to 8.20 p.m. Many death sentences were handed out and the defendants just before Michael, Thomas and John were tried and sentenced to hang that very day, despite their pleas for some short delay.
Although a jury sat that Thursday it is not certain if the Murnanes were tried by jury or the judge. Neither is there any trace of the prisoners being allowed to speak in their own defense. Two witnesses, John Whelan and his servant Dan Reilly, attempted to provide an alibi for John Murnane but it was not successful. Two other "gentlemen", called to give a character witness, failed to appear. (See Appendix C – "The Murnane Brothers Trial - Extract from the Clonmel Herald,----1835," which follows this narrative).
The Murnane brothers were convicted of attacking the house ("assaulting a habitation") of landlord Day and sentenced to the harshest penalty available (short of death) - life imprisonment. This was commuted to transportation to the penal colony of New South Wales.
They were either transported by cart or marched in chains and under guard from the Clonmel county prison over the roads to Cork. There they spent a miserable few weeks chained together in a rotting, damp hulk, the disused unseaworthy Royal Navy ship "Surprise", in Cork Cove (or the Cobh of Cork). At this stage many convicts who were literate or who had literate friends to intercede on their behalf had petitions for mitigation of sentence prepared and sent to the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin. To date no trace of any Murnane petitions has been found in the Irish State Papers. The convicts received a new, and probably for the Murnanes, much better prison hulk diet than they were used to – oatmeal and sugar gruel for breakfast and for dinner, four ounces of meat (including bone), cabbage and some oatmeal, all made into a soup, each convict getting a quart of soup plus a pound of biscuit. (See Appendix C).
Finally, on Tuesday August 23rd, 1836, they were issued with transportee clothes, one blanket and utensils (marked with each brother's berth number to prevent theft) and rowed out to the convict ship "Earl Grey". Fortunately for the Murnanes, the weather was not cold, for their blue cloth (or jersey) jackets and waistcoats (two each), duck trousers (two), linen shirts (three), stockings, woolen cap and, possibly for the Murnanes, the novelty of a pair of shoes , were light weather clothing.
After nearly forty years experience of transporting convicts to New South Wales, the English Government had at last arrived at a fairly humane set of rules and regulations for delivering human cargoes in good order and condition. By 1836 when the Murnanes traveled, convict ships were no longer "floating hells, festering with disease, vice and cruelty", as described in the earlier voyages when ten percent or more of convicts died en route. Convict transport was now a Transport Board and Royal Navy matter, done in strict accordance with rules and regulations, and the Murnanes' ship was under the charge of a Royal Navy surgeon, William Evans, with over thirty years medical experience.
Both Evans, who had previous transportation experience, and the ship’s master Talbot, had serious responsibilities and the Murnane brothers’ survival largely depended on Evans’ supervision. A large bond was paid by the contractor and only repaid when the Governor of New South Wales certified that the ship’s cargo had been properly delivered. Careful daily logs of consumption of rations and water were kept throughout the voyage, and copies of the ship’s logbook, as well as the Surgeon Superintendent’s log, were deposited with the Governor and, on return to England, with the Transport Board. (What we know of the Murnane brothers’ voyage is derived from the surviving copy of Surgeon Superintendent Evans’ log, an extract of which is reprinted in Appendix B. No trace of the captain’s log has been found).
The "Earl Grey" was a new (1835) ship, built in Newcastle (England) by a well-known shipping merchant Duncan Dunbar and chartered to the British Government as a convict ship. The Murnanes were to be "privileged" to travel on the "Earl Grey's" first of many convict transportation trips to New South Wales over the next decade.
The ship was a 571-ton wooden barque with three masts, square-rigged on all but the aftermost mast, which was fore/aft rigged. It had a crew of forty-five. Below decks there were two rows of sleeping berths or boxes, one above the other, down each side of the ship, around a long central table running the ship’s length. Four convicts in double bunks slept in each six-foot square berth, linked together by the ankle with a chain running through ringbolts on the berths. Two large swinging stoves with metal funnels, stood fore and aft to provide the only warmth in the cold southern Indian Ocean where the "Earl Grey" would soon be sailing.
Air and light came only from small barred scuttles (rectangular openings) cut into the ship's sides – these were usually only able to be opened in calm seas. Armed soldiers from the 41st, 50th and 4th Regiments travelling as onboard guards, guarded trapdoors over the hatchways twenty-four hours.
Evans had every two berths of eight men elect a mess captain to draw and divide the daily rations. These rations were a marked improvement over the Murnanes' experiences in the holding hulk -3/4 pound ships biscuits, beef/pork/pudding dinner, pea soup (four times weekly), gruel or "burgoo" for breakfast, 1 oz. lime juice/ 1 oz. sugar daily to prevent scurvy, vinegar weekly, 4 gills of Spanish red wine weekly and 3 quarts of water daily.
Certain convicts on the "Earl Grey", usually the older ones, were selected as spokesmen for the convicts’ complaints and acted as "internal police", enforcing cleanup chores, etc. Various convicts were allocated tasks such as cooks, medical attendants and barbers. Usually the convict cooks were allowed on deck about five am to start breakfast preparations and cooking, and weather permitting, convicts were allowed on deck at sunrise, washing in seawater and exercising under armed supervision. All convicts were required to clean up as best they could prior to a daily inspection by the Surgeon. Haircuts and shaves were given once or twice a week. The sleeping berths were cleaned and each convict’s bedding was usually stored on deck, often getting wet from the sea. The Murnanes participated in the daily prison deck cleaning parties, scrubbing down the decks with pumice stone and seawater. Breakfast was served below decks at the central table running the length of the ship. Religious service muster on the quarterdeck was a regular Sunday event, although it not known how the Irish Catholic convicts celebrated. A typical day ended about sunset when the convicts collected their bedding and were chained below for the night after dinner.
So it was on August 27th 1836 the "Earl Grey" weighed anchor in Cork Cove and set sail for Sydney. Their course was south past the Cape de Verde islands (west of Cape Verde, the most western point of the African continent) and down the western coast of Africa. Here the convicts encountered hot humid weather with temperatures over 80 degrees F., a foretaste of the colonial climate to come, and the ship had its first (thirteen) cases of scurvy. Surgeon Evans noted in his log that the combination of high temperatures, humid weather and the "foul stagnant air between decks", often compounded by the need to keep the hatchways closed to prevent water below, usually caused scurvy and dysentery among the convicts. "When we reflect on the condition of nearly Four Hundred human beings incarcerated in this floating receptacle and labouring under depression of Spirits, mental anxiety and Nostalgia which seems to have great effect on the minds of these poor exiles, who are thrown as it were on themselves and the accusing conscience brings to their recollections many painful and poignant feelings"(Surgeon Evans – refer Appendix B).
By October 1st, 1836 the "Earl Grey" had crossed the Equator and sailed rapidly through the South East Trade winds to reach the Tropic of Capricorn just eleven days later. The climate improved and there was a welcome drop in the temperature to around 67 degrees F. Surgeon Evans noted in his log that by this stage nearly thirty men had symptoms of scurvy and scorbutic dysentery and accordingly requested the Captain to divert and replenish supplies at Cape Town, at the tip of South Africa. Until the "Earl Grey" arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, it experienced " great atmospherical vicissitudes especially cold and rain which acted as a powerful sedative in lowering and depressing " the ship's morale. Two convicts died of dysentery during October before the ship finally dropped anchor in Simons Bay, Cape of Good Hope, late in the day on November 4th, 1836.
Surgeon Evans had the usual medical technology of the 1830s. Those convicts appearing on his daily sick parades were treated with such techniques as bleeding by leeches, applying blisters to the chest, bread and water poultices, sugared barley water, saline aperient with sulfur, ginger tea and opium. The Murnane brothers must have had strong constitutions since they never appeared in the surgeon's sick lists for serious illness during the voyage.
For eight days the "Earl Grey" took on fresh water, beef, mutton and vegetables as well as eight extra convicts from Cape Town. Five live bullocks and sixty sheep were loaded and put in pens on deck. Surgeon Evans noted " the beneficial effects resulting from (the) timely change of diet on the health and spirits of (his) Scorbutic patients as well as the rest of the convicts". Indeed in less than a fortnight some thirty bedridden convicts were up and continued to improve as the ship ran down the longitude from Cape Town to Van Dieman’s Land, as Australia was then still called.
The weather across the Indian Ocean was "cold, wet and boisterous", and the Murnanes probably felt the cold in their lightweight convict clothing. The "Earl Grey" rolled through the Great Australian Bight, sighting Cape Otway in Victoria on December 20th, 1836 and soon after the northern end of King's Island. The next day it passed through Bass Strait (between Tasmania and the mainland) " with a fine breeze from the westward ", only to encounter light variable winds from the northeast. This made the northwards run for the next week up coastal New South Wales "rather tedious, although the weather was remarkably fine and unusually dry and had a magic influence over the health and spirits of the sick and convalescents ". A day or so out of Sydney, cloudy rainy weather and quite hot temperatures in the upper 70s returned to mark the ship's first sight of the Sydney Heads.
The "Earl Grey" had been at sea nearly five months and the Murnanes were embarking on new lives on the other side of the world.
A Convict in Sydney Town.
January is one of the hotter months in Sydney and locked below decks as they sailed up the New South Wales coast, the Murnanes must have felt the increasing heat and humidity and the frequent thunderstorms and showers. Sydney was a busy town. It had grown haphazardly from its beginnings less than fifty years before, with buildings being erected practically anywhere until many of its dirt streets were more like twisted and winding alleys. Shops were merely private homes with the front parlour used as the merchandise room. Two-storied buildings were starting to replace the colony's early single-storied buildings and terraced houses were being built.
This was the town into which the Murnanes were deposited. After the disembarkation procedures were completed, they settled into the hard unrelenting prison routine as best they could. No records have survived to tell us of their initial experiences.
Apart from the aborigines, convicts were the lowest rung of a highly stratified, inwards-looking colonial society. Used as forced labour, convicts were not, strictly speaking, slaves. Unless they were continual offenders, most convicts were reasonably treated and not locked up but were free to move around on their chores. Convicts were assigned to the service of private persons (or "masters") as a labourer and known as "servants". In fact convicts frequently resented being called "convicts" and preferred the term "government man" (or "woman").
A well-disposed Irish agricultural labourer transported to New South Wales and assigned to a master generally found it easy to adapt to what was required of him. Standards of treatment varied from generous/ lenient for good servants to brutal. Local magistrates punished lazy, disobedient or insolent convicts with whippings.
The Murnane brothers passed through the British convict system about as swiftly as possible. A well-behaved convict had a good chance of receiving his ticket-of-leave before the expiry of the full term of his sentence. Most convicts strove towards the goal of the ticket and the Murnanes were undoubtedly no exceptions. A ticket meant they no longer had to work as an assigned convict for a master or do forced labour for the government. Provided certain conditions, including reporting regularly to the police and staying within certain areas in the colony, were met, a ticket-of-leave convict was able to work for him/herself for the balance of his/her sentence.
This was not an entirely satisfactory arrangement for the convict. Tickets had to be renewed annually and could be revoked upon a complaint at any time. Masters were known to frustrate tickets by false charges or goad convicts to insolence or violence which was grounds for a complaint and cancellation of the ticket. Police had the incentive of rewards including their own tickets-of-leave if they were convicts working as police, if they found convicts absconding or unable to prove they were on legitimate business.
Thomas Murnane
Thomas Murnane was first assigned sometime in 1837 to William Rutledge, an Irish free settler who came to Sydney in 1829 and established his business as a contractor providing supplies to the government. By 1834 Rutledge was living on a property at the Field of Mars (today's western Sydney suburb of Marsfield) near Parramatta and had been assigned five convicts. Later Rutledge acquired land at Kissing Point and Eastwood, today’s north western suburbs of Sydney. It is likely that Thomas, as an agricultural labourer, carried out farming and livestock duties for Rutledge on these properties.
The same year Thomas was initially assigned, Rutledge purchased two blocks of 640 acres in Molongo, 200 miles south of Sydney between Queanbeyan and Captains Flat and a district in County Murray named after the river that flows into present day Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra. (refer map, page---) By 1840 Thomas Murnane had been moved to the Molongo property, known as Carwoola, and he spent the following eight years of his sentence working for Rutledge before being granted his ticket-of-leave in 1844. (After establishing himself in the colony, William Rutledge had bought out two sisters and four of his brothers from Ireland. Thomas Rutledge remained at Carwoola, Richard and Lloyd subsequently went to Port Fairy in Victoria and John Rutledge, to whom Thomas Murnane was "officially" assigned in 1840, eventually left Carwoola and went to California.)
Rutledge had established business activities in Port Phillip (Victoria) as early as 1838 when he had overlanded sheep there, possibly using convicts including Thomas Murnane to walk the herd there. He built speculative cottages there and even established a tenant community at Kilmore where he is today known as the town's founder. He continued to move back and forwards between Sydney and Port Phillip on business and in 1843 visited Port Fairy, west of Warrnambool.
Port Fairy's origins date back to 1810 and in the 1820s-1830s it's whaling and agricultural potential flourished. The government, concerned to control this unofficially sanctioned growth, introduced the controversial Special Survey Regulation. Under this system it sold 5,120 acre (2072 hectare) lots at one pound an acre, a price only the rich like Rutledge could afford. Only ten surveys were sold under this system between March-August 1841 before the government ceased the unusual process.
All of Port Fairy was sold to James Atkinson, a Sydney solicitor while William Rutledge, with four partners whom he gradually bought out, took up three special surveys, including one known as Farnham near Koroit and another called Tower Hill near Warrnambool. In addition Rutledge became agent for the absentee owner Atkinson who remained in Sydney and he became known as "the King of Port Fairy". He dominated the area's business, founding the trading company William Rutledge and Company which exported tallow, wool and later gold to England and imported a wide range of goods in it's own ships.
Tenants right from the start worked Rutledge’s surveys and Rutledge bought out Irish families at his own expense. Reputed to be a kind and considerate landlord, he furnished his tenants with rations, seed and implements. Port Fairy, temporarily renamed Belfast by Atkinson (reverting to its original name in 1880), remained a port of entry for Irish and English immigrants throughout the 1850s and it is probable that relatives of the Murnane brothers arrived in Australia via it.
Thomas Murnane most probably moved to western Victoria in the 1840s as an employee of Rutledge, eventually becoming an early tenant farmer of Rutledge.
John Murnane
The first assignment for John Murnane was to William Howe, a Scottish-born ex-soldier who had migrated to Sydney with his wife and four children, including one Thomas Howe (of whom more later) in 1816. Governor Macquarie granted Howe 3000 acres at Minto, south west of Sydney, which he named Glenlee. John Murnane appears to have been assigned to a Thomas Howe in 1837. The colony's 1837 Muster (or census) shows John's master to be W. (or William) Howe and it is reasonable to assume that the "Thomas Howe" in the assignment records was in fact William's son Thomas who was twelve years old when he arrived in Sydney and therefore 33 years old when the 25 year old John Murnane became his servant.
Thomas Howe was a squatter near present-day Crookwell, about 25 miles northwest of Goulburn. The 1837 Muster (or census) shows John Munane (sic) as working for Howe on his Burra-Burra property at Goulburn. In 18 Thomas Howe moved to a 32,000 acres property, Gunnong Gugewah, on the Murrumbidgee River. John Murnane appears to have worked for Howe for nearly 13 years, including a further four years after obtaining his ticket-of-leave in 18--. Gunnong Gugewah was a large property, which by 1851 had 17 residents, 6,700 sheep and several hundred horses and cattle. John Murnane probably spent the bulk of his Howe employ as a shepherd.
Michael Murnane
Michael was assigned to Peter McIntyre sometime in 1837.
Appendices
Appendix A
Murnane family trees
(not included here – follow links.)
* Jeremiah
* Cornelius
* Michael
* Thomas
* Patrick
* John
B. General Remarks from Medical and Surgical Journal, His Majesty's Convict Ship "Earl Grey" 15 July 1836/ 31st December 1836.
C. The Murnane Brothers Trial - Extract from the Clonmel Herald, 1835.
Appendix B
Journal of His Majesty's Convict Ship Earl Grey between 15 July
1836/31st December 1836
William Evans, Surgeon Superintendent R.N.
Public Records Office, London. Mitchell Library Reel PRO 3193
General remarks (from Medical and Surgical Journal)
Joined the Earl Grey convict ship on the 15th July 1836 at Deptford. On the 25th of the same month the Guard embarked comprising the following persons viz. Lieutenants Macdonald 80th, Hill 41st, Assistant Surgeons Graydon 50th and Allman, and Quarter Master Potter of the 4th. One Sergeant and twenty nine other rank and file. Officers wives Mrs. Macdonald, Mrs. Allman and Mrs. Potter. Five women and seven children. Total fifty. Sailors forty five. The ship left Deptford on the 27th and reached Kingstown Ireland on the 14th of August. During this passage several cases of catarrhal affliction occurred among the guard owing to the dampness of the ship, being new. Fires were in consequence kept burning in the swing stoves fore and aft between the decks and the barracks and prison room dry holy stoned with hot sand and lime. On the 16th we received ninety one convicts from the Essex hulk (Kingstown) and on the following day sailed and reached Cove of Cork on the 31st. On Tuesday the 23rd we received one hundred and ninety one convicts and five free boys (the sons of convicts in the colony) making the Grand Total of persons on board to be Three Hundred and Eighty Four. We left Cove on the 27th and proceeded on the voyage. Between Ireland and the latitude of Madeira a few slight cases of Ephemeral Pyrexia recurred which I have invariably witnessed soon after the embarkation of a large body of men, arising from unavoidable moist and vitiative atmosphere created in the crowded dormitory. On passing the Cape de Verde Islands the heat became very oppressive though Fahrenheit's Thermometer only indicated 83 in the shade. We soon entered the rainy regions when above thirteen cases of scurvy became manifest. The prevalence of scurvy and scorbutic dysentery on convict ships seems to arise partly from the impurity of the water, so little care is taken in filling at Deptford, sometimes at improper time of the tide, though Government regulations are imperative on this head. Also from foul stagnant air between decks especially during calms and sultry weather between the limits of the North East and South East Trades. Together with the high range of the Thermometer and the Atmosphere loaded with moisture and often deluges of rain when the Hatchways are obliged to be covered to prevent the water getting below.
The effect of this high ranges of temperature and moist atmosphere in a crowded Prison Room are a diminution of the changes affected in the blood in respiration; an increase of the Secreting and excreting functions of the liver and Skin, and a decrease of the urinary Secretions. Also molecules of animal matter in a state of decay floating in the vitiated moist heated atmosphere between decks.
When we reflect on the condition of nearly Four Hundred human beings incarcerated in this floating receptacle and labouring under depression of Spirits, mental anxiety and Nostalgia which seems to have great effect on the minds of these poor exiles, who are thrown as it were on themselves and the accusing conscience brings to their recollections many painful and poignant feelings.
All these causes combined with the very character of Sea diet appear to me sufficient to bring on this loathsome malady thus early on the voyage. On reaching high Southern Latitude with deficiency of clothing the cause is reversed. More torpor, spasm and languid circulation in the external or cuticular tissue goes on arising from Cold and Moisture. In almost all cases of severe scurvy from the Lethargy and Stupor accompanying it the patient makes no effort to expel the urine because he is not conscious of the impression made in the Mucous Membrane of the Bladder. The result of this prolonged retention of a large quantity of urine is unless drawn off by the Catheter that a portion of it is absorbed as is evinced by the intolerable urinous smell and fetor which the transportation by the pores generally requires. The evacuations are exceedingly offensive, the prostration of strength extreme; the ammonical colour on the surface very remarkable, the earthy yellow cadaverous hue of the skin singularly characterized. The abdomen drawn forward, Lower extremities hard with livid patches extending to the hands and Ecchy muses, which list is invariably the signal of animire or impoverished state of the blood, in this as well as in Typhoid fever and the mental depression great. Though in this apparently exhausted state, should a shout of land a head be announced, a Ship in sight, or getting near the destined port it is surprising how they rally for a time. On the contrary should the wind shift and become unfavourable especially after a protracted voyage they are immediately laid on their beamheads in a state of stupor coma and other adynamic symptoms; and I have little doubt but that the Typhoid Fevers so very destructive to former voyages was nothing more than an aggravated form of scurvy. At least Thirty two years experience in the public service has induced me to suppose so.
On the morning of the first of October we crossed the Equator with a fine breeze from S.S.E. in longitude 20 50 west. We passed rapidly through the South East Trades having reached the Tropic Capricorn in Eleven days from the line. When Fahrenheit's Thermometer fell from 83 to 67 I anticipated that the General state of health on board would be benefited by the change; indeed those who stood the calms and moist heated atmosphere between the limits of the North East and South East Trades did become now more seriously afflicted with that disease and Scorbutic Dysentery. On the 19 October after Mature Consideration I recommended the Master to proceed to the Cape for replenishments; experience, to which all theory is subordinate, convinced me in several former voyages that Lime Juice and Nitrate of Potash are mere Prophylactics and inadequate though very useful in their way, and that a liberal mixed diet of animal and Vegetable Food are the only sure and permanent means of ensuring convalescence and health for the remainder of the Voyage. And especially us who are thrown entirely upon our own Resources and cannot as on Shore gratify the capricious and depraved appetites of these poor outcasts.
Though the Provisions and medical comforts are good and ample, yet many of the Sick loathed them, preferring a Roasted Potato with little Butter and a glass of wine to all other food or delicacies whatever. From this till we reached the Cape of Good Hope we had great atmospherical vicissitudes especially cold and rain which acted as a powerful sedative in lowering and depressing the general powers of the System more particularly the external surface. On the 11th October departed this life Patrick Bryan a convict, of Anasarca, which supervened on severe scorbutic affection. This man had been a patient in the hospital at Cork for eight months with the same diseases, previous to his embarkation. And on the 14th departed this life Michael Coyle aged 35 of scorbutic Dysentery. It may not be amiss for me to state my reasons why Irish Convicts do not stand the voyage as well as the English. The fact is the latter are comparatively well fed in the Hulks and have clothing of their own besides that given by Government, whereas the Irish are so ill fed in the hulks at Kingstown and Cove that they have no Constitutional Stamina on Embarking to withstand so long and varied a voyage and as to clothing, they have none, save that issued by Government. And here I beg to submit the daily rations as now Established on board the Surprise Hulk at Cove and the Essex at Kingstown.
The allowance of oatmeal for each mans Breakfast is eight ounces this is made into thick Gruel and with it they get half an ounce of sugar. The Breakfast is served out at half past eight o'clock. The allowance of meat for each man is four ounces (Including bone). They get inferior cabbage of which they are allowed four ounces (Including Stalks and waste leaves). There is also a small portion of oatmeal added to thicken it. This is made into Broth or soup, of this each man is allowed a quart. It is served up at five o'clock and with it a pound of Biscuit and no more for the day. On Friday the dinner is nothing but this gruel.
October 26th this day thirty five convicts are laid up with scorbutic affection. Besides the varied concomitant Symptoms already enumerated as present in scurvy, in the foregoing remarks, on inspection this day I could not but observe the following striking appearance of nearly the whole. The features pinched and sharp, countenance dark and chilled, with bloodless lips, fingers and hands cold and clammy; pulse small and weak and respiration in many somewhat embarrassed which the decreased heat of surface throws the onus on the respiratory organs, and Dysuria common to all of them from the want of power in the Sphincter muscle of the Bladder.
November 4th this afternoon at 5 0'clock the Earl Grey came to an Anchor on Simons Bay, Cape of Good Hope and I immediately reported our arrival to Rear Admiral Sir Patrick Campbell.
During our stay at Simons Bay ( eight days ) we received fresh beef, mutton and vegetables for the Guard and convicts. Rear Admiral Sir Patrick Campbell rendered every assistance with the crew of H.M.S. Pelican, in watering the ship and ordering the Agent Victualler to supply the Earl Grey with five live Bullocks and sixty sheep with the necessary proportion of vegetables and it was surprising to witness the beneficial effects resulting from this timely change of diet on the health and spirits of the Scorbutic Patients as well as the rest of the convicts.
Indeed in less than a fortnight upwards of thirty who were before bedridden, were in a forward state of Convalescence and continued to improve, though the weather proved cold, wet and boisterous while running down the longitude between the Cape of Good Hope and Van Diemans Land.
There are circumstances peculiar to the lower class of Irish with respect to diet, communicated to me by an intelligent Medical Officer Dr. Allman of the 4th or Kings Own. That when the potato crop fails in Ireland typhus fever generally becomes prevalent among the lower class, potatoes and salt or either milk or Herrings being as it were their natural food, and if any other ration were substituted they would almost starve, even among plants, and thereby become emaciated and with their ragged, scanty filthy clothing and dirty Hovels, predispose them to the prevailing Epidemic.
Many of the convicts on board this ship have a great dislike to Soup and Bouilli though excellent, having never been accustomed to such food, others cannot bear the sight of Cocoa and to many on the Sick List, I was obliged to order oatmeal for them in lieu.
In the year 1822 Typhus Fever raged to an appaling degree in the west of Ireland and large subscriptions were raised in England. During that year the Potato Crop failed and they were said to have ( illegible) to the (illegible illegible) which has since turned out to be the Caraqeen Lichen or (illegible) which makes an excellent ?olanchmange.
On the 11th of December at 1.30 P.M., departed this life Charles McCarthy of Phthisis. The cold moist weather which we have experienced of late hastening his dissolution.
On the 20th December we decried Cape Otway and soon after the North end of King's Island. The following day we passed through Bass Straits with fine breeze from the westward. We afterwards experienced light variable winds which rendered our passage to Port Jackson rather tedious.
We reached Sydney Cove on the 31 December after a passage of Eighteen weeks from the Cove of Cork. The ship was reported to the proper authorities at Sydney. The weather proved remarkably fine and unusually dry while running up to Sydney (Ther 70) and it had as it were a magic influence over the health and spirits of the sick and convalescents and by the time they were disembarked we had not an individual but what could walk up to the Convict Barracks to be inspected by His Excellency the Governor. The number landed were Five Hundred and Eighty Eight.
William Evans
Surgeon Superintendent
APPENDIX C
THE MURNANE BROTHERS’ TRIAL
(Extracts From the Clonmel Herald -- 1835)
John Mornane, Michael Mornane, and Thomas Mornane, were put to the bar, charged with breaking into and assaulting the habitation of Wm. Day.
Wm Day, being sworn, deposed that the prisoners broke into his house, the door of which was fastened about 11 or 12 o’clock, on the 1st of January; the prisoner Michael made a blow of a scythe at the place where his bed was some time before; Michael Mornane again made an offer of a blow at witness’s wife, and threatened her with the fate they would give her husband; the prisoner Michael then took a sop of straw out of the bed, and gave it to the prisoner Thomas Mornane, to light in order to find out where witness was; John Mornane, the prisoner, who was in the kitchen, cried out to strike the witness on the neck; witness then got up and knocked down Michael Mornane, and as Tom Mornane was coming in with the lighted sop, he knocked him down, and then made his way out; as he was passing through the kitchen the prisoner John Mornane, made a blow of a stick at witness; when witness got out of the door he saw a tenant of his, John Walshe, outside with a pitchfork, with which he struck witness on the shoulder; knew the prisoners before; the prisoners had a spite to witness because he some years before went for the police to save a neighbour they had attacked; they seized his wife by the hair, and she cried for mercy; it was a moonlight night, and there was no shutter to the window , through which the light came and was sufficient to enable him to see Michael Mornane when he came in and the scythe he had in his hand; when Michael Mornane came into the room, and after he made the blow with the scythe, witness pushed himself under two of his children, and under the bed; witness’ wife received four wounds from scythe; when he got out witness ran to the police barrack and brought them.
Mary Day, wife of the prosecutor, being sworn, corroborated the testimony of her husband, and added that she made her way out quite naked and called at the next door to be let in, but was not although it was her tenants house; while at this door the man with the scythe, Michael Mornane, came up and struck her several blows with the scythe; witness lived at this time at Solahed, near Tipperary; since this she lived in Tipperary, where she took a house, having lost her little holdings; life was sweet and she left the place.
Constable Thompson being sworn, deposed that he got to the prosecutor’s house about daybreak that morning, and found Mary Day bleeding, the door broken, and the bed roof broken; apprehended Michael Mornane in the house of one Fitzgerald, in a bed, with two women over him; Michael and Tom Mornane said their names were Keogh; searched for them in their own houses, but did not find Michael and Tom; apprehended them about the 20th of February; the prosecutor said there were four persons at the attack; that part of the country is always disturbed.
John Wilcocks,Esq., proved that the country was in a state of disturbance at the time.
John Whelan being sworn for the defense, deposed to an alibi for John Mornane who lived with him.
Dan. Reilly, servant to last witness, swore John Mornane slept with him that night.
Two gentlemen being called to give a character, they did not appear. Guilty. Sentenced to transportation for life.
ooOoo
(Note – the Clonmel Herald clearly records the brothers’ surname as "Mornane" but their convict records and birth certificates, etc record the surname as "Murnane")