#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 7 Favourite Discovery

#52 Ancestors 2020


Week 7 Favourite Discovery

Every new discovery is a favourite, especially at the beginning of your research when you know very little and each new revelation leads to more discoveries.

But recently, having my DNA done led to the discovery of a connection to a very significant man in the history and development of early Australia.

I had read about John Hubert Plunkett a few years ago when I read a book called, “Murder at Myall Creek” by Mark Tedeschi QC.  Myall Creek was the site of a shameful episode in the history of Australia; the murder of at least 28 unarmed indigenous Australians by a group of eleven stockmen.  This was by no means the first (or, sadly, the last)  such massacre, but the reason this one has become infamous is that there were two trials to prosecute the murderers, and after the second trial seven men were hanged for the crime. 

Conspiracies of silence usually shrouded massacres of Aboriginal people and perpetrators were rarely punished.  The main reason why this group was brought to justice was that the Attorney General in charge of prosecuting crime in NSW was John Hubert Plunkett.

Born in Roscommon, Ireland in 1802, Plunkett was fortunate to have been able to take advantage of the relaxation of the penal laws against Catholics and to enrol at Trinity College, Dublin.  He graduated in 1823, was called to both the Irish Bar and then the English Bar,  and was offered the position of Solicitor General of NSW in 1832.  He was the first Catholic to be appointed to high office in the Colony.

He acquitted himself well and in 1836 he was appointed Attorney General.  This was a crucial time in the fledgling colony – As a Catholic lawyer in Ireland, Plunkett had first hand experience of discrimination.  He believed that legislation should promote civil and religious liberty and work to alleviate social inequalities.  Accordingly, he became the architect of legislation which established the equality of all men before the law.  This meant jury rights for emancipists (former convicts) and protection under the law for convicts and assigned servants.

Plunkett extended these same protections to Aboriginals so he set about the prosecution of the Myall Creek murderers.  This was extremely contentious at the time, and the men were acquitted at the first trial.  Undeterred, Plunkett brought a fresh charge and seven of the men were found guilty and hanged.

Plunkett considered the Church Act of 1836 the most important single achievement of his public career. It definitely disestablished the Church of England and established legal equality between Anglicans, Catholics and Presbyterians; its provisions were later extended to Methodists, and Plunkett himself would gladly have included Jews and Independents. 

 He advocated for a secular education system along the lines of the National system in Ireland in which children of all religious bodies combined for secular education but separated for religious instruction.  In 1844 Plunkett supported the Lowe committee, of which he was a member, in advocating the National system, and when it came into force in 1848 Plunkett became the first chairman of the board.

When the Sisters of Charity arrived in Sydney from Ireland in 1838, John Plunkett's special interest in their affairs led him to organise a public appeal to establish their first hospital in Sydney. He then helped the Sisters to acquire the narrow strip of land along Victoria Street in Darlinghurst to which the first St. Vincent's Hospital, which had opened its doors in Potts Point, was relocated in 1870. One hundred and fifty years later, St Vincent's Hospital is still there.

Amongst Plunkett’s other achievements were his advocacy for the cessation of convict transportation, which happened in NSW in 1840, despite opposition from the squatter parties (for whom they were a source of cheap labour) and the establishment of Australia’s first University, the University of Sydney in 1850.  He served on its first Senate, was an early Vice-Chancellor and was also a founding fellow of St Johns College.

John Hubert Plunkett was a cousin to my 5 x great grandmother Catherine Plunkett.  Although she and her husband Bernard Murphy never left Ireland many of their children and grandchildren followed their illustrious cousin to the new colony.  As I wrote in #52 Ancestors – Far From Home, 25 of them came on the Crusader to Sydney in 1840.  They included my 3 X great grandparents Peter and Mary Power (nee Murphy) and their children, one of whom was my 2 x great grandmother Bridget (Bedelia) Power.

One of my newfound cousins is already deep into her research of the Power and Plunkett families.  With her, I hope to unravel more details about my connection to this great man.