Michael Casey

71

Robin Sharkey on 27th April 2014

Michael Casey was transported for 7 years on the “Providence” leaving Ireland on 10 December 1810. His crime was unusual - bigamy. It was ironic that he was sent to NSW where people easily married again even though their spouse was alive and well back in England or Ireland or Scotland. The details are from the “Freemans Journal” of Saturday 29 July 1809.: Michael Casey was tried in the Limerick City Court in July 1809. He had first married ten years earlier to Mary Clanchy, spinster, on 19th November 1799. Then he married again, to Mary Tinsly, Spinser, on 9th June 1808, a year before his trial, his former wife still being living at the time. He was found guilty and sentenced to seven years’ transportation, as the relevant statute required, to NSW. ANOTHER MICHAEL CASEY on “Providence” One record says a Michael Casey died at Sea hardly had the vessel left Cork:: Colonial Secretary Records: Government Public Notice dated 27 July 1811, wherein the Governor published the names of convicts who died embarking upon or aboard the “Providence” convict ship so that all persons connected with them would be apprised of their fate. The List included “Michael Casey, or Cask, TRIED IN TEH CITY OF DUBLIN IN AUGUST1809, died at the Cove of Cork on the 10th December 1810 of a disease of the lungs.” However this is NOT THE SAME MICHAEL CASEY. The one listed here for bigamy was tried at LIMERICK not Dublin and in the month of July, not August 1809. ARRIVAL IN NSW As soon as he arrived in NSW Michael Casey was given a Ticket of Leave! *The Ticket of Leave is dated 12th July 1811, and states that Michael Case was tried at Limerick and given 7 years. * Three other men off the Providence were given Tickets of Leave on the same date - Edward Eager and George Chartres who were both lawyers, and Samuel Coates who was a member of a landed gentry family. Early on in NSW, tickets of Leave were given to educated convicts as their services were much in need in the Colony and they were really being given some special form of treatment as it was thought they would find it difficult to cope with the conditions of being a convict in NSW. Chartres and Eager prove the point as educated men, as ors Coates who was educated AND from a highly respectable family. * Therefore Michael Casey must have been an educated, and perhaps well-to-do convict as well. A later Conditional Pardon document stated he was a Merchant. CONDITIONAL PARDON THEN on 31st January 1814 a Conditional Pardon, no 329, was granted and he received it on 17th March. This meant he was free within the Colony but could not return to England or his home in Ireland, however, he would be able to once he was completely free in July 1816 when his original sentence expired. The Conditional Pardon described him as: * Native of Limerick City (where he was also tried) * Trade - MERCHANT * Age: 31 years * Height - 5 ft 7 inches * Complexion - Dark * Hair Black and eyes Hazel, If this age of 31 in 1814 was correct then when he first married in 1799 he was only 16 years old! However the age on the indent in 1810 was 27 years, still making him aged 31 in 1814. EARLY MARRIAGE EXPLAINED Since Michael Casey was only 16 when he first married in Ireland then it may have been an impulsive and short-lived matter, which he perhaps thought would be forgotten and overlooked ten years later. It goes some way towards explaining why an apparently educated and successful person would be a bigamist. LIFE IN NSW * Other Michael Caseys arrived in the colony after he arrived - in 1818 on “Guildford”1822 on “Mangles” 1823 on “Brampton”, however it appears none arrived before him. * It is probably 100% certain that in 1814 he was living in a public house in York Street, Sydney, as the Occupier, though strangely not the licencee. A woman called Elizabeth Watson was the licensee, perhaps they were living together. PUBLIC HOUSE * In June 1814, a brawl erupted at the York St public house among a group of people who’d been drinking there together - a couple named Ormsby on one side and the deceased Robert Morrow and his girlfriend called Honor Fahey on the other. Honora or Honor Fahey, as she was more commonly known, was one of the female convicts from the same ship as Michael Casey. As a result of injures from the brawl, Morrow died a short while after, so the Ormsbys were indicted for his murder. * Because Michael Casey did not exercise authority to restrain the altercation, which it was his duty to do, the Governor gave a public notice that Casey was highly culpable and that the licence was to be cancelled and withdrawn from the 1st August. This was published in the Gazette on 9 July 1814 on page 1. 1814 - 1817 * In the 1814 Muster he was recorded as working as a baker in Sydney. * In July 1816 Michael Casey’s original Sentence expired. He was then given a Certificate of Freedom (even better than a Conditional Pardon) dated 5th August 1816, number 10/1700. DEPARTURE He departed NSW forever on 19 July 1817 on the ship “Hunter” bound for Batavia and then Calcutta, a year after he first became entitled to leave. Perhaps he and been saving more money. From Calcutta he would have taken another ship to Europe. He was one of six passengers on board. One was Susannah Roberts, free by a Certificate dated 1811 who was sailing with her three children aged, 7, 4 and 15 months, with two different surnames. and a 17 year old Colonial born girl. The second mate was also sailing as a passenger.