William Foley

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Dianne Jones on 17th October 2021

FOOTNOTE: To date, no record has been found of the location of William Foley's (presumably unmarked) grave in Calvary Cemetery.

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Dianne Jones on 17th October 2021

1876, 1 November: William Foley died at St Vincent’s Hospital, New York, from the heart disease he had contracted in prison (Keneally, p655). His funeral held four days later, and burial at Calvary Cemetery, received coverage in both America and Australia. --0-- OBITUARIES: 1. 1877, 17 March: From the Herald (Fremantle), p4: “Funeral of one of the escaped political prisoners from Australia. Chatham Square, New York and its vicinity were densely packed at noon, November 5, with persons waiting to do honor to the memory of William Foley, one of the political prisoners recently rescued from servitude in Australia. He died in St. Vincent's Hospital of heart disease, said to have been induced by insufficient food and overwork while in Australia, and his remains were removed to O'Donovan Rossa's Hotel, from which the funeral took place. The remains were enclosed in a handsome walnut casket, richly mounted in silver with handsome handles. On the lid was a silver cross, elegantly chased with shamrocks, and bearing the inscription "William Foley, died November 1, 1876, aged 39 years." The body was dressed in the habit of the Immaculate Conception, and on the breast was a scapular of that order, white silk, embroidered with the letters M. A. Several thousands of friends and sympathisers viewed the remains. The pall-bearers were Thos. Darragh, James Wilson, Michael Harrington, Martin Hogan, Robert Cranston and Thomas Hasset [Hassett], all fellow prisoners with Foley. [They were the “Catalpa six”.] A large number of leaders in the Irish movement were present. Among them were Thomas Clarke Luby, Col. Richard Burke, P.R.B. O'Brien, Edward Pillsworth St. Clair, James J. O'Kelly, New York Herald, and his brother, Stephen J. O'Kelly, the well-known Sculptor, Gen. Thomas F. Burke, Colonel Kerrigan, Denis Donegan (who was carpenter of the rescue ship Catalpa), Gen. F. F. Millen, and John McCarthy Scully. Owing to the law which prohibits regiments of the National Guard from appearing under arms within five days previous to election, the Sixty-ninth regiment was compelled to appear in uniform only; but the Irish Brigade under Col. P. W. Phelan, and the Irish Volunteers, who were largely represented were in full marching order, and they presented an extremely fine appearance. The Holy Innocence Rifle Corps, who attended in white shirts, having on the breast a blue shield crossed by Irish and American Flags, were included among the military portion of the cortege. Among the civic societies were the Napper Tandy Club, Sarsfield Club, Young Men of Ireland Club, Thomas Davis Club, Shamrock Club, and several other Irish associations, after whom followed an immense number of Irish citizens wearing green silk badges. No special religious service was held. Soon after three o'clock the procession started up the Bowery, and went thence through Third avenue to the Thirty-fourth street ferry, and to Calvary Cemetery, where the interment was made with military honours three rounds being fired by a company of Irish volunteers. This ceremony was made appropriate by Foley's long service in the Bombay Horse Artillery, and subsequently in the fifth Dragoon Guards, as a reminiscence of which a cavalry sabre and belt were placed on his coffin. There was no band of music employed, the day being Sunday. – New York Sun.” and 2. 1877, 20 January: From the Advocate (Melbourne), p5: “America. Funeral of William Foley, the ex-Fenian convict. (New York Herald, 6th November.) The funeral of William Foley, the ex-Fenian convict, took place yesterday, and the cortege was the largest ever gathered at the obsequies of an Irishman in America. It was a significant demonstration, for the deceased was an humble Tipperary peasant, a simple trooper in a British cavalry regiment, who had no claim on the sympathies of the throng except that of being a political prisoner... The Irish American says of the deceased:—Born in Tipperary, of humble parents of the small farmer class, he entered the service of the East India Company, in 1853, at the age of seventeen years, and served in the Bombay Horse Artillery till the close of the Sepoy mutiny, in 1859. Though he never rose beyond the rank of a private soldier, he was distinguished for gallant conduct during that terrible struggle, and left the service with the best recommendations as to character which a soldier could receive. Returning to Ireland, he remained at home for a few months, when he again enlisted, this time joining the Fifth Dragoon Guards, one of the crack cavalry regiments of the British army. In 1864, in company with most of his regiment, which was almost exclusively Irish, he joined the Fenian movement in Dublin, and from that time till his arrest, in 1866, was an active propagandist of the revolutionary movement in the ranks of the British army. Sir Hugh Rose, afterwards Lord Strathnairn, having been sent to Ireland to quell the expected insurrection, Foley was selected as his orderly, and while in this position rendered most effective service to the Irish cause. From his position he was often able to communicate most important information to the popular leaders, and never hesitated to run the most desperate risks to avert some impending danger to the cause to which he was devoted. In February, 1866, he was arrested on suspicion of complicity in the conspiracy, and a few months later was tried by court-martial and sentenced to seven years' [sic] penal servitude. The greater part of the military prisoners were sent to Western Australia, where Foley completed the term of his sentence, and came out of prison a broken and shattered man. Ill-treatment, insufficient food and hard toil had done their work; and he suffered from heart disease, till finally he succumbed. When [John] Breslin arrived in Fremantle to effect the rescue of the [“Catalpa six”] military prisoners, Foley was made the medium of communication with the men inside, through 'underground' channels well known to him, and the result is well-known. A short time before the rescue he was sent to England by his friends, and thence came to New York, where he lingered, in pain and suffering, till his death. He was a quiet, unassuming man, but of splendid courage and intense devotion to the Irish cause.” --00--

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Dianne Jones on 17th October 2021

A SHORT LIFE AFTER WA: 1876, 16 January: Several records say he sailed from WA for America via England and Ireland on this date (Amos, p367). However, newspaper shipping records show William Foley left Fremantle on the 18th, one of 20 steerage passengers aboard the Charlotte Padbury for London (WA Times, 21 January, p2 at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2975444?). The ship arrived at Gravesend on 21 April (Fremantle Herald, 24 June, p2 at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/109901768?). --0-- 1876, 12 June: William Foley arrived in New York on this day (ZW Pease, 1897, “The Catalpa Expedition”), although Keneally (1999) says it was mid-July. --0--

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Dianne Jones on 17th October 2021

THE CATALPA RESCUE: William Foley played a key role on the ground in WA in preparations for the escape of the “Catalpa six” – “lifer” military Fenians who were overlooked for pardons in 1869 and were rescued from Fremantle by Fenian sympathisers seven years later. The six escapees taken to America aboard the whaler “Catalpa” in 1876 were: Sergeant Thomas Darragh and Privates Robert Cranston, Michael Harrington, Thomas Hassett, Martin Hogan and James McNally Wilson. Thomas Keneally (p653) takes up the story: “…the best contact with the prisoners [who were to be rescued] was Will Foley, a former soldier who had received his ticket-of-leave. A tall man – nearly six feet – Foley had a ‘weak heart’, apparently a congestive condition. But he was a joker, favourite of the guards and warders, and so even after his release had the run of the prison.” This allowed him to deliver letters and messages to and from the Fenian prisoners and their liberators. As a reward for his involvement, escape organiser John Breslin promised “the fatally ill go-between Will Foley” the passage money for a transit home to Ireland in exchange for not leaving WA until he was no longer needed. By mid-January 1876, and with John Breslin’s blessing, Foley set off for Ireland and the United States (Keneally, p655). --0--

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Dianne Jones on 17th October 2021

1869, 5 February: Thirty-five Fenians who had been transported to Western Australia (as well as others imprisoned in Great Britain) were given Free Pardons / “unconditionally discharged” by the House of Commons. As a so-called “military Fenian”, William Foley was not among them. For a full list, see the Melbourne Advocate, 22 May 1869, p4, at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/169267360? --0-- 1869, 11 May: He was granted a Ticket of Leave and for the next two years worked as a labourer, general servant, groom, reaper and road maker at Newcastle, Northam, Toodyay and Victoria Plains. 1871, 22 August: William Foley received a Certificate of Freedom. --00-- From his Fremantle jail record: “FOLEY, William, convict #9738, arrived 10 Jan 1868 per Hougoumont Date of Birth: 1837 Place of Birth: Waterford Marital Status: Unmarried Occupation: Labourer Literacy: Semiliterate Sentence Place: Dublin Crime: Mutinous conduct Sentence Period: 5 years Ticket of Leave Date: 11 May 1869 Certificate of Freedom Date: 22 Aug 1871 Comments: One of 62 Fenians transported on the Hougoumont, the last convict ship sent to Australia. Its arrival at Fremantle on 9 Jan 1868 signalled the end of transportation to this country. Labourer, general servant, groom, reaper, road maker. Ex 5th Dragoon Guards. Held at Mountjoy Prison, Dublin & London. To England & America, 16 Jan 1876.” (https://fremantleprison.com.au/) --0--

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Dianne Jones on 17th October 2021

On arrival in WA, William Foley was listed as #9738, 29 years old, and a single labourer. He was 5’10¾” tall with dark brown hair, dark hazel eyes, and of middling stout build with a swarthy complexion (Western Australia, Australia, Convict Records, 1846-1930; Convict Department, Registers (128/40 - 43). On the General Register, his next of kin details were changed from the “6 brothers in America” listed on his English jail record to his “Friend, James Graham, Private 5th Dragoon Guards, Colchester Barracks”. This document records that in the normal course of events he would have received / been eligible for a Ticket of Leave in July 1869. His character was described as good. A Roman Catholic, he could read and write imperfectly. --0-- 1869, January: Punishment – he was placed on three days’ bread and water for “trying to incite the men in his party and making false statements as to the time they go to and return from work”. --0--

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OFF THE WA COAST: 1868, 9 January: From transportee accounts, Ormond Waters (1997, p100) describes their arrival off the WA coast and transfer next day to the mainland: “The Fenian prisoners were the last to be taken ashore from the Hougoumont in small boats and brought to ‘The Establishment’ as Fremantle Prison was called. One convict described the scene in a letter home: ‘Very early on the morning of the 10th, we were put on shore in Fremantle, and marched through the little town of that name to our destination, The Prison. Here we lay for some two days, going through the ordinary routine of prisoners on the first reception. Dressed in a suit of Drogheda linen, ornamented with a red stripe and black bands, typical of the rank we hold in the colony. To wit, convicts.’ The prison rules were harsh. There was a long list of offences, the penalty for which was death. Cells measured seven feet by four feet wide by nine feet high. Prisoners slept in hammocks.” --0--

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THE VOYAGE: 1867: On board the Hougoumont, “only one Fenian ended up in the punishment cell, and that was the quiet but stubborn William Foley, formerly of the 5th Dragoon Guards, who had concealed a rope” (Keneally, p571). Keith Amos (p137) agrees that the Fenians had little contact with “the instruments of authority” during the voyage: “One of them, reported for having an awl in his possession which he refused to give up, had his wine stopped for seven days. On another occasion the eight members of No.7 mess were brought before Surgeon Smith for having concealed a rope that belonged to the boatswain. All had their wine stopped, and one of them, [William] Foley, was confined for a time in the punishment cell [around 4 December, 1867]. None of the Fenians had irons put on – and were fortunate to avoid them… [Irons were] welded around the ankles, joined with a chain that restricted movement, and left on for the rest of the voyage.” 1867: During the voyage, both Patrick Keating and William Foley struggled with “the appalling conditions”, according to Peter FitzSimons’ account (p82). “James Wilson goes out of his way to nurse both men. Wilson goes back over a decade with the worthy Foley – who he describes as ‘my poor but true and great comrade’…” --0--

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TRANSPORTATION: 1867, late September-early October: The so-called military offenders/military Fenians shouldn’t have been transported at all, had Colonial Office policy been adhered to, according to Keith Amos’s (1987) thesis “The Fenians in Australia, 1865-1880”. He says the process for selecting the Fenian transportees was conducted behind closed doors “during unrecorded private conferences at a high level” (p102), so little is known about it except that “only less troublesome Fenian rank and file were to be transported [or so the Home Office told the Governor of Western Australia]… but in fact this policy was only loosely adhered to” (p103) by the British authorities. Amos (pp106-7) says: “Although none were Fenian leaders, most had been severely punished; half having been sentenced to life imprisonment. All but two were convicted between March and August 1866, following exposure by informants who alerted the authorities to the fact that Fenianism had established a considerable base among British regiments in Ireland and England. Six of the seventeen had been 5th Dragoon Guards: Thomas Delaney, William Foley, Martin Hogan, Patrick Keating, John Lynch and James Wilson (real name McNally). Three were from the 61st Foot: Robert Cranston, Michael Harrington and James McCoy. From the 24th Foot, were John Donoghue and Thomas Hassett; and from the Royal Horse Artillery, John Foley and Patrick Killeen. The others were Thomas Darragh, 2nd Queens; John Shine, 60th Rifles; James Kielley, 53rd Foot; and John O’Reilly, 10th Hussars. All seventeen military offenders had been convicted either of mutinous conduct or of failure to report knowledge of a mutiny to a commanding officer. Seven had committed the further sin of deserting to avoid apprehension… All the deserters bar one who received fifteen years [James McCoy], received death sentences – later commuted to life imprisonment. The other military offenders received sentences ranging from five years [as was the case for William Foley] to life.” When the Hougoumont was boarded, the 17 military Fenians were confined with ordinary convicts, but the civilian Fenians were allotted separate quarters of their own. “It would seem that this arrangement was at least a partial recognition that the civilian Fenians, all of whom were convicted either of treason-felony or high treason, were political prisoners rather than criminals – a concession that sympathetic Irish nationalists had earlier failed to gain official recognition of. Mutinous soldiers, on the other hand, were clearly regarded by the authorities as common criminals, and perhaps more dangerous ones in view of their training” (Amos, p107). Sleeping arrangements for the military Fenians consisted of “small airless compartments with eight rudimentary berths, 18 inches wide and six feet long, ‘constructed of commonest deal boards in tiers of two, one above the other’” (FitzSimons, p74). --0--

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LOADING FOR WA: 1867, late September: Taken from Chatham jail to board the convict ship Hougoumont, William Foley was, according to newspaper reports, one of 15 Fenians sent from there for transportation: “The hired convict ship Hougoumont, which has been taken up, by the Government for the conveyance of a numerous party of convicts to Freemantle, Western Australia, left the Nore on October 1, and proceeded down Channel, after receiving on board 150 convicts from the establishments at Chatham and Millbank. The convicts from the Chatham establishment, at St. Mary’s, embarked from the dockyard on board the paddle-wheel steamer Adder, Mr. W. J. Blakely, and were in charge of a numerous party of convict guards and wardens, all heavily armed. Among the convicts shipped were a party of fifteen Fenians, who were engaged in the late conspiracy in Ireland, together with the officers and crew convicted of scuttling the ship Severn [only two were on the Hougoumont – Thomas Berwick and Lionel Holdsworth, each sentenced to 20 years for fraud], and some others who have achieved notoriety from their crimes. The Fenian convicts, like the remainder of the prisoners, were chained together in gangs, but it was observed that they were kept apart from the other convicts in a portion of the vessel by themselves. The steamer Petrel also took down a number of convicts from the establishment at Millbank, for shipment on board the Hougoumont, in charge of a strong escort and convict guard. On Tuesday, October 8th, the Hougoumont arrived in Portland roads. Shortly before midday ninety convicts were marched down to the Government pier at Portland under a strong escort of the 12th Light Infantry. The party included twenty-three Fenian convicts, among whom it was said, was Moriarty [correct, but not the Fenian centre; this was a teenage Fenian, Bartholomew Moriarty]. The Government steamer employed in the breakwater service was used for conveying the convicts on board the Hougoumont transport ship. The convicts were chained together on embarking, and on board the steamer a strong guard of marines from her Majesty’s ship St. George was formed, and saw the convicts safely placed on board the Hougoumont. The Governor of the penal settlement at Freemantle, Captain Young, is on board the Hougoumont, and returns in that ship to his sphere of duty after paying a visit to his native land.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 19 Dec 1867, p4, at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28608271). --0--