Wagga Wagga: where the scent runs dry.

As I mentioned in my last post, Bridget and George Merritt were veritable vagabonds constantly on the move through regional New South Wales. After getting married in Sydney, having their first three children in Mudgee and then moving to Morpeth, Tamworth and down south to Borrowa, I found a baptism for their daughter Charlotte Merritt in Wagga Wagga in on the 5 May 1878.

Charlotte Merritt

Interestingly, their names had all been Latinised in the records. Charlotte became Charlotta Maria Agnes. George became Georgius and her mother became Birgitta Donovan. Charlotte was baptised at St Michael’s Catholic Church, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. This Church building pre-dates the beautiful old stone Church which is St Michael’s today.

Of course, I can not presume that either Bridget or George were living in Wagga Wagga at the time. While these days a 14 year old is still almost considered a child and certainly too young to be living out of home, that wasn’t the case back in in the 1870s. She was old enough to work and could have had an independent position as a domestic servant perhaps.

Wagga Wagga is located on the Murrumbidgee River. The original Aboriginal inhabitants of the Wagga Wagga region were the Wiradjuri people and the term “Wagga” and derivatives of that word in the Wiradjuri aboriginal language is thought to mean “crow”. To create the plural, the Wiradjuri repeat a word, thus ‘Wagga Wagga’ translates to ‘the place of many crows’. However, it wasn’t just the crows which were attracted to the area and poet and author Dame Mary Gilmore noted that the locality was the breeding-ground of birds of all kinds. Food abounded on land and in the water, consequently eggs were plentiful (young birds too), and the crows fared well. So did the eagles, some of which were of great size- Jennifer Strauss, Collected verse of Mary Gilmore,, University of Queensland Press, 2007, p. 642.

WAGGA in the 1870s…

In 1870 Wagga Wagga had been established as a municipality. There were some 2,500 people within its boundaries and about 7,000 in the surrounding districts with about 7,000 acres under agriculture.

In the 1870s the Presentation Sisters established a school in Wagga Wagga. You can read through their history here: http://presentationsociety.org.au/congregations/wagga-wagga/history/

The Capture of Captain Midnight

I am just doing some very quick research about Wagga Wagga in the day and it is interesting to note that at the same time that the Presentation Sisters were setting up a convent and school in Wagga Wagga, the infamous bushranger Captain Midnight who was, appeared near the district and was subsequently captured.  On 15 November 1879, Captain Midnight arrived  looking for work at Wantabadgery Station which is situated about 38 km east of Wagga. When work was refused, Moonlite and his band of 5 others returned and held up all 39 people at the station. Later one of the hostages escaped and three mounted police from Wagga Wagga arrived and were engaged  in a shoot out. When the police retreated, Moonlite and his gang escaped only to be captured at another nearby property when police from the neighbouring townships of Gundagai and Adelong arrived. Moonlite was later hung for his crimes. Wikipaedia.

This is obviously very early dates in my research and I am just pasting bits and pieces in as I find them at this stage. I really do like to explore the local context in my research but with Bridget and George moving around so much, my interest in wearing a bit thin…especially as I still haven’t found enough conclusive evidence to order possible death certificates for George Merritt and I have still found no traces of a death for Bridget Merritt at all.

I’ll keep you posted and as usual welcome any contributions.

xx Rowena

Sources:

http://presentationsociety.org.au/congregations/wagga-wagga/history/

Boorowa 1873

By the time George and Bridget reach Boorowa in 1873, I’m seriously telling them to stay put and find a bit of stability. After all, they are moving every couple of years from town to town in disparate regions throughout country New South Wales and I’m obviously wondering why. Why couldn’t they stay put? I’ve found no evidence of trouble with the law. Actually, aside from the births of their children, I’ve found very few traces of George and Bridget Merritt at all. It’s as though they knew I was going to come after them and they’ve initiated some kind of privacy screen.

Not unsurprisingly, I hadn’t heard of the town of Boorowa before. It is located in a valley 243 km west of Sydney and 487 m above sea-level.

Bridget Merritt gave birth to her youngest child Charles in Boorowa in 1873.

I will elaborate further on the Merritt family’s time in Boorowa down the track.

xx Rowena

Next Stop: Tamworth 1868

The next stop in Bridget’s journey is Tamworth, which is now 259 km North-West of Morpeth via the New England Highway.

Tamworth is the oldest permanent settlement in northern NSW and is often referred to as “City of Light” as the first electric street lighting system in Australia was established there in 1888. Industries include: wool, wheat, dairying,tobacco growing, and a range of secondary industries. Tamworth is known as the Country Music Capital of Australia as it’s annual Country Music Festival is the second largest country music festival in the world.

In 1868, Bridget Merritt gave birth to an unnamed female child in Tamworth.Just because no name was recorded, it doesn’t mean that the baby didn’t survive. I am working to track down the baby’s name.

At this time, Tamworth was little more than a fledgling village. In 1861, Tamworth’s population was only 654.

Stay tuned for further details of Bridget’s time in Tamworth and I would welcome your  assistance. I am becoming quite curious about why George and Bridget were on the move. George was a labourer of some sort so perhaps he was chasing work. As I said, stay tuned.

xx Rowena

Childbirth in Morpeth 1870

When you know almost absolutely nothing about someone you are researching, you have to get pretty clever and follow up even the smallest hint of a clue hoping that this may provide some kind of insight into your person’s life. Bridget Merritt nee Donovan was almost an invisible woman. She trod so lightly on this earth that other than her five children, she barely left an impression behind.

Bridget Merritt gave birth to my Great Great Grandmother, Charlotte, on 5th January, 1864.

Fortunately, Bridget used a midwife when Charlotte was born and a search through Trove re the midwife, turned up on interesting account of what happened when childbirth went wrong in 19th century NSW and in particularly when you were living in a country town like Morpeth.

LOCAL NEWS.

MAGISTERIAL ENQUIRY. — The Police Magistrate held an inquiry on Tuesday last, the 5th instant, at Hinton, into the circumstances attending the death of Catherine Feenay. The following evidence was given: — Edward Feenay, sworn, deposed: The deceased, Catherine Feenay,   was my wife, and was aged about 29 years. My wife was in the family way, and about seven o’clock on Sunday evening she began to com- plain, and asked me to go for a woman, as she expected to be confined, but did not tell me who to go for. She called a Mrs. Byron, who lived opposite, to come to her. When Mrs Byron came she told me to go for Mrs. Wiseman. In about half an hour I found Mrs. Wiseman, and she accompanied me home. In about half an hour or more, Mrs. Wiseman directed me to go for a doctor. I went to West Maitland in search of a medical man. I was directed to a particular house which had a red light opposite to it. I went in company with a night watchman. I knocked, and a gentleman came out. I said to him, “There is a woman in labour at Hinton; she is     in a very bad state, and is in labour.” And I requested him to come down with me to see her. I told him I was living at the punt-house. He asked me if I was the lessee of the punt. I told him I was not, I was only a labourer attending upon it. He said, “Three guineas is   my charge.” I said, “All right.” He said, “Will you pay me when I deliver her?” I said, “I will pay you when she is all right; I will pay you to-morrow;” I asked him three or four times to come, and he told me he would run no more bills there, and positively refused to come; I returned home; when I got home I had some conversation with my wife, and Mrs. Wiseman the midwife; Mrs. Wiseman remained with my wife until she died; I went out to look   for assistance, and when I returned with my cousin, Mrs. Wiseman told me to go for Dr. Scott, who she thought would come, as he was a charitable man; I took the train, and   went for Dr. Scott, who returned; I reached   home, and found Dr. Scott and the priest there; about twelve o’clock my wife died. —   Sophia Wiseman, sworn, deposed: I am a mid-   wife residing in Morpeth. On Sunday evening last I met the last witness, who requested me to go home with him, as his wife was very bad. I accompanied him to his house, and I found the deceased, and when I went in, from what I saw and found out, I said I would have nothing to do with the case, and would not be responsible for anything. I told the woman’s husband to go for a doctor directly, and I believe he went. When he came back, he returned without a doctor, and said that the doctor would not come without three guineas, “and I had not got it   to give him.” The woman all the time was in her labour, and I could not assist her. I remained with her till she died. About midday she died. — Walter Scott sworn, deposed: I am a legally   qualified medical-practitioner, residing in West Maitland. About a week ago deceased consulted me as to her approaching confinement, and de- scribed herself as suffering from symptoms denoting placenta prœria. I told her that unless she was near professional aid when her labour came on, she would most probably die, and recommended her to come to Maitland, as even before a medical man could get to her assistance at Hinton she might be dead. About half-past eight o’clock yesterday morning, the husband of the deceased called at my house and told me that his wife had been in labour all night, and that the nurse in attendance said that the case was a very bad one, and refused to have anything to do with it by herself. I told him I would start as soon as possible, and he in- formed me that he was going for the priest, as he did not expect to find his wife alive when he reached home. I saw the deceased about half- past nine o’olock, a.m., and after a little delay, caused by the administration of religious rites, I proceeded to deliver her. She was very much exhausted, from loss of blood, consequent upon a partial presentation of the after-birth. I delivered her in the usual manner, thereby stopping the hœmorrhage, but the deceased died from exhaustion about a quarter of an hour after delivery. The child was dead when born. I did not know till some time after I was in the house that deceased was the woman who had consulted me a week before. I am certain that if deceased had had professional assistance in time, her life might have been saved. — The finding was “That deceased died in childbirth.”

The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW : 1843 – 1893) Thursday 7 April 1870 pg 2

While beyond Charlotte’s birth certificate, there is no information about Charlotte’s actual birth at all. However, her birth certa search through the online newspapers at Trove,

Welcome to Morpeth 1864

Goodness knows what lead George and Bridget Merritt to move from Mudgee to Morpeth. My sense of direction and where all these country towns are plonked on the map has never been good but thanks to Google, you can pretty much find the answer to anything!!

Google very knowledgeably informed me that it will take 3 hours and 19 minutes to drive  283.4 KM from Mudgee to Morpeth under current traffic conditions. Hmm…wonder how long it took George, Bridget and their three young sons and how they moved from A to B?

A copy of Charlotte Merritt’s Birth Certificate. The original had been completed by the midwife. Bridget was illiterate.

I don’t know exactly when the Merritt family arrived in Morpeth or how long they stayed. What I do know is that their fourth child and eldest daughter, Charlotte, who is my Great Great Grandmother, was born there on the 5th January, 1864. Her birth certificate provides a good snapshot of the family at the time. George, a labourer, was 38 years old and had been born in Overton, Hampshire. Bridget was 29 years old and was born in Middleton, Cork, Ireland. The couple had 3 males living. The informant was Sophia Wiseman, Midwife, Morpeth.

Charlotte Curtin nee Merritt was born in Morpeth.

At the time of Charlotte Merritt’s birth, Morpeth was a thriving town. Located on the Hunter River, North of Newcastle, it was a significant river port.

Flooding in Maitland 1864-Image courtesy of the National Library.

It turns out that 1864 was a particularly bad year for flooding in Morpeth and surrounding districts. A La Niña event spanning 1860–1864 brought repeated widespread flooding to settlements across NSW and the floods in 1863 and 1864 were the most severe with much of the New England and Hunter Valley regions inundated with floodwaters. There was a bad flood throughout the Hunter Valley in 13th February, 1864 when Charlotte was just over a month old.

It seemed that quite a lot of major building was going on in Morpeth around the time the Merritt’s were there. Morpeth Court House and Morpeth Public School were both opened in 1862.  In May 1864, a branch railway from East Maitland to Morpeth was opened.

I have reblogged a post I wrote on my other blog: http://www.beyondtheflow.com about a few day trips I made to Morpeth. These days, it is such an enchanting, historic place. The buildings which were built around the time of Charlotte’s birth are now much loved historic landmarks and over 150 years old. That’s an interesting thought.

I will be researching Bridget and George’s time in Morpeth in more detail down the track.

xx Rowena

Sources

http://climatehistory.com.au/2012/09/27/la-nina-brings-flooding-rains-to-nsw-in-the-early-1860s/

Morpeth Revisited

Beyond the Flow

If you are trying to resist an over-active sweet tooth, Morpeth is fatal.

Same goes for bread.

If you are trying not to be tempted by fashion, art, vintage books, baby dolls, teddy bears and luscious designs, Morpeth is also fatal.

If you long to return to yesteryear with gorgeous cobbled footpaths, streets wide enough for a bullock train to turn around and stunningly rustic historic buildings…Morpeth is impossible to resist.

To top it all off, I know the brochures all talk about the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting down the main street but all I could smell when I first stepped out of the car was cow. I won’t be specific but there was that gorgeous country cow smell which for me, is almost more fragrant than a rose.

Morpeth is my kind of place. In fact, I even saw a few signs around town which had my…

View original post 2,471 more words

Arriving in the Mudgee Region

Arriving in the Mudgee Region

Just to recap, I am researching Bridget Donovan’s journey from Midleton, County Cork out to Sydney, Australia onboard the John Knox.

Bridget was one of the Irish Orphan girls who were sent out to Australia under the Earl Grey Scheme. Bridget’s father, Dennis, had died during the Irish Famine 1845-1852 and although her mother was still living, Bridget was a destitute inmate in Midleton Workhouse prior to emigration.

While I am reconstructing Bridget’s journey, I have embarked on my own journey…a contemporary Australian woman returning as best I can to the horrors of the Irish Famine which saw 1 million people die or starvation and disease and a further 1 million, like our Bridget Donovan, emigrate. It was an absolutely horrific, indescribable horror and one which, as the descendant of numerous survivors, I will not simply shut away in the past. It is because of them that I am here.

Bridget and George Merritt move to Mudgee

At this stage, I have only taken a sneak peek preview into the Mudgee chapter of Bridget’s journey. I really have no idea what they were doing out there aside from giving birth to three sons. Being the eternal optimist, I’m hoping that someone else will read this and possibly fill in some of the gaps.

I don’t know when George and Bridget Merritt arrived in the Mudgee region. However, a search of the online birth records shows that Bridget gave birth to three sons while they were living there:

William 1856

Unnamed Male 1858

George 1860

It was more than likely that George and Bridget Merrett’s move to Mudgee had something to do with gold. A large nugget of gold, now known as the Kerr hundredweight, was found on Wallerwaugh Station in Hargraves, 45 kilometres from Mudgee. Between two and three thousand miners move though the area known as the Louisa Goldfields in search of their fortunes.

The news of the fresh gold field reached England, along with the first gold, aboard the Thomas Arbuthnot. Her captain said, ‘The colony is completely paralysed. Every man and boy who is able to lift a shovel is off, or going off, to the diggings. Nearly every article of food has gone up, in some cases two hundred per cent.’

Next step is to order a birth certificate of at least one of these children and also to check the electoral rolls.
Stay tuned. Further research required.

I would particularly welcome any contributions about Mudgee’s history pretty please!!

Xx Rowena

Our Wedding – Happy 13th Anniversary.

After writing about Bridget Donovan’s marriage to George Merritt in so much detail, I thought I’d better write about our own wedding…especially as it’s our 13th Wedding Anniversary today.

Geoff and I were married at the Pymble Ladies’ College Chapel in Sydney on the 9th September, 2001 and we had our reception at historic Curzon Hall. It was a fabulous day where I smiled so much that my face hurt. I was so incredibly happy…beyond happy even.

Love this shot of us with the steeple in the background. Very romantic!

I am a very sentimental person and our wedding ceremony was redolent with meaning as a special reflection of the love we felt for each other and for alll our precious family and friends who were handpicked to be there. Everything and everyone was special.  As it is with so many weddings, there were so many memories,  intimate personal and family connections all interwoven to make it such a magic day. We were married by my Pastor, Pastor Neville Otto from St Mark’s Lutheran Church in nearby Epping . Geoff’s Pastors, Pastors Narelle & David Crabtree from Dayspring Christian Fellowship, said the prayers while my Grandfather, Pastor Bert Haebich, gave the blessing. My best friend from school and my cousins were my bridesmaids and my brother was a groomsman. I had managed to get the retired music mistress to play the school organ and we had a couple of school hymns along with the Prayer of St Francis of Assisi which has that famous line: Make me a channel of your peace…Even though I had had to memorise I Corinthians 13 in the King James Version complete with punctuation back in Year 6, when it came to Bible verses we chose the 23rd Psalm (my grandmother’s favourite passage and probably mine too these days). We also had Isaiah 40:27-31 which includes this wonderful passage: But those who hope in the Lord Will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles”. If only. I could use a set of eagle’s wings today. There was also Colossians 3:12-17. This passage, while directed at the early Christians is a bit of a beauty as among other things it talks about the importance of forgiveness. I also had the Prayer to the Ephesians printed in the Order of Service. My cousin Angela sang “O Lord Most Holy” to the tune of Ave Maria during the signing of the register.

I look back on the choices we made and they seem very idealistic in hindsight but you have to go into marriage with enough idealism and faith to get you through life’s many ups and downs and sometimes these mountains can feel like Everest. It can be pretty hard at times to hold onto your ideals, your love and even a shred of hope. That is marriage just as much as all the lovey dovey stuff.

If you asked anybody what was special about our wedding, aside from all the usual comments about how everyone looked, they would probably mention the Order of Service which I produced. It was decorated throughout with scanned images taken from an old German family Bible which my grandfather had received from his grandfather for his 21st birthday.  I’m sure one of my friends described this Order of Service as a novel. I wrote a three page letter outlining how we met and our plans for the future entitled: “With A View to Eternity: A Letter from the Bride”. My husband said it was just as well it was so wordy because it gave everyone something to read. You see, I arrived half an hour late. I blame the hairdressers and we did struggle to get everyone assembled for the photographs before we left the house.

Geoff and I arrive at Curzon Hall.

This actually reminds me that I travelled to the church in a convertible Mark IV Jaguar. Aside from concerns about my hair getting messed up, I felt like part of the royal family as the car drove down the street I had grown up in. I don’t think all the neighbours were out to watch me pass by quite like William and Kate but I certainly remember shooting off a beaming smile and giving the royal wave en route. I also remember my father beaming as he walked me down the aisle. That was quite a long walk too and I was a little bit worried that I might trip. I don’t have the best coordination.

My thoughts are darting all over the place here. I still haven’t written about my all important dress. I absolutely loved my dress. Ever since I was a teenager, I had walked passed the Bridal shop in Roseville looking at the absolutely gorgeous dresses in the window. There is something so mesmerizing about that dream which all starts out when your toy doll marries teddy and lives happily ever after on your bookshelf. Anyway, of course, when it came to looking for my wedding dress, this was the very first place that I went. I hadn’t bought many bridal magazines at this stage. Indeed, I think I had only bought one maybe two. However, I had found my perfect dress in one of these magazines and as I was going through the dresses in my precious shop, there is was like an apparition on the hanger. I don’t even think I tried any other dresses on. That was it. I was so stoked to find “the one” and it suited me to perfection. I didn’t look anywhere else.

It was much the same when it came to choosing my engagement ring. We found “the one” at Walsh Jewellers in Wahroonga. I did have a  look at a few other places but this was it. It was the one.

I didn’t mention this earlier but when my husband proposed, which was on Valentine’s Day by the way, he was really naughty. Instead of doing the big romantic proposal thing, he went the other way. We worked round the corner from each other and both our offices were expecting the big proposal that night. We had been dating for 3 years so you could say that it was time. So does Geoff get down on bended knee and do the whole proposal thing? Oh no! He wrapped up a sander he’d bought for restoring his car and gave that to me for Valentine’s Day. He really wishes that he had videoed the whole thing because the look on my face was apparently priceless. There was expecting a little black box, perhaps not with the ultimate ring because I thought we should choose that together but I was definitely expecting something at the very least romantic and instead he gives me a sander for his car. Hmm. I was not feeling philosophical. I can assure you.

The whole proposal also got mucked up by the weather. It was absolutely raining cats and dogs and there was n point going far from home especially as my husband drove a rather leaky Austen Healy Sprite. It’s a convertible and really not watertight at all. You’d have a better chance under an umbrella. We ended up having dinner at the Thai restaurant next door with its bright orange laminate tables but excellent food. While it wasn’t special in the usual sense, we were almost family there and at least our crazy mixed up engagement night wasn’t cliched.

These days, it is hard to believe that my husband and I are the same people who walked down the aisle as husband and wife to the Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn. It feels like more than 13 years have gone under the bridge. We’ve had two beautiful but equally challenging children and my ongoing health battles are intense and that has put us all through the wringer. At the same time, we sure know how to carpe diem seize the day and have just come back from a week of skiing at Perisher and a few weeks before that, Geoff and the kids went flying in a small 4 seater Cessna with the scouts.

Life is either a daring adventure or it’s nothing.

Helen Keller

Hold that thought because it’s impossible even 13 years later not to talk about our wedding, our big day, without referring to the big Day which shook the world only two days later. We were married on the 9th September, 2001 and if you have a memory for dates, you will know that the 11th September, 2001 has since been immortalised as “9/11”. We were married on the Sunday and spent the first couple of days of our honeymoon at Whale Beach but were staying at my parents’ place on the 11th because we had an early morning flight to Auckland, New Zealand where our honeymoon would begin in earnest. I had booked the honeymoon suite.

ImageBy Robert on Flickr [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

It is a strange thing when you are watching an event as it happens. A plane had already flown into the World Trade Centre and I remember seeing that second plane fly in and the footage was live. It was all happening in front of my very own eyes. I didn’t know what it al meant at the time but I remember thinking that one plane was an accident but two was careless. My husband, who works in IT, was concerned that someone had scrambled something electronic. Slowly but surely, we watched New York’s twin towers crash and disappear. We had medical friends who were in New York at the time and I thought at least they would be able to help the survivors but… but….

Perhaps, it is this experience which always makes me consider the historical context of events in my family history. What was happening around those dates. Sometimes, nothing shows up but it certainly does add an extra dimension to the story. After all, no man is an island. What happens in our own backyards is part of a bigger picture.

Buzz Aldrin salutes the USA flag on the moon landing.

On this point, I should also add that I was supposed to be born on the day man landed on the moon. That was the event which, of course, completely overshadowed my birth completely.

PS: As I have often wondered how my ancestors first met and when there was that first spark, Geoff and I met at a mutual friend’s New Year’s Eve party in 1998. Another friend, had let her host a party in his apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour and the back end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This was a near perfect vantage point for watching Sydney’s infamous fireworks. So when Geoff and I met, there was literally fireworks. Fireworks everywhere. Now, I was supposed to be going to that party with someone else but he broke up with me that afternoon. I was feeling pretty guttered about it, of course, and I almost didn’t go to the party. Thought I’d stay home and “reflect”. However, you can’t miss a date with destiny. Only a few of us were getting together so I thought I’d better turn up. Geoff opened the door and I sensed a kindness in his face. It didn’t happen straight away but the rest, as they say, is history.

 

 

 

 

Wedding Bells: Bridget Donovan Marries George Merritt

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
the rain fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Irish Wedding Blessing

Two year after arriving in Sydney, Bridget Donovan married George Merritt on the 5^th August, 1853 at St Andrew’s Scots Church. They were married by the Rev John McGarvie, who was a vocal opponent of the controversial and outspoken minister of Scots Church, Rev Jack Dunmore Lang.

St Andrew’s Scots Church, Sydney.

Born in Overton, Hampshire, England in 1820, George was 15 years older than Bridget, not quite old enough to be her father yet it was a significant age gap. Being young, illiterate and a new immigrant could have made Bridget rather vulnerable. Her experiences throughout the Irish Famine being immersed in starvation, disease and devastating loss including the death of her own father and ending up in the workhouse, must have taken its toll. All this trauma could have made her fragile and susceptible to a relationship with an older man and father figure.

Yet, Bridget was also a survivor. She had survived the extreme physical and psychological trauma of the Irish Famine. As much as these experiences could have left her with post traumatic stress, equally they could have given her great inner strength and resourcefulness.  Moreover, just because she couldn’t read or write that doesn’t mean she wasn’t smart. As I said, she was a survivor. After all, the Irish Famine had killed 1 million people but she had survived. Perhaps, this was just good luck but maybe she had contributed towards her survival in some way and increased her odds.   Given the scarcity of women in the colonies, women like Bridget could have their pick of men. What was so special about George? Perhaps, he was incredibly handsome or perhaps he’d made a temporary fortune on the goldfields. At this stage, I don’t even know how they met.

Not unsurprisingly, I didn’t receive an invitation to their wedding and I certainly wasn’t there as wedding photographer. Of course, it was still the very early days of photography and there are no photos of the married couple. This means that when it comes to picturing the bride and groom, I will need to use a blend of research and imagination.

Queen Victoria in her ground-breaking white wedding dress adorned with beautiful handmade Honiton lace.

Of course, I can’t help wondering what Bridget wore as a bride and whether they incorporated Irish traditions into the ceremony. More than likely, they simply had to make do. There is one thing I can say for certain. As much as Queen Victoria’s wedding dress might have inspired wedding dresses of the Victorian era, there’s no doubt that Bridget’s dress would NOT have included any of that fancy handmade Honiton lace which Queen Victoria brought to fame. However, she might have worn a wreath of orange blossoms (symbolising purity) and myrtle (symbolising love and domestic happiness) in her hair.

Although Bridget and George weren’t married on St Patrick’s Day, which the Irish traditionally considered the luckiest day of the year to get married, their  ceremony might have incorporated some traditional Irish touches. Perhaps, Bridget wore a blue dress and carried the traditional “magic hanky” symbolizing fertility. Traditionally, the bride incorporated the hanky into her dress, carried it with her bouquet or in her sleeve. Indeed, this hanky was rather magic because with a few stitches, the bride could turn it into a bonnet for her first born child.

In terms of the wedding ceremony itself, there was the ancient Irish Celtic tradition of handfasting, which symbolised how a man and woman come together at the start of their marriage relationship. Each partner holds the hands of the other, right hand to right hand, left hand to left, with their wrists crossed. A ribbon is wound around the wrists over the top of one and under and around the other, creating the infinity symbol. This practice is what inspired the expression: “tying the knot”.

Another Irish wedding tradition involved serving the Irish whisky cake, which was traditionally thought of as a ‘fertility’ cake and was believed to help the newlyweds to quickly start a family.  Irish custom held that the top tier of the wedding cake (Cáca Bainise le Fuisce Éireannach) was saved for the christening of their first child.  The newborn’s parents served the cake at the christening reception and sprinkled crumbs on their baby’s head as a symbolic wish for a long and prosperous life. No doubt for some firstborns, that cake would still have been quite fresh at the christening.

However, we have no way of knowing which, if any, of these traditions Bridget and George incorporated into their wedding ceremony.

St Andrew’s Scots Church, Sydney.

St Andrews Scots Church

Bridget and George were married by Rev John McGarvie at St Andrews Scots Church which stood in a dead end street running north from Bathurst Street between George and Kent Streets towards Clarence Street.

St Andrews Scots Church was an interesting choice for their wedding. Bridget was an Irish Catholic and George Merritt was English and it was a Scottish Presbyterian Church. Moreover, in choosing a Presbyterian Church they chose St Andrew’s, not Scots Church under Rev Jack Dunmore Lang. At the time, there were very publicised, heated tensions between these two ministers so it was a very definite choice.

Tensions with the Presbyterian Church:  Rev John McGilvray versus Rev Jack Dunmore Lang

Rev Jack Dunmore Lang…the Minister at Scots Church. He clashed with Rev McGilvray from St Andrew’s.

This excerpt from the Canberra Times provides a good overview of their differences:

“John Dunmore Lang, the first Presbyterian minister in NSW, belonged to the Evangelical tradition of the church, keen to preach the gospel of personal salvation, and determined to drive out of the church those who were alcoholics or who sheltered them and failed, in his opinion, to give a strong moral lead in the community.

Lang used his tongue and his pen mercilessly to attack such people and he strongly supported the independence of the Church from the State.

He came into conflict with John McGarvie, a clergyman of the Moderate tradition in Sydney, who valued the State connection and a settled parish life with a respectable congregation on Sunday and the freedom to engage in literary activities during the week. The resulting row between the evangelical Lang and the moderate McGarvie and their supporters tore the Presbyterian church in the colony apart in the 1840s, and the rift was not to be healed for many years…

Through the columns of his newspapers, the turbulent Dr Lang poured scorn and vicious rhetoric on McGarvie, Allan and all who incurred his wrath.

A sample of his style may be seen in the epitaph which he composed after the death of McGarvie, in which he described McGarvie as “a minister of the gospel which he never preached and as devout a worshipper of the god Mammon as ever landed in Australia.[1]”

Stay tuned for the next installment…motherhood.

I would love to find out more about Irish wedding traditions and the details of weddings in the 1850s in Australia to add more depth to the story.

xx Rowena

Sources

http://greenweddingshoes.com/a-mythical-tune-irish-wedding-traditions/

[1] The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995) Saturday 1 December 1984 p 23 Article Illustrated

Beyond the Barracks: Bridget goes into domestic service.

Watch this Space.

I wanted to keep Bridget’s story in some kind of order but as I’ve written before, Bridget Donovan has been quite difficult to trace and I don’t know a lot about her time in between leaving the  Female Immigration Depot and marrying George Merritt on 5th August, 1853.

The Irish Famine Orphans database offers this clue which I will follow up shortly:

Register 2 No.878, 5 Jul 1850, Mary Ann O’Connell requires cancellation of indentures.

Register 1, 2, 3 are held in State Records NSW 4/4715-4717 is the ‘Register and applications for orphans’ and gives information about their early days in the colony.

Stay tuned. I’ll see what I can dig up. Soon I’ll be able to get a job as an archaelogist or with a London tabloid. I’m like the proverbial dog with a bone. I don’t give up.