Original Rootsweb Co. Tyrone Community Site
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The 1851 census returns for
Middlesbrough show only a handful of Irish families living at the Market
Place, with no familiar names amongst them, but by 1853 a Bartholomew
Monaghan, a labourer, and his wife Mary were living at the Market Place
Middlesbrough, where their son Michael was born on 29 June of that year.
Bartholomew Monaghan’s life was
interesting because his movements seem to symbolise the migratory
patterns of his fellow Tyrone iron workers.
First setting in Newcastle/Gateshead, then moving to Consett,
before moving to the new iron works on the north and south banks of the
Tees, at Port Clarence and Middlesbrough.
Layout of the new town of Middlesbrough
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10 August 1853 Guardian (Manchester)
A report that a woman had bewitched two sickly children became
so generally accredited among women at Middlesbrough on Tees
that on Monday evening week, a great crowd assembled before the
supposed witch’s door and uttered cries of “pull her out” “burn
her” &c. Ultimately the
disturbance became so great that four police officers were
brought from Stockton to quelling it; and six or seven of the
mob were lodged in the lockups.
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Bartholomew and Mary Monaghan’s was a
much travelled family. Bart.
Monaghan, a labourer, married Mary Mitchell, after banns, at Newcastle
on 6 August 1850 at St Andrew’s Anglican Church in Newgate St Newcastle.
Both bride and groom’s address was Causey bank, just off the
Quayside. Bartholomew was the
son of Michael Monaghan, a mason; Mary was the daughter of John
Mitchell, a joiner. The
witnesses were Thomas Irwin, and John McGinnis.
I’m not sure why the couple married in the Anglican Church, as
all their children were baptised Catholics.
On 27 February 1850 a Bartholomew
Monaghan reported the death of Bridget Monaghan (11 months) at 178 High
Conside (the old name for Consett).
Bartholomew’s presence in Consett in February 1850 raises a
question about where he really lived at the time of his wedding.
On many old marriage certificates the bride and groom are shown
at the same address, this was the case with Bartholomew and Mary.
Were such couples cohabiting?
It’s very unlikely that they were; the explanation for the shared
address is that a fee had to be paid for banns to be read, and the fee
was doubled if two parishes were involved.
So many couples, living in different parishes gave an address of
convenience as their address.
At the time of the 1851 census a John McGuines (23), born Ireland,
occupation farmer’s son, was a visitor at 4 Berry Edge (Consett), the
home of Thomas Irwin (44) an
English coal miner; - the same
names as the witnesses at the Newcastle Monaghan Mitchell wedding. I
think Bartholomew may have lived
in Consett, possibly as a lodger with Thomas Irwin at the time of his
wedding in 1850.
Bridget, the baby who died at Consett
in 1850 was Bartholomew’s baby sister, the daughter of Michael Monaghan,
mason, Bartholomew’s father.
The baptism register of Our Lady’s, Brooms, shows she was born on 25
March 1849, the daughter of Michael Monaghan and Anna McNamy.
Census returns for Port Clarence, where the family later lived,
show that this family of Monaghans were from Kildress, Co Tyrone.
Bartholomew and Mary’s first child was
their daughter, Ann, born on 10 November 1851, at 128 High Conside, and
Knitsley (Consett) and baptised at Brooms, Leadgate.
The sponsors were Dan Donnelly and Mary Monaghan, presumably
Bartholomew’s sister. As mentioned above Michael Monaghan was born on 17
July 1853 in Middlesbrough and baptised at St Mary’s Church in that
town.
John Monaghan was born at Port
Clarence on 24 June 1855, the son of Bartholomew, ‘a common labourer’
and his wife, Mary Mitchell. I
haven’t found the record of John’s baptism yet.
In July/August 1855 several national
newspapers carried reports of the drowning of four people in the Tees
after the celebration of the christening of a child.
Glasgow Herald Wednesday 1 August 1855
The death of Bartholomew
Monaghan was reported by J Settle, the Stockton coroner, on 19
September 1855, he had drowned accidently on 22 July, two months
earlier; presumably it took some time for the body to be found.
The death certificate of Patrick O’Neal (50), 22 July 1855 gives
more detail. Patrick, like Bart
a ‘labourer at iron works’ ‘accidently drowned by the upsetting of a
boat in the river Tees’.
Deaths of the other people named in
the newspaper article were not reported* and by 3rd of August
the Newcastle Courant was reprinting the story, with the omission of any
names, and a figure of 2 men and 1 woman drowned.
However, if the bodies were not
recovered the other deaths could not be reported.
In a sad postscript, the six month old John Monaghan, the baby
who had been baptised, died at Haverton Hill on 18 December 1855.
Michael and Ann were living with their uncle Joseph Monaghan and
grandmother Ann Monaghan, in Port Clarence, at the time of the 1861
census. A Mary Monaghan died in
Newcastle in 1857, I will check to see if she was Bart’s widow.
* The Betsy Ann Garvan whose death
was registered in Sept 1855 was a child.
