The death record for Catherine Neil states that she was the daughter of James Neil, carpenter, and Ellen Neil formerly Herington [sic]. The informant, James Neil, reported that she was fourteen years old, and had been born in Melbourne. He also claimed to be her father, but was in fact her stepfather. (Qld Death 1858/C560.)
Catherine's mother arrived in Melbourne in 1842 as Ellen Harrington, a single woman without a child. The vital records for Victoria prior to its separation from New South Wales in 1851 are extremely patchy, and an extensive search for Catherine's birth or baptismal record has been fruitless. The earliest evidence for her existence is on the birth certificates of her twin sisters, Agnes and Grace, who were registered as Agnes and Grace Conley, daughters of Ellen Herrington [sic] and Peter Conley. Ellen, the informant, listed her previous issue as 10yo Catherine, 5yo Ann, a deceased son and a deceased daughter. She also claimed to have married Peter Conley in Melbourne in 1843 but again there is no record. Let's assume that Ellen's eldest child was born as Catherine Conley or Connolly (the version of Peter's surname appears in most other records).
The Registrar recorded Catherine's cause of death as 'meningitis basilaris', before adding 'inflammation of the brain' (the literal translation of meningitis). She had been suffering from this painful disease for 14 days. Catherine's attending doctor was Dr Gustav Ernst, who was later convicted of the sexual abuse of a blind female patient. In diagnosing Catherine's illness, Ernst revealed that he was up-to-date in his medical knowledge: Meningitis basilaris was one of the contemporary names for a disease that was also known at the time as Leptomeningitis acuta tuberculosa cerebrospinalis and granular meningitis; less well-informed medicos resorted to vague diagnoses such as dropsy and acute hydrocephalus / water on the brain.
The modern term is tuberculous meningitis (TBM), a rare disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, that today occurs mostly in children in developing countries. In nineteenth century medical treatises, the illness was generally described as beginning with headache, fever, vomiting, and constipation, followed by delirium. Pain caused the child to utter a 'plaintive moan or cry' that was 'so peculiar' that the Swiss physician Jean-François Coindet termed it the 'hydrencephalic cry' and claimed that it aided diagnosis. Paralysis and coma preceded death. Those descriptions of the course of the illness when untreated remain unchanged in the modern literature. According to a recent paper, tuberculous meningitis remains 'the most deadly form of TB'.
Catherine was buried without religious rites in Maryborough on 28 December 1858, four days after her death (a surprisingly long time in the middle of a Queensland summer). We can be sure that it was a formal burial in a designated cemetery because the witnesses were two associates of James Neil. Scotsman William Richardson(1824-1866) was the District Registrar who registered the death. Irishman James FANNING (ca 1824-1882), originally of Co. Tipperary, was convicted in Middlesex in 1847 and transported in 1850 to Moreton Bay to serve out the remainder of a seven year sentence; in 1863 he was tried and acquitted of murdering his first wife.
In 1858 the Maryborough cemetery (now the disused Pioneer Cemetery) was at the site of the original Maryborough township on the Mary River, upstream from the current town centre. Following an archaeological study and preservation work undertaken in the 1980s, a shelter with interpretive panels and picnic table was erected on the site of the old cemetery. It can be found on the corner of Alice and Aldridge Streets. Alice Street, formerly known as the Northern Road, is the route that Catherine's surviving family took when they moved to Gayndah several years later.
If any reader of this obituary should visit the Pioneer Cemetery, spare a thought for fourteen year old Catherine as you walk on the unmarked graves of the early colonists of Maryborough, and also remember those whom those colonists dispossessed.
Read more at: https://wordpress.com/post/tetragonula.wordpress.com/1111
Catherine's mother arrived in Melbourne in 1842 as Ellen Harrington, a single woman without a child. The vital records for Victoria prior to its separation from New South Wales in 1851 are extremely patchy, and an extensive search for Catherine's birth or baptismal record has been fruitless. The earliest evidence for her existence is on the birth certificates of her twin sisters, Agnes and Grace, who were registered as Agnes and Grace Conley, daughters of Ellen Herrington [sic] and Peter Conley. Ellen, the informant, listed her previous issue as 10yo Catherine, 5yo Ann, a deceased son and a deceased daughter. She also claimed to have married Peter Conley in Melbourne in 1843 but again there is no record. Let's assume that Ellen's eldest child was born as Catherine Conley or Connolly (the version of Peter's surname appears in most other records).
The Registrar recorded Catherine's cause of death as 'meningitis basilaris', before adding 'inflammation of the brain' (the literal translation of meningitis). She had been suffering from this painful disease for 14 days. Catherine's attending doctor was Dr Gustav Ernst, who was later convicted of the sexual abuse of a blind female patient. In diagnosing Catherine's illness, Ernst revealed that he was up-to-date in his medical knowledge: Meningitis basilaris was one of the contemporary names for a disease that was also known at the time as Leptomeningitis acuta tuberculosa cerebrospinalis and granular meningitis; less well-informed medicos resorted to vague diagnoses such as dropsy and acute hydrocephalus / water on the brain.
The modern term is tuberculous meningitis (TBM), a rare disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, that today occurs mostly in children in developing countries. In nineteenth century medical treatises, the illness was generally described as beginning with headache, fever, vomiting, and constipation, followed by delirium. Pain caused the child to utter a 'plaintive moan or cry' that was 'so peculiar' that the Swiss physician Jean-François Coindet termed it the 'hydrencephalic cry' and claimed that it aided diagnosis. Paralysis and coma preceded death. Those descriptions of the course of the illness when untreated remain unchanged in the modern literature. According to a recent paper, tuberculous meningitis remains 'the most deadly form of TB'.
Catherine was buried without religious rites in Maryborough on 28 December 1858, four days after her death (a surprisingly long time in the middle of a Queensland summer). We can be sure that it was a formal burial in a designated cemetery because the witnesses were two associates of James Neil. Scotsman William Richardson(1824-1866) was the District Registrar who registered the death. Irishman James FANNING (ca 1824-1882), originally of Co. Tipperary, was convicted in Middlesex in 1847 and transported in 1850 to Moreton Bay to serve out the remainder of a seven year sentence; in 1863 he was tried and acquitted of murdering his first wife.
In 1858 the Maryborough cemetery (now the disused Pioneer Cemetery) was at the site of the original Maryborough township on the Mary River, upstream from the current town centre. Following an archaeological study and preservation work undertaken in the 1980s, a shelter with interpretive panels and picnic table was erected on the site of the old cemetery. It can be found on the corner of Alice and Aldridge Streets. Alice Street, formerly known as the Northern Road, is the route that Catherine's surviving family took when they moved to Gayndah several years later.
If any reader of this obituary should visit the Pioneer Cemetery, spare a thought for fourteen year old Catherine as you walk on the unmarked graves of the early colonists of Maryborough, and also remember those whom those colonists dispossessed.
Read more at: https://wordpress.com/post/tetragonula.wordpress.com/1111
The death record for Catherine Neil states that she was the daughter of James Neil, carpenter, and Ellen Neil formerly Herington [sic]. The informant, James Neil, reported that she was fourteen years old, and had been born in Melbourne. He also claimed to be her father, but was in fact her stepfather. (Qld Death 1858/C560.)
Catherine's mother arrived in Melbourne in 1842 as Ellen Harrington, a single woman without a child. The vital records for Victoria prior to its separation from New South Wales in 1851 are extremely patchy, and an extensive search for Catherine's birth or baptismal record has been fruitless. The earliest evidence for her existence is on the birth certificates of her twin sisters, Agnes and Grace, who were registered as Agnes and Grace Conley, daughters of Ellen Herrington [sic] and Peter Conley. Ellen, the informant, listed her previous issue as 10yo Catherine, 5yo Ann, a deceased son and a deceased daughter. She also claimed to have married Peter Conley in Melbourne in 1843 but again there is no record. Let's assume that Ellen's eldest child was born as Catherine Conley or Connolly (the version of Peter's surname appears in most other records).
The Registrar recorded Catherine's cause of death as 'meningitis basilaris', before adding 'inflammation of the brain' (the literal translation of meningitis). She had been suffering from this painful disease for 14 days. Catherine's attending doctor was Dr Gustav Ernst, who was later convicted of the sexual abuse of a blind female patient. In diagnosing Catherine's illness, Ernst revealed that he was up-to-date in his medical knowledge: Meningitis basilaris was one of the contemporary names for a disease that was also known at the time as Leptomeningitis acuta tuberculosa cerebrospinalis and granular meningitis; less well-informed medicos resorted to vague diagnoses such as dropsy and acute hydrocephalus / water on the brain.
The modern term is tuberculous meningitis (TBM), a rare disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, that today occurs mostly in children in developing countries. In nineteenth century medical treatises, the illness was generally described as beginning with headache, fever, vomiting, and constipation, followed by delirium. Pain caused the child to utter a 'plaintive moan or cry' that was 'so peculiar' that the Swiss physician Jean-François Coindet termed it the 'hydrencephalic cry' and claimed that it aided diagnosis. Paralysis and coma preceded death. Those descriptions of the course of the illness when untreated remain unchanged in the modern literature. According to a recent paper, tuberculous meningitis remains 'the most deadly form of TB'.
Catherine was buried without religious rites in Maryborough on 28 December 1858, four days after her death (a surprisingly long time in the middle of a Queensland summer). We can be sure that it was a formal burial in a designated cemetery because the witnesses were two associates of James Neil. Scotsman William Richardson(1824-1866) was the District Registrar who registered the death. Irishman James FANNING (ca 1824-1882), originally of Co. Tipperary, was convicted in Middlesex in 1847 and transported in 1850 to Moreton Bay to serve out the remainder of a seven year sentence; in 1863 he was tried and acquitted of murdering his first wife.
In 1858 the Maryborough cemetery (now the disused Pioneer Cemetery) was at the site of the original Maryborough township on the Mary River, upstream from the current town centre. Following an archaeological study and preservation work undertaken in the 1980s, a shelter with interpretive panels and picnic table was erected on the site of the old cemetery. It can be found on the corner of Alice and Aldridge Streets. Alice Street, formerly known as the Northern Road, is the route that Catherine's surviving family took when they moved to Gayndah several years later.
If any reader of this obituary should visit the Pioneer Cemetery, spare a thought for fourteen year old Catherine as you walk on the unmarked graves of the early colonists of Maryborough, and also remember those whom those colonists dispossessed.
Read more at: https://wordpress.com/post/tetragonula.wordpress.com/1111
Catherine's mother arrived in Melbourne in 1842 as Ellen Harrington, a single woman without a child. The vital records for Victoria prior to its separation from New South Wales in 1851 are extremely patchy, and an extensive search for Catherine's birth or baptismal record has been fruitless. The earliest evidence for her existence is on the birth certificates of her twin sisters, Agnes and Grace, who were registered as Agnes and Grace Conley, daughters of Ellen Herrington [sic] and Peter Conley. Ellen, the informant, listed her previous issue as 10yo Catherine, 5yo Ann, a deceased son and a deceased daughter. She also claimed to have married Peter Conley in Melbourne in 1843 but again there is no record. Let's assume that Ellen's eldest child was born as Catherine Conley or Connolly (the version of Peter's surname appears in most other records).
The Registrar recorded Catherine's cause of death as 'meningitis basilaris', before adding 'inflammation of the brain' (the literal translation of meningitis). She had been suffering from this painful disease for 14 days. Catherine's attending doctor was Dr Gustav Ernst, who was later convicted of the sexual abuse of a blind female patient. In diagnosing Catherine's illness, Ernst revealed that he was up-to-date in his medical knowledge: Meningitis basilaris was one of the contemporary names for a disease that was also known at the time as Leptomeningitis acuta tuberculosa cerebrospinalis and granular meningitis; less well-informed medicos resorted to vague diagnoses such as dropsy and acute hydrocephalus / water on the brain.
The modern term is tuberculous meningitis (TBM), a rare disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, that today occurs mostly in children in developing countries. In nineteenth century medical treatises, the illness was generally described as beginning with headache, fever, vomiting, and constipation, followed by delirium. Pain caused the child to utter a 'plaintive moan or cry' that was 'so peculiar' that the Swiss physician Jean-François Coindet termed it the 'hydrencephalic cry' and claimed that it aided diagnosis. Paralysis and coma preceded death. Those descriptions of the course of the illness when untreated remain unchanged in the modern literature. According to a recent paper, tuberculous meningitis remains 'the most deadly form of TB'.
Catherine was buried without religious rites in Maryborough on 28 December 1858, four days after her death (a surprisingly long time in the middle of a Queensland summer). We can be sure that it was a formal burial in a designated cemetery because the witnesses were two associates of James Neil. Scotsman William Richardson(1824-1866) was the District Registrar who registered the death. Irishman James FANNING (ca 1824-1882), originally of Co. Tipperary, was convicted in Middlesex in 1847 and transported in 1850 to Moreton Bay to serve out the remainder of a seven year sentence; in 1863 he was tried and acquitted of murdering his first wife.
In 1858 the Maryborough cemetery (now the disused Pioneer Cemetery) was at the site of the original Maryborough township on the Mary River, upstream from the current town centre. Following an archaeological study and preservation work undertaken in the 1980s, a shelter with interpretive panels and picnic table was erected on the site of the old cemetery. It can be found on the corner of Alice and Aldridge Streets. Alice Street, formerly known as the Northern Road, is the route that Catherine's surviving family took when they moved to Gayndah several years later.
If any reader of this obituary should visit the Pioneer Cemetery, spare a thought for fourteen year old Catherine as you walk on the unmarked graves of the early colonists of Maryborough, and also remember those whom those colonists dispossessed.
Read more at: https://wordpress.com/post/tetragonula.wordpress.com/1111
Gravesite Details
Most of the graves in the Maryborough Pioneer Cemetery, including Catherine's, no longer have visible markers.
Advertisement
Advertisement
