O: Orphan Girl Seduced AtoZChallenge

Earl Grey Orphan Scheme

The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge is an annual challenge put out to bloggers, to publish a post from A-Z, every day in April, except for Sundays. April 1 is A, April 2 is B……….and so on throughout the month. Participants can post on a chosen theme or publish random posts with no theme at all.

Theme

My theme for 2025 is The Earl Grey Orphan Scheme. I became interested in the scheme when I realised that my great great grandmother was an Earl Grey Girl, coming to Australia as part of the scheme. This scheme was a government sponsored program designed to give young, impoverished Irish girls a chance at a better life in Australia.

Orphan Girl

from: Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer, (NSW: 1845-1860), Saturday 21 September 1850, page 2¹

Seduction of an Irish Immigrant Orphan Girl.

The circumstances of this case are of so singular and, serious a nature, that we feel it necessary to place before the public full particulars of them. The facts will speak for themselves, and render comment from us unnecessary.

Police Officer: On Wednesday last Mr. Wm. Morphen, master of the "Tippoo Saib,'' was summoned to appear on the information of Mr. H. Maculloch, solicitor, for having induced one Julia Daley, his hired servant, to leave his service, and entertaining and harbouring her.

Mr. Robert Johnson attended for the prosecution; no legal gentleman appeared on the part of the defendant, nor did the latter notice the summons; in fact, he left the harbour in his vessel on Tuesday. Mr. Johnson then called upon Mr. Pownell of the Water Police, to prove the service of the summons. This having been done, the defendant was called in due form of law, and having failed to answer to his name, a plea of Not Guilty was entered for him, and the case proceeded with, laid under the 15th clause of the Master and Servants' Act; and that if a conviction followed, a penalty of £20 could be inflicted, one half of which would go to the informer.

In the present instance Mr. McCulloch was the informer, it was not, however, by that gentleman that he (Mr. J.) was employed, but by the Immigration Board. It would appear in evidence, that Mr. McCulloch hired two of the Irish Orphan Immigrants, Julia Daley and Mary Connor, who came out to this country in the Tippo Saib. They only remained some two or three weeks with him, when they quitted their service, and left his house totally unprotected.

It had been ascertained that Julia Daley was subsequently living with the defendant in a state of concubinage, while Mary Connor acted as servant to the newly made mistress. These statements he (Mr. J.) guaranteed to substantiate; and, although the defendant had passed the examination instituted by the Immigration Board in a highly satisfactory manner, so much so, as to receive from them the most flattering credentials, yet his after conduct would not earn him "golden opinions." He had evidently decoyed this young woman from this service, had ruined her reputation, and then left her to her miserable fate. Satiety had followed his sensual gratifications, while sorrow and shame must, inevitably shadow her future course. A wrong had been inflicted grievous to contemplate, which a heavy penalty, such as now claimed, alone could redress.

Mr. Maculloch deposed that he had hired Julia Daley, a free immigrant by the Tippoo Saib, on the 9th August, for a period of twelve months. A written agreement was entered into between them. On the night of the 27th of August a police constable informed him that his house was left utterly unprotected. He then found that Daley had gone, and taken with her Mary Connor, a young woman who had come out in the same ship, and who was also in his service. Mr. Edward Reeve, a clerk in the Immigration office deposed to the hiring, and the agreement entered into between the parties.

[The evidence of Mary Connor, which followed, is worthy of particular attention, as an exhibition of recklessness, hardihood, and the absence of all proper feeling.]

Mary Connor: I'm one and twinty. Julia and meself intered Mister Maculloch's service. Thrue for yez. I got a day's leave on the twinty sivinth; more power to my missis. I saw a cabman at five o'clock, and toult him to come up at nine, on the same night. Faix he did it. I put Julia's boxes and mine into it, and then we jumped in after him. He asked where he should drive us, and I told him to a lodging house, and he did so, by the same token, to Mister somebody's in George Street, but who it was I can't say. We wint upstairs, and sat down, and who should come in but the Captain? We never expected to see him. Arrah! Captain shure, said I, how did you find us out? "An be me showl," says he, "I don't know!

Have you left your place, gals?" "Guess agin," says I, "an you'll be nixt door to wrong." Julia sing out -"It's a quare thing intirely, and how the -----"

But whatever might have been the intended peroration of this bit of eloquence it was not allowed to have birth, as Mr. Johnson brought the witness into a little less flippant style of communication. The answers to his questioning were to the effect that the defendant remained in the room for some two hours; that he afterwards took a cottage on the Newtown Road for Julia Daley, whom Connor accompanied in the character of servant, and that the defendant lived there for three weeks, as man and wife.

Mr. Johnson - Did the defendant ever give you any money?
Mary Connor- Divil a copper.
Mr. Johnson - Did he ever give Julia any?
Mary Connor - Faix! you'd better ask herself.
Mr. Johnson - Then you served him without hope of fee or reward?
Mary Connor - Hopes of fear is it? Not intirely. He tould me that if I'd be a good girl and behave mysilf, that he'd remimber me.
Mr. Johnson - When - for ever!
Mary Connor--No! When he came back again.
Mr. Johnson - Really - that is liberal. The letting of the cottage on the New Town Road to the defendant was clearly proved by the landlord. The defendant signed an agreement in the name of "William Howard," to take it for twelve months, and paid ten pounds eight shillings in advance. Various other minor circumstances were also brought forward, which left no link in the chain of the evidence to substantiate the charge, unbroken.

Mr. J. O'Neill Brenan, who presided on the Bench, stated that a more clear and decided case was never made out, and he lamented that the Act did not empower them to inflict a higher penalty than twenty pounds. That, however, they would inflict, together with one pound, twelve shillings and tenpence, costs; and, in the event of this sum not being paid, the defendant to be incarcerated in Darlinghurst Gaol for three calendar months.

**Please note: Punctuation and paragraphs have been added to the above transcription for ease and speed of reading. Spelling is as printed in the article.

1. 1850 'Seduction of an Irish Immigrant Orphan Girl.', Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer (NSW : 1845 - 1860), 21 September, p. 2. , viewed 30 Aug 2024, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59771241