Mary Williams, second wife of John Jeffery Williams

This post concerns Mary Oliver, who was the second wife of the lawyer, John Jeffery Williams of Grays Inn, and their daughter, Mary Williams.

I don't believe my Williams family, who descend from Richard Williams (1812 - 1885) of 17 Eden Quay, is related in any way to the family of John Jeffery Williams.  I did much research into this other Williams family so include it here for the use of other researchers. I descend from Richard Williams and Geraldine O'Moore Creighton:

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2011/08/richard-williams-and-geraldine-omoore.html

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2011/11/john-jeffery-williams-father-of-richard.html

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2012/04/updated-williams-genealogy.html

Following the death of his first wife, Sarah Dignan, John Jeffery Williams married Mary Oliver of St. Osyth/Alresford in Essex, who lived from 1784 until 18th July 1873.

The Oliver Family:

Mary Oliver, the second wife of John Jeffery Williams, was the daughter of Samuel Oliver (1743 - 1816) and Susannah Martin (1747 - 1833) of St. Osyth, Essex, who had married by banns on 8th October 1771.   They baptised their 4-year-old daughter, Mary Oliver, in St. Osyth in 1789, along with siblings Samuel in 1773, a second Samuel in 1787, Susanna in 1774, John in 1776, Sarah in 1778,  Thomas in 1780, a second Thomas in 1789, William in 1781, Charles Martin Oliver in 1783, George in 1784, Ann in 1787.

Susannah Oliver (1747 - 1833), née Martin, of St. Osyth was named as the beneficiary in the 1784 will of her cousin, S. Gordon of Althorne, Essex.  S. Gordon of Althorne also named Thomas Martin of St. Osyth as another of his cousins.

Mary's brothers William and Thomas Oliver both joined the Honorable East India Company and were posted to Madras where William Oliver married Zipporah Mary Sherson in St. George's, Madras, on 22nd August 1820.   This couple had a daughter, Emily Catherine Oliver, on 6th July 1829 but the infant's mother Zipporah Mary passed away shortly the birth in July 1829.    Catherine Emily appeared on the 1881 census living with her first cousin, Mary Musselwhite, née Farman, where she died on 4th December 1898, having been struck by a horserider while crossing the road.

Charles Martin Oliver, the brother of Mary Oliver, married on 4th May 1829 in St. Pancras, Harriet Camilla Downing; an upholsterer, he died on 29th April 1847 in Kensal Green.

Mary Oliver's paternal grandparents were Benjamin Oliver and Sarah Barrington of Great Clacton, Essex.    They baptised Mary's father, Samuel Oliver  (1743 - 1816) , in Great Clacton on 15th November 1743.  They had other children there - Sarah Oliver was baptised on 1st October 1745. Richard Oliver was baptised by Benjamin and Sarah in Great Clacton in 1849;  he died in 1850, and they baptised a second Richard on 4th May 1753. 

When M. Barrington of Great Clacton made his will in 1779, he named as his executors, his sister, Sarah Oliver of Great Clacton (who had been married to Benjamin Oliver), and three of his nephews - Richard Oliver, John Oliver and Samuel Oliver who lived at St. Osyth.   Also named in the will was M. Barrington's niece, Sarah Dean of St. Osyth.

Sarah Oliver, the daughter of Benjamin Oliver and Sarah Barrington of Great Clacton, married John Dean of St. Osyth in 1771.    John Dean and Sarah Oliver of St. Osyth had three sons named John Dean.  One was born in 1771 and died a month later; the second was born in February 1774 and must also have died very young;  the third John Dean was born in St. Osyth in April 1776 and died in September 1814.    Sarah Oliver and John Dean also had Henry Dean in October 1782 and Sarah Dean in October 1777.

When Samuel Oliver  (1743 - 1816) of St. Osyth made his will in 1778,  he named Sarah Dean as his daughter and John Dean as his son-in-law.   Sarah Dean was also named in the 1799 will of M. Barrington of Great Clacton - she was noted as the niece of the deceased.

Mary Oliver and John Jeffery Williams  must have married in about 1811, judging by the births of their three children.  Richard was born in Holborn on 24th July 1812 (and this might possibly be our Dublin-based great-great grandfather who had been born to a John Williams in 1812),  Mary was born in September 1813, and Henry Jeffery Williams was born in August 1815, a few months after the death of his own father.
John Jeffery's children by his first marriage to Sarah Dignan had all been born much earlier than this second batch - John Dignan Williams in 1789, Hutchins Thomas Williams in 1790,  Sarah in 1794,  William in 1795, Harriet No.One in 1796, Harriet No. Two in 1798. There was, therefore, a 14 year gap between Harriet and Richard.

Following their father's death in 1815 or before it, at least two, and possibly more, of John Jeffery's older children moved to Dublin.  John Dignan Williams and Hutchins Thomas Williams operated there in linen and finance, and Hutchins was known to have had a sister living with him at 39 Dame Street in the 1820's, but which sister?  Following the failure of Hutchins' finance company, 'Gibbons and Williams' in 1835, he left Ireland for good and headed with his family, first to New York and then to Simcoe, Ontario.  John Dignan Williams seems to have maintained a business presence in Dublin from about 1814 until about 1841,  but his Irish-born family were living in London again by 1841.  A daughter, Marie Antoinette Williams married Daniel Henry Rucker in Dublin in 1847.  John Dignan died in London in 1858.   It seems that son William Williams also operated in Dublin as a lawyer.

Mary Williams, the widow of the lawyer John Jeffery Williams, must have accumulated great wealth at some stage.   A benefiary of her later husband's 1815 will, she was also noted as a shareholder in the East India Company.  She held £1000 worth of stock in 1826, was entitled to vote in the company.  She was noted as 'Mrs. Mary Williams, Widow, Gray's-Inn Place' in 'A List of The Names of the Members of the United Company of  Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, who appear by the Company's Books Qualified to Vote at the General Election, 12th April 1826.'  Her brothers, William and Thomas Oliver, worked in the service of the East India Company.

Mary Williams (born 1814) , daughter of John Jeffery Williams abd Mary Oliver, married Rev. Samuel Farman (1808 - 1878) on 28th April 1835 in the Church of St. John of Jerusalem in South Hackney, London.    The wedding was witnessed by Mary's widowed mother, Mary Williams, and by an associate of the Oliver family, William Humphries Genery. The Genery family were natives of St. Osyth, Essex, which is where Mary Williams and her siblings had been born.

In 1841, the widowed Mary Williams, née Oliver, was living in Hampstead, London, with her daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Rev.Samuel Farman, along with four of their children, Mary, Samuel, Charles and Emily.

The Farman Family:

Rev. Samuel Farman, who married Mary Williams in 1835,  had been baptised in St. Nicholas's, Ipswich, Suffolk, on 10th July 1808 by his parents James and Sarah Farman.  He had an older sister, Sarah Farman, born circa 1802, and a brother, the builder James Farman who had been born on 2nd December 1805 in what seems to be 'Knighs', and who was baptised in St. Margaret's, Ipswich, on 30th March 1806.  Other siblings were Hannah Farman baptised in Ipswich on 7th May 1813 and her twin Mary Farman on the same day.   A second brother was the Ipswich builder, Robert Farman.

Samuel Farman's father, the carpenter James Farman, had been baptised in Geldeston, Norfolk, on 13th March 1774 by his parents Robert and Elizabeth, along with siblings Robert in 1766, Samuel in 1771 and Sarah in 1764.     James Farman was present in Ipswich in 1841 along with his wife, Sarah, and his granddaughter, Sarah Farman, the daughter of builder James Farman Jr. 
James Farman the elder died aged 91 on 25th February 1864.   He had made his will in 1848, and named his wife, Sarah, as his beneficiary along with his sons, Robert Farman, John Farman, and James Farman Jr.
Sons James and Robert were builder of Ipswich.  James Farman married Elizabeth Mudd on 13th June 1824.  Children were Catherine born 1825, Sarah born 1831, Samuel George born 1833, George born 1836, John born 1838 and Elizabeth born 1841.

Robert Farman married Mary Ann Fisk in Ipswich on 25th September 1827 and had Robert born 1829, William born 1831, Henry born 1832, Francis born 1835, George born 1839, Maryanne born 1841 and Arthur born 1849.   The young sons of builder Robert Farman of Ipswich occasionally made the national press, first when one of them nearly died eating shellfish, and secondly when another had a 21-foot tapeworm removed from his body following treatment.   When Rev. Samuel Farman died in Layer Marney in 1858,  the press named him as the brother of Robert Farman of Ipswich.   Robert Farman of Ipswich died aged 57 on 6th June 1867.

William Charles Farman (1831 - 1872), the second son of Robert Farman of Ipswich, was the son who had suffered the giant tapeworm in 1841.  The Australian papers are free to search on the Trove.au website and these show that Wiliam Charles Farman emigrated to Kangaroo Flat, Victoria, Australia, where he died in May 1872, leaving a wife and two children.   The Australia birth records show up three children born to a William Charles Farman and Christiana or Mary Nunn in Victoria - William Robert in 1859, William Charles in 1870 and an unnamed daughter in 1860.    The younger William Charles Farman died in Victoria in 1942 - his death record named his mother as Mary Nunn, rather that Christiana Nunn.
The Australian papers recorded the fiftieth wedding anniversary in March 1898 of a Robert S.Farman and Mary Anne Brighten of Kangaroo Flat who had married in Ipswich, Suffolk on 16th March 1848.  On 19th October 1905, the papers recorded the death in Bendigo Hospital of Robert S.Farman of Kangaroo Flat. Aged 77 at his death in Victoria, he had arrived in Melbourne on 9th November 1852.  A carpenter, he settled in Kangaroo Flat in 1853.   He had two children - Mary Ann Brighten Farman was born to Robert Farman and Henrietta (or Mary Ann?) Brighten in 1857, while Robert Farman was born in 1860.   On 31st May 1881 in Kangaroo Flat, daughter Mary Anne Brighten Farman married Robert William Bath of Golden Gully, Sandhurst.  This family were buried together in Kangaroo Flat Cemetery in the one grave - Robert S. Farman who died aged 79 on 17th October 1905, his wife, Ann Martha (not Henrietta or Mary Ann)  who died aged 84 on 25th September 1907, his daughter, Mary Anne Bath who died aged 84 on 11th June 1942 and her hisband, Robert William Bath who died young aged only 39 on 13th March 1908.

The son of Robert S. Farman and Ann Martha Brighten, Robert William Farman, died aged 81, in August 1941 in Kangaroo Flat.  He had married Agnes, onlt daughter of Edward and Charlotte Wright of Collingwood on 8th March 1883.  At his death in 1941 he left sons Harold and Roy Farman - a son, Basil Farman had predeceased him - granddaughters Jean Hall, Marjorie Marshall, Margaret Farman, a grandson Basil Farman, and a great-grandson Darryl Farman.

Rev. Samuel Farman had been ordained as a curate in 1834, and as a priest in 1838.  Rev. Samuel and Mary Farman spent several of these years living in Istanbul/Constantinople, and the first of the couple's 13 children were born there, Mary in 1836, and the twins, Charles and Emily, in early 1838.
In 1831, Samuel Farman had been appointed by The London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews as assistant to Rev. John Nicolayson, and together the pair travelled widely around the Middle East.  The pair were noted in Beirut, Malta, Algiers and Tripoli.  Samuel was ordained deacon by Blomfield (I'm unsure who this was) on 12th December 1824, and commenced work in Constantinople in 1835,  presumably following his marriage to Mary Williams.  He left the city briefly during an outbreak of plague, and, during his absence, embarked upon a Judeo-Spanish translation of the scriptures.  Following his return to Constantinople, he settled in the Galata district.  He circulated the scriptures in Hebrew, and converted three Jews to Christianity. Rev. Samuel Farman resigned in 1841 and returned to England.  This info was found online in 'The History of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews'.

In 1844, Rev. Samuel Farman, who had attended St. John's College, Cambridge, had become the rector of Layer Marney Church in Essex, following a stint in Peldon.  His mother-in-law, Mary Williams, had her origins nearby in Alresford, and Mary's sister, Sarah Oliver of St. Osyth (born 1780)  had recommended Samuel for the job in Layer Marney.

In December 1858, Mary Williams, the widow of John Jeffery Williams, purchased the Layer Marney Hall Estate for £28,200 from Quentin Dick. The estate comprised 841 acres, Layer Marney Tower, 11 and acres of meadow let to Rev. Samuel Farman.  This from the papers of the day. A conveyance of 1859 records the sale to Mrs. Williams under the will of Quintin Dick for £30,448 of Tower Farm, 635 acres and Thorrington Farm, 205 acres.  Her will shows that she also had a property in London.In an 1871 directory for Layer Marney,  Mary Williams was noted as the lady of the manor.
Rev. Samuel Farman built the schoolhouse next to the Rectory in 1850, and carried out the restoration of the church in 1870.  He published several works over the years -  'Part of the Hebrew and Spanish Scripture',  'Il futuro Destino d'Israele' and 'Constantinople in connection with the present war' (1855).

By 1851, the census shows the family at Layer Marney.  Along with Mary, Emily (also called Oratia) and Charles, there was Harriet born in Sussex, Thomas Frederick born Layer Marney, Margaret born Layer Marney in 1848, Anna, and baby Thomas born 1851.    A further son, Samuel, had been born in Constantinople in about 1838, but he was boarding in 1851 at the Collegiate School in Leicester.
Rev. Samuel himself had been born in Ipswich, Suffolk in about 1808.   His mother-in-law, Mary Williams, was also there, named as a fund holder who had been born in nearby Alresford, Essex, in about 1786.  The family had three servants.

Mary Williams was still with them in Layer Marney in 1861 and was described on the census as a landed proprietor of 452 acres employing 3 boys and 17 labourers.
By 1861,  Samuel and Mary Farman had had two additional children - Samuel George born in 1838 and who later became the vicar of St. John's in Colchester before converting to Catholicism in 1880, and Susan born 1854.

Mary Williams continued to live with her daughter and son-in-law at Layer Marney until her death on 18th July 1873.  Her will was proved by two of her Farman grandchildren, the younger Rev. Samuel Farman (rector of Layer Marney, Colchester and then Harwich) of St.Martin's, Colchester, and Edward Farman of 21 Lion Terrace, Portsea.

Her son-in-law Rev. Samuel Farman of Layer Marney died aged 72 on the 15th or 16th December 1858. One of the papers noted him as the brother of the late Robert Farman of Ipswich.

In the 1980s, Jane Eames of Essex researched the villages of Layer Marney,  Birch and Layer Breton, and the research has been published online.  She had accessed the will of Mary Williams, widow of John Jeffery Williams.  Nearly all of the beneficiaries of her will had to make an annual payment to an Elizabeth Gentry of St. Osyth, Essex,  the payments being 'in lieu of and in satisfaction of the annuity whereon the proper duty to Government has been paid which was bequeathed to the said Elizabeth Gentry by the will of my late sister Sarah Oliver  . . . . .  charged upon and made payable out of the annual proceeds of certain personal estate thereby bequeathed to me.'
Elizabeth Gentry appeared on the 1871 census at nearby St. Osyth working as a housekeeper.  The 1835 marriage of Mary's daughter, Mary, to Samuel Farman, had been witnessed by a William Gentry, so there must have been some family connection between the Oliver and Gentry families.
Mary Williams left most of her substantial effects to her grandchildren, including a London property which was left to her oldest granddaughter, Mary, who went on to marry Rev. Thomas Ralph Musselwhite, vicar of West Mersea.

Nothing was left to Mary's son-in-law, Samuel Farman, but Mary Williams left £100 to her son, Henry Williams although the will doesn't mention where he lived, and I've had no luck tracking him down. Her second son, Richard, wasn't mentioned at all.  Henry married Eliza Richer in 1840, and then promptly disappears from view.  Similarly, I can find no sign of Richard anywhere on the various UK censuses.
To return to Mary Williams' 1873 will....the unmarried granddaughters of Mary Williams, Oratia and Susan Farman, both received a legacy payable on their marriage or at their mother's death.  The other two married daughters, Margaret, wife of Henry Garnell and Harriet wife of Walter Hammond Thelwall each received £500.  The surviving sons, Samuel, Charles, Thomas, and Edward were made the residuary by their grandmother.

The children of Mary Williams and Rev. Samuel Farman were:

a) Mary Farman born in Turkey in 1836.  Known as Minnie, on 13th September 1865 in Layer Marney, she married Rev. Thomas.R. Musselwhite (12th May 1816 - 7th August 1888) of Devizes, Wiltshire,  vicar of West Mersea;  her brother Rev. Samuel Farman Jr. carried out the ceremony along with the groom's brother, Rev. Edward Musselwhite.   In 1881 Mary and T.R. Musselwhite were still living in West Mersea, along with two daughters - Mary M. Musselwhite born circa 1867 and Hilda in 1877.   Mary's first cousin was visiting - this was Emily Catherine Oliver who had been born in Madras on 6th July 1829 to Mary's maternal uncle William Oliver of the East India Company and his wife Zipporah Mary Sherson.

b) Samuel Farman born Constantinople, Turkey, circa 1838. Samuel entered the church in the footsteps of his father, servinf as curate in Layer Marney from 1860 to 1867, and in St. Paul's, Colchester amingst others.  In October 1880, Rev. Samuel Farman of St. John's in Colchester announced his intention of leaving the Anglican church to convert to Catholicism.
The younger Rev. Samuel Farman married Clara Letitia Clarke, the second daughter of J.P. Clarke, Esq., of de Montfort Square, Leicester.  The wedding took place on 6th February 1861 in St. John's Church, Leicester.   Clara Letitia, wife of Rev. Samuel Farman, died on 30th July 1875 at the Vicarage in Harwich,
Samuel Farman and Clara Letitia Clarke had four children, the twins Edgar and Ernest in 1862, Agnes Ethel in 1864 and Harold Augustus on 1st August 1865.
A solicitor, Harold Augustus Farman married Marion Robertson, the daughter of the late Henry Finch Robertson of Billericay, Essex, on 18th September 1887.
The elderly Harold Augustus Farman  married, on April 9th 1946, at St. Paul's, Clacton-on-Sea,  Florence Mary Pullin, who was the daughter of Stephen Pullin of Frogmore, Hayes, Middlesex.   In 1911, Florence Pullin, who had been born in Buckinghamshire in about 1880, had been living with Harold and Marion Farman in 1911 in Kensington. 
In 1939,  Harold and Florence Mary were living together at the hotel she owned in Clacton, along with Harold's single sister, the art teacher Agnes Ethel Farman.
Harold Augustus Farman died shortly after his marriage on December 14th 1948 - he was living at the Westleigh Hotel, 33 Carnarvon Road, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, and his death notice in The Times noted that he was formerly a partner in 'Farman Daniell & Co.' of 329 High Holborn, solicitors. He was 83 when he died.
The solicitor Edgar Farman,  son of Rev. Samuel Farman and Clara Letitia Clarke, married Adelaide E. Hammond in London in 1888.   They had a son Sigmund Watkin Farman.  On 17th September 1919 in Clifton, Bristol, Paymaster-Lieutenant Sigmund Watkin Farman of the Royal Navy, only child of the late Edgar Farman of Ealing and of Mrs. Farman of Cheltenham, married Olga Janine/Jennie Bullen or Pullen, the only child of the late F. St. John Bullen of Clifton.   They would have a son on 7th July 1921, and a daughter on 30th July 1930 at the parsonage house in Easton-in-Gordano.


c) Charles Farman, born Turkey in 1840.  He was the twin of Oratia Emily.  A civil engineer, he died on 21st June 1880 in passage from Algoa Bay, South Africa, to London, and was buried in Layer Marney.  He had married Elizabeth, the daughter of Samuel Dennis, overseas in 1876.

d) Oratia Emily born Turkey in 1840, the twin of Charles Farman.  In 1871 the census shows her sharing a lodging house in Hastings with her first cousin, Bessie Law Williams, the daughter of john Dignan Williams.  Oratia Emily's mother, Mary Williams, was the half-sister of John Dignan Williams.    In both 1881 and 1911, Oratia Emily Farnan was living with her brother-in-law and her sister, William Hampden Thelwall, and Harriet Farnan.   Oratia Emily Farnan of 3 Earls Court Square, South Kensington, died aged 84 and and was buried in Brompton Cemetery on 30th May 1924.

e)  Harriet Farman, born Shoreham, Sussex in 1842.  She married civil engineer William Hampden Thelwall in Layer Marney on 9th March 1865.  He was the youngest son of the late Algernon Sydney Thelwall of Terrington Square, London.  The ceremony was performed by the bride's brother, samuel Farman Jr. and by her brother-in-law Rev. Thomas Ralph Musselwhite. 

f) John Arthur born Layer Marney in 1843;  he died in 1849 and was buried in Layer Marney.

g)  Thomas Frederick born Layer Marney in 1845.  On 31st August 1868 in St. George's, Hanover Square, London, Thomas Frederick, third son of Rev. Samuel Farman of Layer Marney, married Sophia Louisa Mudford, youngest surviving daughter of the late William Mudford of Canterbury.  In 1871 the young couple were living with Sophia's brother, newspaper editor James Mudford, and his family in Canterbury.
Thomas Frederick Farman, a journalist like his brother-in-law, moved to Paris where he worked for thirty years as the Paris correspondent for the 'London Standard'.    He had three sons who achieved notoriety as early Fench aviation pioneers - Henry, Maurice and Dick.  Henry or Henri had been christened in Paris as Henry Edgar Mudford Farman on 26th May 1874 and would be buried on the Ile-de-France on 18th July 1958.  All three brothers were instrumental in the development of early aircraft, and their achievements are documented in 'Contact!: The Story of the Early Aviators' which is viewable on Google Books and which does better justice than I could to the subject.   All three settled in France pemanently.

h)  Margaret born Layer Marney 1847.  On 5th June 1873, she married Henry Garnell, son of Henry Garnell, in Layer Marney.     Henry Garnell, who married Margaret Farman, was a shipbroker who'd been born in Croyden, Surrey in about 1836.  In 1881 Henry and Margaret were living in Tottenham with two children Henry, born in Newcastle in 1877, and Sybil F., born in Kensington in 1879.  By 1891, they had two extra children - Gladys C. Garnell/Gannell, born 1883, and Margaret F.D. Gannell, born 1891.

i) Anna born Layer Marney in 1849 - she died in June 1868 in Layer Marney.

j) Edward baptised in  Layer Marney on 19th January 1851.  A solicitor,  in 1881 he was living with his widowed mother, Mary Farman, née Williams, and his unmarried younger sister, Susan Farman, in Hammersmith.   An Edward Farman died in 1894 in Fulham and was buried in Layer Marney.

k) George born 1853.  A George Farman was buried in Layer Marney on 7th May 1863.

l)  Susan born 1854.


Mary Williams' will mentions that Sarah Oliver was the sister of Mary Williams, née Oliver.  Another sibling appears to be Thomas Oliver who himself made a will on 2nd November 1869, in which he left shares in a railway company to Rev. Thomas Ralph Musselwhite, who was married to his niece, Mary Farman.  Thomas Oliver appeared as an unmarried lodger in Hanover square on the 1871 Census;  he had been born in St. Osyth - as had Mary Williams, his sister - in about 1790, and he states that he had been a general in the Bengal Army.  Twenty years earlier, the 1851 census shows him as a lodger, once again in Hanover Square, and this time his occupation was 'Colonel: E.I.C. Service' which I presume refers to the East India Company.  His will also made mention of an Emily Catherine Oliver.  In 1881 this unmarried woman was living with Rev. Thomas Ralph Musselwhite and his wife, Mary Farman, at the West Mersea vicarage - Emily Catherine Oliver had been born in about 1831 in Madras, India, and the 1881 census calls her a 'cousin', presumably a cousin of Mary Farman, rather than Thomas Ralph Musselwhite who had been born in Devizes, Wiltshire, rather than Essex.  The LDS birth records for India only show up a Helen Grace Oliver, born 1831 to a Thomas and Lucy Oliver.

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2013/01/the-will-of-sarah-oliver-saint-osyth.html

The Family of Edwin Grogan, son of Rev. William Grogan

This post follows on from the previous one....

Edwin Grogan married Isabella Courtenay, daughter of Robert Courtenay and Eliza Hudson, in Dublin in 1861.   The wedding was witnessed by Robert Courtenay and James Vance.   Robert Courtenay was the brother of our maternal 5 x great grandfather, Frederick Courtenay of 27 Wellington Street.  James Vance was married to Robert Courtenay's daughter, Mary Alicia Courtenay.

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2012/03/the-courtenay-family-of-dublin-and.html

Edwin Grogan had been born to Elizabeth Beamish and Rev. William Grogan in Dublin in about 1832.  The children of Rev. William Grogan and Elizabeth Beamish may well have been illegitemate, since it seems that Rev. William Grogan was simultaneously married to Belinda or Ann Saunders when he had three children by Elizabeth Beamish.

Rev. William Grogan 1778 - 1858:

Rev. William Grogan was born in 1778 to Edward Grogan and Jane Grierson. Edward was the son of an earlier Edward Grogan of Ballytrain, Wexford.

Rev. William had a brother, John Grogan (1770 - 1832) , who was a barrister of 10 Harcourt Street, Dublin, and who married Sarah Medlicott (who died in 1819).  Amongst their children was Sir Edward Grogan M.P., a barrister and MP for Dublin who was created a baronet in 1859.    Another son of John Grogan and Sarah Medlicott was Rev. John Grogan who was married to Elizabeth Bourne, and who died in 12 Clyde Road, Dublin in 1899.  His widow, Elizabeth, and their unmarried children were living at 21 Clyde Road in 1911 - this property was later owned by the children of our great-great grandmother, Isabella Jones, who was related through marriage to the Grogan family.  Elizabeth Grogan was still living here in 1922 when she died.
http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2013/08/rev-john-grogan-and-lizzie-bourne.html

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2013/05/the-grogan-family-of-dublin-westmeath.html

The Rev. William Grogan had been born to Edward and Jane Grogan in 1778.
 He married Belinda Saunders(sometimes named as Anne Saunders), the third daughter of Richard Saunders and Ann Parker of Newtown Saunders, in 1809.  The same year he bought Slaney Park, Baltinglass, from her brother, Owen Saunders, whose seat was Newtown Saunders near Baltinglass.


(NB:  I had originally thought that the eldest daughter of Rev. William Grogan and Ann Saunders was Mary Grogan, who must have been born circa 1809/1810, and who died in 1849.  Mary Grogan married a Trinity College graduate, Rev. John Caldwell, 1788 - 18th January 1851.   This was following-on from genealogical information sent to me by a descendant of Rev. John Caldwell. However, I have recently uncovered the marriage announcement of Rev. John Caldwell in 'Saunders Newsletter' of 30th August 1819, which confirms that Rev.John Caldwell of Carlow married Miss Mary GORE of Slaney Park, Wicklow.)

The eldest daughter of Rev. William Grogan and Ann or Belinda Saunders of Slaney Park was Anna Grogan who married the Dublin doctor Robert James Graves on 18th August 1829. Robert James Graves  M.D. of Harcourt Street, son of Rev. Richard Graves of Trinity College and of Eliza Mary Drought, was the King's Professor of the Institute of Medicine, reknowned for modernising the treatment of fevers.
Robert James Graves and Anne Grogan had two sons, Rev. Richard Drought Graves born 8th May 1831 in Harcourt Street, Colonel William Grogan Graves born 12th February 1834 at 9 Harcourt Street and later of Cloghan Castle, and three daughters, Florence Belinda Graves, born 6th April 1849 and who married Major Parsons, a Elizabeth Mary Graves who married Captain Thomas Priaulx St. George Armstrong in Dublin in 1860 - this wedding was witnessed by her uncle Richard Hastings Graves, Georgianna Arabella graves who married in 1857 Edward Balckburne, Q.C. of Rathfarnham Castle. Anna Graves, née Grogan, died in 1873.

The eldest son of Rev. William Grogan of Slaney Park was Edward Grogan, born 1810, a lawyer of Lincolns Inn - he entered Trinity College on October 20th 1827, aged 17. He died in Panama on 20th August 1855 after a few hours of illness on his way home, according to The Dublin Evening Mail, but the paper doesn't say where he'd been or why.

 A son of Rev. William Grogan and Ann Saunders was Captain William Grogan of Baltinglass who lived from 1812 till 1887.  He entered Trinity College on October 30th 1830, aged 17.  In the 1870s he was noted as Captain William Grogan of Baltinglass who owned 1,141 acres in neighbouring Westmeath.
In 1862, Captain William Grogan of the Wicklow Militia, eldest surviving son of Rev. William Grogan of Slaney Park, married Elizabeth Mary Hackblock, daughter of John Hackblock of Reigate, Surrey.  The couple had a son at 49 Devonshire St., Portland Place, London, on 2nd September 1863.  A son of Captain William Grogan, John Hubert Grogan, was born in Slaney Park on 18th September 1865 - John Hubert Grogan would marry, in July 1895, Evelyn Graham, the daughter of Robert Graham of St. Albans. John Hubert Grogan and his (second?) wife, named on the Irish census as Alice Evelyn Manners Grogan, were still living at Slaney Park, Wicklow, in 1911, along with John Hubert's widowed mother, Mary Elizabeth Grogan.  The son of John Hubert Grogan and Alice Graham was Robert James Grogan, born at Slaney Park on 20th September 1899.
Captain William Grogan's eldest son, who had been born in 1863, was William Edward Grogan who married, on 12th January 1888, Sabina, the second daughter of Hardy Eustace of Castlemore, Carlow - this family settled in Carlow and were living there in 1901 and 1911.  William Edward Grogan was sporty - from 1904 he was Master of the Carlow Hounds, and also played polo for Carlow.
The only daughter of Captain William Grogan and Elizabeth Mary Hackblock of Slaney Park was Elizabeth Mary Grogan who was born in Kilmurray, Co. Wicklow, on 23rd November 1869 and who died on 27th May 1889. ('Dublin Daily Express', 29th May 1889.)


The second surviving son of Rev. William Grogan of Slaney Park was John Grogan, born circa 1815, who entered Trinity College on October 18th 1830, aged 15. He was later Surgeon-Major of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards.  John Grogan MD married, in April 1865, Hannah Sophia Wheatcroft, the youngest daughter of the late David Wheatcroft of Wingfield Park, Derbyshire. The following year he died at the home of his brother-in-law at Brittas Castle, Thurles Tipperary, after a few day's illness in 1866.  The brother-in-law was Capt. William Hunter Knox of the 13th Light Dragoons who had married the youngest daughter of Rev. William Grogan, Georgiana Grogan on October 2nd 1838 in Dublin.
John Grogan had lived at Rathdangan, Wicklow, and his will was proved by his widow, Hannah Sophia Godber Grogan of 6 Charlemont Terrace, Cork.,

(Notes on Captain William Hunter Knox - born in 1808, he married Georgina Grogan, daughter of Rev. William Grogan of Slaney Park, on 2nd October 1838, and died at his seat of Brittas Castle, Thurles, Tipperary, on 9th August 1892,  At the time of the 1838 marriage, he was living at 30 Summerhill, Dublin City, as was his brother, Francis Blake Knox, whose address was also Summerhill when he married his first wife, Jane Knipe, in 1834.   In 1815, the Treble Almanack for Dublin listed a John Knox at 30 Summerhill, and this may be the father of William Hunter Knox, although, when Francis Blake Knox married his second wife, Elizabeth Mary Hutchison, in 1839, his father was named as Blake Knox.  Whatever the parentage of the brothers, William Hunter Knox and Francis Blake Knox, both descend from the family of Knox of Moyne, Castlerea, Co. Mayo,  one of whom, John Knox, settled at Summerhill, Dublin.  This John Knox had an aunt, Sarah Knox, who had married a Francis Blake, and this might be the origin of the name 'Blake' in conjunction with 'Knox'.
Captain William Hunter Knox and Georgina Grogan settled at Brittas Castle, and had four sons. John Hunter Knox was born on 25th June 1839 at 10 Harcourt Street, the residence of the Bourne/Grogan family.  John Hunter Knox, a military man, died in India on 24th October 1885, leaving a widow, Ada Kathleen Knox of Dundalk.    Another of the four sons of William Hunter Knox was William Grogan Knox, named after his maternal grandfather, Rev. William Grogan of Slaney Park - William Grogan Knox was a captain with the 25th Regiment;  he died on 28th June 1876 at Shorncliffe Camp, Cheriton, Kent, and was buried there.   A third son was Fitzroy Knox who lived at Brittas Castle and who died in Glasnevin on 3rd April 1911, leaving a widow, Mary Elizabeth Maud Knox.  This couple had a son in the military - Lt. Col. Hugh/Hubert Knox who was born on 14th September 1881 and who died in action at the Battle of the Somme on 13th October 1916.  His 1916 will was proved by a brother or cousin, William Grogan Knox.)


Rev. William Grogan lived at Slaney Park,Baltinglass, Wicklow, and had an address in Mountjoy Square, Dublin.  He owned extensive properties in Westmeath and Wicklow, approximately 455 acres.
Slaters Directory of 1846 noted Edward and William Grogan at Slaney Park, Carlow. (The property in Baltinglass straddled the Wicklow/Carlow border.)

Rev. William Grogan had three children by a Dublin-born woman Elizabeth Beamish, one of whom was Major Edwin Grogan.  The three children of this relationship were born in 1825, 1830 and 1832 in Ireland.   Their mother, Elizabeth Beamish, had been born in Dublin between 1802 and 1806, and would therefore have been young enough to be Rev. William Grogan's daughter.  His wife, Belinda Grogan, née Saunders, only died in 1869, which seems to confirm that Elizabeth Beamish was his mistress, and that the two never married.

An online list of subscribers/shareholders in the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, published in 1837, notes 'William Grogan, clerk, Slaney Park, Edinburgh'.

In 1841, the Irish-born Elizabeth Grogan, née Beamish, and her three children, Edwin, Elizabeth Jane and Henry, were living at 9 West Claremont, Edinburgh.
The oldest child, Henry William Grogan, had been born in Ireland in 1825;  Elizabeth/Eliza Grogan, had been born in Ireland in 1830;  Edwin Grogan had been born in Ireland in 1832.

A deed of 1853 (Vol, 15; Page 57) details the conveyance of an estate at Clonekilvant, Westmeath, owned by Rev. William Grogan who was selling or leasing it to Robert Courtenay.  This property was still owned by Rev. William in 1855, and William's son, Edwin, was living here when he married Robert Courtenay's daughter in 1861.  I accessed this deed at closing time in the Registry so only had time to scribble down the parties to the deed which refers to an earlier deed of dated 18th January 1850. The parties involved were:
1)  Rev. William Grogan of Slaney Park.
2) Elizabeth Beamish, Edinburgh, Spinster.
3) Henry William Grogan, ensign, 88th Regiment of Infantry, then stationed in Kinsale, ie: in 1850.
4) Edwin Grogan, then resident with the said Elizabeth Beamish of Edinburgh, an infant of the age of 17 years, ie: in 1850.
5) Robert Courtenay, Lower Gardiner Street, Solicitor.
The witnesses at the end of the 1853 agreement were Rev. William Grogan, Robert Courtenay, Robert Courtenay Junior, apprentice, and James Wolfe.

From the online archives of the register of the Edinburgh Academy:
'Grogan, Henry William 1835 - 1842, Cl. 1-7; b. 1825;  son of William Grogan, 9 West Claremont St; Capt. 88th Ft.;  Ensign 1847;  Lt. 1851;  Capt. 1854;  killed in the attack on the Redan, 1855.'

'Grogan, Edwin, 1842 - 5;  Cl. 1-3;  b. 1832;  son of William Grogan, 9 West Claremont St.; Lt. 6th Ft. and Capt. Stirling Mil.;  Ensign 1851;  Lt. 1852;  ret. 1857;  Lt. Stirling Mil. 1857;  Capt. 1862;  d.1974.'

In 1851, they were still at the same address in Edinburgh, and the mother, Elizabeth Grogan, stated that she was the wife of a landed proprietor.
Elizabeth's son, Henry William Grogan, joined the 88th Regiment (the Connaught Rangers) becoming ensign on 6th August 1847,  lieutenant on 26th December 1851, and finally captain on 29th  December 1854.  He died at Sebastopol during the attack on the Redan on 8th September 1855.

Elizabeth Grogan's ex-husband, Rev. William Grogan  (1777 - 1854), died on 2nd November 1854 aged 77.
His wife, Belinda Grogan, who had been born in 1789, died in Blackrock, South Dublin, in 1869, and was buried in Monkstown.
The brother of Belinda Grogan was Owen Saunders who had sold Slaney Park to William Grogan in 1809. Other properties associated with the Saunders family were Largay, Co. Cavan and Ballinderry, Co. Tipperary.
(Other records of the family of Richard Saunders of Newtown Saunders  - In February 1836, Edward Synge of Cork married Margaret Jemima, the youngest daughter of the late Owen Saunders, formerly of Newtown Saunders, Wicklow, but then of Ballinderry, Tipperary.    In August 1863 the death occurred in Borrisokane of Ellen, the widow of the late Thomas Sadleir, JP of Ballinderry and Castletown, Tipperary,  Ellen was the eldest daughter of Owen Saunders of Ballinderry and Largay, Cavan, and sister of Lady Synge. Their brothers, also the sons of Owen Saunders, were Henry Owen Saunders of Greyfort and Largay and Richard Saunders of Hawley House, Sutton-at-Hone, and of Largay who died aged 83 on 6th November 1881.  This Richard had married Jane the widow of Richard Leigh of Hawley House in August 1863.)

A deed (739-391-503726) which was, oddly, dated 12th October 1810, seems to have been drawn up between Rev. William Grogan and Owen Saunders, the brother of Ann and Belinda, two of William Grogan's wives.  I say oddly, since it seems to be a marriage settlement for Belinda and William Grogan. William had married Belinda's sister in 1809 and had several children with her, before he 'married' Elizabeth Beamish in the early 1830s.  Perhaps I wrote the date of the deed down incorrectly.
This deed recited an earlier agreement, dated 29th July 1797, between Richard Saunders, then of Youghal, and Owen Saunders, then of Ballinderry, Tipperary, who was noted as the eldest son and heir apparent of Richard.  Other parties were Rev. Henry Wynne of Killucan, Westmeath, Robert Wynne of Clonsilla, Dublin, Rev. Richard Wynne of Dublin and William Wynne of Dublin.  (Richard's wife was a member of the same Wynne family.)   In order to make provision for the younger children of Richard Saunders, Richard and Owen Saunders transferred lands in Ballinderry and Wicklow to Richard and William Wynne, in trust, in order to raise £9000 for the younger children.  Upon the wedding of Bellinda Saunders, one of the younger children, with Rev. William Grogan (and I'm unsure of the date here), a sum of £1,750 was paid to Rev. William Grogan, and it was confirmed that a portion of the £9000, held in trust, was to go to Belinda.  The witnesses to this were a (possibly) George Grogan (this was a squiggle) of something like Colledge, Alelery, Kildare, and William Grogan.

By 1861 his mistress, Elizabeth Beamish, and her family had moved to East Villa, Dick Place, Edinburgh and Elizabeth stated that she was now the 'widow' of a landowner. (Rev. William Grogan had died in 1854) She stated on the census that she had been born in Dublin in 1802 - earlier she had given a date of birth of 1806.
Her son, Edwin Grogan, joined the Stirlingshire Militia.  Records of his service survive - in 1858, Edwin Grogan, gentleman, who was previously a lieutenant in the 6th Regiment of Foot, was appointed lieutenant in the Sterlingshire regiment.  On 17th May 1862 he was appointed Captain in the 90th or Sterlingshire Regiment, Highland Borderers, Light Infantry.  On 1st February 1873, he was granted the Honorary Rank of Major.

Edwin married Isabella Courtenay, the daughter of Robert Courtenay, solicitor, and Eliza Hudson,  in Dublin in 1861.  Robert Courtenay was the brother of our 5 x great grandfather, Frederick Courtenay of 27 Wellington Street.  A marriage notice in the Limerick Chronicle noted that Isabella Courtenay was of Upper Gloucester Street and that the groom, Edwin Grogan, was of Clonekilvant, Westmeath.   A quick browse through Griffiths Valuation for 1855 confirms that Edwin's father, Rev. William Grogan, owned 25 acres of farmland in Clonickilvant.  The marriage certificate of 1861 confirmed that Edwin's father was a clerk in holy orders.

Edwin's sister, Elizabeth Jane Grogan, married Isabella Courtenay's brother ,the widower William Courtenay of Arklow and Gloucester Street, on 24th March 1863 in Rathfarnham and their daughter, Mary Isabella Courtenay, would marry Rev. Gerald King Moriarty in 1896 in Co. Louth. (The marriage of Mary Isabella Courtenay, daughter of gentleman William Courtenay of Rathcoole House, Dunleer, Co. Louth, married Rev. Gerald King Moriarty of Kilcronaghan Rectory, Tobermore, Co. Derry, son of Rev. Matthew Trant Moriarty, on 9th April 1896;  this was witnessed by George G. Moriarty and William Courtenay Junior, the son of the widowed William Courtenay.)

In the Registry of Deeds, Henrietta Street, I came across two deeds pertaining to Elizabeth Jane Grogan, in which her inheritance was settled.  Both deeds bore the date March 23rd 1863, the day before her marriage to William Courtenay of Woodmount, Wicklow.  (Deeds 1863-12-46 and 1863-12-47).  The first of these deeds was the marriage settlement itself - the parties named were William Courtenay of Woodmount, Eliza Jane Grogan of Garville Place, Rathgar,  Edwin Grogan, Captain in the Stirling Militia, and Henry Shepard of Oatlands, Wicklow, who was a landowner there and probably a friend of the family.  This marriage settlement recited an earlier deed of 19th January 1850, whereby Elizabeth Jane Grogan's father, Rev. William Grogan, promised a sum of £5000, along with land at Friarstown, Wicklow, to his daughter at the time of her marriage, the money and land to be held until then in trust by her brother, Edwin Grogan, and by Henry Shepard of Oatlands. Elizabeth Jane's mother, Elizabeth Beamish, was also named as a party to this agreement.
The second deed ensured the tranferral of this land etc. to Elizabeth Jane Grogan in March 1863, and the parties to this deed were named as Elizabeth Beamish of Garville Place, Elizabeth Jane Grogan, also of Garville Place, William Courtenay of Woodmount, Edwin Grogan, and Henry Shepard of Oatlands.

William Courtenay and Elizabeth Jane Grogan had Elizabeth Courtenay on 6th August 1865, Michael Hudson Courtenay, born 3rd April 1867 at Woodmount, Avoca, and Mary Isabella Courtenay born 31st March 1869 at Woodmount.

Edwin Grogan's mother, Elizabeth Grogan or Beamish, died at 183 Garville Place, Rathgar, on 19th August 1875, and the sole beneficiary was her son, Edwin Grogan.  (A headstone in Mount Jerome commemorates Elizabeth Grogan who died in 1905 and who shares a plot with her granddaughter, Margaret Urquhart Grogan, who died in 1922.  Margaret Urquhart Grogan was the daughter of Edwin Grogan.  Presumably the 1905 date for Elizabeth Grogan has been transcribed erroneously.)

 Edwin Grogan and Isabella Courtenay only had one daughter, Isabella Grogan. On 16th February 1884 in St. John's, Monkstown, Isabella Grogan of 23 Royal Terrace, Kingstown, married solicitor Robert Courtenay Vance of 57 Blessington Street, the son of Dr.James Vance and Mary Alicia Courtenay, in Dublin in 1884.   The 1884 wedding was witnessed by William Courtenay and somebody Martelli.  Dr. James Vance, apothecary of 10 Suffolk Street, had witnessed Edwin Grogan and Isabella Courtenay's 1861 wedding;
Our great-great grandmother, Isabella Jones, daughter of Emily Courtenay of Wellington Street, would later buy 55 and 56 Blessington Street from Robert Courtenay Vance.

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/p/links-to-courtenay-and-moore-families_28.html

Edwin Grogan was involved in politics somehow...from The Irish Times, 29th September 1865:  'County of Dublin Revisions:  Trev. James Griffith, Rathgar Road, and Edwin Grogan, Garville Place, were retained, notwithstanding Liberal objections.' (Revision of Parliamentary Register.)

In November 1867, Major Grogan was stationed in Malta.

Edwin's wife, Isabella Courtenay, died at DeVere Terrace, Rathgar, Co. Dublin, on 14th April 1862 (from 'Freeman's Journal', 19th April 1862),  and he married subsequently Agnes Emma Warner on 5th April 1873 in Rathmines.  Once again he confirms that his father was a clerk in holy orders.  Edwin's address was 138 Rathgar Road, and he was a Major in the Sterlingshire Militia.     Agnes Emma Warner lived at Grosvenor Square, Rathmines, and was the daughter of a captain in the Indian Navy, Robert Edward Warner.   She had been born in Kensington, London, on 21st December 1850 to Robert Edward Warner and Margaret Urquhart.  The 'Cork Constitution' of 8th April 1873 reported that the bride's brother-in-law, Rev. Charles Tyner, had carried out the ceremony.   Agnes Warner's mother, Margaret, widow of the late Captain Robert Edward Warner of the Honorable East India Company's Naval Service, died on 21st July 1863 at Ferrybank, Arklow, Co. Wicklow.  Three weeks later, on 5th August 1863, her 11-year-old son, Robert Edward Warner, also died there, and was noted as the couple's only son.

Children of this second marriage were:
a) Margaret Urquhart Grogan born at 138 Rathgar Road on 20th October 1874. She was known as Daisy Grogan in 1901; a refuge worker, she died on 2nd May 1922, aged 44, at 2 Landsdowne Gardens and was buried in Mount Jerome alongside her grandmother Elizabeth Grogan who died in 1875.
b) Agnes Irene Grogan was born at 138 Rathgar Road on 13th September 1876. On 11th October 1902 in the Mariners' Church in Kingstown, she married, Lt. James Alexander Armstrong of the Enniskilling Fusiliers, the son of gentleman William Watkins Armstrong; the witnesses were Annie A. Symes and the bride's sister, Katherine Mary Edwin Grogan.
c)  Elizabeth Warner Grogan who was born at 138 Rathgar Road on 28th August 1878.
d) Henry William Grogan, born on 19th September 1880 at 23 Royal Terrace, Kingstown,but he died the same year.
e) Katherine Mary Edwin Grogan, known as Winnie, was born on 20th August 1882. Katherine Mary Edwin Grogan of 23 Royal Terrace married, on 28th July 1908 in St John's, Monkstown, John Edward de Burgh Galwey, an engineer of 3 Landsdowne Gardens, the son of engineer Charles Richard Galwey. This was witnessed by Robert Courtenay Vance and Janet M. Galwey. Robert Courtenay Vance was the son-in-law of Edwin Grogan.   ('The Ecclesiastical Gazette' of 23rd February 1870 announced the wedding of John Edward de Burgh Galwey's parents in Abbeyleix on 13th February 1879 - Charles Richard Galwey, son of the Archdeacon of Derry, married Janet Mary, third daughter of Horace Uniacke Townsend of Rathoyle, Queen's Co.  Later the couple's 2-month-old son, Charles Uniacke Townsend Galwey, died on 29th June 1872 in Tramore, Co. Waterford. On 12th July 1894 in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, the death occirred of Lilian Mary Isabel Galwey, the eldest daughter of the late Charles Richard Galwey, and sister of John Edward de Burgh Galwey.)

Edwin Grogan, of 23 Royal Terrace West, Kingstown, Co. Dublin, died 17th April 1882.
The Irish Times of January 17th 1883 mentioned that a £100 contribution had been made to Monkstown Hospital so that a memorial tablet might be put up for the late Major Grogan.

In 1901 his widow, Agnes Emma Grogan,  and her unmarried daughters were living at 23 Royal Terrace West, Kingstown/DunLaoghaire.  Agnes Emma, still resident at 23 Royal Terrace, died on 12th September 1911 but at Portland Road,  Bray, Co. Wicklow.  Her will was administered by her unmarried daughter, Margaret Urquhart Grogan, and by her daughter, Katherine May Edwin Galwey.

From The Irish Times of Saturday October 18th 1902:  'Armstrong and Grogan - October 11th, by special licence, at the Mariner's Church, Kingstown,  J.A. Armstrong, Lieutenant 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, to Irene, daughter of the late Major E. Grogan and Mrs. Grogan, 25 Royal Terrace, Kingstown,'

From the Irish Times, June 27th 1908:  'The marriage arranged between John de Burgh Galwey, A.M.I.C.E.I. of 3 Lansdowne Gardens, Dublin, and Katherine Mary Edwin (Winnie) youngest daughter of the late Major Edwin Grogan and Mrs. Grogan, 23 Royal Terrace, Kingstown, will take place very quietly at the end of July.'

From the Irish Times, August 8th 1908:  'July 29 at St. John's, Monkstown...John de Burgh Galwey, son of the late Charles Knox Galwey, to Winnie, youngest daughter of the late Major Edwin Grogan.'

More Courtenay marriages...

This post concerns further details on Courtenay intermarriages. I'll add to it if I find more.

During a recent visit to the Registry of Deeds in Henrietta Street, Dublin, I came across a deed of assignment dated 24th November 1890.
This concerned the sale of numbers 55 and 56 Blessington Street.  Our maternal great-great grandmother, Isabella Jones, was buying the property - the deed named her as Isabella Jones, of 9 Middle Mountjoy Street, wife of Charles Jones.  Charles and Isabella Jones lived at 56 Blessington Street from 1890.
Isabella was buying the property from two people - Caroline Frances Vance of 2 Upper Beechwood Avenue, and Robert Courtenay Vance of 56 Dawson Street.
On the same day, a separate deed detailed the mortgage of £300 which she acquired from the Dublin Mutual Benefit Building Society.  This was one of the earliest properties which she took on;  by the time of her death in 1940, she owned about thirty separate houses around the city.  We had  assumed that she had been compelled to turn to property development following the death of her husband in 1893, but she had evidently caught the property bug much earlier than that.

Isabella was the daughter of Emily Courtenay, and the granddaughter of Frederick and Mary Courtenay who lived at 27 Wellington St, as did her great-uncle, Francis Courtenay, who was admitted to the Freemen of Dublin by birth, being the son of Thomas Courtenay, Shearman.  Another individual admitted to the Freemen of Dublin was Robert Courtenay Junior 22 of Ranelagh Road, admitted as a grandson of the same Thomas Courtenay, Shearman;  Robert was the son of Robert Courtenay Senior, solicitor of Lower Gardiner Street.  Also admitted, later, as a grandson of Thomas Courtenay, Shearman, was his grandson, Thomas Courtenay of the Royal Hospital, who was the son of Frederick Courtenay of 27 Wellington Street and, therefore, an uncle of our Isabella Jones who bought 55 and 56 Blessington St from Robert Courtenay Vance.

 I wondered if Robert Courtenay Vance, the vendor of 55 and 56 Blessington Street was a relation of our Isabella Jones.  And, yes, he was....

The Vance Family:
Originally French, the Vance family settled first in Scotland before moving to settle in Ireland - the first of the Vance family to come over was a clergyman, Rev. John Vauss or Vans, who had been appointed to the parish of Kilmacrenan, Donegal in about 1617 and who died in about 1661 or 1662;  his grandson, John Vance, later moved further south and settled in Coagh, Co. Tyrone, having received a grant of land there under the Act of Settlement.  There he built a brewery, a distillery, a malthouse and various other properties.

John Vance of Coagh married a Miss Williamson and had seven children.

One of his daughters married Humphrey Bell of Bellmount near Stewartstown, Co. Tyrone, while another married a Mr. Smith of Dungannon.   Of great interest was a third daughter who married Andrew Jackson of Magherafelt - this couple emigrated to America and were the parents of Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States.  

The four sons of John Vance of Coagh were John, James, William and Andrew.   John Vance left his Coagh property to his second son, James Vance.
James Vance of Coagh, also had a son, James Vance, who settled in Dublin and who married Martha Sherrard in St. Lukes on  14 March 1772.  James Vance was an alderman and high sheriff of the city; he also served as Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1805 - 6.   One of Alderman Vance's daughters married Mountiford John Hay of Dublin and had a daughter, Pauline Ivy Sterling who married Colonel Maude of Lucknow; another daughter of Alderman James Vance and Martha Sherrard married a solicitor, George O'Brien.
Miss Vance and George O'Brien had a daughter who married Rev. Ratcliffe of Donard, Co. Wicklow, and another -Eliza O'Brien of Hardwick Street -  who married Every Carmichael of 18 Herbert Place on 2nd September 1836;  the son of George O'Brien was named as James Vance O'Brien,  a solicitor of Dublin.
The daughter of Every or Evory Carmichael and Eliza O'Brien was Eveline Cecilia Carmichael who married, on 28th October 1872, Rev. Abraham Herbert Orper-Palmer of Kenmare - she died on 5th November 1923 at High Park, Kiltegan.

William Vance, the son of James of Coagh, settled as a merchant in Dublin where he married a Miss Gormley and where he died in 1801.  His three sons were the Dublin solicitor, James Vance, the soldier Richard Vance, and John Vance.

Joseph Vance and Miss Usher:
A son of  James Vance and Miss Williamson of Coagh was Joseph Vance, a distiller who married a Miss Usher of Armagh. Joseph Vance, distiller, died in 1784 in Cookstown, leaving a family of six, the eldest son being James Vance of Summerhill,  Dublin, who married Mary Anne Shaw.   It was this Dublin branch of the family which married into our own Dublin Courtenay family.
Joseph Vance, distiller, had another son, John Vance, whose son was the George Washington Vance who provided the genealogical material for the 1860 Vance book written by a relation William Balbirnie, 'An Account, Historical and Genealogical, From the Earliest Days Till the Present Time, of the family of Vance in Ireland, Vans in Scotland, anciently Vaux in Scotland and England, and originally De Vaux in France'.  I accessed a copy of the book online via Internet Archive Texts.

James Vance of Summerhill, Dublin, and Mary Ann Shaw:

Dr. James Vance of Summerhill, Dublin, the son of Joseph Vance, distiller, married Mary Ann Shaw on 23rd July 1799 in St. James, Dublin. 

Following James Vance Senior's death, his property of 51 Summerhill, including its contents, was put up for auction by his son, Dr. James Vance of 8 Suffolk Street in October 1831.  He also put up for lease a new house at 27 Hardwicke Street and a house at 65 Upper Dorset Street.  Enquiries were to be directed to 8 Suffolk Street, 35 Nassau Street or to the auctioneers. ('Dublin Evening Mail', 24th October 1831.)
'Saunders Newsletter' of 14th October 1830 had run an advertisement whereby James Vance announced that he had just bought 8, Suffolk Street,  the house and establishment of the late Mr. McAlpine.  Later he operated from 10 Suffolk Street.

James Vance of 51 Summerhill, the eldest son of Joseph Vance of Cookstown and husband of Mary Anne Shaw, had six sons and four daughters:

1)  Joseph Vance who died aged 21 at Summerhill in July 1831.

2)  William Shaw Vance - a solicitor,  William Shaw Vance, son of James Vance and Mary Anne Shaw of Summerhill, married Margaret Conroy,the eldest daughter of  John Conroy of Upper Dorset Street, in St. Mary's in October 1837;  at the time of the marriage in 1837, William Shaw Vance was living at Hardwicke Street but subseuqently lived at 37 Upper Dorset Street.
Their children were  John Vance born in June 1843, Thomas Shaw Vance born December 1844, Margaret Jane McDowell Vance born January 1846 and William Shaw Vance Junior born March 1848.
The older William Shaw Vance, solicitor of Upper Dorset Street, died in Kilkenny of typhus on 31st September 1847.  This was the year of the Great Famine and typhus was rife throughout the country.

3) Thomas Shaw Vance. Born in Summerhill in 1801, he lived in Nassau Street. Thomas Shaw Vance died at 20 Nassau Street, Dublin,  in September 1852.  In the 1847 street directory he was noted there as 'Vance, Thomas,  foreign perfumery,  hosiery,  and glove warehouse.'

4) James Vance, the apothecary of 10 Suffolk Street, who married our Mary Alicia Courtenay in 1841.  James Vance, apothecary of 10 Suffolk Street, died on 12th January 1875 - his will was proved by his brother, Richard Ephraim Vance of 51 Blessington Street, and by his son, Robert Courtenay Vance, solicitor of Blessington Street.   A daughter was Eliza Courtenay Vance who died aged 44 on 14th June 1896 - her headstone in Mount Jerome noted her as the daughter of the late James Vance of Summer Hill.

5)  Richard Ephraim Vance (8th June 1819 - 28th September 1880) who lived with his brother, James Vance, at 10 Suffolk Street.  He was noted at Suffolk Street in 1847;  later, the Voters list for Dublin, compiled in 1865, noted James Vance and Richard Ephraim Vance at the same address in Suffolk Street, but when he died on 28th September 1880, he was living at 51 Blessington Street.  His will was administered by his nephew, the solicitor, Robert Courtenay Vance of 34 Kildare Street.  In 1869,  properties belonging to Richard Ephraim Vance (and also to Paul Askin, Emer and Susanna Harte, and to Edward Richard Carolin) were put up for sale in the Encumbered Estates Court.  The properties concerned were plots of building ground on the North Strand and a house at 29 Lower Abbey Street.
In December 1852, the Encumbered Estates Court also put up for sale the estate of Margaret Vance, the administratrix of William Shaw Vance and Richard Ephraim Vance, the owners.  The Rev. John George Vance was also noted as an owner;  the petitioner was James Vance, and the properties concerned were Numbers 3 and 8, Hardwicke Street.

6)  Rev. John George Vance of Manchester, who was earlier the rector of St. Marys, Dublin, and who presided there at the 1837 wedding of his brother, William Shaw Vance.  He was born 24th April 1814 and entered the church.  In 1841 he was living at Newchapel Glebe, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary ('Dublin Evening Packet,' 8th June 1841) but later served for 24 years as the rector of St. Michael's in Manchester.   'The Dublin Evening Mail' of 22nd April 1859 advertised for a curate for a church in Manchester - applications were to be made to brother James Vance of 10 Suffolk Street.
He died on 26th July 1868 at his residence, Summer Villas, Manchester, was buried in the Vance plot at Mount Jerome, Dublin.

7) Anna Maria Vance, eldest daughter of James Vance of Summerhill, died at Mountpleasant Square on 21st November 1847. ('Dublin Evening Post', 27th November 1847.)

8) Margaret Vance of 57 Harcourt Street married Dr. David Brereton of TCD and lived subsequently at 12 York Street.

9)  Jane Vance, died aged 17 at Summerhill in February 1826.

10) The youngest daughter of James Vance of Summerhill was Susanna Vance who was born on 1st February 1811 and who died on 26th May 1866 at Merrion Square North.   

The son of James Vance and Mary Ann Shaw, Dr. James Vance, an apothecary of 10 Suffolk St., married Mary Alicia Courtenay/Courtney in St. Thomas, Dublin, on 24th August 1841.  The wedding was witnessed by his brother, William Shaw Vance.
 Mary Alicia Vance of 10 Suffolk Street was mentioned as a depositor of the Cuffe Street Savings Bank in 1851.
On 13th September 1851, Mrs. Maria Alicia Vance, the wife of Dr. James Vance of Suffolk Street, died following an accidental fall from her bedroom window just before breakfast. She was 39 and left four children.  Suffering from illness, she had recently returned from a holiday in Killarney which had been intended to improve her health.

The children of James Vance and Mary Alicia Courtenay of 10 Suffolk St, Dublin,were:

1)  James Vance MD of Rathdrum, Wicklow, who married Caroline Frances Martin, the daughter of a clergyman who emigrated to Canada later, Nicholas Columbine Martin, the son of Captain Nicholas Martin and Martha Harris, and the grandson of Rev. James Martin, of Clare and Frances Janns.  

The wedding of James Vance MD and Caroline Frances Martin occurred on October 6th 1870 in Carndonagh, Co. Donegal, where the bride's father was the rector. The rector was assisted by a relation, Rev. Gerald Ivor King Moriarty.
(Later, a second member of the Courtenay family married into this same Martin family - in London in 1900, Sabina Courtenay, the daughter of Thomas Courtenay of the Royal Kilmainham Hospital, and granddaughter of Frederick Courtenay of Wellington Street, married Frederick Temple Martin, the son of Temple Chevallier Martin and Elizabeth Mary Parkyn;  Temple Chevallier Martin was a grandson of Rev. James Martin and Frances Janns of Co. Clare.)
Amongst the children of Dr. James Vance of Rathdrum and Caroline Frances were James born 1871, Henry Nicholas Martin Vance born 1872, Richard Ephraim Vance born 1874 and Mary Alicia Courtenay Vance born 1875.    A daughter, Ethel Caroline Vance, was born to the couple in Dublin at 57 Harcourt Street in 1884.
The widowed Caroline Frances Vance was one of the vendors of 55 and 56 Blessington Street in 1890, as was her brother-in-law, Robert Courtenay Vance.  They sold the properties to their 2nd cousin, Isabella Jones.
James Vance, the physician and brother of Robert Courtenay Vance, died at 57 Harcourt Street on 7th August 1885;  probate was to his widow, Caroline Frances Vance of 57 Harcourt Street.

2) Robert Courtenay Vance, solicitor. Born circa 1849, on 16th February 1884 Robert Courtenay Vance of 57 Blessington Street, married Isabella Grogan of 23 Royal Terrace, Kingstown, who had been born in Dublin in 1862 to Edwin Grogan and Isabella Courtenay, Isabella Courtenay being the daughter of Robert Courtenay and Eliza Hudson.
Given that Robert Courtenay Vance's mother, Mary Alicia Courtenay was the sister of Isabella Grogan's mother, Isabella Courtenay, then the bride and groom were first cousins. Our Isabella Jones was, therefore, second cousin to both Robert Courtenay Vance and his to his wife Isabella Grogan.  The witnesses to the wedding of Robert Courtenay Vance and Isabella Grogan were the groom's uncle, William Courtenay who had married  Elizabeth Jane Grogan, the aunt of Isabella Grogan, and also a C. Martelli.

At one stage, Robert Courtenay Vance  had offices, or perhaps lived, at 113 Stephens Green, which was immediately adjacent to Isabella and Charles Jones' showrooms.

Robert Courtenay Vance, solicitor of 15 Brookfield Terrace, Anglesea Road, Donnybrook, Co Dublin, died on 2nd November 1909 aged 60.  His widow, Isabella Vance, died on 17th February 1932 and was buried alongside her late husband in Mount Jerome.

3) William John Vance,

4) Eliza Courtenay Vance.

5) Joseph Vance who died in infancy.

6) Richard Ephraim Vance - on 22nd December 1857, Richard Ephraim Vance of 10 Suffolk Street was admitted to the Freemen of Dublin, being the son of James Vance Junior, who had been admitted himself in Michaelmas 1791.

According to a private contributor to the LDS site, the bride, Mary Alicia Courtney, had been born in Mallow, Co. Cork, in 1809 to a solicitor named either Thomas or Robert Courtenay and to his wife, Sarah. However, I recently accessed a deed (1841-17-173) in the Registry of Deeds which detailed the marriage settlement of James Vance and Mary Alicia Courtenay.  The deed confirms that Mary Alicia was living at Lower Gardiner Street at the time of her marriage, and this seems to confirm that she was the daughter of Robert Courtenay, solicitor, and Eliza Hudson who were living in Lr Gardiner Street at this time. Robert Courtenay was the son of Thomas Courtenay, Shearman, who was admitted to the Freedom of Dublin in 1789.  Robert Courtenay was the brother of our immediate maternal ancestor, the veterinary surgeon Frederick Courtenay.
Another of the witnesses to the wedding in 1841 was Joshua Pasley, and a son of Robert Courtenay and Eliza Hudson was christened as Joshua Pasley Courtenay.  An earlier Joshua Pasley was closely involved with the phlanthropist, Thomas Pleasants (his cousin), who had founded the Stove Tenters House in the Liberties in 1814, which provided indoor facilities for the drying of woollens and other fabrics in poor weather;  prior to the foundation of the Stove Tenters House, those involved in fabric manufacture in the Liberties area of the city would find themselves destitute during the winter or during spells of inclement weather.  Thomas Pleasants and his cousin, Joshua Pasley, were also involved with the foundation of the Meath Hospital. Was this the Joshua Pasley who witnessed Mary Alicia Courtenay's wedding, or was it a younger relation of his? Joshua Pasley Courtenay,  probably named after Joshua Pasley, had been born in about 1836 to Robert Courtenay and Eliza Hudson.


Timeline of these intermarriages (very difficult to visualise!):

1)  Dr. James Vance of Dublin married Mary Alicia Courtenay/Courtney in 1841 in Dublin.  A marriage deed of 1840, drawn up a year before her marriage to James Vance, gave an address of Lower Gardiner Street for Mary Alicia Courtenay, which confirms that she was the daughter of Robert Courtenay, solicitor of Lower Gardiner Street, and of his wife, Eliza Hudson.

2)   A second daughter of Robert Courtenay and Eliza Hudson,  Isabella Courtenay, married Edwin Grogan in Dublin in 1861.   The wedding was witnessed by Robert Courtenay and James Vance.  James Vance was Isabella's brother-in-law, married to her older sister, Mary Alicia Courtenay.

3)  In 1863, the son of solicitor Robert Courtenay and of Eliza Hudson, William Courtenay, married Elizabeth Jane Grogan of Garville Place, Rathgar, who was the sister of Edwin Grogan.

4)  Isabella Grogan, the daughter of Edwin Grogan and Isabella Courtenay, married Robert Courtenay Vance, the son of James Vance and Mary Alicia Courtenay, in Dublin in 1884.

5)  Mary Isabella Courtenay, the daughter of William Courtenay and Elizabeth Jane Grogan, married Rev. Gerald Ivor King Moriarty, in 1896.  She was the cousin of Isabella Grogan.

From The Belfast Newsletter - "Moriarty-Courtenay  -  At the Parish Church, Dunleer, by the Rev. M.F. Moriarty AB, the brother of the bridegroom, Rector of Castledawson, Diocese of Derry, assisted by the Rev. H. Kelly, MA, Rector of the parish, the Rev. Gerald Ivor King Moriarty AM, Rector of Kilcronoghan, Diocese of Derry,  youngest son of the late Rev. M.J. Moriarty, AB, of St. Anne's and Rector of Killaghter, Diocese of Raphoe, to Mary J.(sic.), only daughter of William Courtenay, D.L., Rathcoole Park, Co. Louth and Crosswaithe Park, Co. Dublin."

Notes on Rev. Gerald Ivor King Moriarty:  Gerald descended from Maurice Moriarty of Dingle, Co. Kerry, whose son was Denis Moriarty (1784 - 1839) of Dingle.  Denis Moriarty had three sons, Rev. Denis Moriarty of Castleisland, Rev. Thomas Moriarty of Ventry and Tralee, and Rev. Matthew Trant Moriarty of Ventry, Matthew being the father of Rev. Gerald Ivor King Moriarty.
The Moriarty family were an Irish-speaking Catholic family of Dingle, who converted to Protestantism at some stage in the early 19th century.  Rev.Thomas Moriarty (1812 - 1894), son of Denis, entered the church, and was stationed at the Protestant stronghold of Ventry, five miles west of Dingle, where he was a prominent member of the movement to convert the local Irish-speaking Catholics to the Church of Ireland, an endeavour which was greeted with much derision by the local population.  Rev. Thomas Moriarty married Matilda Bailey - the couple had Matilda, Margaret, Eliza, Emily, Katherine, Mary, Thomas, John B., Matthew and Robert.

Rev. Matthew Trant Moriarty (1821 - 9th March1888), son of Denis Moriarty of Dingle, and who was the father of Rev. Gerald Ivor King Moriarty, was noted in 1851 as the agent for Lloyds, resident in Ventry.  He married Sarah King of Cork city, the third daughter of the late Joseph King, and niece of Rev. Richard King of Wexford, in St. Anne's, Shandon, Cork, on 10th July 1845.  Sarah King's brother was Rev. Joseph King who married Lucy Jane Edgeworth, widow of George Peacocke of Longford, in December 1854.  A sister was Charlotte, youngest daughter of Joseph King, who married in Dingle in October 1852, a son of the Rev. James Goodman of Skibbereen.

The children of Rev. Matthew Trant Moriarty and Sarah King were born at Rahinane, Ventry:
1)  Robert Torrens Moriarty, born at Ventry in April 1849.  He died on 21st May 1915 at Derry, with probate to his brother, Rev. Matthew Francis Moriarty.  His will states that he had been 'late of Edenderry Rectory, Omagh, Co. Tyrone.'
2)  Rev. Matthew Francis Moriarty, born May 1851 at Rahinane, Ventry.
3) Rev. George Garibaldi Moriarty.
4) Rev. Gerald Ivor King Moriarty, born circa 1863.

Sarah Moriarty, née King, died at 4 Victoria Terrace, Portstewart, Co. Derry, on 8th March 1894;  her son, Robert Torrens Moriarty of Derry,  was the executor of her will.

The children of Rev. Gerald Ivor King Moriarty and Mary Isabella Courtenay were Freda Bessie Moriarty, born circa 1897 in Derry;  Gerald Ruadh O'Neill Moriarty, born in Tyrone in 1900;  Iris Moira Courtenay Moriarty, born in Tyrone in 1903;  Denis Trant Florence Moriarty, born in Tyrone in 1907.