Sweny of Dublin

[kenneth cooke]

Thank you Martin,
I'll check on your sources, there may well be something new. I'll let you know.
Regards & Happy New Year.
Ken

[kenneth cooke]

 
Eugene Sweny, ‘druggist’ of Mary St. Dublin, married Elizabeth Halpen in 1777. They had three sons; the first two served in the armed forces. I am descended from the third son, Eugene jnr., a civilian.
 
The second son, Mark Halpen Sweny, was baptised on 11 Nov.1783 at St.Mary’s, Dublin. He served on at least nineteen ships during his naval career- Formidable, Castor, Barfleur, Donegal, Neptune, Renown, Colossus, Sparrow, St. Alban’s, Aquilon, Elephant, Benbow, Africa, Northumberland, Severn, Gannet, Vernon, President and Serpent.
On 5 June 1798, aged 14, he entered the Royal Navy as a first class volunteer on board the Formidable, serving with the Channel Fleet. The following year, on 23.2.1799, Sweny became a midshipman, or master’s mate, and served on the Castor where he was ‘severely wounded while fitting at Plymouth’.
Like his elder brother, he saw action in the Napoleonic wars.  He served as acting lieutenant on the Colossus at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, where he was again seriously wounded. Sweny was promoted to lieutenant on 22.1.1806, commander in 1821, and captain in 1838.
Sweny was on HMS Africa in 1808 where he was wounded again during the subsequent action against the Danish flotilla in the Malmö Channel.

Sweny left the Africa, and took part in an action in China on the St. Alban’s in 1809, under Capt. F. W. Austen (Jane’s brother). It is said that he was wounded and lost one or two fingers in the action off Malmö. He was later called ‘Three Finger Jack’. In 1816 he was awarded a pension for his wounds of £91.5s. annually.

After the fall of Paris in March 1814, Napoleon went into exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba, but he escaped, returned to France and formed a new army. His last attempt at military victory ended at Waterloo on 18 June 1815.  A month later, he gave himself up to the British.
This time he was exiled to a much more secure place, the island of St. Helena in the Atlantic. It was so remote that the voyage there took ten weeks. Mark Sweny was the senior lieutenant on the ship which carried him there, the Northumberland.
When Napoleon saw him, he claimed that they had met before, but it turned out that he was confusing him with his brother John, whom he had met at Waterloo. Napoleon is said to have commented, ‘He was my prisoner. And now I am yours.’

It seems that Sweny returned to Ireland for a short time before settling in England- see #79.
Sweny is mentioned in ‘Diaries of a Lady of Quality’ (1797-1844) by Miss Frances Williams  Wynn, who had met him at a ball in Hastings in 1822. She calls him Captain Sweeney, so she was probably writing from her notes after 1838, when he had been promoted. He gave her an account of his dealings with the famous prisoner during the long voyage. She reports one exchange Sweny had with Napoleon:

One day he was sitting on deck in rain such as I am told can scarcely be conceived by those who have not felt tropical rains: Bertrand, Montholon, and Lascasas were all standing round him bareheaded.
My informant spoke to them, and especially to Lascasas, who has very delicate health, telling them they would make themselves ill if they did not put on their hats: they did not answer, and Buonaparte gave him a very angry look, but said nothing. He then said, 'General, you had better send for a cloak; you'll be wetted to the skin'. He very sternly replied, 'I am not made of sugar or salt.'

[kenneth cooke]

Sweny seems to have enjoyed himself in Hastings. He had lots of anecdotes to ‘dine out on’, and perhaps he was at the ball looking for a wife. I believe he had a son, Mark, born in London on 19.4.1830 to Mark and Rebecca Sweny. And in 1844 a death was registered by his household, of a Mark Sweny aged 14 years. But there is no record of a marriage, or any further trace of Rebecca. Sweny always claimed that he was unmarried.   
One of Sweny’s friends was Francis William Austen, a fellow naval officer who later became an admiral, as did his brother. Sweny had served under Capt. Austen on three ships, Neptune, St. Alban’s and Elephant. Through him Sweny met his sister, the writer Jane Austen.
Sweny used to visit Jane Austen when he was a house guest at Alton nearby, where Francis lived. In fact, Francis, his wife, a Miss S. Gibson and Sweny were known as the ‘Alton Four’ by Jane Austen. She mentions Sweny in two letters to her sister Cassandra in 1816.
The first describes a visit from the ‘Alton Four’. It was very pleasant, with a violin playing. It was ‘all new to Mr. Sweney, & he entered into it very well’. In the second one, she wrote ‘We are wanting (lacking) nothing except the company of Mr. Sweney, who has been ordered back to London.’
In November 1830 Sweny sailed the Gannet to the West Indies, carrying a Capt. Trefusis, who was to sail the Winchester back from there. In 1835, on the ‘Serpent’, he accompanied the Winchester carrying the new Governor of Jamaica, the Marquis of Sligo, on a visit to the Cayman Islands.
He returned to England in June 1836, living on half-pay and his pension. In 1841, after the death of his brother, John in France, Mark brought his sister-in-law, Eliza and her six children back to live with him in London.

He made various investments, with mixed success. In the early 1840s he invested in a land venture through the London based Western Australia Company, which sold land in that colony. By 1843 he was one of the nine directors of the company, but the venture was short-lived. A town was planned, called Australind, where today three streets are named after directors of the company- Sweny Drive, Montefiore Street and Brooking Place.
The site proved unsuitable for a large settlement and was eventually abandoned and the company wound up in 1846.  Sweny was appointed as one of the trustees.
In 1854, Mark was appointed to be one of the four Resident Captains (Governors) at Greenwich Hospital (for old sailors). He had an apartment there, where he lived with Eliza, his sister-in-law. In his will, he left everything to her, but she died before him, on 9th Feb.1864.
In the Western Australia Company archives there is a record of a letter from 22 July 1864 which begins:
In the Matter of Mark Halpen Sweeny, a person of unsound mind ........

Sweny was replaced in December 1864.  He died on 25.11.1865, 82 years old, and is buried in the Pleasaunce (park) at Greenwich.

[David Evans]

First of all, I would like to congratulate all contributors to this really excellent forum. It is a credit to all of you. My connection to the Sweny family is through my great grandmother, Amelia Sarah Sweny (1852-1928) who married Edward Nicholson Harding (1847-1938).
I did not think that I would have anything of interest to add to the discussion, but I may have! In an earlier post Kenneth Cooke discussed the Rev. Eugene Sweny. It is known that he was rector of a parish in Norfolk for the last 23 years of his life. What may be of interest is that a photo of his headstone in the graveyard of his parish of St John the Baptist is available online. It can be accessed at http://www.gravestonephotos.com/public/gravephoto.php?grave=222803&requestee=30454&scrwidth=1300.

[Kerrydave]

Thanks very much for that photo - much appreciated.   I had also found that photo some time ago - but others may not - cheers Kerry

[kenneth cooke]

Hi David,
Thanks for the tip about the grave of Revd. Sweny. It was rather hard to read the inscription.
I don't think it mentioned his wife, Elizabeth, nee Ovens, who died in 1902, but I assume she's also there.
I guess you know Donald & Maureen. He is also descended from Edward Harding & Emily/Amelia Sweny.
Ken

[kenneth cooke]

The best known of Revd. Eugene Sweny’s children was his second son, William Halpin Paterson Sweny, who became a ship’s officer with the P.& O. Line. In the 1890s he was 3rd & 4th mate on P & O ships sailing to Sydney.
By 1911 William was also a naval officer, and the story goes that in December of that year he accompanied King George V and Queen Mary to India for the Delhi Durbar and coronation. In my search for confirmation, I found that the royal couple travelled to Bombay on the newly built P & O Medina, so it may be true. Sweny was awarded the CBE, and it has been said that he  became an ADC to the King. He served in WW1 as a commander, and later as a captain in the Royal Naval Reserve.
He served on various P & O ships over the years, sailing to the U.S., and making numerous voyages to Sydney and New Zealand between 1894 and 1921. There is no record of any contact with his relatives in Australia. He was my grandfather’s first cousin, but I doubt if they knew about each other.
In 1919 he commanded the S.S. ‘Bremen’ (one of the German vessels handed over to the Allies) when she carried Australian servicemen returning from the war in Europe.
 
Sweny settled in London, where he became a marine supervisor at Tilbury. He donated a new clergy desk to the church at Stiffkey in memory of his parents. He is noted at the Patents Office as the owner of three marine patents, including one dated 1932 for an improvement in hatches for ships' holds.
When his first wife, Adele died in 1921, William married Nora Cottew, daughter of a P & O captain. In 1947, when they visited New York on the ‘Queen Mary’, William was listed as a ‘master mariner’. He died on 7 August 1951, leaving an estate of £32,804.

[kenneth cooke]

In my original post to open this topic, I said that my Gr Gr grandfather John Paget Sweny was the father of 14 children. It now seems that the actual number was thirteen.
No. 8, Mark Halpin Sweny, said to have been born in 1847, was baptised on 24.10.1850, along with his sister, No. 9, Louisa Mary. There is no further trace of Mark.
There are no birth or baptism details for No.10, William Halpin, but when he applied for a US passport in 1891 he stated that he was born in Dublin on 20 September 1850.
The Swenys were in New York for the US Census of 22.6.1870, when William was 19.
This fits in with the date of birth on his passport application.
He was born five weeks before the baptism of Mark and Louisa. Why wasn’t he baptised at the same time ?
The only explanation is that Mark and William were one and the same person.
For some reason, he was baptised as Mark, but they called him William.
Other contributors are welcome to check the details and either confirm or demolish my theory.

[David Evans]

Regarding Kenneth Cooke's comment about the inscription on Rev Eugene Sweny's headstone being difficult to read, the following is the actual inscription:
''In loving memory of the Rev. Eugene Sweny for 23 years Rector of this parish [St John the Baptist] and Morston who departed this life on May 18th 1906 aged 69'.
There is no mention of his wife, Elizabeth (Ovens).