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

 

The Intriguing Robert Sproule of Jamaica

 What a difference 7 years makes. This record wasn’t there in the Church Records of Jamaica on Familysearch.org when I was researching Jamaica in 2012/2013. Now I was looking again in 2020, and here it was. The mystery of Mary Anne Schouberg, for that is the spelling in Jamaica, was solved.  Unfortunately, as is often the case, the solution not only solved the mystery but it also generated a lot of questions, and this time they were really, really, challenging.

The questions all centred round the mysterious and intriguing Robert Sproule of Jamaica. Indeed, was there 'a' Robert Sproule of Jamaica, just one, or were there two Robert Sproules of Jamaica? Or were there two Robert Sproules, but only one Robert Sproule was real and the other Robert Sproule was an imposter? And if the second Robert Sproule was an imposter – who was he? Those were the kind of questions I was facing, definitely challenging. It took a lot to sort this out, with detective work, timelines and a  ‘murder wall’ – the whole scene!

But first I have to build the story up for you. This Robert Sproule in Jamaica lived in the parish of St George. We know who he is. He is another Tullymoan Sproule, the son of Robert Sproule who was born on the Tullymoan farm some time round the 1770s. Robert, the father, was a brother of James Sproule of Stokes Hall, Jamaica, and later Mellmount.

Robert Sproule the father was, I believe, a businessman rather than a farmer, and our Robert Sproule of St George appears to have followed in his father’s footsteps. We gather this from an investigation of his history in Jamaica.

Parishes in Jamaica in the early 1800s 

Robert first appears in the parish of St. George on the 28^th Jun 1829, when he registered himself as an owner of one slave. The parish of St George is to the north west of St Thomas in the East, where his uncle James Sproule was living in his plantation at Stokes Hall.

Robert in St George, 1832, from
Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834 Ancestry.com

In 1832, Robert again registered slaves, but only 3.[1] This immediately tells us that Robert is not a planter like his uncle James – he’s not a plantation manager or owner. He could possibly, then, be an agent or a merchant of some kind. 

We never find out for certain where exactly in St George Robert Sproule is living – no town or plantation is every mentioned, with one exception. This was in 1838, when, according to the Jamaican Almanac of that year, Robert Sproule registered the plantation of Orange Vale, St George, with 124 apprentices.[2] ‘Apprentices’ were former slaves, set free in the emancipation in 1834. This year of 1838 is the only year that Robert is associated with this plantation in the records, and if we look at the history of Orange Vale, we get a hint as to what business Robert is in.

From Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery

This Orange Vale plantation was registered by managers from 1823 to 1826. 'Managers' would have actually run the plantation and occasionally register it when the owner was off-island. After this it was registered by an agent, who was an attorney, one George McLeish, until the end of slavery. Now the agent wouldn’t have actually run the plantation, that would still be the manager, the agent represented the Owner's interests. Occasionally, the agent may have lived there. I think it is very likely that Robert Sproule was in the same company as George McLeish and that they were agents and attorneys. He only registered Orange Vale himself for this one year.

We also know that Robert Sproule registered for the militia and that he was also later a magistrate in St. George.

I had discovered all of this in early 2013 and that was when I received a rather astounding email from a gentleman in Australia. This email seemed to concern this same Robert Sproule. The Australian gentleman had seen my blog, which at that time had mentioned Jamaica, but not yet the story of James Sproule of Mellmount.

He said that his ancestor, a Jane Thomas Sproule, was married in Melbourne in 1855. Jane Thomas Sproule was married;

"…at the house of Mr Sproule, according to the ceremonies of the church of Scotland. Jane stayed in Australia & had at least 5 children including Charles Mansfield, in 1864. I don't know if Jane's mother (Mary Ann Thomas) ever came to Australia. Jane's father, is identified as a Planter from Jamaica – Robert Sproule.”

 I remember my first reaction to this – it can’t be true. Robert Sproule, a Planter from Jamaica, was in Australia in 1855? Nobody could go all that way from Jamaica to Melbourne and then back to Jamaica again, especially in those days. Could he really have done that, could Robert Sproule have gone from Jamaica to Australia? Why on earth would he do that?

I had to check for proof of this, so I went back to my Australian gentlemen and asked if he had any details or documents. He had indeed! Unfortunately, he did not send this, but he told me;

“I have a Victorian marriage cert. from 1855 which is for Jane Thomas Sproule (who must have been about age 20), marrying James Ward. Her father is identified as Robert Sproule, PLANTER, from Jamaica. Her mother, Mary Ann Thomas. I also have a birth cert. for Charles Mansfield Ward, 1864, born to Jane Sproule ( birthplace, Jamaica, West Indies) age 29, & James Ward.”

Now that all sounded very legitimate and it was enough detail for me to do some checking in Jamaica. My informant did not know, as I hadn’t yet published the story, that I was by now very familiar with these Sproules and their relationships with slave ladies in Jamaica. There was a strong possibility that Jane Thomas Sproule, the daughter who was born about 1835, was not the daughter of Robert Sproule’s wife, Mary Ann Thomas, but was the child of some slave lady.

I went hunting first for a child named Jane born to any Robert Sproule in Jamaica. I looked in the Familysearch.org where there is a super collection in the Jamaica Church of England Parish Register Transcripts - these contains baptisms. This database would also include slave baptisms. There was no child baptised named Jane Sproule daugher of a Robert Sproule - absolutely none.  

I had already found one child born to a Robert Sproule in that same database, and even after a search at that time, I could find no more.* This was the baptism of the son of our Robert Sproule. He was also called Robert Sproule, and he was born on 20 Nov 1842 in Orange Vale. His father was named as Robert Sproule, and his mother was, Mary Ann, wife of Robert Sproule.  

The baptism of the son of Robert Sproule,
Jamaica Births and Baptisms, 1752-1920, Familysearch.org

This is definitely our Robert Sproule and he seems to be actually living in Orange Vale at that time. This son later became Robert Sproule of Mulvin. It is also notable that Robert describes himself here in this birth record as a ‘Planter’, just as the Robert Sproule in Australia did.

No sign of a daughter of Robert Sproule named Jane Thomas Sproule. I checked the will of our Robert Sproule written after he returned to  Ireland, dated 27th of June 1860, to see if he mentioned a daughter Jane  – there was no Jane there at all.[3]

Now I went to search the slave records on Ancestry. 

There was only one Jane Sproule registered as a slave in the whole of Jamaica, and she is Jane, the daughter of James Sproule of Stokes Hall. No other Jane Sproul is registered as a slave.

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

Of course, if Jane Thomas Sproule was born in 1835, as the informant said, she would not have been born a slave, as this was after emancipation. 

At this point I went back to my Australian gentleman telling him that I could not find Jane Thomas Sproule, but that Robert Sproule appeared to be the only planter in Jamaica. I also said that in my view the liklihood was that Jane Thomas Sproule was almost certainly the child of a former slave and that Mary Ann Thomas, his wife, was unlikely to have been her mother.
And that’s where I left it in 2013.

But Mary Ann Thomas wasn’t the wife of Robert Sproule at all, was she? No, she wasn’t. For in May 2020, when I went back to the Jamaican records,  I found out that the wife of Robert Sproule of Jamaica and later of Mulvin was none other than our aforementioned Mary Ann Schouberg.

In the Parish of St. George in 1836, we have, 

"Robert Sproule and Mary Ann Schouberg, both of this Parish, were married by Licence on the 18th day of June in the year 1836" [4]

Robert Sproule of Jamaica and Mulvin had married Mary Ann Schouberg - not Mary Ann Thomas. Robert and Mary Ann Schouberg had one child  in Jamaica, and they had a further 6 children in Ireland. These children were baptised in the 1st Strabane Presbyterian Church. Robert mentions only 3 children in his will of 1862 - Robert, Andrew S. and Margaret Matilda. Andrew S. is Andrew Schouberg Sproule.

Now you see the questions that we have. Who was that lady who got married in Melbourne, Australia, in 1855, the Jane Thomas Sproule? Who was the man who said he was her father, Robert Sproule, Planter, from Jamaica? Could he be our Robert Sproule of Jamaica? What if he wasn't?

What we really need now is more evidence. We need to find Jane Thomas Sproule in Jamaica. If she is anywhere near our Robert Sproule, that will tell us a lot. If not...

Next Post 

Robert Sproule and Jane Thomas Sproule

Previous Posts in this Story

Robert Sproule and Marianne Schoburgh

References:

[1] Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834 Ancestry.com https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1129/

[2] 1838 Jamaica Almanac in Jamaican Family Jamaican Family Search Genealogy Research Library http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/AL38Geor.htm

[3] The will of Robert Sproule of Mulvin, formerly Jamaica is in PRONI Will Calendars

[4] Jamaica Births and Baptisms, 1752-1920, Familysearch.org

The map of the parishes above is from https://goodnewsjamaica.com/2019/09/13/the-history-of-the-jamaican-parishes/

* There actually is one other Robert Sproule there in St Thomas in the East, with a wife Ann. He is not relevant to this story.  I'll address this Robert in a later post.

 

Robert Sproule and Marianne Schoburgh

I knew this couple were important as soon as I first saw them. To be honest, I don’t remember when that was, but it was a few years ago. They were in the wonderful County Tyrone website, on a page of baptisms from the 1st Strabane Presbyterian Church, transcribed by Jim Crabtree. There were only 3 children here on this page, although more children emerged over the years; 

Date of birth	Childs Name	Father’s Name	Mother’s Name	Residence	Date of Baptism
5 April 1845	James	Robt. Sproule	Marianne Schobourg	Strabane	15 June 1845
20 July 1847	Andw. Schoburgh	Robt. Sproule	Marianne Schoburgh	Strabane	15 Aug 1847
1 July 1849	Saml. Angus	Robt. Sproule	Marianne Schoburgh	Strabane	17 Sept 1849

1st Strabane Presbyterian Baptisms 1840-51 in County Tyrone Genealogy [1]

I felt this family were important, and this was for two main reasons. Firstly, Robert Sproule and Marianne Schoburgh were living in Strabane in the 1840s, so they had to be related to one of the many Sproule families in the area. The other important point was, of course, that name, ‘Marianne Schoburgh’. Schoburghs weren’t floating freely round Strabane at that time, or, indeed at any other time. In fact, there were no Schoburghs in Ireland at all, that I could find anyway. Where could our Robert Sproule have found her? 

Knowing the Sproules, the answer to that question could be anywhere in the world. At that time I was working on too many other stories and doing too much research to divert on to a worldwide hunt, so I decided to let the hare sit, to do nothing, and just wait in the hope that I would come across a connection to this couple in my travels.

I never forgot them. When I was working on other families, I would take out Robert Sproule and Marianne Schoburg to see if they would fit. For example, they were in the same church in Strabane as the Mellmount Sproules – could they fit there? No, the Mellmounts were all accounted for.[2]  Much later I was working on the Evish Sproules, also in that church – perhaps one of them? No fit there either. [3]

A very promising lead came when I was working on James Sproule of Newtonstewart, son of Thomas Spreull of Golan. In 1801 Charles Sproule, son of James of Newtonstewart, bought a house in Strabane and I knew that Charles had a son Robert. But this fizzled out too.[4]

The day finally came when I realised that Robert Sproule and Marianne Schoburg were not not going to come to me at all, I was going to have to go out there and find them!

Now, where to start? Robert Sproule has to have left Ireland, he has to have gone somewhere, stayed there for a while and then come back. Perhaps Robert was a soldier, so perhaps England, or perhaps India? But that name Schoburg has to be German or something like that. Why would Robert Sproule go to Germany? Germany is a bit unlikely.

Canada, America and Australia were the obvious places, all high on the probability list.  Lots of Sproules went there, and lots of Germans went there too. But very few Sproules came back. So I didn’t start there, I went somewhere else. 

There was another potential location that would be very quick to check and it would fit the bill perfectly – Jamaica. Sproules went there and either or they died there, or they came back, . It would be very quick to establish if there were any Schoburgs there or not.

Some 7 years before this, when researching my own family, the Tullymoan Sproules, I had been totally immersed in the Sproules of Jamaica . The first of these that I know of was Andrew Sproule of Annotto Bay, who died there in 1801.[5] He was a very affluent man who had been an agent and a merchant. Andrew sent money home for his first cousin, James Sproule, to come out to Jamaica. James was only a young man when he left the Tullymoan Farm, but he also manged to make his fortune in Jamaica, this time in sugar plantations. James came back and set his family up in Mellmount House, on the edge of Strabane. Unfortunately, he returned to Jamaica to tidy up his affairs in 1840 and died there in a shipwreck. [2]

There were a couple of other Sproules that I had found in those early searches. One was indeed a Robert Sproule, and he too came from the same Tullymoan family, a nephew of James of Mellmount. He was actually married to a Mary Ann, but this one was called Mary Ann Thomas, not Schoburg. This Robert is a bit of a mysterious character, more on him later.

Back to our current mission. Were there Schoburgs in Jamaica?

Yes, indeed, there were two Schoburgs. One was a plantation owner and a magistrate called Anders Jansen Schouberg. The other was, I believe, his son, J P Schouberg. So I was wrong about the German name then,  the name 'Schouberg' is not German at all. With the 'Anders' and the 'Jansen', this name must be Scandinavian.

But there was actually one more Schouberg, who we assume to be the daughter of Anders Jansen Schouberg.

She was called Mary Ann Schouberg.

Next Post on This Story:

The Intriguing Robert Sproule of Jamaica

 References:

[1] 1st Strabane Presbyterian Baptisms 1840-51 in Countytyrone.com

[2]The story of the Mellmount Sproules - Kate Tammemagi

[3] More on the Evish Sproules

[4] In May 1801 Charles Sproule of Newtonstewart bought the house, land and garden of Drumbrallagh, near the Tower in Strabane. PRONI Ref: D1062/4/A/46

[5] I haven't yet told this story of Andrew Sproule of Annotto Bay, Jamaica, but it will follow in the near future.