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« on: Monday 01 September 08 12:40 BST (UK) »
1. We know that James Mooney (son of Michael Mooney of Walsall and Mary Mooney nee Burke) was born in July 1873
2. The ages given for Michael Mooney of Leicester in each of the three entries (2 censuses and the marriage cert) suggest that he was born in 1876.
3. Martin Mooney is thought to have been born in about 1878. However I have searched the BMD index for every year from 1874 to 1880 and there is no record of a Martin Mooney being born anywhere in England in that period.
4. Equally there is no record of a Michael Mooney (subsequently of Leicester) being born in Walsall in that period.
5. According to the 1881 census James Mooney and Martin Burk were living with their grandparents Martin and Mary Burke in Lower Rushall Street Walsall.
6. According to the 1891 census James Mooney and Martin Mooney were still living with their grandmother Mary Burke (by now a widow) in Lower Rushall Street (albeit at a different number).
7. In 1891 Michael Mooney was living in a boys home in Leicester apprenticed to a printer. As can be seen from the records he settled in Leicester and married there.
Suggestions and speculations
I think that the evidence suggests (but I suspect that we may never be able to prove) that Michael and Mary Mooney of Walsall had three sons- James b 1873, Michael b 1876 and Martin b 1878(or thereabouts).
The given names- I feel -strengthen this proposition. The first born, James would have been named for his paternal grandfather, the second Michael for his father and the third Martin for his maternal grandfather. I believe that naming children in this way was very common at the time- on my mother’s side of the family you see the same few boys’ names cropping up generation after generation.
So what happened?
Neither Michael Mooney senior nor Mary Mooney seems to appear in the 1891 census so the obvious (but not necessarily correct) conclusion is that they both died between about 1881 and 1891. If this were so it would explain why two of the children, James and Martin were living with their grandparents, and the fact that Michael (of Leicester) was in a boys home in 1891 strongly suggests that he was an orphan, although how he came to be in Leicester and not living in Walsall with his grandparents I cannot satisfactorily explain [But see below)]
However I have made what may be an interesting discovery which may throw some light upon the matter. In the 1881 census Micheal[sic] Moony (it might be Mooney, the writing is hard to decipher) aged 33, a general labourer, is boarding in a lodging house at 94 Lower Rushall Street Walsall together with Micheal[sic] Moony (or again it might be Mooney) aged 5. The birthplace of the 5 year old is given as Walsall (which of course fits the 1876 birth date and birthplace of Michael Mooney, subsequently of Leicester.
Michael Mooney the elder is described in the census as married but whether that meant that he was currently married or had been married I do not know-since no wife is recorded it may mean that he had been married but that his wife had died.
I am strongly tempted to believe that these two Michaels are the father and son, perhaps living in the lodging house while James and Martin are left with grandparents Martin and Mary Burke. Perhaps (this is mere speculation) Mary Mooney had died shortly after 1878 and Michael senior was doing his best to look after the children in this way. It may have been the case (if the two Michaels are indeed ours) that the Burkes couldn’t or wouldn’t take three children or perhaps it was that Michael senior wanted to keep Michael junior with him.
I do stress that this can only be speculation at this stage
If Michael senior died sometime between 1881 and 1891 that might well explain how Michael junior came to be in Leicester, perhaps having been sent there by the parish to a boys home and an apprenticeship to relieve itself of a potential burden..
I cannot explain why I can find no record of the deaths of Michael Mooney senior and Mary Mooney in the Walsall area at the relevant time. Perhaps they had not died there but moved elsewhere in the country.
It is also a mystery why the birth of Martin Mooney does not appear in the records- particularly mystifying given that the birth of James was recorded. Perhaps even more mystifying is the absence of a record of the birth in Walsall of a Michael Mooney-assuming that I am right in thinking that Michael was the second son.
f you are in touch with the descendants of Michael Mooney of Leicester perhaps they can cast some light on the matter.
It looks very much as if the James Mooney who began the Walsall connection came over from Ireland during or after the Famine of the 1840s (as did hundreds of thousands of Irish)- he is recorded as being born in Ireland in about 1813
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