Margaret Hartigan

Margaret Hartigan, a 32-year-old Irish dairymaid, was tried at the Limerick Spring Assizes and transported for seven years for stealing blankets. She arrived in Sydney on the Minerva 6 in 1839. In 1845, Margaret was granted a ticket of leave for Liverpool, New South Wales. Ten years later, in 1855, she married Richard England, a convict per the Adrian (1829), in Ipswich, Queensland. England may have deliberately hidden his convict background as the indent of the Adrian records that he was married with three children. In July 1856, not long after marrying Margaret Hartigan, England was sent to gaol for six months after he attempted suicide, reportedly as the result of ‘[d]istress of the mind, caused by intemperance’, and failed to pay ‘sureties to be of good behaviour’.[4] The following week it was reported that Margaret had ‘no fixed place of residence’ and she was sent to gaol for two months for vagrancy.[5] It would appear that England had a mental condition which impacted negatively on his life, as well as causing difficulties for Margaret. However, it is not clear whether her subsequent alcoholism predated or was caused by her husband’s mental struggles. In 1866 when England was admitted to the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum, he told staff that he had ‘kept a general store in Ipswich but was ruined by my wife’s drinking’ and that Margaret had ‘burnt to death’. Indeed, Margaret’s death certificate confirms that she died in Warwick in September 1865 after suffering tetanus for six weeks caused by a ‘severe burn’. Richard England was discharged from the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum in 1868 and possibly died several years later in New South Wales.

[1] QSA, Item ID ITM9520, Register of personal details relating to females admitted to Dunwich Benevolent Asylum, c. 1 October 1859 to 28 June 1906.

[2] Raymond Evans, ‘Charitable institutions of the Queensland government to 1919’, published M.A. thesis, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, 1970, https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:203862, accessed 26 Mar 2020, p. 169.

[3] Joseph B. Goodall, ‘Whom nobody owns: The Dunwich Benevolent Asylum, an institutional biography 1866-1946’, published Ph.D. thesis, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, 1992, https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:190037, accessed 3 Apr 2020, Abstract (unpaginated).

[4] ‘Ipswich – Attempted suicide’, Empire [Sydney], 1 Jul 1856, p. 3; ‘Local and domestic’, North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser, 8 Jul 1856, p. 3.

[5] ‘Local and domestic: Vagrancy’, North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser, 15 Jul 1856, p. 3.