Category Archives: Cavenagh

I is for Indian Mutiny

11 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by in A to Z 2023, Cavenagh, India, Mainwaring, Reveley

≈ 19 Comments

The Indian Mutiny of 1857 put an end to the authority of the British East India Company and marked the beginning of direct Crown rule, the ‘British Raj’, which lasted until 1947.

Several of my relatives served in the Company’s army and in the British regular forces; some were directly caught up in the chaos and violence of the 1857 insurrection.

Last year I wrote about my second cousin five times removed Lieutenant Matthew Hugh Reveley of the 74th Native Infantry. On 11 May 1857 at the age of 27 he was killed in the capture of the Cashmere Gate, an incident of the Mutiny in Delhi.

“Kashmir Gate, Delhi, Punjab” photographed by Samuel Bourne  in the 1860s, showing damage from the Mutiny. In the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

A relative from a different branch of my family, my first cousin five times removed Captain Rowland Mainwaring Smith of the 54th Bengal Native Infantry, was also killed that day, cut down by mutineers near the Delhi Church close to the Cashmere Gate. He was buried on the Ridge near Flagstaff Tower. His name is preserved on a memorial in Nicholson Cemetery, New Delhi:

Sacred To the Memory of Captain R. M. Smith, Captain C. Burrowes, Lieut't E. A. Edwards, Lieut't W. Waterfield. All of the 54th Reg't B. N. I. They were killed by the Mutineers of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry on the 11th May 1857, opposite the Church in the city of Delhi, this tribute to their memory and merits is erected by their surviving brother officers.

The inscription on the grave of Smith and his fellow officers, ‘on The Ridge near Flagstaff Tower’, was transcribed by Miles Irving in his A List of Inscriptions on Christian Tombs or Monuments in the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Kashmir and Afghanistan Possessing Historical or Archaeological Interest published in 1910.

Irving described the murder of Smith and his fellow officers:

When the rebel cavalry entered Delhi, the 54th under Colonel Ripley were ordered to march down from cantonments with two guns. Two companies were left behind to escort the guns, and the rest of the regiment marched down to the Cashmere gate. Within, in the main guard, was a detachment of the 38th Native Infantry. While facing them, the rebels were surging down towards the gate. The 38th refused to fire, and the 54th excused themselves on the score of not being loaded. While they were loading, Ripley was cut down, and with him fell Smith, Burrowes, Edwards and Waterfield.

A month later sepoys under General Hugh Wheeler, commander of the garrison at Cawnpore, rebelled and besieged hastily-erected British defences. Another of my first cousins five times removed, Cornet Charles Mainwaring of the 6th Bengal Light Cavalry, was on lookout on the night of 22 June 1857:

All night long a series of false charges and surprises were made on the barrack, and not a man for an instant left his post. Towards dawn, the enemy being more quiet, Mr Mainwaring, a cavalry cadet, one of Captain Thomson’s picket, begged him to lie down, while he kept a look-out. Scarcely had the captain closed his eyes when Mainwaring shouted, “Here they come!” The enemy, with more pluck than they had hitherto shown, advanced close up to the doorway of the barrack. Mainwaring’s revolver despatched two of the enemy.

Charles Mainwaring survived the attack but Wheeler’s entrenchment was starving. Kingston continues “on the 25th of June General Wheeler entered into arrangements for the evacuation of the place with Nana Sahib. The next day the survivors proceeded to the river to embark on board boats prepared for them, when, with a treachery almost unparalleled in history, by the order of that demon in human shape, they were fired on and mostly killed.” Mainwaring was one of those killed in the infamous massacre.

Mainwaring is remembered on a tablet in All Souls Church, Cawnpore:

To the glory of God and in memory of more than a thousand Christian people, who met their deaths hard by, between 6th June & 15th July 1857. These tablets are placed in this the Memorial Church. All Souls Cawnpore by the Government N.W.P.
2nd Light Cavalry - Major E. Vibart. Capt E.J. Seppings, Wife and Children. Capt R.U. & Mrs Jenkins. Lieut R.O. Quin. Lieut C.W. Quin. Lieut J.H. Harrison. Lieut W.J. Manderson. Lieut F.S.M Wren. Lieut M.G. Daniell. Lieut M. Balfour. Cornet W.A. Stirling. Surgn. W.R. & Mrs Boyes. Vety. Surgn. E.G. Chalwin & Wife. Ridg. Mr. D. Walsh, Wife & Children. Sergt. Major H. Cladwell. Qr. Mr. Sergt. F. & Mrs Tress. Cornet C. Mainwaring 6th L.C. Lieut A.J. Boulton, 7th L.C.

Three of Charles Mainwaring’s brothers—Rowland, George, and Norman, were also caught up in the mutiny.

When the mutiny broke out in 1857, the first of these, Captain R.R. Mainwaring, was second-in-command of the 7th Regiment Bengal Native Infantry. This regiment mutinied at Dinapur with the 8th and 40th. In his 1927 “A Postscript To The Records Of The Indian Mutiny”, Lieutenant-Colonel George Gimlette wrote:

The mutiny of this regiment together with that of the other two of the B.N.I. at Dinapur (8th and 40th) was precipitated by the weakness of the General commanding at that station; an old, inefficient man. Strongly urged by the European community of Calcutta the Governor-General had given permission, but not an order, to General Lloyd to disarm the three regiments. This as an old, infatuated sepoy officer, he was loath to do, and could only make up his mind to a fatal half measure, that of depriving them of their percussion caps. On the morning of July 25th, 1857, the European troops in the station, 10th Foot, two Companies of the 37th, and a Company of Artillery, were paraded in the great square, the caps in the magazine were removed by an officer with a small guard, and brought into the square. The sepoys of the 7th made noisy demonstrations, and threatened to prevent the removal; they were, however, pacified by their officers. At 10 o’clock an order was issued by General Lloyd for a parade of the three N.I. Regiments, and the collection of the caps in the sepoys’ possession. The immediate result was open mutiny. The men seized their arms and began to fire on their officers. The European troops were again paraded, but their advance was so delayed that the mutineers got clear away in the direction of Arrah, where the disaffected Rajput landowner, Kunwar Singh, at once joined them with all his followers.

A telegram from Colonel Rowcroft at Dinapore on 8 October 1857 to the Chief of Staff mentions Captain Mainwaring, 7th Regiment Native Infantry, commands 50 Nujeebs [irregular militia, of good family] in the opium godowns, Patna.

George Byers Mainwaring, Charles Mainwaring’s second brother, was a considerable linguist, fluent in both Hindi and Urdu. In 1854 he had returned to England where he spent three years. He was recalled to India in 1857 at the time of the mutiny and was employed as interpreter with 42nd and 49th Regiments. He was first posted first to Cawnpore and then the Punjab region.

Norman William Mainwaring, Charles Mainwaring’s third brother, probably saw some of the mutiny, for though he was stationed in South Africa in the early part of 1857, by 1858 he had returned to India.

Another relative, my 3rd great uncle Major Orfeur Cavenagh, survived the mutiny. In a letter of 1868 (Private letter book, 11) he describes his role in its suppression:

In 1854, at the special request of the then Governor General Lord Dalhousie, [I] accepted the appointment on his staff of Town Major of Fort William [the fort in Calcutta]. In this capacity as the Governor General’s representative, [I] recommended the numerous alterations in the European Barracks and other buildings as well as general sanitary improvements, which have led to the ordinarily satisfactory state of health of the Garrison.
On the 26th January, 1857, [these measures] frustrated the design of the Mutineers to seize Fort William (vide statement of Jemadar Durrion Sing, 34th Regiment, N.I.).
Throughout the Mutiny discharged all the arduous duties connected with the command of Fort William and Calcutta, including the charge of the state prisoners, the raising a Corps of Volunteers, the organisation of a body of Native Servants for the use of the troops arriving from England, the management of a large Military Canteen, the protection of the town, the control of all Public Departments, Military Buildings, Hospitals, etc., and the entire charge (arming, clothing and victualling) of all European invalids and recruits, numbering several thousands, of the company’s service. On four occasions received the thanks and commendation of the Supreme Government.

In recognition of his services during the Indian Mutiny Orfeur Cavenagh was offered the post of Governor of the Straits Settlements (Singapore, Malaya and Penang). He accepted and became Governor for eight years from 1859 to 1867.

The causes immediate and long-term of the Indian Mutiny are still debated by historians. No doubt my relatives had their own opinions. For them, however, it was no academic debate but a bloody vicious turbulent period of their lives and, unfortunately for some, a violent death.

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Wikitree:

C is for Ceylonese coffee

04 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by in A to Z 2023, Cavenagh, younger son

≈ 11 Comments

The British Empire provided direct employment for several of my forebears, as administrators, soldiers, magistrates, and missionaries.

For others, the Empire (like the Pax Romana of earlier times), meant opportunity for trade and enterprise somewhere within the shelter of the red on the map.

One of the latter was my great great grandfather Wentworth Cavenagh (1822–1895) who in the 1840s left his home in Ireland and travelled the world becoming, successively, a farmer in Canada, a coffee planter in Ceylon, and a gold miner in Victoria.

He seems to have trained in Wexford as a pharmacist, but when the economy collapsed with the potato famine of the 1840s Cavenagh realised there was no future for him in Ireland. He emigrated, to find employment where employment might be found, moving on when better prospects came in view.

His attempt at farming in Canada appears to have been not entirely successful, and we find him next far from the frozen north, in the British tropical possession of Ceylon, involved in the coffee industry.

Wentworth Cavenagh’s travels

Today the main export crop of Ceylon (Sri Lanka, ‘Resplendent Island’) is tea. In Cavenagh’s day Ceylon was known for its coffee.

The Dutch had begun coffee cultivation in Ceylon as early as 1740, though never on a large scale. The British took control of the island in 1815, but it was not until the 1820s, when plantations were established in the hilly central-south country more suitable for the crop, that planting and production substantially increased.

Over the next two decades planting grew substantially, and by 1850 coffee was the most important component of the Ceylonese economy.

The abolition of slavery in the West Indies in 1834 meant a sudden decline in coffee production there. Ceylonese coffee exports filled the gap, with the British selling land acquired from Kandayan rulers and importing labour from southern India.

Plate from Ceylon, Physical, Historical and Topographical, titled “The Coffee Regions. Badulla“. Page 266 retrieved through archive.org

Unfortunately, in 1869 coffee plantations in Ceylon and other parts of Asia were devastated by leaf rust. Coffee never recovered its former importance as a crop in Ceylon, and by 1900, it had been almost entirely replaced by tea.

I do not know exactly when Wentworth Cavenagh was trying his hand at coffee planting in Ceylon. It was probably in the late 1840s or early 1850s.

Wentworth was the third surviving son of James Gordon Cavenagh, an Irish surgeon in the British Army. His oldest brother Matthew remained in Ireland, and his second brother Orfeur joined the British Army. It was a familiar pattern, with the oldest brother inheriting the estate and the others finding their own way in the world and, “in a fit of absent mindedness”, helping to build an Empire.

RELATED POSTS

Wikitree: Wentworth (Cavenagh) Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1822 – 1895)

200th birthday of Wentworth Cavenagh 1822 – 1895

13 Sunday Nov 2022

Posted by in Cavenagh, Cavenagh-Mainwaring, gold rush, Kent, politics, South Australia

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My great great grandfather Wentworth Cavenagh (1822 – 1895) was born 200 years ago on 13 November 1822 at Hythe, Kent, England to James Gordon Cavenagh and Ann Cavenagh nee Coates, the fifth of their eight children. He was baptised on 12 March 1823 at St Leonard’s, Hythe.

Wentworth’s father James Gordon, born Irish, was a surgeon of the Royal Staff Corps, an army engineering corps with its headquarters in Hythe, responsible in part for supervising the construction of static defence measures including the Royal Military Canal against Napoleon’s threatened invasion.

After their marriage in March 1815, the Cavenaghs lived at Hythe. In 1825 Cavenagh retired on half pay.

The Cavenagh family returned to Wexford in Ireland in 1837 and lived at Castle House. Wentworth Cavenagh attended the Ferns Diocesan School. It is believed he began training as a pharmacist in Wexford, but after the potato famine struck in the 1840s the economy was so bad he realised there was no future for him in Ireland and emigrated.

Wentworth Cavenagh emigrated to Canada, hoping to become a farmer there. He later moved to Ceylon to take up coffee-planting, then to Calcutta where he unsuccessfully sought a Government appointment. In 1852 he sailed from Calcutta to Australia and joined the gold rush to Bendigo then moved to South Australia to farm at Peachey Belt some twenty miles north of Adelaide.

Map of Wentworth Cavenagh’s travels

In 1863 Cavenagh was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly for the District of Yatala. He served in the Legislature for nineteen years, including period as Commissioner of Crown Lands from 1868 to 1870 in the Strangways Ministry, and Commissioner of Public Works from 1872 to 1873 in the Administration formed by Sir Henry Ayers. At the time Darwin was surveyed in 1869 Cavenagh was Commissioner of Crown Lands; a main street is named after him.

In 1865 at the age of 42 he married Ellen Mainwaring, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. They had ten children.

Portrait of Wentworth Cavenagh, from the collection of a cousin

Wentworth Cavenagh returned to England in 1892. On his departure the Adelaide Evening Journal of 27 April 1892 published a brief biography:

PASSENGERS BY THE BALLAARAT.—The following. are the passengers booked to leave Adelaide by the Ballaarat to-day:—For London —Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth Cavenagh-Mainwaring, Misses Eva, May, Kathleen, Helen, Queenie, and Gertrude, and Master Hugh Cavenagh-Mainwaring, and Misses Herring, Schomburgk, and Horn. For Albany—Messrs. Green, Richards, and Radcliffe.

THE HON. WENTWORTH CAVENAGH-MAINWARING.—This gentleman, accompanied by his wife, six daughters, and one son, leaves by the Ballarat to-day for England, where he is about, to take up his residence at Whitmore Hall. He is a son of James Gordon Cavenagh, who was army surgeon in the Royal Staff Corps. He served in the army for thirty-five years, and went all through the Peninsula War. while he was also present at the Battle of Waterloo and the taking of Paris. He was a brother of General Sir Orfeur Cavenagh, K.C.S.I., lately deceased, who served in India in various campaigns, and who, as Town Major of Fort William, is supposed to have saved Calcutta during the mutiny. He was afterwards for several years Governor of the Straits Settlements. Another brother, General Gordon Cavenagh, served in various actions in China and India. The Hon. Wentworth Cavenagh-Mainwaring was born at Hyde, Kent, on November 13, 1822. He was educated at Ferns Diocesan School, County Wexford, Ireland, and when eighteen years of age he left home for Canada, where he was engaged for some years farming. He subsequently relinquished this occupation and started coffee planting in Ceylon. Afterwards he tried to obtain a Government appointment at Calcutta, but was unsuccessful. Attracted by a Government advertisement he came to Australia, arriving in Melbourne in 1852. Thence he went to the Bendigo diggings, and from there he came to South Australia and started farming at Peachy Belt. He stopped there for several years, and in 1863 was elected to Parliament with the late Hon. L. Glyde for the District of Yatala. For nineteen years he remained in the Legislature without a break, and during that period he was Commissioner of Crown Lands in the Strangways Ministry, and Commissioner of Public Works in the Administration formed by Sir Henry Ayers. In the elections of 1881 he was rejected when the Hon. D. Murray and Mr. Gilbert (the present member) were elected On February 16, 1865, he married Ellen Jane, the eldest daughter of Gordon Mainwaring, an officer in the East Indian Civil Service, who was at one time Inspector of Police in the early days of South Australia, and on the death of his father, Admiral Mainwaring, he succeeded to the family estates in Staffordshire. On the death of her brothers without heirs Mrs. Cavenagh-Mainwaring became entitled to the estates and adopted the name and arms of Mainwaring.

Wentworth Cavenagh died at the age of 72 in Southsea. He was buried in Whitmore, Staffordshire.

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Wikitree: Wentworth (Cavenagh) Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1822 – 1895)

Q is for Monkira Station in Queensland

20 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by in A to Z 2022, Cavenagh, Queensland

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Orfeur Charles Cavenagh, fifth of the ten children of Wentworth and Ellen Cavenagh, and so one of my great great uncles, was born on 24 April 1872 in Kensington, a suburb of Adelaide.

He died of fever at the age of 18 on 17 December 1890 at Monkira Station in Queensland. My grandmother told me that at the time of his death her uncle Orfeur was a jackaroo (a young man working on a station—a large farm—to learn at first hand the business of sheep or cattle grazing).

Apart from these few facts, I know nothing about my great great uncle Orfeur Charles. I do not even have a photograph of him.

Monkira Station is in the Channel country 120 kilometres east of Bedourie, the closest settlement; Bedourie has a population today of about 120. It is 1300 kilometres north of Adelaide, 170 north-east of Birdsville.

The Channel Country is called this from the many intertwined rivulets that cross the region. The major rivers, which run only after flooding rain upsteam, are the Georgina River, Cooper Creek, and the Diamantina River. The primary land use continues to be cattle grazing.

The Diamantina River runs through Monkira Station which runs 7,800 cattle on 373,000 hectares (921,700 acres). Monkira is owned by the North Australian Pastoral Company (NAPCo). When it floods the river spreads out widely between sandhill country to the west and lightly grassed low hills to the east.

The Diamantina River runs through Monkira Station which today is a cattle station with 7,800 cattle on  373,000 hectares (921,700 acres) owned by the North Australian Pastoral Company (NAPCo). The river floods the country which has some sandhill country and some lightly grassed low hills on the eastern side.

Monkira Station, south west Queensland. Satellite view from Google maps.

Monkira Station set a record which lasted for over 40 years from 1892 with the Monkira ox, the heaviest bullock ever slaughtered in Australia. It was bred at Monkira and walked to Adelaide. Its live weight was 1,378 kilograms (3,042 pounds); dressed 902 kilograms (1,992 pounds). When it was slaughtered in 1894 it was claimed to be the heaviest ox in the world.

Monkira has a claim to another world record. One of the world’s largest trees, known as the Monkira monster, is a Coolibah (Eucalyptus coolabah) growing at Neuragully Waterhole on the property, 24 kilometers south west of the homestead. Its crown has a diameter of 73 metres (240 feet).

Mr Bob Gunther, manager of Monkira, and the giant coolabah, 46 feet around the girth. Photograph by Arthur Groom in 1952. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-146211212

In 1995 some of my cousins visited the grave of Orfeur Cavenagh and sent my grandmother a photograph of it.

Related posts:

Further reading:

  • Website of the North Australian Pastoral Company https://napco.com.au/ 
  • Kowald, Margaret & Johnston, W. Ross (William Ross), 1939- & North Australian Pastoral Company (1992, 2015). You can’t make it rain : the story of the North Australian Pastoral Company 1877-1991. Boolarong Publications with North Australian Pastoral Company, Brisbane viewed through Google Books pages 133 ff 
  • Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation entry for Brooks, Albert Ellison (1908 – 1978) at https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P005128b.htm :
    • “In his 1964 book Tree Wonders of Australia, Albert Brooks mentions a giant Coolibah (Eucalyptus coolabah Blakely & Jacobs 1934), also known as the ‘Monkira Monster’. The tree is located at Neuragully waterhole in Western Queensland. In 2010 the tree was still alive and has been protected from stock.”

Wikitree:

W is for Wexford

27 Tuesday Apr 2021

Posted by in A to Z 2021, Cavenagh, Wexford

≈ 5 Comments

When in 1765 or thereabouts my 4th great grandparents Matthew Cavenagh (1740 – 1819) and Catherine Hyde Cavenagh nee Orfeur (c 1748 – 1814) were married, they first lived in Innishannon, a large village in Co. Cork. Sometime in the 1770s they moved to Wexford, a seaport on St George’s Channel, where they lived in Back Street, now known as Mallin Street, at that time a fashionable part of the town.

Like his father James (1702 – 1769) before him, Matthew Cavenagh held office in the Irish Customs as a ‘gauger‘ (excise inspector) and later as Surveyor of Excise Wexford. On his death the Accounts and Papers presented to the House of Commons, relating to the Increase and Diminution of Salaries, &c. In the Public Offices of Ireland, in the year ending he first of January 1820 recorded the death of Matthew Cavanagh the previous year. The diminution in salary paid to him as Surveyor of Excise Wexford was 46 pounds.

A family story has it that in 1793 when a large body of men demanding the release of two prisoners approached Wexford, Matthew Cavenagh accompanied the commander of the garrison in the hope of using his influence to prevent bloodshed. When, near the entrance to the town, the commander was piked by the insurgents, Cavenagh was at his side. While Wexford was in the hands of the rebels Matthew and his family were in danger of their lives.

They were hidden, however, by the Roman Catholic bishop and passed safely through the crisis. The 1793 rebellion is sometimes called the first Irish rebellion. In 1798 there was a second rebellion, centred on County Wexford, against British rule. In this rebellion the town of Wexford was held by the United Irishmen (republican insurrectionists). It was the scene of a ghastly massacre of local loyalists by the United Irishmen, who executed them with pikes on Wexford Bridge.

I do not know what role, if any, Matthew Cavenagh had in the 1793 rebellion. It is worth noting, perhaps, that there were Catholics among the United Irishmen and Protestants among the opponents.

Matthew’s oldest son James Gordon Cavenagh became a surgeon and joined the British army. He lived in Hythe, near Folkestone, at the barracks there. About 1837 he returned to Wexford, where he lived at Castle House.

James Gordon Cavenagh’s son – my great great grandfather, Wentworth Cavenagh (1821 – 1895) – was educated at Ferns Diocesan School in Wexford.

Extracts from the “Topographical Dictionary of Ireland” by Samuel Lewis, 1837(retrieved through Ireland Reaching Out):

WEXFORD, a sea-port, borough, market, post, and assize town, in the barony of FORTH, county of WEXFORD, and province of LEINSTER, 74 miles (S.) from Dublin and 30 ¼ (E. N. E.) from Waterford; containing 10,673 inhabitants. This town, which, as far as can be inferred from the earliest historical notices respecting it, was a maritime settlement of the Danes, is thought to have derived its name, which was anciently written Weisford, from the term Waesfiord (Washford), which implies a bay overflowed by the tide, but left nearly dry at low water, like the washes of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire.

… the entry in the history of the town includes the following:

After the battle of the Boyne, the town declared for William III. and was garrisoned by his troops. In 1793, a large body of the peasantry proceeded thither to rescue some Whiteboy prisoners: on their approach, a detachment of the garrison was sent out to disperse them, the commander of which, Captain Valloton, having ridden in advance of his men, for the humane purpose of expostulating with the insurgents on their conduct, was cut down by a scythe: a monumental obelisk erected on the Windmill hill commemorates this deplorable event.

… under schools of the town:

The Diocesan School for the See of Ferns, situated to the north of the town, on the road from Ferry-Carrigg, was built in 1800, at the expense of the county, on a piece of ground leased by the late R. Neville rent-free for 30 years, with a right reserved of charging it with a rent not exceeding £50 per annum at the end of that period, which has not since been demanded by the present proprietor, Sir W. R. P. Geary, Bart. The school has accommodation for 40 boarders and 6 daily pupils, and has a large play-ground attached: the master receives a salary of £70, paid by the bishop and the beneficed clergy of the diocese: an additional salary of £100 was paid by the corporation until the discontinuance of the payment of tolls.

About 1840, when he was 18 years old, Wentworth Cavenagh travelled to Canada, Ceylon, and Calcutta. From Calcutta he came to Australia.

Matthew Cavenagh, his son James Gordon, and some other members of the Cavenagh family are buried in a family vault in the ruins of St Patrick’s Wexford.

My cousin Diana Beckett kindly shared with me her photographs of Castle House, the family vault, and some watercolours by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh dating from 1905 and 1906. Castle House was pulled down in the 1930s. Some parts of its wall remain.

Image of Castle House from the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
1906 sketch by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh of Castle House, Wexford
The Castle, Wexford, from the Lawrence Photograph Collection in the National Library of Ireland. Image Courtesy of the
National Library of Ireland.
Wexford city walls by the former Castle House; the shed was built over the wall of the house.
1905 sketch by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh of the family vault at St Patrick’s Wexford
The Cavenagh family vault in the ruins of St Patrick’s photographed in 1998 by Diana Beckett
In 1998 Diana and her mother cleaned up the tombstone but it is probably overgrown again now.

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Wikitree:

V is for volume

26 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by in A to Z 2021, Cavenagh, Kilkenny

≈ 11 Comments

One of my 5th great grandfathers was James Cavenagh (c. 1702 – 1769), a gauger [exciseman] at Graiguenamanagh on the River Barrow, ten miles or so southeast of Kilkenny.

View of Graiguenamanagh and the church from the River Barrow. Photograph taken 1997 by Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 3.0, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

Researching James Cavenagh led me to ‘Postscript to a Graiguenamanagh gauger’s stockbook’ by Edward J Law, which appeared in the 2012 “Old Kilkenny Review“, pp. 61–65.

The article was not online, so I wrote to the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, which kindly emailed me a copy. Law’s Graiguenamanagh gauger was indeed James Cavenagh. Much of the information for the article, based on research by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh in the early 1900s, had been provided by my cousin Diana Beckett. The 2012 article was a follow-up to ‘An eighteenth-century Graiguenamanagh gauger’s stockbook’, published in the Old Kilkenny Review in 2011, also by Edward Law. The Kilkenny Archeological Society librarian also kindly sent me a scan of this. (Edward Law was the Society’s honorary librarian in 2011 and 2012.)

The notebook, of two hundred pages, is in the archive of the Kilkenny Archeological Society. The first 30 folios of the stock book were used for the intended purpose and contain notes relating to the Excise service. The rest of the book was used by James Cavenagh for personal memoranda.

Kilkenny District Thos Town Walk 1737

This stock book containeth 92 pages is for the use of the Division
Com[mencing] March 19th & ends ye 24th of March following 1737

Signed Jas Cavenagh gaugr and per Mark Usher surveyr

Images of the notebook from the 2011 article by Edward J. Law

“Excise duties were imposed by acts of Parliament and collected in accordance with the regulations. The officers employed in collecting the inland excise, the main revenue in a district, were the collector, surveyor and gauger. Each district was divided into ‘walks’, with a gauger assigned to each walk. The gauger went round his walk twice a week taking account of all brewing activity, and the quantity and type of liquor being brewed. He measured all brewed substances in gallons, by which measurement duty was charged to the brewer. Once a month the surveyor visited each gauger’s walk, taking account of the brewings, and the quality and quantity, which he compared with the gauger’s accounts. If the accounts tallied, the gauger and surveyor signed and returned them to the collector, who assessed the duty payable per gallon, and charged the duty upon the brewer.” [McGrath, Charles Ivar Vincent. ‘The Irish Revenue System: Government and Administration, 1689-1702.’ PhD thesis, University of London, 1997. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30695631.pdf]

The notebook has readings three times a week for the town of Graiguenamanagh. Barrels, probably of beer, were counted as were stocks of tobacco. Permits were issued to carry wines and spirits to various towns and villages, individuals, houses, and fairs. The permits were for brandy, rum, French wines, Spanish wines, sack [white fortified wine], shrub [a fruit liqueur], canary [from the Canary Islands], and claret [red Bordeaux wine]. Sometimes the permits mentioned vinegar and sugar. The quantities were in:

  •      Hampers of up to six dozen bottles
  •      Jars of 2 ½ gallons
  •      Caggs [kegs?] of 9 – 18 gallons
  •      Casks 43 – 94 gallons
  •      Hogsheads 68 – 103 gallons
  •      Tierces [an old measure of capacity equivalent to one third of a pipe, or 42 wine gallons] for vinegar
  •      Roules [rolls] for Irish tobacco of 12 to 24 pounds
  •      There were also bags 100 – 224 pounds and hogsheads of 400 – 920 pounds

On folio 25 of the notebook, James Cavenagh recorded some notes about his family:

  •      Elizabeth Lindsay born 16.1.1717 was married to her 17.10.1732 she died 17.4.1734
  •      I was married to Ann Lane 20.7.1735
  •      Kildare born 24.4.1736
  •      Mary Cavenagh born 21.8.1737
  •      Matthew Cavenagh born 22.10.1738
  •      Wentworth born 18.6.1740
  •      Jane born 20.4.1741
  •      Margaret born 30.4.1742
  •      Ann Cavenagh died 9.6.1742
  •      I was married to Elizabeth Archdekin 12.2.1747
  •      Langrishe Cavenagh born 26.11.1748
  •      Ann Cavenagh born 15.2.1750
  •      Wentworth born 17.11.1752 new stile

Some of these names and dates are new to me. I look forward to researching my new relatives and adding them to my family tree.

The notebook also includes the placing out of James’s children as apprentices or servants. For example, on 15 June 1747 Margaret was placed with Mrs Richmond at 2s 0d per quarter. Matthew was entered for a second time with Mr Richmond on 27 August 1744 and with Mr Connors 17 July 1750.

The notebook also records income from the letting of property, details of his tenants, and sales of hay and grass. It has details of female employees, presumably maid-servants, with names, commencement dates, and payment It also records payments for shoes, clothing, and various goods and services.

The document is very interesting and I am pleased it has been preserved and researched by the Kilkenny Archaeological Society.

Related posts

Wikitree: James (Cavanagh) Cavenagh (abt. 1702 – 1769)

O is for outlaw

17 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by in A to Z 2021, Cavenagh, Kildare

≈ 5 Comments

In the six years following the ‘Irish Rebellion’ of 1641, upwards of two thousand Irishmen were outlawed, among them my 8th great grandfather Dennis Cavenagh (c. 1620 – after 1685).

Dennis Cavenagh is named in two depositions associated with the County Kildare rebellion 1641, part of a collection held by Trinity College Dublin.

Part of the deposition by Henry Peirse of Clane
  • Thomas Leigh of Killeclone, co Kildare, deposed 19 January 1642 that losses were inflicted on him by Dennes Cavenagh of Clane, William Fitzgerald of Blackhall, Esqres, and Martin Nangle gent. The total loss valued at £1296. [This was a large sum of money. A historic currency converter suggests that £1296 in 1641 was roughly the equivalent of £297,000 pounds today.]
  • Henry Peirse of Clane, Co Kildare, gent, sworn 5 March 1642 states that in December last he was robbed and spoyled of his goods and chattels by WilliamFitzgerald of Blackhall in the same county Esqre, Oliver Wogan of ffersnston (fferanston ?) in the same county, Maurice Eustace of Moone, Nicholas FitzJames als FitzGerald of Clane, Lewes Moore of the same, and Dennys Cavenagh of the same, and Dominick 0 of the same, tailor, with divers others whose names petitioner knoweth not, total loss valued at £1173 [estimated £270,000 pounds today].
A burning house at the time of the 1641 Rebellion
Some of the places mentioned in the depositions are shown in red as is the town of Athy

The name ‘Dennis Cavenagh’ was included on a list of outlaws promulgated on 19 November 1642 at Athy, County Kildare

… indicted of treason in the King’s Bench Dublin in Hillary Term 17th Charles Rex 1641, and outlawed thereupon:

  • Co. Kildare Cavenagh Dionisius of Clane gent.

The depositions do not seem to accuse Cavenagh and associates of treason. However, given the timing, the inclusion of Peirse‘s and Leigh’s depositions in the Trinity College collection, and Cavenagh being named as an outlaw, it seems the robbery of Henry Peirse and Thomas Leigh by Dennis Cavenagh and others was part of the rebellion. Henry Peirse / Persse is I believe Anglo-Irish and one of the Persse family which were the subject of a 2016 book “The Persse Family of County Galway Genealogy and History, 1554-1964” by Gerry Kearney. The book blurb states “Revd Edward Persse and his brother, Henry, were fortunate to survive the worst excesses of the 1641 rebellion.”

In 1652, in an attempt to settle Ireland and bring the troubles to an end, the English Parliament passed legislation punishing owners of Irish land who had been involved in the 1641 rebellion. If they had played a major part they were dispossessed entirely. For a minor role they forfeited a proportion of their land. For this forfeiture they were to be recompensed by grants of land west of the Shannon, where they were to be given an area equal to the proportion they were entitled to retain. This was called transplanting.The province of Connacht and the county of Clare were set aside for the Irish rebels to transplant themselves, their families, dependents, livestock and goods before 1 May, 1654. The penalty for not transplanting was death by hanging. By 1 May 1654, 44,210 names were recorded on certificates of transplantation.

Dennis Cavenagh, almost certainly a Catholic and probably involved to some degree in the rebellion, seems to have been treated fairly leniently. His name does not appear on the list of transplanters, and it seems that after his outlawry he continued to live quietly in the district.

In the church registers of Athy, County Kildare. Dennis Cavenagh’s son James was recorded as a Protestant. The attainder of his father perhaps gave rise to this change in religious affiliation.

Dennis Cavenagh was still living in 1685 as he is is named in his son James’s 1685 will.

The will of James Cavenagh, dated the 8th of March, 1685, was proved in the Prerogative Court at Dublin on the 23rd of April 1686 by Elizabeth, his wife and the Reverend James Moore. James Cavenagh is described as of Grangemellon. He left sixteen pounds to his brother Martin, and one hundred pounds to his wife, to be paid out of a bond for five hundred pounds due by Captain Fitz-Gerald. He directed that what lands were then in the actual possession of his father, Dennis Cavenagh, and of his mother, they were to enjoy the same during their natural lives, with remainder to his son, Wenford [Wentworth]; should he die before his grand-parents, with remainder to Elizabeth, his wife; should she predecease his parents, with remainder to his brother, Martin.

Related posts

Wikitree:

L is for Anne Cavanagh nee Lane

14 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by in A to Z 2021, Cavenagh, Kilkenny, Lane, Tipperary

≈ 10 Comments

Two of my fifth great grandparents were James Cavenagh and his second wife Anne Cavanagh nee Lane (? – 9 June 1742). An inscription on the family gravestone at the Abbey Graiguenamangh Co. Kilkenny records their names.

Graiguenamangh tombstone 2002

Anne Cavanagh nee Lane died 9 June 1742. She was the second wife of James Cavenagh as mentioned on Inscription on the tombstone of the family vault at the Abbey Graiguenamangh Co Kilkenny. They married about 1735. James and Anne are two of my fifth great grandparents.

James’s first wife Elizabeth had died, childless, in 1734.

James and Anne had at least three children:

  • Kildare 1736 –  1769
  • Matthew 1740 – 1819
  • Margaret married John Howard in 1779

After Anne’s death, James married a third time, to Elizabeth Archdeacon. This marriage produced at least six children.

In his notes on the Cavenagh family Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh records an Indenture dated 15th December 1736 between Henry Agar of Gowran, Co Kilkenny Esquire and James Kavenagh of Graig, Co Kilkenny gent, letting dwelling house, Mault house and 3 ½ acres of land known as Tillots holding at Graiguenamanagh to James Kavenagh for lives of himself, Ann Kavenagh, his wife, and Kildare Kavenagh, his eldest son.

 From this it appears that James and Anne were married about 1735 and that Kildare was born about 1736.

The deed was registered 9 December 1741 and is found in the Irish Registry of Deeds at volume 104 page 24 memorial number 72851 and can be viewed through FamilySearch.

Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh also compiled notes on The Lanes of Lanes Park County Tipperary. He appears to believe that Anne, wife of James Cavenagh, was the daughter of Ambrose Lane of Lanes Park, who died 1724.  He suggests that Anne was the person also known as Amey, daughter of Ambrose’s second wife. (Lanes Park is near New Birmingham and Killenaule, barony Slievardagh, Co Tipperary.)

lane-by-wocDownload

Ambrose Lane married twice. By his first wife, Eleanor Gabbitt, he had three sons: John, Ambrose and Thomas, and three daughters: Eleanor, Sarah, and Mary. By his second wife Amey Ladyman he had a son Samuel and a daughter Amey.

Ambrose married Amey Ladyman in 1721 (Ireland Diocesan And Prerogative Marriage Licence Bonds Indexes for the Diocese of Cashel and Emly). In his will dated 17 December 1724 Ambrose mentions his children Samuel and Amey by his second wife. Amey Lane appears to have been born between 1721 and 1724.

If Amey Lane is indeed the Anne Lane who married in 1735 she must have married and had a child when she was only 14 or 15.

I have found no documents that show Anne Cavenagh nee Lane to be the daughter of Ambrose Lane. There appears to be no marriage settlement, for example. And it is perhaps worth noting that Killenaule Co. Tipperary is about 60 kilometers from Graiguenamangh Co. Kilkenny. Who knows how Amey Lane and Matthew Cavenagh met?

Map showing Killenaule and Graiguenamangh

Wikitree:

Related posts

Bridge crossing the River Barrow linking the town of Graiguenamanagh in Co Kilkenny with Tinnahinch in Co Carlow. Image from geograph.org

I is for Innishannon

10 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by in A to Z 2021, Cavenagh, Cork, Kilkenny, Orfeur, Wexford

≈ 8 Comments

Two of my thirty-two 4th great grandparents, both Irish, were Matthew Cavenagh (1740 – 1819) and Catherine Hyde Cavenagh nee Orfeur (c. 1748 – 1814). They married in 1765 or thereabouts.

Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh writes in his “Cavenaghs of Kildare” that Matthew and Catherine were wards of a certain Lord Loftus, from whose castle they eloped. One story has it that they were so young and inexperienced that they dismissed the waiter from the parlour of the inn they were staying at rather than display their inability to carve a fowl put before them for their dinner.

Lord Loftus was probably Nicholas Loftus, 1st Viscount Loftus (c 1687 – 1763), elevated to the peerage as Baron Loftus, of Loftus Hall in County Wexford in the Peerage of Ireland on 5 October 1751. Loftus Hall, since rebuilt, is on the Hook Peninsula, County Wexford.  Innshannon, County Cork, is a hundred miles southwest along the coast.

Shortly after Matthew and Catherine’s marriage they lived at Innishannon, Co Cork, where, in 1766, their son James Gordon Cavenagh was born. Catherine, it seems, was a minor at the time of their marriage. Matthew was probably an adult at law.

Catherine Orfeur was the daughter of John Orfeur (1695-1753) of Drillingstown [Dreelingstown], Kilkenny, a Captain in General Phineas Bowles’s regiment of horse, later known as “the Carabiniers” or 6th Dragoon Guards.  Born in Sussex, John Orfeur had settled in Ireland.

In a 1766 deed partitioning the Drillingstown property between his wife and her two sisters Matthew Cavenagh is styled ‘of Innishannon, gentleman’.

An agreement for the division of Drillingstown between Thomas Weston of Clonmell co Tipperary and Dorothy Weston, otherwise Orfeur, his wife of the 1st part, Lieutenant George Waters of the Guernsey Man of war and Mary Waters his wife, otherwise Orfeur, of the 2nd part, Mathew Cavenagh of Innishannon Co Cork and Catherine Cavenagh, otherwise Orfeur, his wife, of the 3rd Part. Whereas Captain John Orfeur late of Drillingstown, Co Wexford, died some years ago intestate, leaving the said Dorothy, Mary and Catherine, his only children, upon whom the interests of Drillingstown estate devolve share and share alike: in order to save law proceedings for a writ of partition, they agree that the said lands be divided amicably between them, the Westons to receive 67 acres, the Waters 68 acres and the Cavenaghs 84 acres, being the worst land. Signed and sealed by the above named parties, 16 May, 1766.

transcribed by Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh

Matthew Cavenagh and his father James (1702 – 1769) held office in the Irish Customs as ‘gaugers‘ (customs inspectors), and it is possible that it was in connection with his Customs appointment that he and Catherine were living at Innishannon.

Matthew and Catherine Cavenagh returned to Wexford, where they lived in Back Street (now known as Mallin Street), a fashionable part of the town.

Matthew and Catherine had 15 children, named on the couple’s tombstone at St Patrick’s Abbey Wexford.

Related posts

Wikitree:

G is for Graignemanach

08 Thursday Apr 2021

Posted by in A to Z 2021, Cavenagh, Kildare, Kilkenny

≈ 13 Comments

Some of my Cavenagh forebears are buried in a family vault at the Abbey Graignemanach or Graiguenamangh County Kilkenny. Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh (1856 – 1935), one of my first cousins three times removed, transcribed the gravestone in 1891. In his family history notes WOC stated the stone was in the pathway leading to the north transept door and was moved 3 feet nearer to the church in 1906.

Underneath are interred the bodies of Wentworth Cavanagh of Ballynomona in the County of Kildare, who died November 1752, James Cavanagh of Graig, who departed this life May 4th, 1769, also the bodies of Elizabeth Lindsay (said James’ first wife) who died April 7th, 1734, Anne Lane, his second wife who died 9th June 1742, and of Elizabeth Archdeacon his third wife, who died 18th March 1787. Underneath are likewise interred several of his children by Elizabeth his third wife, viz Mary, wife of Robert Carpenter of Ross who died April 16th 1787, of Arthur Cavanagh who died the 19th December 1797, and of Wentworth Cavanagh of Ross, who died the 20th August 1793 : also Harriet wife of said Wentworth Cavanagh who died in June 1786.

Later, a footpath was made over it, and in 2002 several Cavenagh cousins arranged for a stone with the same inscription to be placed at the Abbey.

Graiguenamanagh  tombstone 2002 – photograph from Diana Beckett

Wentworth Cavenagh (1675 – 1752) was one of my sixth great grandfathers. He was born at Athy, County Kildare and baptised 22 August 1675 at St Michael’s Athy as Wenford Cavenor, son to Mr James Cavenor of Grangemellon.

The following christenings are recorded at Athy parish:

  • Wentworth Kavanagh, baptized Athy 23 Sept 1704, died an infant. Son of Wentworth Kavanagh of Ballynomona.
  • Kennedy Kavanagh 16 September 1706, parent Wentworth Kavanagh
  • Isabella Cavenagh 22 April 1707, parent Wentworth Cavenagh. She was buried 22 April 1709, infant daughter of Wentworth Kavanagh of Ballynomona

Wentworth Cavenagh was active in the parish:

  • Signature of Went. Kavanagh amongst other names of parishioners at Vestry held in St Michael’s Athy Oct ye 27th 1703.
  • Wentworth Cavenagh elected sidesman 1706.
  • The Minister and churchwardens and Parishioners have confirmed the grant made by Wentworth Cavanagh of half his seat to James Ross. Witnessed by Fran Moore Minister, April 25th 1707
Map showing Athy, Ballynamony, Kilkea castle and Grangemellon from Google maps

Ballynamony is about 12 kilometers south-east of Athy. From the glossary of words commonly found in Irish place names: baile townland, town, homestead; móin(also: mónaidh) bogland. Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh wrote in the late 1920s:

a portion of the Kilkea castle estate and was held by George, Earl of Kildare, a Protestant, in 1654.  A lease for 3 lives was granted Wentworth Cavenagh of Ballynamony gent by Robert Earl of Kildare in Jany 1724. The lives not being renewed by Mathew Cavenagh of the town and county of Wexford, the estate lapsed to the FitzGeralds. The house once a fairly substantial one is now reduced to be an ill kept farmstead. It is situated about one mile to the NE of the Kilkea demesne, just off the road passing thro Ballynamony bridge.  On the left bank River Greese: to the east of Kilkea Castle.

Google street view of the countryside close to Ballynamony
Kilkea Castle from Antiquities of Ireland by Francis Grose 1792 retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

The abbey at Graiguenamangh is 60 kilometers south of Athy and Ballynamony and seems a long way away. However, Wentworth Cavenagh’s son, James, had been appointed a guager, a customs collector for the canals and waterways. 

Bridge over River Barrow at Graiguenamangh . Photograph from geograph.org

Athy and Graiguenamangh are both on the River Barrow , an inland link between the port of Waterford and the Grand Canal, which connects Dublin to the River Shannon.  In the mid-18th century it became a commercial navigation route, with Graiguenamanagh serving as a base for commercial barges operating on the river.

James Cavenagh acquired Tillots Holding at Graiguenamanagh  in 1736 on a lease of lives renewable for ever, the head rent being paid to Lord Clifden. Tillots Holding consisted of a house, malthouse, and 2 ½ acres of land.  

Wentworth Odiarne Cavenagh writing in the late 1920s records that the house had “been let for some years past to the Roman Catholic priests of the Abbey” and that “it is now known as the ‘Priests house’…[standing] opposite the little gate of the churchyard leading to the north door of the Abbey.”

The north of Duiske Abbey at Graiguenamanagh from Google street view. Perhaps James Cavenagh’s house is to the left of the photo.

Duiske Abbey at Graiguenamanagh had been founded in 1204. The Abbey was suppressed under Henry VIII in 1536. Following the dissolution the abbey church continued to be used as a local place of worship. The Church of Ireland re-roofed the west end after the tower collapsed into the nave in 1744. The church was returned to the Roman Catholic community in 1812 and restoration was completed in the 1980s.

Graignemanach Abbey. From The antiquities of Ireland by Francis Grose 1791, at archive.org.

Related posts

Wikitree: Wentworth Cavenagh and James Cavenagh