The Lackbeg Sproules – Donegal and Dunedin

When Charles Sproule of Lackbeg House died in 1861, 5 years after his wife Mary Ann,  he left 6 children behind. All were living in Lackbeg House, Burtonport, County Donegal, except for George who was in Dublin at that time. By 1888, all of the Sproules had gone from Lackbeg House. In this post we follow the girls of the family, who all went to New Zealand, to live in a place with a very familiar name!

Lackbeg House, taken from Inishcoo, pic by Patrick Boner

All four girls left Lackbeg House some time between 1861 and 1868, bound for New Zealand. I have not yet found any clues as to why they chose New Zealand, but they seem to have had a plan before they left. There was Mary Ann Sproule, the eldest, aged 37, Martha DeVere, 36, Anna, 33, and the baby of the family, one of the twins, Catherine Elizabeth, aged 26. 

The sisters settled in Dunedin, Otago, on the South Island of New Zealand. Two of the sisters married within a few years. Anna met Henry Steven, a captain on the SS Wakatipu. They married in 1872 and they made their home in Dunedin. Sadly, Henry died young in 1880 at just 36 years old.

Queenstown & lake Wakatipu, South Island

Catherine Elizabeth, known as Cassie, married in 1873, to a German gentleman called Lewis Hotop. He had a chemist business in Queenstown, on Lake Wakatipu, about 150 miles away, where the couple settled. Mary Ann, Anna and Martha remained in Dunedin. 

One of this family's descendants, Sue Gress, had told me that the Sproule ladies had a very exclusive boarding school in Dunedin. Sue had also told me the name of this boarding school, so I went searching for it.

New Zealand, City & Area Directories, 1878, Ancestry.com

We find Mary Ann in the1878 city directory of Dunedin, living in Walker Street, at the junction with Maitland Street, and sure enough, the entry says 'Boarding School'. In later entries we find that Martha is the music teacher there. The Directories do not name the boarding school, only the address of  119 Walker Street. However, I did find it in the local newspapers, and Sue Gress was quite correct, as always!

From Bruce Herald, 25 Nov 1868, National Library of New Zealand.

The 'Misses Sproule' had indeed called their boarding school in Walker Street, Dunedin after their beloved Donegal home,  'Lackbeg House'! This first advertisement appears in 1868, so the ladies were established by then. And it was from here, this Dunedin Lackbeg House, that Anna got married in 1872. Both 'Lackbeg Houses' appear here in the newspaper announcement;

Otago Daily Times,30 Nov 1872, National Library of New Zealand 

After the death of her husband, Anna moved into Lackbeg House with her two sisters and it was from this Dunedin Lackbeg House that Anna wrote this very sad letter to her sister-in-law Kate Sproule in Philadelpia. She was giving details of the painful death of her sister Cassie in July 1895;

Letter from Anna Steven to Kate Sproule, from Sue Gress

The school in Lackbeg House continues throughout the 1870s, and I believe the ladies remained in Walker Street after this. 

Evening Star, 20 Jan 1879 

There is a lovely long description in the local paper of 1899 about the Misses Sproule giving a large musical matinee to introduce their niece;

Otago Witness, 21 Dec 1899 National Library of New Zealand

Cassie, the mother of Miss Hotop above, was buried with her husband Lewis Hotop in Queenstown. 

The other 3 ladies, those ladies who had lived all of their lives in one or the other of the two Lackbeg Houses, were buried in Dunedin, together forever.

Northern Cemetry, Dunedin, Ancestry Cemetery Records

Other Posts in this Series;

1. Joseph Sproule of the Rosses - First Step from Upper Grennan

2. Joseph Sproule and Rutland

3. Joseph Sproule, from Rutland to Inniscoo 

4. The Sproules of Inishcoo House and Lackbeg House 

The Sproules of Inishcoo House and Lackbeg House

 Joseph Sproule and his wife Mary Ann Boggs lived in Inishcoo House on the island of Inniscoo from the year 1799. (Both spellings are used - Inniscoo is the older one) Elder, on the family tree of the Sproules of Upper Grennan, tells us that they had a daughter Mary Ann and that there were other children. This family themselves recorded the names of 4 children of Joseph Sproule of the Rosses and Mary Ann Boggs;

• Mary Ann
• Martha
• Katherine
• Oliver

The family tree document, sent to me by Sue Gress says that the son, Oliver, was unmarried, and I think he must have died young, as he did not inherit his father’s house. The Inniscoo house went to the daughter of Joseph Sproule, Mary Ann Sproule.

Mary Ann married her first cousin, Charles Sproule of Crillan. He was the eldest son of George Sproule of Crillan and Martha Sproule of Curraghamulkin - and that makes an awful lot of Sproules in these 3 generations!

This family tree document of Sue Gress gives us some lovely dates that we would not have access to elsewhere. It tells us first that George Sproule of Crillan was born on 2 March 1790, which is the same date as that given by Fred Sproule, a descendant in the same family.[1] We learn also that Mary Ann, daughter of Joseph Sproule of Inniscoo, was born on 22 March 1801 in Inniscoo.  All of these dates fit with what we know of this family.

Inishcoo House about 1900, it is in the centre of the pic

The only place where I would differ from this family tree document is in the timeline of Charles Sproule and Mary Ann taking up residence in Inniscoo. It says that this was after the death of Joseph, that Joseph, “died leaving his affairs unsettled, then Charles was summoned to Iniscoo to take over.”  

Well, we know that Joseph Sproule of Inniscoo’s ‘affairs’ were very ‘unsettled’ as early as 1819, and that he was in deep financial trouble.[2]  He was badly in need of help to enable him to retain the Inniscoo property, in which he had invested quite a bit. I think that Charles Sproule of Crillan and his new wife, Mary Ann came to the rescue before  the death of Joseph Sproule. The evidence for this lies in the birth records of their first children, or rather the lack of birth records!

The document tells us that Charles and Mary Ann lived in Crillan, and that their first children were born there in 1831 and 1833. If the children had been born in Crillan, I would expect to find their baptism records in the Tubrid Church, where the Crillan family attended, or in St Mary’s Church, Ardess, where the Feddans Sproule family attended. The records in both places are excellent, and yet there is no mention of Charles Sproule and Mary Ann or of any of their children.

Sometimes a mother went to her family home to have a child, but that can't have happened in this case.  That journey to Inniscoo island from Crillan would be impossible – 60 miles over the worst of roads, and then a boat journey to the island. I firmly believe that all of these children were born at Inniscoo.

There is another factor to consider. Charles Sproule of Crillan was the eldest son, and therefore he should inherit the father’s land in Crillan. It is highly likely that he took a large cash settlement instead of this, and that he went to Inniscoo with plenty of money in his pocket to restore the fortunes of this island.

So it looks like the couple took up residence in Inniscoo immediately after their marriage in 1829. Joseph Sproule, Charles' father-in-law, moved at some stage to live in nearby Edernish, where we know he was definitely living in 1835.[3]

So let’s put Charles Sproule and his wife Mary Ann Sproule in Inniscoo House when their children start arriving, but they did not stay there for very long. Charles had a lease for the whole island, there was 109 acres in total. The family document tells us that Charles now had an occupation;

“Charles got Agency from Inniscoo (Coast Guard).  He was Receiver of Wrecks that means he was in charge of salvaging any ships that wrecked off the coast.  And there were probably many as this is at the northwestern tip of Ireland just before the Atlantic Ocean goes into the North Sea.” 

The ‘agency’ does not mean that Charles was the actual Coast Guard person, but rather that the property was being used by the Coast Guard.  The coast guard station had been on Rutland island up until 1841, and there is evidence that it was on Inniscoo in 1844.[4] It is likely that Charles moved his family out of Inniscoo House and on to their next house around this time in the early 1840s.

By the mid 1850s, we can see the Coast Guard presence there in Inniscoo in Griffiths Valuation. Charles would have had an income from the government for the use of the property, and rent to him from the houses and offices used by the Coast Guard staff. In addition to all of this, his taxes are cut in half in Griffiths Valuation;

Griffiths Valuation for Inishcoo, Askaboutireland.ie

Inishcoo House is restored now and is a holidy home

Charles Sproule and his wife Mary Ann Sproule together with their 6 children had moved to the mainland by this time. The children's birth dates were again given in the Sue Gress family document;

Mary Anne b. 12 April 1831

Martha b. 23 April 1833

Anna b. 24 July 1835

George b. 17 June 1839

Charles Joseph b. 21 June 1842

Catherine Elizabeth (Cassie) b. 21 June 1842

They have moved to a large house called Lackbeg House on the outskirts of Burtonport, in the townland of Leckbeg. 

Lackbeg House today

In Griffiths we can see that in addition to the 109 acres of Inniscoo, they have 55 acres in Leckbeg.

Griffiths Valuation for Leckbeg, Askaboutireland.ie

This family all ended up in foreign parts, the last left Lackbeg in 1888,  but we know that their time living here in Lackbeg House, Burtonport, remained close to all of them forever. We know this because they came back to visit, even down to the current generation. However, there was another very striking reason that we know this, but  I’ll go in to this in the next post.

Other Posts in this Series;

1.Joseph Sproule of the Rosses - First Step from Upper Grennan

2. Joseph Sproule and Rutland

3. Joseph Sproule, from Rutland to Inniscoo 

References

[1] Chapter 3 of Fred Sproule's Volume 2 The Sproules in Ireland, unpublished

[2] Letter dated Ref;  Ms 35,392 Conyngham Papers,  National Library of Ireland, from Joseph Sproule to Nassau Forster, agent to the Conyngham Rosses estate, from David Slattery

[3] Royal Commission of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries : first report,  Dublin Castle, 2nd November, 1835. PRINTED BY ALEXANDER THOM, North Earl St, Dublin. See previous posts

[4] I found this information on the Coast Guard station in a family history site of the Rohu family where a man called John Vincent Rohu actually served as a coast guard on both Rutland and Inniscoo. 

Joseph Sproule, from Rutland to Inniscoo

It was in the 1780s that Joseph Sproule of Upper Grennan and Feddans arrived in Rutland, in the Rosses. Joseph would have been encouraged to come here  by the advertisements that Burton Conyngham, the landowner in West Donegal, placed widely to entice people to his new Fishing Station development in the Rosses. [1] Conyngham was offering  perpetual leases and fifty percent grants on all improvements.

Rutland Island

The goal was to have 400 good fishing boats operating out of the Fishing Station, all of which had to be built or bought in. It looks as if it was this aspect of the project that attracted Joseph Sproule, for his occupation is a ‘Ship Broker’ on at least one document.[2] The family tree document given to me by Sue Gress agrees that Joseph traded in boats.

Joseph Sproule, the ship broker,was living in Rutland, but we also know that he had an office in Ballyshannon that we learnt about in the 1795 deed.[3] This makes sense since Rutland did not have official port status, which meant that it had no customs offices. People had to go the 40 miles south from Rutland to Ballyshannon with all of their customs documents.  They had to get customs stamps on documents to enable them to draw down the bonus payments on boats and fishing catches, so an office in Ballyshannon would have been an asset.

But, in fact, in this deed dated 7 May 1795, Joseph Sproule of Rutland is selling his lease, he is closing down this Ballyshannon office. This was a difficult tim for him, as it was for all involved in the Rutland Fishery project, for it was about  this time, in the mid 1790s that the whole project was being wound up. There were many contributory factors for the failure of this very ambitious project, such as decline in fishing stock, failure to attract the right people into the region, and above all, the fateful positioning of a Fishing Station on an island that had a sand bar on its seaward side - the sand blew over to entirely cover many of the new buildings. I don't know how the local inhabitants of this area fared during this time, but the people involved in the project, such as Joseph Sproule of Rutland, were left financially challenged.

From a 1788 map with the plans for Rutland Island, from Patrick Boner

Joseph Sproule moved from Rutland to the adjacent island of Inniscoo in about 1799. There was a house there and also a dockyard. Joseph did extensive improvements to Inniscoo House before he moved in, for which he later attempted to claim recompense from the Conyngham estate.[4]

Aerial pic of Inniscoo House 1959, there is the boatyard to the left
The house to the right accross the creek is Eddernish. Pic from Patrick Boner

The details of his expenditure in Inniscoo were included in a letter dated 27 May 1819 from Joseph Sproule of Inniscoo to Nassau Foster, the agent of the Conyngham Rosses estate. In this we get a real picture of the state of play of Joseph Sproule at that time. A researcher from a completely different family, David Slattery, copied this letter from the Conyngham papers in the National Library of Ireland, and kindly forwarded it to Patrick Boner of Burtonport.  Joseph’s writing is not great and it is very tricky to decipher - David Slattery also heroically transcribed it!

Joseph Sproule's letter to Nassau Foster 1819

At the time of this letter in 1819, Joseph Sproule, now of Inniscoo, has fallen a great deal behind in paying his rent, and he begins the letter;

“Sir,
I received yours last night pressing me for rent I am sorry it is not in my power for some time to give you any, but hopefully in the course of a few weeks this I will be able to make money of some cattle I have in kind for the purpose of paying you – which I hope will answer.”

He goes on to give his reasons for this lack of payment;

“When I took Inniscoo at such a high rent it was from the hopes of a fishery or other business in this place all of which has totally failed, that would enable me to pay the rent but as all these matters have totally failed, I have every hope his Lordship will consider it  & make me such abatement in the rent for some years back as his Lordship will  justly think me entitled to” 

But Joseph Sproule was not only the tenant of the Conyngham Estate, he, in turn, was landlord to his subtenants on Inniscoo  – and our Joseph had no sympathy at all for the poor folk living on the island; 

“You are well acquainted with the my situation with regard to the tenants this place on this island when I took it, & which tenants I could never since get clear off, & who are now due me of rent & owing  261.7.8 about 190 of which is due by  these tenants left on the island by his Lordship when I got it, about £90 of this sum is not now worth 50 shillings.”

We don't know the outcome of this appeal to the Conyngham Estate, but we do know that Joseph Sproule managed to remain in Inniscoo House, and to pass it on to his daughter Mary Ann. We can see Joseph there in the Tithe Applotment of 1828;

Tithe Applotment Templecrone, 1828, Familysearch.org

The last reference to Joseph Sproule that I know of appears in a document dated 2 November 1835. An enquiry was held into the state of Irish Fisheries, and the section on the Rutland Island carries a small reference to Joseph;

“On Inniscoo, which is about half a mile by a quarter, a building yard was constructed. A boatbuilding shed and loft, with other works, are still in order.
On the small isle of Eddernish, a salt work was begun but never completed. There is a good quay and safe creek on the south end. Mr. Sproule, a ship-broker, lives here at present.”

You will see from this that Joseph is living now on Edernish in 1835, in a much smaller house.  The reason for this is that Mary Ann Sproule, daughter of Joseph Sproule and Mary Ann Boggs is now living in Inniscoo House with her new family. 

Other Posts in this Series;

1.Joseph Sproule of the Rosses - First Step from Upper Grennan

2. Joseph Sproule and Rutland

References:

Special thanks to Patrick Boner and the folk of  Burtonport Heritage Facebook Group.  Thanks also to Sue Gress and to David Slattery.

[1] “William Burton Conyngham and the North-West Fishery of the Eighteenth Century.” p.80  by Jame Kelly, .The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. 115, 1985, pp. 64–85. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25508881. Accessed 9 Sep. 2022.

[2] RoyalCommission of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries : first report,  Dublin Castle, 2nd November, 1835. PRINTED BY ALEXANDER THOM, North Earl St, Dublin

[3] Deed dated 2 May 1795 between Joseph Sproule of Rutland in the County Donegal and John Feeley of Ballyshannon, 485 479 314823, Registry of Deeds, Familysearch.org

[4] Letter dated 27 May 1819, Ref; Ms 35,392 Conyngham Papers,  National Library of Ireland, from Joseph Sproule to Nassau Forster, agent to the Conyngham Rosses estate, thanks to Patrick Boner and David Slater

 

Joseph Sproule and Rutland

When I first saw the name 'Joseph Sproule of the Rosses' on the Upper Grennan family tree of Jack Elder, I really was stunned. The Grennan Sproules were were farmers and their money came largely from the good farmland of Tyrone and Fermanagh. Those sons of  Grennan who were not on the land were lawyers and doctors, living in areas that could generate good income. There were none of these characteristics in the small collection of townlands in the far west of Donegal called 'The Rosses',  no good land, a small population and above all, these folk were poor. I found it very hard to imagine what could have taken a Grennan Sproule to the Rosses.

Some of my own pictures of the Rosses

The key to this mystery, I believe, came from those very revealing couple of lines in the family tree of Sue Gress,

“Joe, half brother to the first George of Crillan, lived at Feddins.  He fell in love with a Miss Boggs, daughter of contractor for Lubrid Buildings (Lubrid is near Crillan and there is a church and Vaughans Charter School still there)”

Mary Boggs, who had met and married Joseph Sproule of our story, was the daughter of the contractor involved in the Tubrid buildings. These Tubrid Buildings, the Church and the Vaughan Charitable School, were all completed by about 1781ish. So Mr Boggs, father of Mary Boggs, needed a new building project. That building project was big, and it arose in one of tha most unlikely spots in Ireland, in the wilds of The Rosses.

The Rosses is a remote place of sea and rocks and bog. The land here is so poor that up until the early 1600s, the whole area was almost totally uninhabited, with only a few folk living at the mouths of the small rivers. Then came the Plantation in Ulster, when people were put off their land in Tyrone and Fermanagh, and so they moved west. The folk who came to live in this area were poor, Irish-speaking folk that came here mostly from Tyrone, and they lived on common land or on small plots in the Rosses. 

William Burton by
 Anton Raphael Mengs

In the 1780s the whole of West Donegal was owned by the Conyngham estate, headed at that time by William Burton Conyngham (1733-1796). William Burton was the second son of the right honourable Francis Burton of Buncraggy, County Clare and he was nephew of the heirless first Earl Conyngham, who owned over 100,000 acres in West Donegal. William Burton inherited this West Donegal land, along with the name ‘Conyngham’,  on the death of the Earl in April 1781. Burton Conyngham set about campaigning for a really ambitious project to make this poverty stricken Rosses area more productive. [1]

The Government in London had, for all of the 1700s, been pushing to develop the Irish fishing industry, which had some of the richest fishing grounds in Europe. They offered bounties for the development of boats and more bonus money was given for catches. However, there was a conundrum. [2] The richest herring shoals in all of these Irish waters were off the north-west coast of Donegal, but the poor people of this area had no resources to develop a fishing fleet and no way of catching these herring. There was also no port in the area capable of supporting such an industry.

Burton Conyngham led a consortium to get financial backing from the British Government. They chose an area in The Rosses where there was a small group of islands just off the coast. There was a small pier there at the time, in the townland of Lackbeg, but it could not be expanded for a port.  

The little pier at Lackbeg still there today

So the plan was to develop a bigger port nearby, to be called Burtonport, named after its founder. Just off  the proposed pier at Burtonport is a series of islands, and rather than site the proposed Fishing Station at Burtonport, the decision was made to build the station over three of the islands,  Inis Mhic an Doirn, Inniscoo and Edernish. On the biggest of the islands, Inis Mhic an Doirn, Burton Conyngham began to build the main part of the Fishing Station, with the main port. This involved building good houses and all the facilities for a thriving fishing industry – including whole streets that were a rarity in this land of tiny thatched cottages. The Fishing Station was given the name Rutland, and this name later became the name of the whole island, Rutland Island.

Map showing plans on Rutland, Inniscoo and Edernish,
from Sue Gress

The Plan of Rutland dated 1786 [1]

The building project was officially underway in Rutland by 1783 - and this was shortly after the building works in the Charity School in Tubrid was completed. Putting two and two together, then, it does not take a great leap to see that Mr Boggs, father of Mary Boggs, could well have become involved in these buildings, either in the port of Burtonport or on the island of Rutland where the station was being built.

His father-in-law being the connection between Tubrid and Rutland is my best guess, but what do I know for certain is that Joseph Sproule himself very definitley was involved with this Rutland Project. The first record we have of him is in Registry of Deeds, in a deed dated May 1795 where our Joseph Sproule is mentioned.[3] In this deed he is not referred to as Joseph Sproule of Feddans, or Joseph of the Rosses, rather he is called Joseph Sproule of Rutland.

Other Posts in this Series;

1. Joseph Sproule of the Rosses - First Step from Upper Grennan

2. Joseph Sproule and Rutland 

3. Joseph Sproule, from Rutland to Inniscoo

References:

[1] Forsythe, Wes. “Improving Landlords and Planned Settlements in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: William Burton Conyngham and the Fishing Station on Inis Mhic an Doirn, Co. Donegal.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature, vol. 112C, 2012, pp. 301–32. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41714688. Accessed 9 Sep. 2022.

[2] Kelly, James. “William Burton Conyngham and the North-West Fishery of the Eighteenth Century.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. 115, 1985, pp. 64–85. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25508881. Accessed 9 Sep. 2022.

[3] Deed dated 2 May 1795 between Joseph Sproule of Rutland in the County Donegal and John Feeley of Ballyshannon, 485 479 314823, Registry of Deeds, Familysearch.org

Joseph Sproule of the Rosses - First Step from Upper Grennan

 The man known as Joseph Sproule of the Rosses was a Grennan Sproule. He was born around the mid 1750s in the townland which is now called Greenan, Dromore, County Tyrone.  Joseph was the son of Charles Sproule who lived in the area that Jack Elder had called ‘Upper Grennan’, and he appears on Elder’s Tree. 

When I first saw this name ‘Joseph Sproule of the Rosses’, I was a bit stunned. I was very familiar with the Rosses. It is quite a unique area, and it is not at all a likely place to find a Sproule. There seemed to be no logical reason why Joseph would end up there. However, in the year 2014, the keys that would unlock this puzzle of Joseph Sproule of the Rosses were handed to me on a plate, and some further helped research teased out the story.

So before I begin our tale, I woud like to thank Patrick Boner, a historian in Burtonport in the Rosses, for his own comprehensive information on that area. Patrick also put me in touch with Sproule family researchers, particularly Sue Gress, Angela Kirk and also David Slattery. I found that the descendants of Joseph Sproule of the Rosses have been amaziningly active in their research and recording of their family trees over the years, and I have been blessed that they have shared this information with me. I would also like to thank Ryan Sproule for sending me the wonderful work of his uncle, Fred Sproule, who was a descendant of the brother of Joseph of the Rosses and who’s information on this family is vital.

Now to begin our story of Joseph Sproule of the Rosses I am going to quote from a family tree document given to me by Sue Gress in 2014. In this family tree, there are a couple of lines about our Joseph. These are the words that have been passed down through the ages by the descendants of Joseph Sproule;

“Joe, half brother to the first George of Crillan, lived at Feddins.  He fell in love with a Miss Boggs, daughter of contractor for Lubrid Buildings (Lubrid is near Crillan and there is a church and Vaughans Charter School still there)”

I knew immediately from these few words had to be true. Prior to this, we did not know that this Joseph Sproule had gone to live in Feddans, County Fermanagh, but it made so much sense. Joseph Sproule of our story, ‘Joe’ above,  was living in Feddans, and this fits perfectly with what we know of this ‘Upper Grennan’  family.

Charles Sproule of Upper Grennan had a large family from his two wives, according to Elder. In 1778, we find Charles Sproule in a deed, leasing land for his sons to settle in Fermanagh – in Crillan and in Feddans.[1] We know that one son of Charles of Upper Grennan, George Sproule, settled in Crillan. In the last few months, I realised that his older half-brother Robert had settled in the neighbouring townland of Feddans.[2]  So Sue's family document stating that Joe lived for a while in Feddans is perfectly consistant with this, and has to be true.

There is one big disparity between the family document and Elder’s tree, one that is very interesting for Grennan researchers. The family document states that Joe was ‘half-brother’ of George of Crillan. That would suggest that George was the son of the second wife Ann Wallace and that Joe was the son of the first wife, Miss Rogers. Elder says that Joseph is a full brother of George, and that they are both sons of the second wife, Ann Wallace.

My instinct is always to believe Elder. However, in this case I actually have my doubts if he is correct. The family document tells us that Joseph was living in Feddans. Feddans was the home of the older brother Robert, the son of the first wife, Miss Rogers. So Joe would be living in the ‘Feddans’ side of this family, so to speak,  the first wife side. So I am not sure which of these two authorities is correct. I am going to leave that thought with you.

Elder told us that Joseph married Mary Boggs, and this family document gives us the clue as to how the couple could have met. It tells us that Mary Boggs was the daughter of the contractor for ‘Lubrid’ buildings, and further it mentions the church and Vaughan Charter School. This reference to the church is not, I believe, accidental.

The Sproule brothers in Feddans and Crillan were living on land leased from the Vaughan Charity. The charity was established on the death of its benefactor, Colonel George Vaughan, on 5 April 1763. George Vaughan was a native of Buncrana, he was Governor of County Donegal and a landowner in Fermanagh and Donegal.  The Colonel left all of his Fermanagh lands in a trust, most of which was to be set aside as for use as a Charitable Charter School.[3]

 During the 1770s building began on the site of the school in Tubrid, near to Crillan and Feddans. The first building to be erected was Tubrid Church of Ireland church, the parish of Drumkeeran churc. It was actually built as a Chapel for the Vaughan Charter school. The church was built between 1774-1776 and it is still there today.[4] 

Tubrid Church,  Drumkeeran Parish

Next came the Vaughan Charter school itself, a boarding school for poorer folk, which was completed in 1780. Catherine Sproule, sister of the Grennan Sproule brothers, was Matron at the school.

Vaughan Charter School built 1780, demolished 1955 [3]

So all of this is consistant with those couple of lines from Sue's family document. It tells us that the building contractor of Tubrid buildings had a daughter, Mary Boggs, and at some stage Mary Boggs met Joseph Sproule of Upper Grennan who was living in Feddans at that time. We dont' know when they were married, or when exactly they went to the wilds of the Rosses.  But those couple of lines give us the vital clue as to why, exactly, they went there.

Other Posts in this Series;

1. Joseph Sproule of the Rosses - First Step from Upper Grennan

2. Joseph Sproule and Rutland 

3. Joseph Sproule, from Rutland to Inniscoo

References:

[1] The 1778 deeds are recorded in Reports from the Commissionsers, Ireland 1813 -1814, Vol 5, Houses of Parliament, Great Britain. The information on the deeds can be seen here - Finding the Family of Robert Sproule of Upper Grennan
[2] Finding the Family of Robert Sproule of Upper Grennan
[3] The Vaughan Charity 1763-1934 by Claire Jackson and Michael Jackson, in Clogher Record, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1986), pp. 171-180 (10 pages) Published by: Clogher Historical Society
[4] Tubrid Church of Ireland Church, Parish of Drumkeeran, Co Fermanagh, by John Campbell, 8 Nov 2010

Robert Sproule and Melbourne

Did Robert Sproule travel from either Jamaica or from Ireland in a sailing ship, go all the way to Australia in 1855, and then return all the way back to Ireland? This is the big question. Jane Thomas Sproule was married in Melbourne in January 1855, and her father was named as Robert Sproule, Planter, from Jamaica. Jane was married to James Ward in the house of Mr Sproule in Melbourne, Australia. Was this our Robert Sproule and was he actually there in Melbourne?

I always believed it highly likely that it was our Robert. Then in 2020, thanks to finding the record of the marriage of Robert Sproule and Mary Ann Schouberg, I now had a great deal more information. I knew much more about the movements of Robert Sproule of Orange Vale, and more knowledge of his whereabouts over the years. This information allows us to create a timeline so that we can actually get an idea of where Robert Sproule was in the mid 1850s. 

Timeline – when Robert is in Jamaica

So let’s look at where Robert Sproule was during those years. We know that Robert is definitely in Jamaica from at least 1829 to 1843. This is the timeline of what we know;

1829 Robert Sproule is in St George 28 June and registers one slave [1] 

1836 Robert Sproule and Mary Ann Schouberg married in St George, 18 June 1836 [2]

1838 Robert registers Orange Vale, St George, Jamaica [3]

1839 Lieut. Robert Sproull is in the Militia, St George, Jamaica [4]

1843 – Robert’s son, Robert Sproule, is born in St George, 20 Nov 1842 [2]

So Robert Sproule is definitely in Jamaica in 1842 and now we move to Ireland. 

Timeline Robert in Ireland 1845 - ?

We have in the 1st Strabane Presbyterian Baptism records, a second timeline, this time of Robert Sproule in Ireland.[5] We have a list of five more of the children of Mary Ann Schouberg and Robert Sproule with their dates of birth. The couple had a house in Bowling Green, Strabane, where their cousins also lived at this time. This house eventually went to their son, Andrew Schouberg Sproule, and when we look at the 1901 & 1911 Census for that Bowling Green house, we find another child, his sister Jane Sproule.[6] That brings us to 6 children. The death of one more child, Ann Jane, is recorded in the newspaper in 1851, making a total of 7 children;[7]

1845 Ireland, son James Sproule is born in Strabane on 5th April 1845

1847 Ireland, Andrew Schouberg Sproule is born in Strabane 20 July 1847

1849 Ireland, Samuel Angus Sproule born in Strabane 1 July 1849

1851 Ireland,  Ann Jane Sproule born Strabane, Dec 1851, died 16 Apr 1853

1851 - Robert in the 1851 Jamaican Almanac as a magistrate, but is marked as ‘off island’  

1854 Ireland daughter Margaret Matilda Sproule born in Strabane 9 Apr 1854

1857 Ireland daughter Marianne Sproule is born in Strabane 25 Oct 1856

1857 Jamaica Robert Sproule in St George is a magistrate in Jamaica, Jamaican Almanac

1860 Ireland - daughter Jane Sproule is born

1862 Ireland Robert Sproule dies in Mulvin, Tyrone, 24 May 1862 [8]

Now we have Robert's timeline, we know where he was at certain times. Can we fit in that trip to Australia and back?

 If Robert Sproule was going from Ireland, he would first have to travel from Strabane to England. Then travel from an English port to Australia – and then come back. That journey to Australia and back to Ireland could have taken him the best part of a year.[9] The wedding in Melbourne took place in January 1855. So let's go back about 6 months from Jan 1855 for the start of the journey. So let’s say he would have to leave Ireland about May 1854.

His daughter Marianne was born on 25 Oct 1857 in Strabane, so Robert would have to be back for that child to be conceived. So we need him to be back in Ireland by Jan 1856. That means he has got a full year after the wedding to return to Ireland, from Jan 1855 to Jan 1856.

It could be done – there is a window in Robert’s timeline,  plenty of time to get from Ireland to Australia, and back.

 But … and here’s the big ‘but’. Where was Jane Thomas Sproule? Where was the daughter? It is highly unlikely that she was in Ireland. And if she were in Ireland, Robert could have married her off there, no need to go to Australia at all.

If she were in Jamaica, Robert would have to travel to Jamaica, pick Jane Thomas Sproule up, and somehow go on to Australia directly from Jamaica. But were there any ships to travel on?

Were there Ships from Jamaica to Australia?

It has taken a bit of time to sort this question out. I could find no records of ships from Jamaica to Australia at all, and there was a good reason for that - there were none! None, that is, with the exception of just two. It was all sorted out in the end thanks to two ladies in Jamaican Genealogy Resources.[9] Narelle Maloney and Vilma Ruddock were able to point me at all records for shipping to Australia. However, it was Vilma who gave me that piece of gold that has all the answers that I needed. She gave me a fabulous article from the Jamaica Journal of 1976, written by Barry Higman, “Jamaicans in the Australian Gold Rush”. [10] The Australian 'Gold Rush' began in 1851 when gold was discovered in New South Wales and Victoria, and Melbourne was at the centre of it all. 

There was great interest in this Gold Rush from Jamaican folk who were finding life very difficult at those times. The plantation ecomomy was collapsing and people who had been Overseers and Managers in the plantations were getting poor earnings or were jobless.  In 1852 some gentlemen in Kinston saw an opportunity, and they chartered a ship to take these folk to Melbourne, the centre for the Gold Rush.  Advertisements were placed throughout the island. 

One ship sailed directly from Jamaica to Melbourne in September 1852, picking up passengers at different stops in Jamaica, and then taking 5 months to reach Melbourne. A second ship sailed in April 1853 for Melbourne – and that is it. There were no more ships going directly from Jamaica to Australia either before this, or after this. There was no ship sailing to Australia in 1854 to take Robert and his daughter to Melbourne for a wedding.

So Robert Sproule definitely did not travel to Australia from Jamaica in that window that we gave him to get there and back in 1854. Could he have gone another route from Australia to Melbourne? Yes, it was possible to go from Jamaica to New York and then to Australia – but that is so complicated a trip for my Robert Sproule who was starting  from  Ireland, that I don’t believe he would have done this.

What this means for me is that I now do not believe that the Mr Sproule in Melbourne was our Robert Sproule from St George in Jamaica.

Indeed, being logical, why on earth would he do that? It never made any sense that he would go all that way, and when I had found this large family in Strabane, it definitely made no sense.

Having eliminated that possibility, let’s look at the alternatives.

The Alternatives

I still believe that Robert Sproule of Orange Vale and Mary Ann Thomas are most likely the parents of Jane Thomas Sproule who was married in Melbourne in 1855. So who was Mr Sproule in Melbourne?

1. The Imposter 

One alternative that I looked at when I first learnt of Jane Thomas Sproule, was that 'Mr Sproule' in Melbourne could be a total imposter – a con man from Jamaica who had some reason to adopt the name and profile of Robert Sproule. I dismissed this at an early stage, and I still don’t believe it. James Ward and Jane Thomas Sproule gave their 3^rd son the name Robert Sproule Ward.  It gets very tortuous if you try to fit that fact into the ‘con man’ scenario, trust me! 

2. A Paid Substitute

Was it possible that Robert Sproule had paid someone to take Jane Thomas Sproule to Australia, and to find a good husband for her? Yes, I believe this is possible. Jane was only 9 or 10 years old when Robert Sproule left Jamaica for Ireland. We don’t know anything about Jane. We don’t know where she was living in Jamaica and we don’t know who she was living with.  Robert Sproule had maintained his interest in Jamaica, we know this from his registering as a magistrate in 1851 and 1857. It is very likely that he made some trips to Jamaica during those years, and he would have maintained contact with Jane.

Then comes the gold rush in Victoria in 1851 and the ships organised to go to Melbourne from Jamaica in 1852 and 1853. This is an opportunity for the family that Jane is living with to go to Melbourne and to seek their fortune. Perhaps Robert Sproule financed the trip for the family and provided finances to settle them into their life in Melbourne. So this family would go to Melbourne in 1852 or 1853, with Jane Thomas Sproule, who is by then 17 or 18. And Jane meets James Ward in Melbourne in 1854. That all sounds logical. 

Except… Why would the person in Melbourne  call himself  ‘Mr Sproule’? Jane was married from the house of Mr Sproule in Melbourne. Why would the man in this family call himself ‘Mr Sproule’?  If he had other children and a wife,  they would have to all adopt the family name Sproule.  Again, I have great difficulty making sense of that one.

3. The Paid Substitute is a Sproule

Could 'Mr Sproule' in Melbourne have been another Sproule? Yes, of course he could. I don't know of any document that said that 'Mr Sproule' was, in fact, Jane's father.  My Australian informant just assumed that. He could have been another Sproule, he could even have been a Robert Sproule. I feel a bit like an Agatha Christie novel now. She was famous for leaving out a key clue, so that you really couldn’t really work out ‘who dun it'. I’ve left out a key clue -  there is another Robert Sproule in Jamaica -  but I honestly didn’t think he had anything to do with this story, and I didn’t want the story to drown in Robert Sproules once again!

The Other One

In the plantation of Spring Bank in 1837, there is another Robert Sproule living with his wife Ann. He appears in only one record, and that is the birth of their son, Robert Wynter Sproule, born on 5 Mar 1837. [3]

Birth Record of Robert Wynter Sproule, Familysearch.org

This other Robert, we’ll call him Robert2, is living in Spring Bank in St Thomas in the East, which is owned by James Sproule of Stokes Hall and Mellmount. Normally I would say that Robert2 must be related to both James Sproule of Stokes Hall and to Robert in St George, but I do not know who he is. He is not a member of their extended Sproule clan - there are plenty of  Roberts there but they all are accounted for. So this Robert2 in Spring Bank is either 1) a relative I don't know, or 2) a Sproule from another Tyrone Sproule family, or 3) he is another slave-born child of James Sproule who was not baptised. 

There are no other records at all of this Robert2 in Jamaica, either before 1837 or after 1837. There is no record of a marriage to Ann. If we assume that her name is likely to be Ann Wynter, since the son was called Robert Wynter Sproule, then that marriage had to have taken place in Jamaica – there are no Wynters in Tyrone.

Could Robert2 have been the father of Jane Thomas Sproule? The only baptism of a Jane who fit our profile anywhere in the area was a Jane Thomas, who was born in 1835 in Lowlayton. Lowlayton is in the parish of St George. Robert2 was in Spring Bank in the parish St Thomas in the East. I don’t believe he was the father of Jane Thomas Sproule. Robert of Orange Vale, St. George is far more likely.

James Sproule of Stokes Hall and Mellmount had died in 1840 and Robert2, as his relative in Spring Bank, would then have been without his support.  We don’t know where Robert2 is living in 1850, he could be in Ireland or he could be in Jamaica. Either way, he may well have welcomed the opportunity to make that trip to the gold rush in Australia in 1852 or 1853, with Jane Thomas Sproule.

Conclusion

I am still convinced that Jane Thomas Sproule was the daughter of Robert Sproule of Orange Vale and Mary Ann Thomas who married James Ward in Melbourne in 1855.

I honestly do not believe that Robert Sproule of Orange Vale travelled to Australia. I do not believe that ‘Mr Sproule’ who had the house where the Melbourne wedding took place, was, in fact Robert Sproule who was living in Strabane in Ireland at that time.

I believe it highly likely that ‘Mr Sproule’ in Melbourne was another Sproule. It is possible that he was the Robert2 Sproule, who was in Spring Bank. It is also possible that he was another Sproule, either from home or one who already lived in Australia.

 Those are my views on the great round the world trip of Robert Sproule - it didn't happen!

Previous Posts in this Story

Robert Sproule and Marianne Schoburgh

The Intriguing Robert Sproule of Jamaica

Robert Sproule of Jamaica and Jane Thomas Sproule 

 References;

[1] Jamaica Almanac 1829, in Jamaican Family Search 

[2] Jamaica, Church of England parish register transcripts; 1664-1880, Familysearch.org 

[3] Jamaica Almanac 1838 Jamaican Family Search  

[4] Jamaica Almanac 1839 Jamaican Family

[5]  1st Strabane Presbyterian Baptisms 1840-1851 and 1851 to 1863 transcribed by Jim Crabtree in https://www.cotyroneireland.com

[6]  1901 and 1911 Census in the National Archives of Ireland 

[7] From an entry on 1 Apr 1851 in Londonderry Sentinel: "From teething, at Strabane, on the 26th ult., Ann Jane, daughter of Robert Sproule, Esq., late of Jamaica, aged 16 months.

[8] From the Londonderry Sentinel of 30 May 1862, “May 24, at Mulvin, Strabane, Robert Sproule, Esq., late of Jamaica, West Indies.”

[9] The timing of this trip is based on the Ainformation in the Immigration Museum of Australia

[10] Thank you ladies from Facebook Group,  Jamaican Genealogy Resources, especially to their expert there, Vilma Ruddock

[11] “Jamaicans in the Australian Gold Rush” by Barry Higman, 

Jamaica Journal, 1976, published in Kingston, by the Institute of Jamaica

Robert Sproule of Jamaica and Jane Thomas Sproule

Where did the name Mary Ann Thomas come from? We thought that Mary Ann Thomas was the name of the wife of Robert Sproule of Jamaica, but where did this name come from? It actually came from that gentleman in Australia – and me!  I knew that Robert Sproule of St George had a son, also called Robert, who was born in 1842 and that the mother of that son was named, ‘Mary Ann’ on the baptism record. So when my Australian informant had said the name, Mary Ann Thomas, I just assumed that this was the name of Robert Sproule’s wife. But it wasn’t, as I had just found out. The wife of Robert Sproule of St George in Jamaica, and of Mulvin in Tyrone, was Mary Ann Schouberg – not Mary Ann Thomas.

My Australian informant had given me a lot of information about his ancestor, Jane Thomas Sproule. She was married in Melbourne, Australia, and her father was on the marriage cert held by the family, his name Robert Sproule, Planter, of Jamaica. Jane Thomas Sproule was said to 20 years old, so she was born in 1835. The wedding had taken place there in the house of Mr Sproule in Melbourne in 1855.  

So far I had not seen a document to verify this Melbourne wedding, so it was important to establish this before searching for Jane Thomas Sproule further. Robyn Ritchie was able to help me there, by doing a search in Australia and she found the marriage cert. The marriage definitely took place. Thanks so much Robyn for this.

Wedding of James Ward and Jane Thomas Sproule 1855

Here is the proof, Jane Thomas Sproule definitely married James Ward on 8 Jan 1855, and the wedding was held at Mr Sproule’s house.

Back to Jamaica for another try to find Jane Thomas Sproule. I had tried before without any luck. I looked again for a Jane Sproule, any Jane Sproule, in the Slave Registers on Ancestry.com or the Church of England Baptism records on Familysearch.org. There were none except for the daughter of James Sproule in Stokes Hall. No luck at all on Jane Sproule.

How about the name Jane Thomas? I hadn’t tried that. Robert Sproule was not married to Mary Ann Thomas, so perhaps the daughter Jane had been baptised with nonly her mother's name, Jane Thomas.

I searched the Church of England Baptism records on Familysearch.org and there was only one Jane Thomas who was baptised around this time, and she was a perfect fit! There in the district of St. George, Jamaica in 1837, was the baptism of a Jane Thomas, who had been born in 1835. This is the right year, it is the right parish.

Name Jane Thomas
Baptism Date 9 Apr 1837
Baptism Place District of Saint George, Portland, Jamaica
Baptism Place (Original) St. George, Jamaica
Birth Date 1835

No parents are named at all in the register, which was not uncommon in that year, as this was the year after slavery had ended. The implication is still that this baby is not the child of a married couple.

From Jamaica, Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, Familysearch.org

The place named in the birth register for baby Jane Thomas is Low Layton, a plantation in St. George. If we look at the plantation record for Lowlayton in the Legacies of British Slavery site, we find a very familiar name – George McLeish as a manager in 1832.

From Legacies of British Slavery

He was managing this plantation from 1832 on. George McLeish was also the agent and attorney who registered the Orange Vale estate that year where we know that Robert Sproule was living at this time. I believe George McLeish and Robert Sproule are likely to have been in the same company. So we have a direct line from Jane Thomas in Lowlayton born in 1835, to Robert Sproule living in Orange Vale at the same time. This child Jane Thomas is very likely to be his daughter by Mary Ann Thomas, not definitely, but very likely.

Was there a Mary Ann Thomas in the slave registers? Yes, loads of them! 

From Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers,
Ancestry.com

However, as you can see there, there was only one Mary Ann Thomas in St George, and she was owned by John Meek in 1820. We can see her in the Slave Register for that year. Her name was actually Patience, registered as Mary Ann Thomas and she was 4 years old in 1820. 

From Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers,
Ancestry.com

John Meek, who ‘owned’ Mary Ann Thomas, was actually another one of those Attorney / agents who was an executor of the former owner of this estate. The estate was called Caen Wood. Caen Wood, Lowlayton and Orange Vale were all registered to the same person each year of registration. That is, the same name of an Attorney / agent registers these 3 plantations each year. E.g. John Meek registered them all in 1820, and in 1829 it was William Lambe III who registered them all. The same attorney was looking after all these estates – they were all connected.

 However, there the trail ends. I was not able to find this Mary Ann Thomas after 1820. So I could not connect her to either the baby Jane Thomas or to Robert Sproule.  So Robert Sproule could possibly have acquired this Mary Ann Thomas as his ‘lady friend’ and they had the child named Jane Thomas born in 1835. Only possibly – I could find no proof of this at all. And there are other Mary Ann Thomas' in other parishes.

However, I do believe that the child, Jane Thomas, baptised in Lowlayton in 1837, and born in 1835, is very likely to be the Jane Thomas Sproule who was married in Australia. She is close enough to our Robert Sproule in Orange Vale for me to believe that he was indeed the father of Jane Thomas Sproule in Australia and that a Mary Ann Thomas is her mother.

The big question that remains now is, did Robert Sproule actually travel from Orange Vale in St. George to Melbourne in 1855, and then return to Ireland?

Next Post 

Previous Posts in this Story

Robert Sproule and Marianne Schoburgh

The Intriguing Robert Sproule of Jamaica

References:

Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834 Ancestry.com

Jamaica, Church of England parish register transcripts; 1664-1880, Familysearch.org

Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery