Mary and Catherine Gillard, ex Panama
Mary and Catherine Gillard, ages 19 and 18, were sisters from Ballina; their parents, William and Margaret, were both dead.
After arrival in Sydney on the Panama in January 1850, they were sent to the Wollongong depot. Both were employed in Wollongong; Mary by P. Daly, at £8 for one year, and Catherine by J. McDonald, under the same terms (see the Famine Orphan Girl Database).
Unfortunately, just over a year later, on 15 May 1851, the Coroner’s Report recorded Catherine Gillard’s death on 2 May as Felo de se: suicide. She was aged 21.
The inquest into Catherine's death was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10 May 1851. Catherine had been employed by Mr John Collie in Wollongong for about a month, when at Easter, she became ill. It subsequently was ascertained that Catherine had poisoned herself by ingesting "corrosive sublimate" (mercury bichloride). She suffered for several days before dying at the home of her sister, Mary.
Catherine has been remembered on the Women of the Illawarra Project website, which strives to recognise the pioneering women of the Illawarra area. The website also mentions her sister, Mary Gillard, who married Phillip McGrath in Wollongong in 1851, the same year as Catherine’s death. Catherine Gillard's story is a poignant case. Given the circumstances of any of the girls’ lives in Ireland, and what they must have endured during the Famine and then in the workhouse, it is extremely sad to discover that for Catherine, and perhaps for other girls, the hope of a new beginning in a new country was just not enough to keep them from despair. |
© Barbara Barclay (2015)