Patrick Donnellan

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Dianne Jones on 1st December 2023

NOTE: Year of Birth is taken from official records but day and month are not known. The latter dates have been entered as 01/01 because the site does not allow those fields to be left empty.

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Dianne Jones on 1st December 2023

WA RECORD: Patrick Donnellan 2138, also known as Patrick Donlan 2138 Birth: 1828 Death: 31 May, 1853, at sea Convicted: Burglary; sentenced to 10 years on 25 October, 1850, at Naas, Co. Kildare, Ireland Family Status: Unmarried Occupation: Labourer Convict No.: 2138, assigned on 1 May, 1853 Transported: Robert Small leaving from Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland, on 1 May, 1853. He had been collected from Ireland prison. He died on the journey. (https://waconvicts.fhwa.org.au/g0/p86.htm#i2138) --000--

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Dianne Jones on 1st December 2023

MEDICAL RECORD: The journal of the Robert Small’s Surgeon Superintendent, Harvey Morris, shows he was treated for phthisis (TB) for more than two weeks before his death: Folios 8-9: Patrick Donnelan, aged 23, convict; case number 3; disease or hurt, phthisis. Put on sick list, 14 May 1853 at sea. Died 31 May 1853 (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C11542201). TB/Phthisis: “In the medical writings of Europe through the Middle Ages and well into the industrial age, tuberculosis was referred to as phthisis, the ‘white plague’, or consumption—all in reference to the progressive wasting of the victim’s health and vitality as the disease took its inexorable course.” (https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Tuberculosis) --0--

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Dianne Jones on 1st December 2023

THE DREADFUL VOYAGE ... By Weaver, P (2004) at https://fremantlebiz.livejournal.com/37766.html “Part 1. Irish prisoners for Western Australia on Phoebe Dunbar & Robert Small in 1853 This is the first part in series of eight which were extracted from a public talk which I gave at the Old Fremantle Prison celebrations in June 2000: On 30 August 1853 the 704 ton hired British convict ship Phoebe Dunbar hove-to in Owen’s Anchorage off Fremantle, Western Australia. On board was a consignment of 286 mostly Irish convicts and 29 British pensioner guards with their families, numbering 21 women and 42 children. A few days earlier on 19 August a similar sized consignment of Irish prisoners and British guards had arrived at Fremantle on board another hired convict ship, the Robert Small. Robert Small lost nine convicts and the figure would have been higher had it not been forced to put into Rio de Janeiro to off-load 150 tons of putrefied ballast, a black peat-like mixture of sand and Dutch clay. A medical board of enquiry convened at Fremantle laid most of the blame on the ballast, ‘...the smell of which was most offensive and likely to prove a fertile source of disease.’ However, had the leaky ship not inadvertently stopped off in South America where fruit and vegetables were purchased the death toll probably would have been much higher than nine. Surgeon Superintendent Harvey Morris -- doctor on at least three other convict shipments to Norfolk Island and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) -- had by his own admission deliberately falsified his records by registering only one third of those who came to him sick. His intention, as he wrote in his shipboard journal, was to instil in the prisoners a false sense of confidence in his abilities: ‘It is always advisable in a Convict Ship, especially when diseases are numerous, to keep the sick list down, as it is termed, with a view of deceiving the general body as regards the healthiness or unhealthiness of the Ship; and the more effectually to do this it is often necessary to keep the names of some off the list who ought to be there, and to register those of others who have little or nothing the matter with them...’” The “Convicts to Australia” site notes there were “ten deaths recorded on the convict shipping and description lists. They said eight men died at sea, one died in the harbour and one in the Convict Establishment Hospital. Michael Crolly (2051) was the harbour death; John Curren (2196) the hospital death; and John Reilly (2019), William Burke (2131), Patrick Donnellan (2138), John Dea (2171), Patrick Cullen (2205), Edmund Halley (2256), Michael Meehan (2268) and Thomas Beadle (2313) died at sea. Cholera and typhus were mentioned as the cause of death in some cases.” (https://www.perthdps.com/convicts/con-wa9.html) --0--

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Dianne Jones on 1st December 2023

IN IRELAND: From “Ireland-Australia transportation database”: Last name: DONLAN First name: PATRICK Full name: PATRICK DONLAN Sex: M Age: 19 Trial place: Co. Kildare Trial date: 25/10/1850 Crime desc: Burglary Sentence: Transportation 10 yrs Ship: Robert Small Document ref1: TR 10, P 122 Comment1: Robert Small (embarked), 00/04/1853 (https://findingaids.nationalarchives.ie/) --00--

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Dianne Jones on 1st December 2023

1851, 18 December: On a list of convicts received from Mountjoy -- “Spike Island men”: PATRICK DONNELLANE [sic] was received at Newgate Prison, Dublin; inmate #915; 19 years old; tried at Kildare for larceny, sentenced to 10 years’ transportation; described as 5’7½” tall, brown hair and eyes, fair complexion; single; literate; Roman Catholic (Ireland, Prison Registers, 1790-1924 for Patrick Donnellane; Dublin; Newgate; 1849-1858). 1852, 17 August: Patrick Donnellane was sent to Spike Island Prison, Cork Harbour (Ireland, Prison Registers, 1790-1924 for Patrick Donnellane; Dublin; Newgate; 1849-1858). --00--

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Dianne Jones on 1st December 2023

JAIL: 1850: On a list of “Convicts under sentence of transportation in the Mountjoy Government Prison” – PATRICK DONNELLAN [sic] was held at Mountjoy, Dublin; inmate #607; 19 years old (born 1830); larceny; convicted at Naas, Co Kildare, on 25 October, 1850; 10 years’ transportation; single; labourer; able to read; character not known; no previous conviction; no other details (Ireland, Prison Registers, 1790-1924; Dublin; Mountjoy; 1846-1884). --0--