Clarke Family Tree » Ormsby Irwin (1790-????)

Personal data Ormsby Irwin 

• He was born in the year 1790 in Cork, Ireland.

Household of Ormsby Irwin

He had a relationship with Eleanor (aka Ellen and Honor) Connor.

Child(ren):

1. William Irwin  1809-????
2. Catherine Irwin  1812-????

Notes about Ormsby Irwin

On arrival in the Colony, Richard appears to have been assigned as a Government Sevant to George Howell at Parramatta and it was possibly here that he met and later married his first wife Ellen. This marriage would appear to have not been Legal, as Ellen had a husband in the Colony who was very much alive in 1818 when she married Richard, and whe was also the Mother of three children. As to whether or not Richard was aware of her background at the time of his marriage is not known, as she would appear to have used her maiden name. Of course it is quite possible that she was not married to the man with whom she came to the Colony, Ormsby Irwin, although she did travel as his wife, and she appears in all Legal Records of her early years of residence in the Colony as his wife....

The following is extracted from page 71 of 'Along the Windsor Richmond Road Book 3' :

.....Whatever the reason for Ormsby Irwin being transported for Life to the Colony, the couple were obviously not without funds as by August 1811, exactly two years after their arrival in the Colony they were the owners of two houses, one at Number 18 Pitt Street and another at 24 Kent Street. As to whether or not they had lived in the house in Pitt Street is not known, but when it was advertised for sale in August 1811 it was described thus -- "...a good brick=built house and shop with Bake-house, oven, fine garden, excellent well, and charming situation, being No.18 Pitt Street, universally admired and known as the late residence of Mr. Benjamin Coleman. Terms of accommodation in the mode of payment will be listened to with attention by Ormsby Irwin, the present owner, 24 Kent-street." ...

It later states on page 71 : ...'Less than two years after the birth of their second child, in June 1814, Ormsby and Eleanor

were both sent to jail for the manslaughter of a member of the N.S.W. Corps., a Sgt. Robert Morrow. Reading the evidence given at the trial relating to how the deceased had met his death, it would seem that Eleanor, more than Ormsby was more to blame for what had transpired. Eleanor may have arrived in the Colony as a 'free' person, however she had spent two years inside Parramatta prison before she became the wife of Richard Skuthorp........'

It later states on page 72 : ...On file at the Archives Office of N.S.W. is a letter which was forwarded from the Commandant

of the Newcastle Gaol to the Governor in Sydney, advising him that on the 5th May 1816 a school had been formed for the poor children of that Settlement who were under his direction and that there were now seventeen children at the said school. Two of the pupils whom he named in the letter where William Irwin aged 7 and Catherine Irwin aged 4, so Ormsby had taken his children with him'......

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