"A Sad Event" for the Mahers and their Story

1877

The Seage family bible, maintained from about 1870 through to 1940, contains a handwritten note recording “A Sad Event”.  With a bit of detective work we now know that this note refers to the almost simultaneous death of two half-sisters of Mary Seage (born Maher), the great-grandmother of Margaret Maurice (born Robinson)

The note reads:

"A Sad Event
A most melancholy event occurred in our city during the week.  Two respectable young women entered life eternal within a day of each other.  The names of the two were Margaret and Bridget Maher aged respectively 17 and 19 years."

The death of two young girls

With a number of different women called “Margaret” and Bridget” in the Seage / Maher family tree who exactly are the family members to which the note is referring?  Were the two deaths related?  Luck, always a welcome friend in family research, has helped provide the answers.

On a trip to Bathurst in May 2013 a headstone was in Bathurst cemetery marking the common grave of discovered of both Maher girls. 

The headstone is so badly worn it’s hard to read, but we can make out that the two deaths occurred in June 1877.

Bridget and Margaret who died so close to each other in 1877 were in fact half-sisters of Mary Seage (born Maher), the great-grandmother of Margaret Louise Robinson.  

Mary Seage’s father, Michael Maher, married twice in Ireland before emigrating to NSW.  His first wife was Mary Kennare.  Mary Seage was a child of that marriage.

Mary Kennare died about 1846.  Michael Maher subsequently married Bridget Maloney.  Together Michael and Bridget had a son and a further five daughters.  These children include both the Bridget and Margaret who were later to be the subject of the “Sad Event”.  In 1865 the whole Maher family, including the children from both of Michael’s marriages, migrated to Australia and settled in Bathurst.

Michael's eldest daughter, Mary, married James Seage in 1874.  Mary's half-sister Bridget was one of her bridesmaids, but just three years later, on 17 June 1877, she died.  Her sister, Margaret, died two days later.  In both cases tuberculosis was the cause.

Thus the “Sad Event” note in the Seage family bible, almost certainly written by Mary Seage herself, records the almost simultaneous death of these two half-siblings.  Obviously this would have been a traumatic experience for Mary, and seemingly unfair that it occurred to two girls both so young.

Michael Maher and the Treboglan

Tracking back in the Maher’s story there is an interesting sidebar to Michael Maher's voyage to Australia recorded in the log of the ship Treboglan on which he and his family travelled.  The log notes that a man named Gleeson had thrown Michael Maher's clothes overboard, including a waistcoat in which was sewn £4.7.0.  This would have been a serious financial setback for Michael, perhaps representing his total savings.  Coincidentally the same ship’s log records that as ship sailed into Sydney Harbour flames engulfing St Mary's Cathedral were seen.  Contemporary newspaper reports tell that the original St Mary's Cathedral was indeed destroyed by fire on the night of 29 June 1865, so we have confirmation of the date that the Maher’s arrived in  NSW to start their new life.

The rest of the Maher family

As noted above Michael and his family settled in Bathurst.  He had come to NSW to follow his youngest brother, Thomas and sisters, Mary, Catherine and Bridget all of whom were already living in the Bathurst region.

It's unclear when Michael’s sisters, Mary and Bridget, had arrived in the colony of NSW.  However, we do know that another two of his siblings, Thomas and Catherine (also called "Kate"), had arrived in 1857 aboard the ship Vocalist.  From the ship records it appears that their mother, also called Bridget (born Kinnear) was also aboard the ship.  However she died en route to NSW.  The father of the Maher siblings, Thomas, predeceased his wife, perhaps explaining why she decided to leave Ireland.

In 1860 Michael's brother, Thomas, married Bridget O'Connor who had travelled to the colony on the same ship as him.  Unlike his siblings Thomas did not move to Bathurst, but stayed in Sydney.  He became an active member of an early Sydney Catholic Church, St Benedicts, and of the Australian Holy Catholic Guild associated with it. 

Other Maher family tragedies

The premature deaths of Bridget and Margaret Maher in 1877 were not the only tragedies the family faced in those early years in Australia.

Just a year earlier the wife of Michael's eldest son, Patrick Henry Maher (1847-1890) had died in Bathurst as a result of what a coroner’s report describes as “the pains of childbirth”.  From a newspaper article of the time it appears that this Patrick's wife, confusingly also called Bridget, had died due to delay in finding a doctor to attended to her after complications during childbirth.

Years later a similar fate was to befall Michael's sister, Catherine "Kate" Walsh (born Maher).  Kate died in November, 1893 just three months after giving birth to her daughter Agnes Margaret.  Like her aunts Kate suffered from tuberculosis.  But this did not kill her directly; instead her death is recorded as being the result of a haemorrhage suffered during Agnes' birth.

The Maher’s history of childhood and other premature deaths was, of course, all too common is an era of large families and limited access to medical care.