Patrick Heffernan
| Town/City | Reynella |
|---|---|
| First name | Patrick |
| Last name | Heffernan |
| Country of Origin | Ireland |
| Date of Birth | circa 1811 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1855 |
| Submitted by | Heather Rayner |
Story
Little is known of Patrick Heffernan’s life in Ireland except that in 1833 he married Ellen and they lived in the Glen of Aherlow, Tipperary. The reason most people emigrated was in response to unfavourable conditions at home and the expectation of superior standards abroad. So as a family struggling in Ireland, this must have had some influence on Patrick’s decision to undertake the hazardous voyage and seek a better life for the family in Australia.
In 1855, Patrick, Ellen and their children, Johanna 21, Mary 19, Catherine 17, Margaret 15, Ellen 13, Bridget 11, Honora 9 and Michael 4, left Tipperary for Plymouth, England, where they boarded the /’South Seas’ bound for South Australia.
The ‘South Seas’ was a large sailing ship carrying 340 passengers and after a good voyage with fair winds it arrived at Port Adelaide on 30.7.1855. The Heffernan family were among a group of passengers transferred to a government schooner and taken to Normanville about 70 km south of Adelaide.
During the first two years the family lived in a slab hut and were often startled to see the eyes of aboriginees looking at them through gaps in the walls. In 1857 Patrick bought a 2 acre allotment in the township of Normanville and built a house. This house situated on the corner of Marjory Street and Main Road is still lived in (2009).
The services of Patrick Heffernan who was a farm labourer were sought by the then expanding farming community and as there was no modern machinery the crops were cut by hand and Patrick became well known for his skill at using the sickle and scylthe. He passed away in the Royal Adelaide Hospital from pneumonia on 14.2.1881 aged 69. His ‘Will’ dated 10.4.1876, indicates he could not write as he made a X in lieu of a signature.
Ellen died on 2.12.1890 aged 75 years.
Patrick and Ellen Heffernan’s second daughter, Mary, was nineteen when she arrived in 1855. On 2.9.1856 she married Edward Backshall who had arrived in Western Australia as an eleven year old in 1842.
In the early 1850’s Edward Backshall set out for the Victorian goldfields but when he got to Adelaide he found they were mining in the Mt. Lofty Ranges so decided to stay and try his luck.
Mary and Edward purchased a farm on Hay Flat Road, Normanville and raised a family of eleven. Edward passed away aged fifty on 26.5.1881. Mary then married James Squires and he helped her raise the younger Backshall chldren. Mary died New Years Day 1908 aged 71 years. Their home, although not lived in, was still standing until about 2000, then the property became part of the Links Lady Bay Golf development.
Mary and Edward Backshall’s second son, George, married Bridget Kelly on 13.11.1883. George and Bridget lived at Yankalilla on a property they called ‘Wattle Dale’, so named because of the wattle plantation George planted. The wattle tree was fast growing and each year George cut and stripped the bark from the larger trees causing them to die and thus allowing the smaller ones a chance to develop. The bark was tied in bundles about 4 feet in length and 2 feet in diameter and left to dry out before carting by horse and dray to the mill in Yankalilla. George and Bridget had 2 sons, William Edward and John Francis, another son Albert died when 8 days old.
Bridget died in 1914 and George in 1944 aged 85.