And the not-so-wealthy

And the not-so-wealthy

What a contrast to these grand estates is provided by Griffith's Valuations of the tenant farmers in Balleykinlettragh:  Anthony Granahan, senior, and eight other families shared a total of 87 acres! They rented this land from Maria Bingham. The table below is the Valuation of Tenements for the Parish of Kilfian, showing the land distribution in Ballykinlettragh - transcribed from Griffith’s Valuation.

 

The Valuation page shows the Plot number on the left, the Tenant’s name, the Owner of the land, whether there was a house on the property as well as offices [these were any additional outbuildings such as barns or sheds], the size of the property [in acres, roods, and perches, remember them?]. The last three columns on the right indicate the value of the land, the house, and the total value.

A close up of the page shows Plot 10, of 87 acres, 2 roods, 32 perches, was shared by Andrew and Anthony, junior, John, Anthony senior, and Patrick Granahan, as well as John, Bridget and William Merin. We can see that Anthony senior had the best/biggest plot of land because it was worth £4/4/0 [4 pounds, 4 shillings, 0 pence] and the best house. ‘Best’ house is, of course, relative.  

 

This map from Griffith’s shows, in the left hand red box, where the Granahans lived.

 

Ballykinlettragh

The wealthy

 

This is a transcription of the Griffith’s valuation for the land rented by the Granahans. (The spelling at the time seems to have been 'Granahan' and may indicate the correct pronunciation.)  The landowner is Maria Bingham; Sarah Bingham was another landowner in Ballykinlettragh.   I believe Maria is the daughter of Major Denis Bingham was one of the biggest land-owners in County Mayo.



The Irish Times, 17th May, 1999 outlines the holdings of the Bingham family: "Denis Bingham, Bingham Castle, had 4,827 acres; Henry Bingham, Annagh House, Belmullet, had 9,471 acres; Col Henry Bingham, London, had 2,311 acres; Maria and Mrs Sarah Bingham, Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), had 133 and 10,110 acres respectively; Anne Bingham, Dalkey, Co Dublin, had 4,768 acres, and Letitia Bingham, Dalkey, had 12,525 Co Mayo acres".  While these may not have been one family, they would certainly have been related.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Granaghan homeland

The Granaghans

The next step brings us closer to the Stevens Story. Anthony Granaghan was our great-grandfather was the first of our Irish ancestors to come to Australia. He was born in County Mayo, Ireland, in 1850/52, the son of Anthony Granaghan, senior, and Ann Clerk. His family leased land in the Townland of Ballykinlettragh,
the Parish of Kilfian,
the Barony of Tirawley,
in the county of Mayo.

 

The County of Mayo in the west of Ireland

 

Thanks to Griffith’s Valuation, I have been able to locate their farm in the north of County Mayo.
Ballycastle, on the wild north coast, was the nearest village, less than 10 miles away and Killala, another village to the east.  Ballina was a small town to the south-east. From Wikipedia we learn that “the west (of Ireland) consists largely of poor subsoils and is covered with large areas of extensive Atlantic blanket bog, whereas the east is largely a limestone landscape. Agricultural land is therefore more productive in the east than in the west.“

Griffith’s valuation is an Irish treasure trove for genealogists. Between the 1820s and the 1840s, the British government (which ruled Ireland) commissioned a geologist, Richard Griffith, to survey every single landholding in Ireland and assess its value, so that taxes could be levied consistently throughout the country. Every property was described, giving the name of the tenant, the land owner, a description of the property and, of course, its rateable value, an estimate of productivity. The Valuation for county Mayo was completed and published in 1856.

This map shows, at Number 40, the position of the parish of Kilfian, where the Granahans lived, within County Mayo.

Wandrahm inquiry

Wandrahm inquiry

The little family, now without baby Carl, arrived in Moreton Bay on 13th January 1866.  Despite their long journey, they were unable to disembark because the government doctor found illness, including typhus, on board and the ship was to be quarantined at Dunwich on Stradbroke Island.  However, because a previous German migrant ship, the La Rochelle, was also quarantined there, the Wandrahm was towed to Dunwich and the passengers had to remain on board until tents could be provided to accommodate them!

At the end of January, the healthy passengers were allowed to leave the ship and were landed on Bird Island (the red dot on the map, now only a sandbar) and camped there for some weeks

Bird Island as it was in 1990

It may have seemed to them initially a tropical paradise (the island was much bigger then). 

However, four of the men tragically drowned that month while trying to paddle a log for firewood to their camp.  (Brisbane Courier 30/01/1866)

When the passengers were finally permitted to go ashore in February, the Central Immigration Board conducted an inquiry between February and April into conditions on both the La Rochelle and the Wandrahm and the huge number of deaths that occurred on both vessels.  Reports in the Brisbane Courier and the Queenslander make fascinating reading, not only for the descriptions of conditions on board, but also for the insights they provide about attitudes of the day to social class, race, medical care and diet.

Even well-run voyages would be regarded today as nightmarish.  All assisted immigrants, and most of those paying their own fares, travelled in steerage, a low-ceilinged space beneath the main deck. This was divided into three sections, separated by bulkheads: single men and youths at one end; married couples and young children in the centre section; and single women at the other end. In each section, the accommodation consisted of a double tier of bunks on each side and a long table with fixed forms down the centre. Commonly, the bunks were three feet wide and were shared by two people. It was cramped and noisy, and in the tropics it was stifling. There was little privacy. Because poor emigrants, and certainly our family was among them,  had been accustomed to great hardship, they were able to tolerate conditions on the voyage out that today seem intolerable.

 

  

An extract from the passenger list of the Wandrahm showing the Pflugradts

The Inquiry:




The Chairman of the Board stated the main complaints brought by the passengers were:

-That the water and provisions were bad and deficient in quantity; that the weights and measures used in weighing them out were short; that the passengers when sick could not obtain wine and other medical comforts without paying for them; that the captain made a profit out of the sale of these medical comforts; that the ventilation was insufficient; that most of the children who died, died from want of proper food; that there was an iron tank on board full of good water, but that none of the passengers were allowed any; that dead bodies were put in sacks, and thrown overboard at night; that dancing was going on while the dead bodies were on board; that the sailors engaged in dancing, and sometimes left off to throw bodies overboard, and immediately recommenced; that divine service was never held; that the cook stole the fat from the meat and sold it; that he was insolent and brutal, and that he would not prepare food without being paid; that the captain supported the cook in this conduct; and that as soon as the ship anchored good water was served out, as also wine and other medical comforts.


The ship's doctor observed:

I do not think that the ventilation of the ship was sufficient; the space between decks was about
seven feet.  The passengers were oblliged to remain a good deal below; they had no other
place to go to.                        From Dr Kampf, medical superintendent on La Rochelle
 

The captain, however, disagreed:

I think the accommodation for the passengers was sufficient; it is the same as I have always had; the regulation is to allow twelve feet to every adult; four were placed in each berth; the berths were six feet long, six feet broad, and three feet and a half high ; the lowest was about nine inches from the floor; the height between decks was seven feet; the ship was kept clean; the 'tween decks were scraped by the passengers daily ; the berths were brushed out, and the beds aired; I used chloride of lime and other disinfectants; there were five water-closets, and all were washed out every morning; the medical comforts consisted of spirits, wine (of which there was a large quantity), arrowroot, sago, rice, preserved broth, plums, and apples, also preserved milk; they were served out to the sick as ordered by the doctor.                  From the captain of the La Rochelle

The editor of the Brisbane Courier made his views very clear:

On whom does the responsibility lay, (sic) that in not one ship alone something like accumulated murder has been permitted. Has our Government heretofore taken any - even the slightest - care to prevent those evils which now, for not the first time, are prominently and unmistakeably brought before us. Patient they (the German migrants) must be, for nothing but the most extreme power of endurance would enable any human being to bear what the unhappy sufferers in the Wandrahm had to submit to. Prudent, or they could not have subdued the risings of human resentment against those by whom they had been deceived, were defrauded, and for whose profit, in too many cases, they laid themselves, starved and broken-hearted, down to die. 
Let our Ministry-our legislators-our people resolve to redress the crying evils of which we have spoken ; but let them not with those 58 skeletons lying at their doors, address the Creator for mercy, when refusing to do right.


 [I believe he is taking journalistic licence in referring to the 48 people who died as the '58 skeletons']

The Findings                                  from the Brisbane Courier 17th April 1866

The report of the Board has since been published, and the charges of provisions being insufficiently served out, bad water, want of medical comforts, besides breaches of the Hamburg Act, as well as that of this colony, were substantiated. The Board, however, conclude by observing, "that it would be most unfair to condemn German ships and German immigration in toto, on the strength of an enquiry into the condition of two ships (the La Rochelle being one of them), on board of which sickness and mortality were unusually great."
"It must not be forgotten," says the Board, that many German ships have landed their passengers in good health, and that when landed they formed a valuable addition to our agricultural population."

Basically, everybody got off scot-free. However, As a result of the inquiry into conditions on the Peter Goddefroy ships, poor supervision by the agents in Germany was blamed and immigration from Germany were suspended from 1866 to 1869.

The Wandrahm

The Wandrahm

Wilhelm and Louise and their children sailed from Hamburg in Germany in 1865 in the ship, the Wandrahm.The Wandrahm of the Johann Cesar Godeffroy line was built between 1852 and 1854 at the Godeffroy shipyard at Reiherstieg near Hamburg and commissioned 5th April 1854. The ship was 44.1m (length of the upper deck) x 9m (the width at the widest point) x 7.30m (depth of the upper deck).

 

 This is the ship on which they travelled from September until January 1866 when they arrived in
Moreton Bay.  On board were about 400 passengers and 19 crew.  When they embarked they could not have guessed the appalling voyage that awaited them. 



 
 This is the interior of another ship of the Godeffroy line, so we can surmise that conditions on the Wandrahm would have been similar.

Doctor Purdie, who would later inspect the Wandrahm described conditions on La Rochelle, the German ship that arrived in Moreton Bay the month before the Wandrahm:

                the accommodation afforded by the ship was cramped and bad;
                the same is the case with  most German ships; 

The captain himself reported,

             “The closets were washed out every morning;
               sometimes the passengers helped to clean the ship; I made them clean the ‘tween decks;
               the sailors washed the upper deck;
               I had a disinfectant fluid on board and used it as often as needed.”

So it is not surprising that Typhus broke out during the voyage. The mortality rate was very high at 12 percent and 48 people died during the voyage, 30 of whom were children. Among them, was little Carl Friedrich, then only 13 months old, who tragically died of tonsillitis only two days before the ship arrived in Moreton Bay on 13th January 1866 after 120 days at sea. We can only imagine how his parents must have now looked at their new homeland.

Wilhelm and Louise Pflugradt

Wilhelm and Louise Pflugradt

Wilhelm and Louise were the first of our family to come to Australia.  They made the long journey from their village, Drense, in Uckermark in Germany. We do not know if they were leaving daunting circumstances, such as unemployment or conscription to Prussia's many wars; or whether they were attracted by the promise of land and a new life in Queensland.




This shows both the town where they lived and also Hamburg, the town from which they embarked for Australia.

Whatever the motivation, Wilhelm and Louise, with their children, Wilhelmina,15, Maria, 8 and little Carl Friedrich, 8months,  sailed from Hamburg on 9th September 1865.  They arrived in Moreton Bay on 13th January 1866 after a harrowing voyage of 4 months.