#52Ancestorsin52Weeks 18/52 Patrick McLoughlin - Social
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| Patrick McLoughlin |
Patrick McLOUGHLIN – c 1836 - 1897
Ahnentafel
Number 24
Context
for discovery:
This
biography was written as part of the 52 ancestors in 52 weeks exercise devised
by Amy Johnson Crow. You can join in too
here. The theme for this month is Check It
Out and the theme for this week is Social.
Amy says:
Maybe you have a story or photo of an ancestor at an ice cream social. Maybe your ancestor was part of a society, like the Masons or Odd Fellows. Maybe you've made a connection with a cousin or made a great discovery thanks to social media. Whatever it is, write it down!
When I was a girl (said in a quavering voice), we didn't have dances at school, we had socials. Just saying. When I searched my blog for social I came up with various phrases about social evils e.g. drunkeness, social aspirations and social media. Or Friendly Societies. The closest I could find to link to Patrick was the Broughton Catholic Charitable Society and I suspect it may have had a significant impact on his life.
Patrick was
my 2nd great-grandfather on my mother’s side of the family.
As I noted
last week when talking about his son John, McLOUGHLIN has its own challenges in
terms of spelling. I have found it spelt
the following way in various documents: McLAUGHLIN, MacLAUGHLIN, McLOGHLIN,
McLOUGHLAN or McLACHLAN.
I have created a map which you can zoom in on the UK or Australia to see all the places that I have been able to establish that Patrick lived.
Childhood
Birth
Date/Place:
Frustratingly,
I have not yet been able to find a birth or baptism for Patrick or even his
parent’s marriage. Nor I do not know if
he had any siblings.
We only know (from his death certificate) that his father was Owen McLoughlin and his mother was Bridget Sweeney and that he was born in County Sligo, Ireland and had been in the colony for 31 years i.e. since 1866.
And we all know how reliable death certificates can be ! i.e. NOT! My only comfort is that his father’s name is
repeated on his marriage certificate so we can be reasonably confident that
that is correct.
Married Life
Marriage
Dates/Places:
The next
document I have for Patrick McLoughlin is a copy of his marriage certificate
from England. Dated 15 November 1858
Patrick is described as 24 years old, a bachelor and labourer living at Tea
Street Prescot, in the county of Lancaster. [i]
Patrick married Margaret Flannagan 23 years old, a spinster, no occupation,
also of Tea Street, Prescot, Lancaster.
Patrick’s father’s name was Owen McLoughlin a labourer and Margaret’s
father’s name was Patrick Flannagan, a painter. No one except the Minister, William Cotham, could write.
Witnesses to the marriage were Patrick Flannagan and Mary Curley. They
were married in the Portico Chapel, Eccleston.
I cannot
show you a picture of the chapel as there are no creative commons images
available but you can look at it here and here.
This blog shows you exactly where Tea Street
was located.
I looked for
Mary Curley on Ancestry and found a Mary Curley aged 6 in the 1851 census of
Thomas and Catherine Curley. And, yes,
they are living in Tee Street – at least that’s how they spelled it in the
Census. They are living at 48 Tee Street
and Mary has an older brother Pat.
Thomas is a dealer in fish. They
were all born in Ireland. Also living at
number 48 is John and Ellen Seward. John
is an ag lab.[ii]
When I look
up Mary Curley in the 1861 Census she is aged 18.[iii] She is still living with her parents and
younger sister Catherine. Her father
Thomas is described as a fishmonger and lodging house keeper.
From this
information I deduce that Patrick and Margaret were lodgers at the Curley’s
place in Tea Street Prescot and that Mary came along as perhaps Margaret’s
bridesmaid at the age of about 15.
I was able
to find a newspaper article mentioning William Cotham in association with the
Broughton Catholic Charitable Society.
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| 6th June 1857 Preston Chronicle and Lancashire Advertiser |
According to
this website
“the Society came into being after a smallpox epidemic had ravaged that part of the Fylde just north of Preston some time in the 18th century. Many small farmers fell victims, leaving widows and often small children. The women and girls, who milked the cattle, seemed to have gained immunity through having caught cowpox. In true Christian charity, the rest of the farming community subscribed to help the bereaved families with money and also by working their lands for them. From this the idea grew of meeting regularly to help the living who were in want and to have Masses and prayers said for the dead. At first these meetings were in farmhouses, some of which had been Mass centres in penal days. From these informal meetings arose the idea of forming a permanent society, and as the Golden Ball at Broughton crossroads offered a central position, the first meeting was held there on the 6th May, 1787.”
The records of the Broughton Catholic Charitable Society are held at Cheshire Archives and Local Studies. Something perhaps for me to follow up in future.
Knowsley’s Archive website has a great little history of Prescot. It says the following:
The town developed a reputation for producing fine pottery, using a mixture of the local white and red clays, numerous examples of which can be found in the town’s museum. Another impetus was the accessibility of rich seams of coal close to the surface, which was mined from the early sixteenth century, with much of the coal produced being destined for Liverpool.
and
Considerable changes to the town occurred in 18th Century with the continued growth of a number of craft industries especially watchmaking, toolmaking and the potteries, resulting in increased prosperity and a rapid rise in population from an estimated 700 in the 1690s to 3645 in 1801.
and
The rebuilding of the town continued throughout the nineteenth century. The growth in population continued during this century with the census for 1851 revealing that nearly a quarter of the population was born in Ireland, a legacy of the famine which had driven many to emigrate.
Patrick and
Margaret had the following children:
Children’s
Birth Dates/Places:
1. Annie born 1859
Wirral, Liverpool, England[iv]
2. Patrick born 1862
Birkenhead, Liverpool, England[v]
3. Mary born 1865
Birkenhead, Liverpool, England[vi]
4. John born 1867
Brown’s River, Bowenfels, New South Wales[vii]
5. Margaret born
1869 Sodwalls and died 21st August 1882 Bathurst, aged thirteen[viii]
6. Thomas born 1871
Tambaroora, New South Wales[ix]
7. Elena born 1873
Bathurst, New South Wales [x]
Immigration
You can see from the children’s birth dates that the McLoughlin family moved to Australia between 1864 and 1865.
We think Patrick could have come first, followed by Margaret after Mary was born. At any rate, I have only been able to find one immigration record that might be our Patrick on the Light of the Age arriving in Brisbane in 1864.[xi]
I cannot find any record of Margaret and the
children arriving.
You can see
the shipping list for the Light of the Age here.
It arrived in Brisbane 27thJanuary 1864.
Here is an account of its arrival and the voyage:
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 |
 |
| 17th February 1864 The Courier Page 7, courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia |
Land Orders
I need to do more work in this area as I have noticed lots of Flannagans also arriving around this time in Brisbane. If I can bear the cost, I might try to buy some death certificates if I can find any that look to be the right age/time and see if I can make a connection.
None of the ones on the Assisted Immigrant list looks the right age for either Margaret McLoughlin if she were travelling under her maiden name or they’re too young to be her parents. Maybe the Patrick Flannagan arriving on the Montmorency aged 24 in 1865 could be her brother???
There is a
land order for a Pat McLoughlin on 13 June 1864 according to the Queensland
State Archives and also to :
James
McLoughlin 22 June 1864
David
McLoughlin 22 June 1864
Bridget
McLoughlin 13 June 1864
On the
register of immigrants 1864-1878, there is an Ellen Flannagan on 4 April 1866,
Patrick Flannagan on 5 September 1864 and Margaret Flanagan on 19 June 1873.
There is
also a land order for an Owen McLoughlin purchasing passage for self £18 on Golden City arriving 5 March 1863 from London
and Cork.[xii]
Occupation
Patrick was
described as a labourer on his marriage certificate. We don’t know if that is a farm labourer or
other kind of labourer. Perhaps if he
was a farm labourer he might be described as an ag lab rather than labourer on
his marriage certificate. I can’t be
sure.
Interestingly
on another record of the Light of the Age passenger list found recently via
QFHS’ keyword search here,
Patrick is listed as a farm labourer.[xiii]The
notes on this dataset say:
This publication provides details for 176,599 inwards passengers and crew from 1,340 ship voyages for the period 1852 to 1899; sourced from the Collector of Customs (Brisbane) records which are held at the National Archives of Australia, Brisbane (Shipping Inwards Series J715). The lists typically mention both passengers and crew.
Patrick worked for the Roads Department for nearly 30 years and is mentioned in this article from 1894 where the workers gave their boss of 23 years a parting gift.
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| 27 January 1894 National Advocate, courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia |
This article is a good example of how to collect a FAN club for your ancestor i.e. Friends and Neighbours. We now have 19 other surnames to watch out for in connection with the McLoughlins - Davern, O'Donnell, Gallagher, Myers, Lavelle, Shindlair, Gallagher, Knights, Rowan, Bradly, Cosgrove, Dwyer, O'Maley, Gummer, Smith, Curtain, Downs, Dibley and Canrick.
The Gold
Rush
Notes from my
cousin Veronica indicate that Patrick first worked as a miner and moved from
Hill End to Bathurst circa 1876. I am not sure where the information about him
being a miner came from – maybe one of the children’s birth certificates. I think it is more likely he came to Bathurst
in 1873 as Elena’s birth was recorded then.
I could order her birth certificate and see what that says. Or maybe Thomas’ birth certificate.
The birthplaces of the children born in Australia i.e. Browns River, Sodwalls and
Tambaroora certainly indicate that Patrick McLoughlin was plying his trade on
the goldfields and/or coal mines of western New South Wales.
I found this interesting article which confirms the McLoughlin family's close association with the church.
15th November 1918 National Advocate, page 1, courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia
In fact, I am sure that when researching land records I found that Bishop Dunn or Rev Dunn as he was then had purchased land at the same time as Patrick McLoughlin. I must follow that up.
I will send
off a research enquiry to Lithgow and District Family History Society in case they have more information about the McLoughlins in their records.
Senior Years
I found an obituary of sorts in the early hours of this morning which provides some very useful information about Patrick’s working life. It says that he was employed in the Roads Dept for 23 years i.e. from 1874.
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| Local and General. (1897, April 15). Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal (NSW : 1851 - 1904), p. 2. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article62037495 |
Date and
place of Death
Patrick McLoughlin, Labourer, died 15th April 1897 at William Street Bathurst.[xiv] He was 59 years old. He died of septic bronchopneumonia exhaustion. His father was recorded as Owen McLoughlin (occupation unknown) and his mother as Bridget Sweeney. John McLoughlin his son was the informant.
Buried
Patrick was
buried on 16th April 1897 according to the rites of the Roman Catholic
Church in the Roman Catholic Cemetery Bathurst. The minister was Stan.
McGee. Patrick was born County Sligo,
Ireland and had been 31 years in NSW i.e. since 1866.
Patrick was
survived by his children:
Annie 35
Patrick 32
Mary 31
John 30
Thomas 26
and
Elena 24
With 1
female deceased (Margaret)
Conclusion
I was not
able to find out terribly much more about Patrick McLoughlin but I have been interested
to find out about the Broughton Catholic Charitable Society and his work in the
Roads Department as well as a bit of a FAN club.
Heartfelt
thanks to my cousins and fellow researchers for sharing any certificates,
photos and information they had about the family, particularly Marilyn
Sanderson and Veronica O’Brien.
I have been
forgetting to include music in my posts of late which is a bit of a shame. Today I thought of this one from the dear old
Beatles which I think probably best sums up Patrick’s life and gives a nod to
his work and love of family.
How’s your family history week been?
[i]
Marriage Certificate, Registration District of Prescot in the county of
Lancaster, Patrick McLOUGHLIN and Margaret FLANNAGAN. 1858
[ii] Ancestry.com.
1851 England Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations
Inc, 2005.Class: HO107; Piece: 2194; Folio: 313; Page: 19; GSU roll: 87203
[iii] Ancestry.com.
1861 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations
Inc, 2005.Class: RG 9; Piece: 2745; Folio: 12; Page: 17; GSU roll: 543022
[iv] GRO
index
[v] GRO
index
[vi]
GRO index
[vii]
Birth Certificate No 10205 in the District of Hartley, NSW 1867 John McLAUGHLIN
[viii]
NSW Death Certificate Registration Number 1882/005770, Margaret McLaughlin of
Patrick McLaughlin and Margaret Flanagan
[ix] Ancestry.com.
Australia, Birth Index, 1788-1922, The New South Wales Pioneers Index: Pioneers
Series 1788-1888, accessed 30 April 2022
[x] Ancestry.com.
Australia, Birth Index, 1788-1922, The New South Wales Pioneers Index: Pioneers
Series 1788-1888, accessed 30 April 2022
[xi] Queensland
State Archives, DR38767,
Passenger List Light of the Age Brisbane 27 January 1864, Register of passengers on immigrant ships arriving
in Queensland, ITM18474
[xii]
Queensland State Archives, DR85897
Register of land order claims made by immigrants or others for passage to Queensland,
ITM18764
[xiii]
Queensland Customs House Shipping 1852-1899: Passengers and Crew index
[xiv] NSW Death Certificate, Registration Number 3992/1897,
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