Mary Ann Meagher, a hidden history: Women’s History Month
Old skeletons are highly sought after in the family historian’s closet. When I picture the closet of my recent ancestors, it is full of men’s suits, white lab coats and leather brogues. But if I think of the dark wooden closets of the Meagher women, there is barely a coat hanger to leave a clue about the women they were or the life they led. Their stories, aspirations and laments are hidden, unacknowledged or neglected, and I’ve spent years scrounging around for any loose thread I can find that might tell me of their histories. This is common for women across the ages and something that Women’s History Month seeks to address.
John S Meagher (far right) in the garden at Ikerrin with his sons, Lux (left) and Wilbur Meagher (centre)
My grandfather, Jack, was eighty-one when he learnt that his father John S. Meagher had two sisters. If it wasn’t for my parents discovering them in their family tree research in 1986, Jack would never have known about his aunts.
A letter in the family archives written by Jack’s older brother, Frank, reveals that he did know about John’s sisters. Frank was in Ireland making some family history enquiries in the parish of Dunkerrin in 1919. He wrote to his father John of the interaction, ‘The good priest then asked me the names of your sisters but my information was pitifully inadequate and I could not tell him.’ [1]
One of John’s sisters, Mary Ann Meagher, died in the Magdalen Asylum, Abbotsford, in 1914, leaving more questions than answers. I’ve often wondered about her and the circumstances that prevented my grandfather from learning about his aunt. My questions swing like a pendulum canvassing a multitude of options and scenarios. Was Jack denied knowledge of his aunt due to shame? Did she voluntarily seek refuge in the asylum or was she committed? Did she deliberately ‘disappear’, or did her brother and father know of her whereabouts? Clearly something happened, severing her ties to the family. There is no way of knowing the true details, but I have pieced together broken fragments of her life in the lead up to her disappearance behind the gates of the asylum.
An ordinary girl ‘hidden from history’
Mary Ann Meagher, born in North Melbourne in 1864, grew up in the mining town of Haddon, 16 kilometres southwest of Ballarat. Her stepmother, Johanna Ryan had been a hotelkeeper prior to her marriage to Mary Ann’s father, Michael Meagher in 1869, but marriage meant that she could not legally be the licensee for a hotel or own property.[2] Although Michael’s job at the time was a miner, he became the licensee for the Reform Hotel in Haddon in 1875 when Mary Ann was eleven and her brother John, was twelve years old.
The Reform Hotel Haddon, c.1895 (Flynn Family History, 1983, held by the Woady Yaloak Historical Society)
Mary Ann and John went to the local state school 1076 in Haddon. John progressed his education through night school and university, but there was barely any opportunity for Mary Ann to follow this path, even if she wanted to. The prevailing sentiment towards girls comprised little to no encouragement for further education.
In the 1880s, Michael left Haddon to take on two consecutive hotel licenses in Ballarat; the Lady of the Lake Hotel in Armstrong Street and the Wheatsheaf Hotel in Wendouree Parade. There are no records from the time to confirm whether Johanna and Mary Ann worked at the Reform Hotel and/or were with Michael in Ballarat. In the year Melbourne hosted the Centennial International Exhibition in 1888, John married Catherine Sophia Carden in Port Melbourne and Mary Ann was in attendance, signing the marriage certificate as a witness along with Catherine’s brother.[3] Historian Graeme Davison captures the era in his seminal history, The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, ‘As the fat years of the 1880s gave way to the lean 1890s, the forebodings of the older merchants assumed ever more palpable form…the contraction of trade began in Melbourne itself, but after poor wool prices in 1892-93 and a prolonged drought the countryside became equally depressed.’[4]
Seeking independence
In 1891, a significant petition did the rounds of Haddon: the Women’s suffragette petition. Over one hundred signatures were collected from women in Haddon and nearly 30,000 signed the petition across the state demanding that ‘Women should Vote on Equal terms with Men’.[5] Johanna and Mary Ann signed the petition, as too Johanna’s sister Mary Bloye (transcribed as Blay). The petition was presented to the Victorian Parliament in September of the same year with the support of the Premier.
A month later, it was reported in the newspapers that George Bloye, Johanna’s brother-in-law, late of Haddon, had taken up a position in the Great Northern Mining Company in Rutherglen. Michael Meagher, who had been a witness at Bloye’s marriage to Johanna’s sister, Mary in 1871, followed Bloye to Rutherglen and was there when Johanna died in Haddon at the Reform Hotel after a ‘long and painful illness’ in October 1893. Ten weeks before Johanna died, Michael applied to transfer the victualler’s license for the Reform Hotel to Mary Ann.[6] Was this the point when Michael departed Haddon for Rutherglen? Or was this the point the family acknowledged Johanna was not going to recover from her illness? It is interesting to reflect on whether it was Johanna who was running the hotels under the auspice of Michael’s name. Certainly Michael had dabbled in other work, including local politics and was possibly the secretary for mining companies in the area, namely the No. 6 Reform Mining Company and the Racecourse Tribute Company.[7] With Johanna’s illness and death, Michael’s relocation to Rutherglen, and John’s admittance to the Bar as a barrister in Melbourne, Mary Ann was on her own, running a hotel in Haddon in the midst of severe financial depression.
A whisper in the Ballarat Star newspaper
In what is seemingly the only record available potentially from Mary Ann’s hand, a discreetly initialed memorial notice was inserted in the Ballarat Star. M.A.M (Mary Ann Meagher) wrote ‘in fond remembrance of my aunt, Mrs Bloye’. The author wrote: Safely shielded from all sorrow,/ From the cares of life set free, / Resting in her heavenly mansion, / Oh, how happy she must be. The memorial is a tribute to Mary Bloye, Johanna’s sister, who died on 4th April 1893 at the Ararat Lunatic Asylum from tuberculosis and a fractured neck.[8]
Other than this notice, potentially written by Mary Ann, there is not a single word or thought by Mary Ann in public or private records. Only a signature on two marriage certificates reveals her steady hand and education, and an agreement and understanding written in an affidavit for Johanna’s estate. How did Mary Ann feel at this point? Losing the women who had nurtured her throughout her life, in close succession. Taking on the responsibility of the hotel without the guiding hand of Johanna nearby. Watching the the dwindling hotel trade echo the decline in the mining industry and population in Haddon. How keenly did Mary Ann feel of the absence of her father some 362 kilometres away in Rutherglen and her brother married with children in Melbourne?
In 1891, Michael instructed in his will the hotel and land to be bequeathed to John and the value of his personal assets was to go to Mary Ann. On this basis, it suggests that Mary Ann’s license and/or the future ownership of the hotel was not meant to be temporary, or at least to continue until Michael’s death. Haddon’s population had halved since Michael and Johanna first arrived, and the consequences of the 1880s land boom had been significant. Perhaps Michael’s income from mining in Rutherglen, combined with the hotel, was not enough to keep him and Mary Ann afloat, or perhaps there were other reasons. In any case, in August 1894, Michael put the business up for auction including the property, land and sundries. Mary Ann transferred the license to the new owner, James Flynn in November 1894. I picture her with a suitcase and a train ticket waiting to leave Haddon, and I can’t help but wonder, was this the last time she saw her father?
A life unravelling?
Following the sale of the hotel and subsequent loss of her job, Mary Ann headed to Melbourne where her life takes an unexpected detour.
Mary Ann’s signature on her marriage certificate 1894
Just three weeks after Mary Ann transfers the license of the Reform Hotel, she marries Archibald Frederick McLellan on the 19th December 1894 under the Presbyterian rites at the Free Church in Swanston Street arranged by Holt’s Matrimonial Agency in Melbourne.[9]
Holt’s Matrimonial Agency advertisement 1894
Whilst Holt’s operated as a dating service resulting in marriage, both parties, as indicated in this article, are introduced and encouraged to get to know each other. The presumption is that Mary Ann knew what she was getting into, and had the opportunity to get to know McLellan. However, after only three weeks of marriage, on the 8th January, Mary Ann presents to the Magdalen Asylum run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherds in Abbotsford and is admitted into their care.
As far as I can gather from the Good Shepherd’s archivist, Mary Ann remained in the asylum for twenty years until her death in 1914.[10]
Magdalen Asylum, Abbotsford c.1880? (SLV Collection H4461)
Why did Mary Ann seek refuge in the asylum? Was she running from her family and her life, or from the man she married? Perhaps she was not running away from McLellan, but from the mistake of marrying. Did her family even know she had married or that she had taken refuge at the Abbotsford asylum? Was Mary Ann an alcoholic? Did McLellan take advantage of her, leave her bereft and without any money? My head spins with questions, none of which can be answered.
Despite Mary Ann’s admittance – or disappearance – into the asylum in 1895, Michael did not change his will, written in 1891, prior to his death in 1901. I have not found any evidence to date to suggest that Mary Ann was listed as missing. The only strange clue I have come across is a letter to an editor in 1932, about the history of the Haddon State School, which noted Mary Ann and John as scholars, and that John was alive, which infers knowledge, accurately, that Mary Ann was not.
The loose fragments that have been gathered of Mary Ann’s life have given us some sense of the events that shaped her life. From working in a hotel, marrying via a matrimonial agency, seeking refuge in the Magdalen Asylum, all these actions carried stigma, judgment and condemnation. She is as close as the family gets to a skeleton in the closet. Skeleton or not, her history is important to know. Equally, it is important to understand in the broader family history.
I will slowly build up the Meagher women’s closet, adding a dress here, a hat there, button up boots, or even an apron where I can, so that their clothes and by extension, their stories are hanging equally alongside the suits and lab coats of the Meagher menfolk. Despite the threadbare records, Mary Ann’s coat has a place in the Meagher family closet.
Endnotes
[1] Letter from Frank Meagher in Ireland to J S Meagher (Melbourne), 9 November 1919, Meagher family archives.
[2] Diane Kirkby, Barmaids: A history of women’s work in Pubs, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p.28.
[3] BDM Victoria, Marriage certificate, John S Meagher and Catherine S. Carden, 3064/1888.
[4] Graeme Davison, The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, second ed., MUP, 2004, pp.40-41.
[5] Parliament of Victoria, https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/about/the-history-of-parliament/womens-suffrage-petition
[6] Public Records Office Victoria, VPRS 719/P0/8 p.113.
[7] Highly likely that this is the same Michael Meagher as the Reform Hotel keeper, but further research is needed to verify identity.
[8] BDM Victoria, Death certificate for Mary Bloye 4417/1893.
[9] Mary Ann’s the marriage was officiated by a clergyman, Robert Angus who was on the books of the Holt’s matrimonial agency and the marriage certificate was signed by James and Annie Holt as the witnesses.
[10] Email dated 14 August 2014 from F. Faithful, Archivist at Good Shepherds Convent, Abbotsford.
What a really sad story. It leaves so many questions also. I feel that she wanted to get married, maybe for some stability and someone to look after her. But first impressions make me think that the marriage was not working as she hoped. Maybe she did even have a problem with alcohol. So sad that she died there, probably without family.