John Consadine

Story

In 1856, only a couple of years after the Irish Potato Famine had officially ended, John and Margaret Consadine became only two of the estimated two million people to leave the shores of Ireland in search of a better life and better living conditions.

John was 24 years old and a Roman Catholic carpenter born in Killard, Co. Clare, Ireland. Margaret was also born in Co. Clare, in the townland of Seafield within the parish of Kilmurry. John had a rare trait for the times in that he was able to read and write. His wife Margaret (nee: Egan) was also the same age as John but didn’t have the same education as John because she not able to read or write at all.

Johns parents, Thomas and Nancy, were farmers, and John thought he’d try his hand at it as well. John and Margaret had only been married for a year when they decided to set sail for Sydney, Australia, on 27th July, 1856, aboard the passenger ship “Winifred”. The voyage to Australia was already a risky one, but it was made even more so by the fact that Margaret was now 6 months pregnant with their first child when they headed for New South Wales. Thankfully on the 27th October, 1856, Margaret gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Michael, before docking in Sydney only a couple of days later, on the 1st November, 1856. Like all good Irish Catholics they wasted no time getting him baptised, because Michael was already baptised by 3rd November 1856 at St. James Catholic Church in Cumberland.

The new family headed immediately for the new townships of central west New South Wales and settled at Canadian Lead, a small gold mining municipality between Mudgee and Gulgong. Living conditions on the goldfields was extremely hard and eventually they took their toll. John died of acute gastritis on 21st of April,1864 at McDonalds Creek. He left behind his young wife and 4 children, the oldest Michael, now 8, and the youngest Annie, 19 months. It had been less than ten years after arriving in the new colony. He was buried in the Roman Catholic section of the Mudgee Cemetary a few days later.

Margaret eventually remarried and had more children to another man, and Michael continued to live at Canadian Lead as a labourer and did not get married and start having children until he was 37, whereby he married a Georgina Williams, 26, also born at Canadian Lead. They were married on 24th June, 1893 in Gulgong. Over the years they had 8 children. One of which was my Great Grandfather, Joseph Leslie Consadine, who was born at Mudgee in 1901. After being born at sea in 1856, Michael died in 1924 at the age of 67 and was laid to rest in Gulgong Cemetary.

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