#52 Ancestors 2021 - Week 8 - Power

 52 Ancestors 2021 - Week 8

Power

This week’s prompt is "Power" so I am writing what I know about the Power family of my 2 x great grandmother Bridget Power, known as Bedelia.  She was the mother of George Frederick Power Morgan who married Mary Jane Black and fathered our grandmother Josephine before disappearing from her life when she was a small child.

                                                              Bedelia Morgan (nee Power)

Bridget was the 4^th child of Peter Power and Mary Murphy who lived in the small town of Elphin, in county Roscommon, Ireland.  When she was seven years old, her family emigrated to Australia with a large contingent of their countrymen, many of whom were their close family.

AAmongst the 191 Catholics from the Parish of Elphin were:

·         Peter and Mary Power (nee Murphy) and their children, Patrick 12, Catherine 10, Ann 9, Bridget 7 (my 2x great grandmother), Maria 6 and Anthony 4.

 

·         Mary Power’s sister, Bridget, widow of Peter’s brother, John, who had died in 1838 aged only 37 leaving her with 4 children - Peter 13, Patrick 11, Elizabeth 7 and John 3.

 

·         Peter Power’s brother Theophilus (known as Offey) and his wife Winifred.  He was coming to employment as a shoemaker for Mr Smith, of George St, Sydney.

 

·         Michael Power, aged 21, a clerk

 

·         Eleanor Power and her husband Kelly McKeone, who had a job as a carpenter in Sydney at 2pounds 8 shillings per week.  Their children were Eliza 12, Bridget 10, James 7, John 5 and Francis 3.  Their baby Ellen, aged 2, was the first of 13 people to die on the Crusader.*1

      Peter and his family settled in Paddington, which was a very poor part of town in the nineteenth century.  They had two more children.  James was born in 1840 and Ellen the following year.  When Mary died at the age of 55, “after a long and painful illness, which she bore with Christian fortitude”*2 she was living with her daughter Bridget and her husband George Morgan.  Peter then seems to have moved in with their daughter Annie, as he was there when he died of “apoplexy” in 1868.

 Some of the other Power emigrants fared much better.  Peter Power, son of the widow Bridget, became a Councillor and Mayor of Williamstown in Victoria. Peter’s son, Ernest was chief sub-editor of the Age newspaper and his grandson (Ernest’s son) was Kevin Power, a long time member of the Canberra Press gallery.*3

 Michael married and became a successful Auctioneer and General Commission Agent.  He died at 37 but he left his family able to afford to educate his three sons in Ireland.  They all returned to successful careers in Australia- Virgil became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Queensland, John a doctor in Gympie (QLD), and Frank was an MLC and Minister for Justice in Queensland.  One of Frank’s grandsons was Sir Noel Plunkett Power, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong in the years immediately preceding the handover to China.

 

                                                                     Virgil Power

Others did less well.  Francis Glynn Power Morgan, a great grand uncle of mine, was the co-respondent in a particularly scandalous divorce.

 Researching the Power family has been made simpler by the fact that so many descendants were given “Power” as part of their Christian names.  This includes my Great Grandfather (George Frederick Power Morgan).  I have no way of knowing why this should have been the case, but it continues to this day.  Elizabeth Power (daughter of the original Bridget) gave all her children the name and some of the next generation hyphenated it, so there are Power-Malones in Victoria who are descendants.

I have also been struck by the number of Power descendants who were journalists and writers. As well as the aforementioned Ernest and Kevin, there was James Power, a journalist who was killed in action in 1943, Francis Power who wrote several books and pamphlets and Lawrie Power, a sub-editor at the (Melbourne) Herald.  Further back, James Gunning Nelson Plunkett (b 1833) was the newspaper proprietor of the Catholic Northern Press in Liverpool.

My cousin Petera Atkinson (daughter of Lawrie) also cites Roy Neville Connolly, press secretary to Sir Arthur Fadden who is a 3^rd cousin to her, and probably to me too although I haven’t verified that.

And, of course, there are my brother Michael Gleeson, a former ABC correspondent in Washington, niece Josephine Tovey of The Guardian and sister Libby Gleeson, distinguished writer of children’s books.

 

 

*1The Commander of the Crusader was Captain Inglas, an experienced seaman. The Surgeon was Dr Birdcastle. There were 42 crew members and 283 immigrants. On the voyage there were 13 deaths, including 3 from smallpox. The Crusader arrived in Sydney on 15th January, 1840.

*2 Death notice SMH 27 Feb 1863

*3 Fun fact – In the famous photo of Gough Whitlam on the steps of Parliament House after his sacking, Kevin Renton Power is holding the 2UE microphone