Mary Whelan : Short Biography

Mary Whelan was born between 1811 and 1813 in Tipperary (town and parents unknown). She married Edmund Doran on 14 February 1833 in Thurles and gave birth to a son Timothy Doran in the same town in December 1833.  Edmund died in 1836. In 1837 Mary left her young son with her mother and travelled to Australia on Strathfieldsayewith Joseph and Ellen Cashin and their children. They arrived in Sydney on 30 January 1838. On the Assisted Immigrant Passenger List Mary stated that she was 24 years old and a dairy maid.  Mary sailed as a single woman under her maiden name Whelan. It is not known when, how or why Mary travelled  to the Bungonia district south of Sydney in NSW however, she married an English convict Joseph Ockenden on 13 August 1838 in Bungonia. Joseph was indented to work at Springfielda large property located south east of Goulburn as part of his sentence. He and Mary lived and worked on the property. They had four daughters, three of whom were born at Springfield- Catherine (1840), Mary Anne (1842), Jane (1844). The youngest, Alice was born in 1846 in Bungonia. Joseph was given a Certificate of Freedom in 1835 after serving the full 7 years of his sentence. He purchased 40 acres of land in Nadgigomar near Bungonia in 1843, and died on the property on 18 May 1847. On 8 August 1848 Mary married Edward Charles Huggins at Lake Bathurst NSW. They had two daughters - Ellen was born in Braidwood (1849) and Agnes in Bungonia (1852). In the late 1840’s Mary arranged to be reunited with her son Timothy who arrived in Sydney on board Ospreyon 6 June 1850 aged 16.  Charles Huggins had some wealth - he was the owner of the Horse and Jockey Inn and a Tannery in Braidwood at the time of his marriage to Mary. After their marriage he and Mary began to purchase a number of parcels of land in the Bungonia, Windellama and Nadgigomar area ending up with in excess of 500 acres. Charles died on 10 June 1861 after an argument a couple of days earlier with Tim Doran at the Horse and Jockey Inn. Tim hit Charles over the head with an urn causing concussion and a brain haemorrhage. Tim was jailed for 18 months at Berrima jail. In her later years, Mary gifted some of her properties to her daughters, sold the remaining land and moved into the bustling town of Goulburn (at one point it was the largest inland town in Australia). Mary purchased a number of properties along the Main Street in Goulburn, living in one and leasing the others. She also purchased a property in North Goulburn. Mary died on 17 February 1889 and is buried at the St Patrick’s Roman Catholic section of Goulburn Cemetery. This was not her original resting place (which is unknown) as the Goulburn cemetery did not open until a couple of years after her death.