The majority of the Roman postings are either events Mgr Henry O’Bryen was at, or things that were happening in Rome at the time. He moved to Rome in 1873, and lived there until his death in 1895; “Mgr. O’Bryen had the spiritual care of all the Catholics of English tongue, and the Church of St. Andrea della Valle, parochial for the Piazza di Spagna and its neighbourhood, was that in which he heard confessions.”.He became a papal chaplain to Leo XIII (Cameriere Segreto Sopranumerario)in 1881, and also served as a papal ablegate.
The Tablet Page 17, 15th January 1876
During the Octave of the Epiphany services will be held in the Church of S. Andrea della Valle, Masses in the Oriental Rite being sung each day at 10 a.m. The sermons at 11 a.m. are thus arranged :
In French, on the 6th, Monsignor Monnier, Bishop of Lydda “in partibus” and Auxiliary of Cambray ;
German, on the 7th, Rev. Theodore Peters ;
French, on the 8th, Very Rev. J. B. Destomber, Canon of Cambray;
in English, on the 9th, Monsignor Michel Domenec, Bishop of Pittsburg, U.S;
in Polish, on the 10th, the Very Rev. Peter Semenenko, Superior General of the Congregation of the Resurrection of Our Lord and Consul of the Index ;
The majority of the Roman postings are either events Mgr Henry O’Bryen was at, or things that were happening in Rome at the time. He moved to Rome in 1873, and lived there until his death in 1895; “Mgr. O’Bryen had the spiritual care of all the Catholics of English tongue, and the Church of St. Andrea della Valle, parochial for the Piazza di Spagna and its neighbourhood, was that in which he heard confessions.”. He became a papal chaplain to Leo XIII (Cameriere Segreto Sopranumerario)in 1881, and also served as a papal ablegate.
The Tablet Page 17, 11th December 1886
SACRED CONGREGATION OF RITES,
To-day the Sacred Congregation of Rites held an extraordinary session of the Cardinals deputed to examine as to the propriety of decreeing the introduction of the cause of the English Martyrs, Cardinal Fisher, Sir Thomas More, and their numerous companions, who suffered for the faith under the reigns of Henry VIII. and of Queen Elizabeth, for the purpose of asking of God that the decision of the Congregation may be favourable.
The Chapel at the English College, Rome
There was Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament from nine a.m. to mid-day in the chapel of the English College, which was visited by a number of invited guests. Among these were Cardinal Howard, who is personally interested, as it were, in the cause, because of his two ancestors, Philip, Earl of Arundell, and William Howard, Viscount Stafford, who are included in the list of the English Martyrs ; the Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh ; the Bishops of Richmond and of St. Paul, U.S.A. ; Mgr. Stonor, Mgr. Rouse, and Mgr..O’Bryen ; Abbot Smith, 0.S.B. ; Father Lockhart, the Rectors and deputations of alumni of all the foreign national colleges, of the Urban College of Propaganda; of the Pallottini Fathers; of the Pontifical Gregorian University ; the Superiors and members of the English Benedictines, and of the Irish Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans, Father Douglus, C.SS.R. ; and other Redemptorist Fathers ; Fathers Ghetti, Casdella, and Armellini, S.J. ; Father Peter Paul Mackey, O.P. : the Oblates of Mary Immaculate ; the College of SS. Ambrose and Charles of the Lombards ; the Oratorians ; the Nuns of the Little Company of Mary ; the Poor Handmaids of Mary ; some of the Passionist Fathers ; the Marchioness Serlapi, née Fitzgerald ; the Marchioness Ricci ; and the members of the English Colony in Rome.
Callaghan: Arms – Az in base a mount vert on tb sinister a hurst of oak trees therefrom issaant a wolf passant pp
The reason the Callaghans feature is that Catherine Callaghan married James Joseph Roche who inherited Aghada from John Roche. It is quite clear that John Roche was attempting to build a Roche dynasty to maintain the family name, and the house that he had built for himself. The marriage itself has all the appearances of being at least in part a commercial link between two merchant families. John Roche’s will refers to his contribution of £ 4,000 to a marriage settlement in 1821. John Roche “amassed great wealth during the French wars”, and Daniel Callaghan Senior was, “one of the most enterprising and successful merchants of Cork”. This branch of the Callaghan family seem to have risen to prominence fairly recently, as can be seen from their entry in Burke’s Landed Gentry which only takes the lineage back as far as Daniel Callaghan Senior.
Having said that, to quote from the History of Parliament, ” This branch of the Callaghans, distant kinsmen of Lord Lismore, had remained Catholic, thereby enduring ‘confiscations’ and marriages ‘beneath their rank’ until their fortunes were restored by Daniel Callaghan’s father, who established a ‘monopoly of trade’ supplying the navy in Cork during the Napoleonic wars and became one of Ireland’s ‘most successful merchants’. Daniel Callaghan appears to have been the most active of his six brothers in the family business, and on his father’s death to have assumed control.”
Of the six brothers, John and Patrick seem to have concentrated on business. Daniel and Gerard were MP’s, and the youngest two, Richard and George were a barrister, and a soldier respectively.
Dan appears to have been a reasonable M.P., having first stood in a by-election in 1830 caused by Gerard being unseated because he was a government contractor. Gerard on the other hand seems to be a prize-winningly awful person.
The reason the Callaghans feature is that Catherine Callaghan married James Joseph Roche who inherited Aghada from John Roche. So Gerard Callaghan, is James’ brother-in-law. He is, to use Noel Gallagher’s memorable phrase, “like a man with a fork in a world of soup.” and appears to be prize winningly obnoxious.
He was born c. 1787, the third son of Daniel Callaghan (d. 1824) of Sidney House and Mary Barry of ‘Donalee’; brother of Daniel Callaghan M.P. Of the six brothers, John and Patrick seem to have concentrated on business. Daniel and Gerard were MP’s, and the youngest two, Richard and George were a barrister, and a soldier respectively.
Gerard was the M.P. for Dundalk between 1818 and 1820. Dundalk was 200 miles away, and Gerard bought the seat from the Earl of Roden. The going rate for the seat was between £3,500 and £4,000. He was finally briefly elected as M.P. for Cork in 1829. He was also President of the Cork merchants’ committee.
The following is from his biography at the history of parliament online with some additions.
Callaghan, whose father had ‘made a fortune during the war’ supplying the navy in Cork, had been partly educated in England and become ‘affected in his manner and anglicised in his accent’. A ‘master of the principal modern languages’ and ‘a fair classical scholar’, his ‘liberal accomplishments and refined habits’ allegedly made him ‘too much of a fine gentleman for his brother traders in beef and pork’, among whom he acquired a reputation for a ‘sarcastic manner’ and ‘censorious wit’. In 1818, having renounced his family’s Catholicism and converted to the established church, he had purchased a short-lived berth at Dundalk ‘for a large sum’. Lord Hutchinson, whose family dominated the local gentry and returned one Cork Member, could ‘not see how it was possible to yield a certain seat to such a blackguard’ and privately considered him ‘an impudent, rash upstart’.
At the 1820 general election Callaghan offered for Cork, citing his ‘perfect acquaintance’ with its mercantile interests, in which he had ‘laboured and prospered’, and ‘strong attachment to the constitution’. Advising the Liverpool ministry whether to support him, Charles Arbuthnot observed, ‘He is a friend, but not very reputable, being a great stock jobber and always putting questions to … Vansittart’, the chancellor of the exchequer. After an ill-humoured five-day contest he conceded defeat, boasting that the prospect of the new king’s death would enable him to stand again ‘at no very distant period’. His remarks were denounced by Christopher Hely Hutchinson, one of the Members, who a few days later lost a finger in a duel with Callaghan’s younger brother Patrick. ‘The general feeling seems to be that Gerard Callaghan put his brother in the place he was afraid to take himself’, commented one observer. Reporting on his attempts to obtain support from ‘both parties’ in December 1820, Hely Hutchinson’s agent observed, ‘I think he has declined since the election. His measures are half or rather double measures, and his manners are intolerable, but he gains individuals by pecuniary accommodation’. It was expected that he would offer again at the 1826 general election, but in the event he declined, explaining that ‘many circumstances combine at present to determine me not to persevere’. The long-anticipated death of Hely Hutchinson a few months later created a vacancy, for which Callaghan came forward under the banner of ‘Independence and Protestantism’, stressing the need for a commercial representative and his aversion to any measure of Catholic emancipation that would endanger the ‘constitutional ascendancy of Protestantism’. Denounced by the Catholic press as ‘a kiln-dried and mendicant mongrel’, who had assumed Orange colours to serve ‘a personal object’, and threatened with violent reprisals for his ‘apostacy’, he demanded the immediate abolition of that ‘abominable nuisance, the Catholic Association’, the ‘honour’ of whose ‘slander’ he shared ‘with some of the finest characters in the country’. In a letter surely intended for him but written to his Catholic brother Daniel, Peel, the home secretary, declared, ‘I heartily wish you success on account of the manliness and ability with which you have avowed your public principles’. It has been suggested that his family refused to support him on ‘public principle’, but at a pre-election dinner his eldest brother John refuted claims of a rift, saying it was “due to the memory of his father to say that … it was his practice … that they should … adopt that creed which seemed to them most consistent with … the dictates of their consciences … With regard to the course his brother had followed … nothing other than conscientious conviction had influenced him … and the principles he expressed were the very same which he had uniformly avowed since maturity.”
At the nomination, he caused ‘uproar’ by insisting that it was ‘morally impossible’ for those professing ‘all the principles’ of his former religion to ‘be perfectly allegiant to the state’.
1826 Cork By-election voters list
After a violent ten-day contest, during which his cousin William Hayes fatally wounded one of his opponent’s supporters in a duel, he was defeated. Talk by the ‘violent Protestant fanciers’ of a petition came to nothing, Lord Hutchinson, who had succeeded as 2nd earl of Donoughmore, commenting that ‘he had already spent too much money, and … would not throw away a single shilling more’.
And from a family point of view, as can be seen by the voters list opposite, neither Henry Hewitt O’Bryen senior, nor John Roche voted for him despite Catherine Roche being gerard’s sister.
In September 1828 Donoughmore advised Lord Anglesey, the Irish viceroy, to ‘refuse’ a public dinner for him proposed by the Cork merchants committee, of which Callaghan was president: “I don’t know that there is anything to urge against Callaghan’s character. He is a coxcomb, but he has some parts, he has besides a very good landed estate and is the first merchant in Cork. Undoubtedly he turned first Protestant and then Orangeman … [but] I don’t think there is anything … which disqualifies him from being a competent chairman at a dinner given to a lord lieutenant … However, the Catholics and many of the liberal Protestants … [are] … furious at the notion of Callaghan being in the chair, and told me that no liberal Protestant and certainly no Catholic would attend.”
At a meeting of the Cork Brunswick Club on the eve of Catholic emancipation, 13 Jan. 1829, Callaghan insisted that the ‘only Protestant security’ was ‘in Protestant ascendancy’ and warned that the ‘hidden hand of Popery’ was ‘aiming at … a counter-reformation’, ‘an evil’ which could only ‘be grappled with and dealt with fearlessly by a Protestant Parliament’. On 3 Apr. Peel apologized for not replying sooner to his letters of 12, 14, 16 Mar., but explained that ministers had not deemed it ‘advisable’ to extend the Irish franchise bill to borough freeholders. That month Callaghan became connected with a ‘slanderous rumour’ given the ‘highest publicity’ in the press, that Anglesey’s daughter Lady Agnes Paget had had an affair with a member of the viceroy’s household, become pregnant and refused to consummate her subsequent marriage to George Stevens Byng. ‘The calumny’, reported The Times, was ‘traced to … a bitter Brunswicker’ noted for his ‘flagrant hostility’ to the ‘rights of those from whose community he has apostatized’. An action was brought against him by the Pagets, who engaged Daniel O’Connell and John Doherty, the Irish solicitor-general. At the Cork assizes that summer, Callaghan’s counsel admitted that ‘from foolish credulity’ his client ‘had been made the dupe of declarations’ which were ‘utterly false’, and Callaghan ‘expressed in the strongest terms his regret’ and ‘disclaimed altogether having been influenced by political feelings towards any of the parties concerned’. The case went no further, Byng telling Anglesey: “All our counsel, with the exception of O’Connell, are more than satisfied with the result, and consider it more triumphant than having damages awarded, an issue extremely problematical, when one considers that Callaghan was on his own dunghill and had excited on his behalf a strong political party feeling, and that all the jurors with one solitary exception were notorious Brunswickers, and at the last election, had to a man, given their votes to Callaghan.”
On 28 Aug. 1829 O’Connell complained to his wife that Doherty ‘gave up the case upon a most miserable apology’, adding, ‘if your husband had been conducting the cause it would have been otherwise … Callaghan has had a decided triumph’.
The previous month Callaghan had came forward for a vacancy at Cork on political principles as ‘fixed as they were in 1826’, warning that emancipation rendered it ‘more than ever necessary to guard our Protestant institutions’ and prevent ‘further encroachments’. ‘The conduct of Callaghan about Lady Agnes must make it impossible for any gentleman to support him’, observed the Duke of Wellington, the premier. A fortnight before the nomination he was charged with breaking an agreement to comply with the decision of a committee and retire in favour of an opponent. Lord Beresford, who had brokered the deal, protested that he followed up his ‘first ungentleman-like act by a strong and active canvass’, “forcing the other candidate to withdraw, whereupon I felt that Callaghan’s conduct … required some admission of its baseness, some reason for its adoption, and I required it of him. I enclose you his answer. It is but a bad satisfaction for what he has done, but … it admits of his having behaved so ill … and he said before many he was ashamed to look me in the face.”
‘Callaghan has behaved like himself, i.e., like a great scoundrel in the transaction, but I fear there is no chance of excluding him on this occasion, though I trust his defeat on any other … will be certain’, Lord Francis Leveson Gower, the Irish secretary, informed Peel, 3 July. Attempts to find an opponent came to nothing, and he was returned after a token three-day contest got up by the Cork Liberal Club without their candidate’s sanction. ‘I have at last attained the object of my ambition’, he declared at his chairing, adding that a petition against his return on the ground of his being ‘a government contractor’ would come to nothing, since all his contracts had ‘been completed’. On 15 Sept. 1829 Leveson Gower asked Peel “what you would wish to have done in the matter of Gerard Callaghan. If you wish to turn him out of his seat, I believe you have nothing to do but to extract from [John] Croker and forward to Ireland a copy of his contract with government. If you think this proceeding rather infra the dignity of government the consequence will probably be the same, as I do not imagine you will … oppose the production of that document should it be moved for, as it will, in Parliament.”
Peel replied, ‘We had better leave Callaghan to his fate. We could do nothing until the meeting of Parliament. If Gerard be a contractor, he has … little hope of escaping detection, and if he be not, it will be as well that we have not stirred the inquiry’. Callaghan took his seat, 8 Feb. 1830. On 12 Feb., in a ‘very extraordinary’ interruption to the tabled motion, he commended ministers for their conduct over Portugal, complained that the withdrawal of £1 notes issued by private bankers had led to ‘great distress’ and a ‘scarcity of money’ for ‘objects of great importance’, advocated further civil list and tax reductions, but found himself unable to speak as intended ‘on the subject of Ireland’, owing to the ‘impatience’ of the House. . On 3 Mar. 1830 he was unseated on petition after an election committee concluded that his contract to supply the navy with 13,000 tierces of meat ‘had not been completed’. (There was a clause that his ‘beef and pork should be good, sound and sweet for twelve months’ after the ‘last delivery’, which had occurred on 28 May 1829.) His application to be released from his contractual liabilities in order to stand again was unsuccessful. Speaking in support of his brother Daniel’s candidacy in the ensuing by-election, he remarked, ‘I feel it my duty to apologize to you, and I now solemnly declare that when I solicited your suffrages, I was unconscious of my ineligibility’. At the 1830 general election he declined to stand after a committee of family friends determined that Daniel, whom government were disposed to support, had the ‘best chance of success’. A last minute attempt by the Cork Brunswick Club to effect Daniel’s withdrawal and bring in Gerard unopposed came to nothing.
Callaghan, who reputedly followed Daniel in supporting the Grey ministry’s reform bill, died ‘suddenly’ in February 1833, after an ‘unfortunate surgical accident’. The Tory Cork Constitution eulogized him as ‘one of the moving springs by which the life, spirit, and enjoyment of society in this city, were replenished’, but a fellow Orangeman recalled in his diary that ‘he had a readiness and often times a smartness which led him into scrapes and made him give offence where none was ever intended’. ‘Infatuated with ambition … he stooped to an alliance with vulgar fanaticism solely for ambitious purposes’, observed a biographer fifteen years later. He was buried in the Catholic family vault at Upper Shandon.
Aghada is a small fishing town situated to the south-east of Cork city in County Cork, Ireland. Aghada parish consists of several small villages and townlands including Rostellan, Farsid, Upper Aghada, Lower Aghada, Whitegate, Guileen and Ballinrostig.
Aghada House was, apparently, a large Georgian house designed by the Cork architectAbraham Hargrave (1755-1808), and built for John Roche (Ernest O’Bryen’s great grandfather) . It was completed in 1808. John Roche was also responsible for the start of the Aghada National School in 1819. John Roche appears to have left his house to his nephews, James Joseph Roche, and William Roche, who were, I think, cousins rather than brothers. William Roche died in 1836, and James Joseph and his family were living there until James’s death in 1847.
The estate, and the provisions of John Roche’s will were part of a court case, and appeal in 1848, and 1849. (Hillary Term 1848, Mary O’Brien v James Roche and William Roche…lands of Aghada [Mitchelstown Cork]… and Roche v. O’Brien —Feb. 1, 2. 1849) following the death of James Joseph Roche in 1847.
The house and land were sold in July 1853 in the Encumbered Estates Court, as part of the estates of Joseph Roche, and William Roche, with Mary (Maria Josepha)and Eleanor Roche listed as owners, and Pauline Roche as ex parte.
Entrance to Aghada Hall
Most traces of Aghada Hall House seem to have disappeared, apart from signs of a walled garden, half an entrance and a small gatehouse. The old sheds and stables have been converted into houses.
The house appeared to have briefly in the possession of Henry Hewitt O’Bryen, and was then bought by Major General Sir Joseph Lucas Thackwell in 1853. Thackwell had marriedMaria Audriah Roche (from the Trabolgan branch of the Roche family) in 1825. She was the eldest daughter of Francis Roche of Rochemount, County Cork (an uncle of Edmond Roche, 1st Baron Fermoy). They had four sons and three daughters. She should not to be confused with Maria Josepha Roche, who was James Joseph Roche’s daughter, and one of the parties to the 1848/9 court cases.
The house was left to their son Major William de Wilton Roche Thackwell (1834-1910). He married Charlotte (daughter of Rev. Tomkinson). William R. Thackwell lived in Aghada Hall house until 1894.Their eldest daughter Katherine Harriet Thackwell married Col. Edward Rawdon Penrose who in 1891 changed his surname by Royal Licence to Thackwell. There is an account of their wedding on the Housetorian website.
It is still not entirely clear when the house was demolished.
The Feast of St. Patrick, the Apostle and Patron Saint of Ireland, was celebrated according to custom at the Irish College by a preparatory triduum in the Church of St. Agatha, the preachers being the Very Rev. Mgr. Dillon, of Australia, the Bishop of St. Paul, U.S.A., and the Archbishop of Melbourne ; and the sermon each day being followed by Solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. On the feast itself High Mass was sung at ten a.m., and later Archbishop Kirby entertained at dinner the Cardinal Archbishop of Quebec, the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore’ the Secretary of Propaganda (Mgr. Jacobini), the Archbishop of Melbourne ; the Bishops of Richmond, St. Paul, and Columbus U.S.A. ; the Right Rev. Abbot Smith, O.S.B. ; the Rectors of the English, North American, and Scots Colleges, Mgr. O’Bryen, Mgr. Dillon, and other guests. At the Irish Franciscans of St. Isidore, the Papal Consistory of that day to confer the red hat on the new cardinals necessitated the postponement of the sermon in honour of St. Patrick, annually delivered in that church. It will be preached on Sunday by the Bishop of Richmond, U.S.A.
Reginald Binns Rickman (6 May 1881 – 22 November 1940) was a British Army officer and cricketer who played first-class cricket for Derbyshire between 1906 and 1911 and captained the side in 1908 and 1909.
Rickman was born at Doncaster, Yorkshire, the son of Samuel Rickman and his wife Emily Rachel Binns, daughter of Charles Binns manager of the Clay Cross Company. The family lived in Devon, and Rickman’s first games were Minor Counties matches for Devon in 1901 and 1903.
In the 1906 season, Rickman made his debut for Derbyshire in an uninspiring performance against Lancashire in May. He continued to play in 1907 and in 1908 was captain in a season which saw Derbyshire move up to third from the bottom in the County Championship. He captained again in the 1909 season but the team slipped a notch in the table. He played seven games in the 1910 season but appeared in his last single game in the 1911 season. Rickman was a right hand batsman and played 65 matches for the club and 118 innings. His highest score was 68 and he averaged 11.47. He was a right arm medium bowler and took 62 wickets at an average of 31.72.
Lt Col RB Rickman escorting the King 1918, courtesy of the Imperial War Museum
Rickman was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, the Sherwood Foresters (Derbyshire Regiment), and was promoted to a lieutenant on 19 March 1902. Her served in the Second Boer War in South Africa February to May 1902, and took part in operations in Orange River Colony. In May 1904 he transferred to the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, the Cheshire Regiment. He later served in the First World War, and became a Lieutenant Colonel.
Lt Col RB Rickman escorting the King 1918, courtesy of the Imperial War Museum
John is the father of Rex Elworthy, and grandfather of Joanna, amongst many others.
Rex Elworthy aged about 12.
John Elworthy (1835-1887) and William Henry Elworthy (1833-1912) were brothers. William Henry Elworthy went to Australia in 1863 with his wife Mary Amelia Elworthy (they were 2nd cousins)and child Mary (Minnie) (b.1862).
John Elworthy left England for Australia in 1864, leaving behind his wife Sarah and twin children John Tolley Elworthy (b.1863) and Sarah Evelyn (b.1863), he never visited them again before he died in 1887. He then married Elizabeth Pritchard in 1876 in Sydney. Apparently re-marriage after seven years of no contact with a previous wife was legal in Australia, I have no idea whether this is true. In English law, he would have been regarded as a bigamist.
William & John’s younger brother Edward 1840- ???? went to the USA (before 1861),lived in Buffalo City, New York State, joined the Unionist army as an artillery man in 1863, and then deserted in 1865.
William & John started logging together on the river Mary near Logan, Queensland, and then moved to Gympie in 1870, to follow the gold rush. They failed to make a fortune in gold, though I do have some gold ore from John, but then started rearing beef at Imbil, Queensland, and in partnership with two brothers from Devon (Mellor Brothers who were butchers) sold beef to the gold prospectors in Gympie and made a considerable fortune.
Elizabeth returned to England with the children, and they all went to Cheltenham College, or Cheltenham Ladies College. She, and the girls, went back to Australia. The boys remained in England, though Arthur moved to Philadelphia.
Mary, 1780 – 1852 m. Nov 1807 Henry Hewitt O’Bryen (1780 – 1836)
and the grandfather of John Roche O’Bryen, Jane Roche (nee O’Bryen), and at the same time both the great-grandfather, and great uncle of Pauline Roche. Pauline Roche’s mother is John Roche’s grand-daughter Jane O’Bryen, and her father is his nephew William Roche.
John Roche appears to have two brothers, and two sisters:
Hugh, who is the father of
James Joseph Roche
Hugh Roche
Lawrence who is the father of
William m. Jane O’Bryen and father of Pauline Roche
Ellen m. John Verling and mother of
Bartholomew Verling
James Roche Verling
Catherine Ellis (nee Verling)
Ellen Verling Jnr.
Julia m. ? Enery
Sources:
Irish Journal of Medical Science, January 1971, Volume 140, Issue 1, pp 30-44 – regarding the Irish doctors who attended Napoleon on St Helena including James Roche Verling
References to (Ellen Verling??) and her brothers John and Laurence Roche of Aghada as members of the council of Cork. Also refers to James Roche Verling having a brother Bartholomew who was a J.P.
From Roche v O’Brien, and his will, we know that John Roche has two sisters
Julia Enery, Ellen Verling
And at least four nephews
James Joseph Roche, William Roche, Bartholomew Verling, and Doctor (James Roche) Verling
And at least two nieces
Ellen Verling jnr, and Catherine Ellis (nee Verling)
From the BLG 1847 entry we know there is another brother Hugh, who is the father of James Joseph Roche, and Hugh Roche jnr
From Barrymore Records we know William Roche is the son of Laurence Roche
John Roche O’Bryen is Ernest’s father, and Celia O’Bryen was his second wife.
John Roche O’Bryen was baptised in Tracton Abbey, co Cork on the 14th January 1810, and died in London on the 27th July 1870, seven weeks after the death of Charles Dickens – his near contemporary. JROB was two years older.
He was a student at Trinity College, Dublin, and graduated in medicine at the University of Glasgow in 1836. He then practised in medicine first in Bristol, from at least 1841 until 1858. He then spent three years in Liverpool. By 1861, the family were in London, first in Manchester St, W.1, and then in present day Drayton Gardens, South Kensington – then known as Thistle Grove.
So far fairly uncomplicated; however the story starts to get a little more complicated. JR’s family bible has survived (currently with one of his great-grandsons), and is a very useful, if not completely reliable source. I’m going to look at it separately. He appears to have a rather curious double marriage:
“John Roche OBryen & Eliza his wife (born Henderson July 27th 1805) married Decr 25/32 Janr th 7th /33 by Protestant Curate at Bordeaux With Issue”.
JR was studying medicine in Bordeaux at the time, so the assumption is that the first marriage is a Catholic one, he was a Catholic and all the children were brought up as Catholics. The reason for the second marriage is one of the big intriguing questions.
Anyway to continue with the facts. JR and Eliza have ten children:
Emily Jane1833 -1844.
Henry Hewitt 1835-1895
Mary Anne 1836 -1856.
Corina Margaritta Eliza 1837- 1907
Edwin John 1839 -1857.
Eliza Louisa 1840-1844.
Catharine Teresa 1842 -1845.
Mary Frances 1844 -1858.
Cecilia Agnes 1846 -1856.
(William Gregory) Basil 1848 -1920
Emily, and Henry are both born in France, and all the others are born in Bristol. Only Henry, Corinne, and Basil survive to adulthood.
Eliza dies on 25th April 1857, and JR remarries on the 1st October 1857. He and Celia have six children.
Alfred Charles O’BRYEN, 1859 – 1942 born in Liverpool
Mary Evelyn O’BRYEN,1858 – 1916 born in Liverpool
Philip Augustus O’BRYEN, 1861 – 1913 born in London
Walter Mary O’BRYEN, 1862 – 1871 born in London
Ernest Adolphus O’BRYEN, 1865 -1919 born in London
Edward Reginald O’BRYEN, 1867 – 1928 born in London.
His father Henry Hewitt O’BryenSenior, was born 1780 in Ireland , and died 11 May 1836 in Cobh, County Cork.He married Mary Roche Nov 1807 in Whitepoint, Cobh, Co. Cork, the only daughter of John Roche and Miss Collins?.She was born in Ireland (?), and died in ????.
John Roche, Mary’s father, and JR’s grandfather, also has a major part to play in the story.
The children of Henry and Mary O’Bryen are:
Jane O’Bryen, born 1808; died 1837 in unknown
John RocheO’Bryen, born 1810 ; died 1870 in London
Hewitt O’Bryen, born 1811 in Ireland; died 1845 in Norfolk
Robert Hewitt O’Bryen, born 1814 in Ireland; died 1888 in Ireland.
Henry Hewitt O’Bryen Junior, born 1815 in Ireland; died 1873 in Ireland.
Stephen Hewitt O’Bryen, born Unknown in Ireland; died 1872 in Gibraltar.
Mary A O’Bryen, born Unknown in Ireland; died 1863 in Ireland.
Henry Hewitt O’Bryen’s father LaurenceO’Brien was born 1754 in Ireland (?).He married Jane Hewitt on 20th Mar 1778 in Castle Townsend, County Cork, daughter of Henry Hewitt and Unknown.
Their children are:
Henry Hewitt O’Bryen, born 1780 in Ireland (?); died 11 May 1836 in Cobh, County Cork.
Stephen Laurence O’Bryen (unconfirmed)
and finally Laurence O’Brien’s parents are Daniel O’Brien and Ann Sullivan; Daniel O’Brien was born 1717, and died 1758 in Castletownsend, co Cork.He married Ann Sullivan in 1743 in Cork.
