An Unfortunate Family McCall / Johnson

By Andrew McKinlay

What was it like to live in Ireland in the first half of the nineteenth century? Countless people emigrated. I say countless, because there is no complete record of those who left for England, America, Canada, and later Australia. While ships making the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean had passenger lists, it was only a few hours by fishing boat to Scotland, and there are no records of who went and did not return.

When the first lemming jumps off the cliff, the rest follow, and migration from Ireland looks much the same. Prospects outside Ireland were so good compared to what they knew, that a trickle grew to a torrent. Many townlands lost close to their total population of the young and able bodied.

Why did they leave their homes? There was the accepted pressure on the Catholic majority from the landlords who were mostly English, and then the famine came. Can we in the twenty first century understand the pressures? Hunger is known to all of us, but we know there is always somewhere and somehow we can find a meal today, and tomorrow. The Irish famine began not in the 1840s as many believe, but early in the 1820s when crops first began to fail. After the introduction of the potato to Ireland, other crops were grown less, and the peasants relied on this one crop. At first, only a few plants would be affected, and not every year, but the cumulative effect must have been devastating. When total crop failure occurred, people died of starvation. If you ever see a famine cemetery, you will sense the total despair.

I have only visited one famine cemetery. It is on the Town Glebe behind the town of Dunfanaghy in Donegal. There is an ancient but ruined church with two graveyards, one Protestant, one Catholic, separated by a narrow strip of grass where a single simple monument notes the death of unnamed and unnumbered famine victims. Though nobody knows who is buried there, fresh flowers were always at the foot of the monument when I visited.

My great-grandparents were born about 1830 on the Hornhead peninsula north of Dunfanaghy, at the start of the most severe phase of the famine. The area was lucky: it was, and still is, a fishing area with sufficient catches for the local people. My great-grandparents married in 1863 and at once began their move to Scotland, never returning to live in Ireland.

I will not tell you about these relatives, but another family I found when looking for another ancestral branch in County Tyrone. On a side chain related by marriage, not blood, is Margaret McCall whom I now believe was born in Paisley, Scotland in December 1826. During the search for Margaret, I found a Margaret McCall in County Tyrone, and her family.

The McCall family was large, one boy and probably nine girls. Four of the daughters are recorded as having gone to America, and one went to Australia before 1851.

On 13 October 1851, at Dungannon Assizes, before Judge R. New, appeared Eliza, Jane, Isabella and Margaret McCall, four sisters. They were all charged with larceny, all convicted and all sentenced to seven years transportation. [1]

Eliza Johnson (née McCall) was aged twenty-four, a widow convicted of stealing artificial flowers. [2] She had a previous conviction for assault (eight-day sentence). She departed Dublin on the Martin Luther on 8 June 1852, and arrived at Hobart on 1 September 1852. She was first assigned to P.G. Emmett at New Town on 3 November 1852, but she lasted only three weeks before being returned to the Government. Eliza was then assigned to James Burnett in Macquarie Street on 2 February 1853. I presume she remained there as there are no further entries. She was granted a ticket-of-leave on 15 August 1854, and a conditional pardon on 22 February 1858. Eliza married Joseph Bateman on 22 January 1855. [3] They had one son and one daughter.

Eliza was not finished yet. On 26 July 1859, she was tried in the Supreme Court of Hobart and was sentenced to imprisonment for one month for stealing four blankets-value £4.

Jane McCall, aged twenty years, was convicted for stealing flowers valued at £3 10s 0d. [4] Like her older sister, she had a previous conviction for assault, receiving a one-month sentence. Jane arrived in Hobart with Eliza (and Isabella) on the Martin Luther and was assigned at once to Mrs Isdell (or Esdaile) at Eaglehawk Neck. Five months later, she returned to Hobart and began a series of short assignments until 8 May 1854, when a memorandum states 'Not to enter service in the District of Hobarton'. Jane was assigned to Dr Desailly at Kangaroo Point two weeks later, and, on 11 September 1854, she married Samuel Johnson. [5] Jane's ticket-of-leave was granted on 23 January 1855, and, just two days later, she was fined five shillings for using indecent language. A year later, Jane received seven days solitary confinement for disturbing the peace in a public place. In October 1857, her ticket-of-leave was revoked for being absent from her place of work. Jane's luck then changed as she was acquitted in the Supreme Court in October 1866 of housebreaking and larceny.

Samuel Johnson was a native of Wednesbury in Staffordshire, and transported for ten years for stealing a shoulder of lamb. [6] (He had a previous conviction for stealing ducks.) He was a Protestant and could read. His occupation is variously given as collier, sailor, and labourer. Arriving on the Triton in 1842, Samuel was stationed with gangs at Jericho and Campbell Town. From 1846, assignments at Kangaroo Point and then northwards to Westbury and Launceston are recorded before he returned to Kangaroo Point in 1853, when, on 2 August, he was working for Dr Desailly. This is where he would have met Jane. They were married in St Mark's Chapel, Kangaroo Point on 11 September 1854. One of the witnesses was Ann Lahy who appears elsewhere on our family tree. No children are recorded from this marriage.

Isabella McCall was aged nineteen years when tried for stealing flowerings valued at £3. [7] She had a previous conviction for assault, earning her a one-month sentence. Only 5'1¾" tall, she was the shortest of the sisters. When she arrived on the Martin Luther, she was assigned to Josiah Spode, nephew of the well-known Josiah Spode, the potter. She seems to have disliked service as she received five punishments for absconding. In March 1856, a reward of twenty shillings was offered for her when she absconded; she remained missing for two weeks. It is possible she replaced her sister Jane, after Jane married, as she was assigned to Dr Desailly in 1855. An application to marry William Sainsbury was refused in January 1856 as she was serving a three-month sentence. Isabella did marry, but in May 1857, to a free settler, Robert Gaylor. [8] Isabella received her free certificate on 8 October 1858.

Margaret McCall was the youngest of the four sisters, recorded as fifteen years old at her trial. [9] She was tried under the alias of Johnson or Johnston, though it is unlikely she was married at that age and merely used her older sister's name, and continued to use this alias in Van Diemen's Land. Margaret was convicted of larceny, stating the offence as stealing. She had a previous conviction for stealing money. Unlike her sisters, who gave their native place as Armagh, Margaret said she came from County Down. Dungannon, where they were tried, is only a mile or so from the border of Armagh and about twenty miles from County Down. Margaret left Ireland in November 1852, on the Midlothian, arriving in Hobart on 24 February 1853, six months after her sisters. I cannot explain why she should have been detained in Ireland and travelled on a different ship from her sisters. There is no doubt from the Dungannon Court records that they are all from the same family. Assigned to W. Stephenson in Murray Street two weeks after arrival, she appeared next at the convict station at O'Briens Bridge. On 18 July 1854, Margaret married Edward Akerman, under her alias of Johnson. [10] She received her ticket-of-leave on 3 October 1854 and a conditional pardon on 22 April 1856. As far as I can tell, after her marriage, Margaret was assigned to her husband. They moved to Launceston and produced one daughter. (Do not confuse this couple with Frederick Ackerman who married a Margaret Johnson.)

Four sisters were convicted of larceny and transported to Van Diemen's Land at the same time. Why did this happen? Other family members had already left Ireland for America, and one I cannot trace is said to have come to Australia. Two at least could read, so letters may have encouraged migration. The other family members must have paid their fares. For an Irish peasant, the fare on a coffin ship to America must have been hard to find, and the £20 for a steerage berth to Australia impossible. Is this why Margaret had her previous conviction for stealing money? And why steal flowers which are seldom edible? Was it a desperate bid to be transported away from a place they could no longer tolerate, and where they felt there was no future for any of them? We will never know.

All four sisters married after somewhat stormy starts to their lives in Van Diemen's Land, and two of them produced children. There is no evidence of death of any of these sisters prior to 1900.

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This story was originally published in 2004 by the Writers Group of the Hobart Branch of the TFHS Inc. in the publication PROS and Cons of Transportation A collection of convict stories.

Not only does this publication celebrate the cessation of transportation of convicts to Van Diemens Land, it also celebrates the work of the Family History Writers Group. This group was formed in 2003 to assist members who wanted to write their family histories. The monthly meetings stimulated great interest and enthusiasm.

The original introduction may be found here.