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Thanks for that. I have had some email communication with Heather in recent months - we were both surprised by the information we each provided the other with! It will be great if we can go back further to find out more about William the convict's parents, English wife etc.  Here's to some productive research.
Jill

I've just had another look around the Irish Famine Memorial (Sydney) website and found that they've included lists of all the Irish Famine Orphan girls who came to Australia (taken from the 'Barefoot and Pregnant?' books) so I don't need to do lookups after all!

There are 3 separate links, depending on which State the orphans were sent to:

http://www.irishfaminememorial.org/orphans/ships_nsw.htm  (for New South Wales/Sydney)

http://www.irishfaminememorial.org/orphans/ships_vic.htm  (for Victoria/Melbourne)

http://www.irishfaminememorial.org/orphans/ships_sa.htm   (for South Australia/Adelaide)

Sorry I'd forgotten that these were available.   G

Kevin Byrne (elsewhere O'Byrne) lists in his book the emigrants from Rathdrum (of more than 4000 in total) who left for Australia on the following ships under the Irish Famine Orphan scheme:

the Thomas Arbuthnot          sailed 19 Oct 1849
the Jane Avery                    (no date obvious to me)
the Agenora                           sailed 10 Jun 1851
the New Brunswick                sailed 20 May 1854         
the William and Mary             arrived in the Colony 21 Nov 1849

I think these are identical to those in the 'Barefoot and Pregnant' books. Mostly it's just a list of paupers' names (with ages and name of workhouse), but for the William and Mary other details are provided (e.g. parents' names, religion and town of origin). I'm happy to do lookups for these if that's helpful to anyone (BUT SEE LATER POSTING - LISTS ARE ALL AVAILABLE ONLINE).

G

Try emailing Wicklow Family History Centre <wfh[at]eircom.net> who should know. I did have a contact email for the author. If I can find it, I'll post it (it may have been his wife's email, from memory).

The book was written from records of the institution so it includes details of food rations, staff salaries, who died of what, maintenance costs, and a whole lot more. It's not a narrative style, more just groupings of selected facts into categories, plus a few pictures and drawings. Useful for research.  In the Acknowledgments, the author writes:

"This book is compiled from the Minutes Books of the Rathdrum Board of Guardians, The Wicklow Co. Health Board records and the various Committees involved in the development of St. Colman’s Hospital. It also contains articles derived from Wicklow People Newspaper reports and the Sisters of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God archives referred to as S.M.G. It has been very difficult to decide what should be included and excluded."

When I get a minute, I'll post some info from the Table of Contents that may be helpful, showing which of the ships that left for Australia contained Rathdrum orphans.     G

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