The mother of John Worthington’s children

It is clear from the records that John Worthington, transported to Australia in 1806 aboard the Fortune, was involved with a fellow convict named Catherine Malone, or Catherine Maloney, and that she was the mother of his children James, Thomas, William and John.

Here are records linking a Catherine Malone(y) with John Worthington (in italics) and/or the Worthington boys:

1816:	Convict Muster: Catherine Malone – Arrived August 1806; ship: Alexander; convicted: Lancaster April 1805; sentence 7 years; wife of John Worthington Sydney; in the Colony.
1818:	Return of Orphans: Thomas and John admitted to the Orphan School at Parramatta.
07/1818:	Return of Orphans, Liverpool (Colonial Secretary’s Index): Thomas Warrenton, aged 8 years; in the care of David Nowlands of Airds; father’s name John Warrenton, left the colony; mother’s name Catherine Malone, resides in Sydney; has 4 children and in great distress.
12/07/1820:	Colonial Secretary’s index: Catherine Malowny – washerwoman of Liverpool, mother of John Warrington, aged 8, admitted to the Male Orphan School.
1820:	Colonial Secretary’s Index: Cath Malony – Liverpool, mother of John Warrington, aged 8 assigned to Berry/Wolstonecraft.
1822:	General muster: Catherine Maloney – free by servitude; ship: Alexander; sentence 7 years; ‘wife of E. Neale, Windsor’.
	[Edward Neale was a convict transported aboard the ship Canada in 1816. His trial occurred at the Old Bailey in February 1814 and he received a 7-year sentence. He was a leaseholder and farmer at Windsor assisted by government servants.]
1824:	Windsor Population Book: Catherine Maloney (there is also an entry for Catherine ‘Malone’ on the same page as this entry, but there is no other information given for either).
1825:	General muster: Catherine Maloney – free by servitude; Atlas 1802 [different ship detail given here]; ‘lives with Edward Neil, Windsor’.
1828:	Census: Katherine Maloney – free by servitude; aged 40; arrived 1805; ship: Alexander; housekeeper to Edward Neill at Cornwallis.
1829:	Catherine Moloney and Edward Neale married at St Matthew’s Church of England.
1856:	Catherine Neale died of dropsy (see below) on 21 Oct 1856 at Cornwallis. Edward Neale was the informant on her death certificate and he stated that she was born in London, was aged 65, had spent 50 years in NSW, her father’s name was Maloney, and she had no children by Edward Neale, ‘3 sons by a previous husband’. Catherine was buried 23 Oct at Windsor Catholic Cemetery.

Place Note – Cornwallis and Windsor

Windsor is a historic town north-west of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is in the Hawkesbury local government area, in the region of Greater Western Sydney. The town sits on the Hawkesbury River, enveloped by farmland and bush. Whereis

Cornwallis is a bounded locality of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located in the City of Hawkesbury north-west of Windsor. Cornwallis is bounded in the north and the east by the Hawkesbury River. Whereis

The following year Edward Neale married Anne Donelan/Donlon, a widow with at least one child, Pat.

Edward died, also of dropsy, on 19 Oct 1860 aged 82 at his home in Cornwallis and was buried on 21 Oct with Catherine in Windsor Catholic Cemetery. Pat Donlon (‘stepson’) was the informant on his death certificate.

 Ailment Note: Dropsy

Old-fashioned or less technical term (from hydropsy) for odema - a condition characterized by an excess of watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body.

Sugar Cane Catharine Malone – not connected

Another Catharine Malone, who came to Australia aboard the Sugar Cane in 1793, has been most commonly thought to be the mother of the four Worthington boys. She was first married to William Butts in 1794. From about 1822 she lived with a man named Edward Bennett at Paramatta and Seven Hills until her death in 1841. She has sometime been given credit as the mother of the Worthington boys, probably because there appeared to be no other viable candidates in the colony at the time initial research was carried out, and because there appeared to be sufficient time, between her leaving Butts and taking up with Bennett, to have had another relationship and produce four children. The evidence doesn’t seem to bear this out, as in 1814 she is listed as the wife of William Butts in Parramatta, well after she is alleged to have had four children by another man.

The story of Sugar Cane Catharine Malone is documented in the book A Nimble Fingered Tribe: the Convicts of the Sugar Cane, Ireland to Botany Bay, 1793 by Barbara Hall (2002). This account has her involved with Butts, Bennett, also possibly Samuel Fry and, unfortunately, also John Worthington. But from the available evidence there appears to be no connection between Sugar Cane Catharine and John Worthington of the Fortune, for the following reasons:

Sugar Cane Catharine and Alexander Catherine both appear separately in the muster and census records in 1816, 1822, 1825 and 1828. They are buried separately in marked graves.

1816 Convict muster:	Catherine Malone Alexander, 7 years Wife of John Worthington, Sydney	Catherine Malone Sugar Cane, 7 years Wife of William Butts, landholder
1822 General muster:	Catherine Maloney Alexander, 7 years Wife of E. Neal, Windsor	Catherine Malone Sugar Cane, 7 years Wife of Edward Bennett
1825 General muster:	Catherine Maloney Atlas 1802 [different ship detail], 7 years, lives with Edward Neale, Windsor	Catherine Malone Sugar Cane, 7 years, wife of Edward Bennett, Paramatta
1828 Census:	Name: Katherine Maloney Estimated birth year: abt 1788 Arrival Ship: Alexander Arrival year: 1805 District: Cornwallis Age: 40 (b. 1788)	Name: Catherine Bennett Estimated birth year: abt 1773 Arrival Ship: Sugar Cane Arrival year: 1793 District: Seven Hills Age: 55 (b. 1773)
Separate graves:	Catherine Neale (‘father’s name Maloney’) died at Windsor in 1856 and is buried as ‘Catherine Neal’ in a marked grave with Edward at Windsor Catholic Cemetery. Her age at death was given as 65 (b. 1791)	Catharine Bennett died at Seven Hills in 1841 and is buried as ‘Catharine Bennet’ in a marked grave at St Patrick’s, Paramatta. Her age was given as 70 (b. 1771)

Clearly, there were two different women, and only one was linked with John Worthington – the one that ended up with Edward Neale at Windsor. While I cannot find any record specifically linking Sugar Cane Catharine to John Worthington or the Worthington boys, there is evidence linking Alexander Catherine to John Worthington (1816 Muster), and linking one of the Worthington/Warrington children to Edward Neale, as follows.

In 1842, Catherine and John’s youngest boy, John Warrington, was charged with two others for assault .. ‘but upon their promising to keep the peace, and pay expenses, they were discharged’. One of the people listed in the court document as having provided bail sureties for him was ‘Edward Neal, farmer, Cornwallis’.

This was undoubtedly the husband of Alexander Catherine providing financial and legal assistance to his stepson. At the time of the 1828 and 1841 census, there were four people residing at the residence of Edward Neale at Cornwallis, and it is possible that John Warrington was one of them. John was still residing at Cornwallis in 1852, according to a newspaper report of his appearance in court as the victim of an assault. The defendant in the 1852 case, Michael Kenny, was later a witness to the second marriage of Edward Neale.

In all the references above, it is worth noting the general prevalence of the surname spelling ending in y (Malony, Maloney, Moloney, Malawny) in the records relating to Alexander Catherine and the Worthington (Warrington) boys, whereas Sugar Cane Catharine always appears in the records as ‘Malone’.

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 The Ship Alexander

The Alexander travelled with the Fortune in 1806 – the very ship that carried John Worthington to Australia. According to Convict Ship Alexander 1806 by Graham Thom, both ships left Spithead, England on 28 January 1806 as part of a fleet of seven ships under the command of Captain William Bligh who was proceeding to Sydney to take up his appointment as Governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Of the convicts transported on both ships, all the females were carried aboard the Alexander. According to Thom’s detailed research, when the ship arrived at Port Jackson it held 48 female convicts, 15 male convicts, eight wives of convicts and nine children. The female convicts were listed in a letter to the Transport Board dated 23 January 1806. 

There are a couple of facts that tend to support Catherine’s claim to have been aboard the Alexander. The first child, James was born fairly soon after the Fortune and Alexander’s arrival in Australia. It would make sense that Catherine Maloney and John Worthington had met each other before or during the journey to Australia. Also, Catherine and John’s third child, William, was later adopted by a man in the colony named Samuel Fry, whose wife, Mary Ann Jones, was a transportee aboard the Alexander.

But the scenario is problematic in several respects … In spite of the fact that Catherine Moloney claimed to have been aboard the Alexander in 1806 (a claim she made on at least three occasions over 12 years) none of the female convicts listed in the Transport Board letter or on the passenger list was named Catherine Maloney (or any spelling variations), and the other Catherines aboard the Alexander are accounted for in the musters. Further, there is no Catherine Malone(y) to be found amongst convicts tried at Lancaster in April 1805, as indicated in the 1816 muster. Also, if Catherine had been in the colony since 1806, I cannot explain why she does not seem to appear in any musters or other documents 1806-1815. She may have been tried, convicted and transported under another name for some reason.

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Just to confuse things … Atlas Catherine (Fitzgerald)

The entry for Catherine Maloney in the 1825 muster as having arrived aboard the Atlas in 1802 looks to be an anomaly, but worth investigating, as Atlas Catherine and Alexander Catherine appear to have been the same age (b. 1788) and the application to marry Edward Neale in 1829 contains some confusing details.

In Windsor on 3 March 1828 Edward Neale and Catherine Maloney applied for the publication of marriage banns:

3-03-1828 Publication of Banns:
Edward Neil, 40, Canada, life, bond, ticket of leave, farmer Cornwallis
Catherine Fitzgerald or Moloney, 40, Atlas, 7 years

17-04-1828 Permission:
Edward Neil, 40, Canada, life, ticket of leave
Catherine Fitzgerald or Moloney, 40, Atlas, 7 years

30-04-1828 Publication of banns:
Edward Neale, 45, Canada, life, bond, ticket of leave, farmer Cornwallis
Catherine Maloney, 40, free, no ship or voyage year recorded

13-05-1828 Permission:
Edward Neale, 45, Canada, life, bond, ticket of leave, farmer, Cornwallis
Catherine Maloney, 40, free, no ship or voyage year recorded

Underneath the 30 April entry is the comment ‘Permission for the marriage of Neale and Maloney was given to the Rev Mr Meares 17 April 1828’.

It appears that the first two entries were made in error and that the error was rectified in the second two documents.

In any case, Catherine Fitzgerald appears as a separate entry in the musters of 1816, 1822 and 1825 and was not the same person as Alexander Catherine. Atlas Catherine was noted in the musters of 1822 and 1825 as living with or wife of a man named Thomas Gather, first in Windsor and later in Richmond. Gather was a wheelwright who died in 1861.

Catherine Fitzgerald can be eliminated as being associated with Edward Neale or with John Worthington.

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This kind of research is always a work in progress, and for the time being there is obviously more investigating to do. If I am wrong and any records exist somewhere explicitly linking Catharine Malone of the Sugar Cane with John Worthington of the Fortune or any of the Worthington boys, I’d love to hear from you.