Biography: Mary Lahy (1793-1884)

Mary Lahy (c1795-1862?)

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Mary Lahy was an Irish-born farmer who lived a long and Dickensianly hard life during which she survived four husbands and, sadly, at least three of her children. 

Her parents, Martin Lahy and Bridget Kain, were part of an extended family that ran small farms near the village of Johnswell in County Kilkenny. They produced a family of five children all of whom were baptised in the Catholic church of St John’s in Kilkenny city, about ten kilometres south-west of their village, because there was no Catholic church at Johnswell until 1820. Mary (who was baptised on 12 March 1793) was the middle child, her siblings being Patrick (baptised 1788), John 1790, Sarah 1795 and Michael 1797. 

At the end of her life, Mary claimed to have been first married at the age of 15 years but the eldest of her known children (Patrick Tobin) was not born and baptised until seven years later, in 1815. His sister Mary Tobin was two years younger. 

Mary Lahy’s husband Thomas Tobin disappeared from her life soon after the birth of his daughter. He may have been the Thomas Tobin who was transported to Australia from Kilkenny aboard the convict ship Earl St Vincent in 1818, although there is no direct evidence for this. 

The baptism register for St John’s church records that Mary’s next child (who was baptised as Martin Bowe in November 1819) was the illegitimate son of stonemason Corney (an abbreviation of Cornelius) Bowe. It is possible that Mary could not marry Cornelius because her first husband Thomas was still alive in Australia, although the baptisms of their younger children were not recorded as illegitimate, so it seems that she did eventually marry Cornelius. Martin’s younger sister was baptised as Ellen Bowe on Christmas Day in 1823 and their brother John Bowe followed in April 1827. In later documents the surname of these children was normally written as Bohen or Bohan. Their father Cornelius must have died soon after John’s birth. 

A few months later Mary’s 40-year-old brother, Patrick Lahy, was arrested and charged with stealing butter. He was convicted and, with two former convictions, was sentenced to transportation for life. Six months later he was placed aboard the Governor Ready for shipment to Australia, leaving behind his wife (Mary Keating) and five children whose ages ranged from 1 to 13 years. 

Five years later in 1833, 40-year-old Mary was recorded as running a farm on five acres of third-rate land adjacent to her father’s 15 acres of better land. This farm may have formerly been run by her brother Patrick. She was assessed for a tithe of 7 shillings and sixpence on her land, while her father was liable for 1 pound six shillings and fivepence halfpenny. The tithe was a government tax that had to be paid to the Church of Ireland by all land users. It was resented by Catholics who were also expected to contribute money for the running of their own churches, a clear case of double taxation. This had become a very big political issue two years earlier when Catholic landholders across Ireland decided not to pay their tithes. Mary’s father Martin Lahy had been named as one of many defaulters in an affidavit sworn by Luke Fowler (rector of the local Rathcoole parish) who complained that seditious meetings had been held under the pretence of holding hurling matches (a widespread ploy). The government attempted to enforce payment by defaulters across Ireland but was met with organised and armed resistance, with some tax collectors and their police protectors killed. Eventually the government called in the army to provide security for tax collectors across the country. 

In 1834 the High Constable of Kilkenny presented a return to the General Assize Court alleging tithe arrears against several members of the Lahy family including “widow Lahy” (three shillings and eleven pence) and her father Martin (5 shillings and ninepence halfpenny). The widow Lahy was still in arrears at the Spring Assizes of 1835. Given the widespread conscientious objection to the tithes, the government was eventually forced to concede by shifting the tithing burden onto the farms’ landlords (although the farmers still bore much of the cost indirectly through higher rents). 

Throughout this period Mary would have been supporting at least five children: Patrick and Mary Tobin and their half-siblings Martin, John and Ellen Bohen. In 1836 her oldest son Patrick had turned 21 years old and was employed as a labourer but, far from being a reliable source of support for his mother, he was impulsive and hot-headed. It was him, no doubt, that initiated the theft and felonious killing of a sheep, a crime for which his sister Mary (a country servant) and half-brother Martin Bohen (a tailor’s boy) were also convicted. All three were sentenced in June and July 1836 to be transported for life. Worse still, their mother Mary Lahy was also convicted (for receiving the mutton) and given a fourteen-year sentence of transportation. 

Immediately after their arrest, all four would have been promptly locked up and taken to Kilkenny city to await trial, leaving the younger members of the family (12-year-old John and 10-year-old Ellen) to be cared for by their grandparents. There may have been another son also because Mary’s convict indent record states that she had four sons, although the baptism record for the other son remains elusive. 

Less than two months after their convictions, Patrick and Martin were among 73 convicts placed on board the sailing ship St Vincent that arrived in Sydney on 5 January 1837 after an uneventful voyage of 115 days. Three weeks after their arrival in NSW, their mother Mary Lahy was put aboard the convict ship Margaret with the same destination. She was allowed to bring her daughter Ellen Bohen with her as a free immigrant to NSW. Bilious fever broke out soon after the ship sailed and they endured a difficult voyage during which two convicts and five children died. Two months after they arrived in Sydney, Mary’s other daughter Mary Tobin was transported from Dublin aboard the Sir Charles Forbes. The ship was very crowded and overloaded and everything aboard was almost constantly damp, leading to serious cases of catarrh, dysentery and scurvy. Two women and a baby died during the voyage. 

Mary Tobin disembarked on 4 January 1838, one year after her brothers Patrick Tobin and Martin Bohen. This meant that the family now had five convicts serving time in NSW: Mary Lahy; her brother Patrick Lahy; her daughter Mary Tobin; and her sons Patrick Tobin and Martin Bohen. Mary’s other daughter (Ellen Bohen) had also emigrated voluntarily. 

Soon after her arrival in NSW, Mary Lahy was assigned to John Jones of Sydney, but this may not have worked out. A few months later she was living at Parramatta when she married William Boardley in St Patrick’s church on 15 January 1838. Given these circumstances, it is quite possible that she had been living in the Female Factory at Parramatta immediately before her marriage. Her third husband was sixteen years younger than Mary, who was now 44 years old. Given her age, it is not surprising that there is no evidence that the marriage produced any children. Since there are no other likely records of him, it seems that her husband is probably the person recorded as William Boadely who died from lunacy at the Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum on 28 July 1851 and was buried the next day at Hunters Hill. 

Martin Bohen was assigned to work as a labourer for the Australian Agricultural Company at Port Stephens but he was unsuited to the role, being only a boy less than 5 feet tall. Instead, he must have been taught the boot-making trade in which he made a living throughout the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he got into trouble for robbery and was sentenced at Dungog in 1844 to two months on the treadmill at Hyde Park Barracks. 

His hot-headed brother Patrick Tobin had committed worse offences, probably including the arson of a barn full of valuable produce. He served time in irons and also at Hyde Park Barracks.

Unlike her sons, both Mary Lahy and her daughter Mary Tobin seem to have kept their noses clean in NSW and both were granted Tickets of Leave (ToL) on 9 April 1846. While her daughter had to reside at Wooloomooloo with her stonemason husband Thomas Howard (who she had married in 1841), Mary was to reside at Windsor (although there is no mention of her husband William Boardley). Seven months later her son Patrick Tobin’s TOL required him to live at Windsor. And two months after that, on 4 January 1847, her other son Martin Bohen’s TOL required him to live at Windsor. 

A year earlier, the ToL for Mary’s brother Patrick Lahy had been altered to allow him to move from Liverpool to Windsor. So, within a period of fifteen months in 1845-6, Patrick Lahy, his sister Mary Lahy and her sons Patrick Tobin and Martin Bohen were all granted TOLs that required them to live at Windsor. It seems almost certain that they were reunited at this time. 

In January 1849, Thomas Ryan, the Chief Clerk of the Principal Superintendent of Convicts placed a formal notice in the newspaper stating that Mary Lahy was illegally absent from her district of Windsor. We can only speculate on the reason for this. One possible reason is that she felt that her daughter Mary Howard (nee Tobin) needed her assistance urgently. It seems that the Howard family moved to Queensland in early 1849 – exactly the time when Mary Lahy “absconded” from Windsor. 

This move to Brisbane proved to be a disaster for the Howards. The family must have suffered financial stress because Thomas Howard was convicted in Brisbane on 14 November 1850 of uttering a forged cheque for five pounds. Ten months later, when he applied for a pardon, he was a prisoner stationed at the Newcastle breakwater. 

Meanwhile, back in Ireland, Mary Lahy’s older brother John had married Mary Dowling and produced a family of four children: Mary, Bridget, Martin and Michael Lahy, all of whom had been small children when their aunt and cousins were transported to Australia. It is possible that Mary Lahy had kept in touch with her family back in Ireland because, in October 1852 her niece, also called Mary Lahy, arrived in Sydney as a free immigrant aboard the Kate. She subsequently married Thomas McMahon in 1857 and she sponsored the emigration of both her brother Michael Lahy (who arrived aboard the Matoaka in May 1855) and her other brother Martin Lahy and his wife Mary nee Sinnott (who arrived in Sydney in April 1859). 

Mary Lahy’s impetuous son Patrick Tobin was involved in a fracas in the inner-Sydney suburb of Chippendale on 6 July 1854. While walking a goat with his wife Bridget (nee Ryan) they were attacked by a dog owned by Patrick Joseph Kelly. Patrick retaliated against Kelly with a rock and stabbed Kelly’s son Reuben with a sharp blade. Upon being sentenced to five years hard labour in irons he was effectively a convict again. But his tenacious wife Bridget proved to be a very capable advocate and managed to have him released after just two years.

Soon after Patrick Tobin’s release from gaol in July 1856, there was more dreadful news for Mary Lahy and her family. On 12 December 1856, her daughter Mary Howard (nee Tobin) was murdered at Auburn Vale near Bundarra in the Inverell district of north-eastern NSW. She and her husband had been living with their children on a sheep station at Auburn Vale where he was employed as a shepherd. On the fateful night of Mary’s murder, her husband was away at the shearing shed for the night while Mary remained at “home” with the younger children. Their “home” was later described by a reporter as a gunyah (a word that describes a very small lean-to type of dwelling made from sheets of bark and branches). 

Mary Howard’s murderer was a man named Filley, who was universally described in the Press as “a Chinaman”. For some reason, he attacked Mary with a knife, fatally stabbing her in several places and mutilating her body. He also attacked the children, badly wounding them all except the eldest girl. It is thought that her son Martin Howard, on his return home, surprised the murderer before he had left the scene and was himself attacked. He was stabbed in the side, between the hip and ribs, but managed to escape and run for help. 

Martin ran to Mr. Borthwick’s house. Borthwick was dumbfounded by the scene that he confronted on arrival at the gunyah. The youngest girl was not discovered for a couple of hours. She had been left for dead under a tree by the murderer and her injuries were such that she was unable to speak. It was a tragic end for Mary Howard (nee Tobin) who was just 38 years old but fortunately all of the children eventually recovered from their injuries. 

Six years after her daughter’s murder, in October 1863, Mary Lahy was herself badly assaulted. At some time in the twelve years since William Boardley’s death she had married for a fourth time, this time to John Scott, although records of the marriage are elusive. During the trial of her assailant, known simply as Charley, she said that her normal abode was in Wooloomooloo (a possible connection to her niece Mary McMahon nee Lahy who had also lived there). But at the time of her assault, she was living on Jimbour Station near Dalby in Queensland where her husband was working as a shepherd. While en route from her hut to the station store at 4pm, she was attacked by Charley who demanded that she hand over her money. When she refused, he assaulted her with a nulla nulla; threatened her with a tomahawk; and took her purse with three pounds and ten shillings in it. He was later found guilty by a jury and sentenced to five years hard labour on the roads. 

In June 1867 her son Patrick Tobin was again arrested and charged with stabbing, this time at Armidale. Fortunately for him, the court was not made aware of his previous record and he was only sentenced to six months gaol with hard labour. 

In January 1869, Mary Lahy was living with her husband John Scott at Glengallan Station near Mount Marshall in Queensland. During a shopping trip to Toowoomba, she was robbed of one pound and seven shillings by Susan Fox who took cruel advantage of the fact that 75-year-old Mary was now blind. Mary immediately called the police and Fox was eventually found guilty and sentenced to six months in Toowoomba gaol. 

During the early 1880s, Mary was in touch with her daughter Ellen (nee Bohen) who had married stonemason John Jackson forty years earlier in Sydney and who now lived at Rockhampton (Queensland). They had forged a successful family life, producing eleven children. Three of these had been baptised in Brisbane in 1854 and the Jackson family had remained in Queensland thereafter. Unfortunately, John Jackson died in 1868 leaving Ellen with five children aged under ten years to support and care for. No doubt she relied heavily on the assistance of her older children over the following years. Ellen Jackson nee Bohan died at the home of her eldest daughter (Margaret Mathieson) in Rockhampton on 14 October 1881, aged 56 years. 

It seems that Mary Lahy lived in Toowoomba (640 kilometres south of Rockhampton) around this time because she was, apparently, well-known there as “Granny Scott”. At some time during these years, she was widowed for a fourth time, although John Scott’s death certificate remains elusive. 

Eventually though, on 8 January 1884, “Granny Scott” was brought before the Police Court at Toowoomba charged with vagrancy. She was now 90 years old but claimed to be 100. The magistrate remanded her for one month. Rather than a true criminal matter, this may have been a practical means for the police and court to ensure that a very old blind woman with no income or family support was removed to a place of safety for her own best welfare. 

Two weeks later she was admitted to the Benevolent Asylum at Dunwich (on Moreton Island) suffering from senile debility. The senility may explain why the admissions clerk gained the impression that her daughter Ellen Jackson was still alive. It is possible that Mary Lahy had actually forgotten that her daughter had died three years earlier. Mary also informed the clerk that all her other children had pre-deceased her, but that was also incorrect. Her son Martin Bohen had moved from Windsor to Bathurst in 1847, married Elizabeth Seage in 1851 and produced a family of 12 children. He would die seven years later on 22 July 1891 at Bunglegumbie NSW. His older brother, Patrick Tobin, had moved north after his release from Armidale gaol in 1868 and spent his remaining years working as a shepherd near Glen Innes where he would die in 1887. 

Mary Lahy died from senile decay three days after her admission to the Dunwich Asylum and was buried there the following day, 28 January 1884, aged 90 years. Let us hope that she had derived some enjoyment from life during her childhood and the early years of her marriage because the remainder of her long life had been blighted by suffering caused by many successive calamities.

Read my detailed account of the lives of Mary and her children in: An unfortunate family.