Who was Catherine Ridge, born Sydney c.1796?

A great deal of sleuthing has been necessary to uncover my forthcoming story of Robert Forrester's son-in-law Richard Ridge, who was an intriguing Third Fleeter with a long history as an officer of the court (bailiff) in the early days of New South Wales. 

Part of my detective work involved investigating the unregistered birth of a Catherine Ridge in Sydney around 1796. The original intention was to include her full story as an Appendix in the Richard Ridge book, he being the only man named Ridge living in Sydney at that time. But Catherine was unlikely to have been Richard’s biological child and, in the interests of relevance to his story, I'm publishing what I know of Catherine's life story here.

It is postulated that Catherine was actually the natural child of William O’Neal and Mary Cunningham or Coningham a.k.a. Mary Carroll, conceived aboard the Marquis Cornwallis but born after the ship reached Sydney in February 1796. The Irish convicts William and Mary, both educated enough to be literate, likely formed a bond during their long journey to Australia. But in 1796, as newly-arrived convicts, the system for placement of women meant that William and Mary could not stay together by choice.

Marquis Conwallis in 1793, by Frans Balthazar Solvyns,
Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, ML1346

Perhaps Mary was assigned as the housekeeper in Richard’s hut, under his ‘protection’, and when her baby was born she acquired the surname Ridge out of common usage. This happened to Isabella Forrester, the girl who later became Richard's sister-in-law: after her mother died, young Isabella was raised from infancy by Paul Bushell and his wife and in some places is referred to as Isabella Bushell.

The given name of Catherine might have honoured Mary’s friend Katherine Neil from the Marquis Cornwallis voyage, who perhaps attended the birth and who married Richard's co-accused William Shaw in December 1796. Since Richard’s mother was also named Catherine, he would have readily accepted the name.

After Richard’s sentence expired in September 1796, he and Mary and baby Catherine moved to the Hawkesbury. For the time being, William and Katherine Shaw remained in Sydney.

Mary’s second daughter Mary Ann Ridge was born around 1798, her birth also unregistered. Richard was the acknowledged father and later documents prove the connection. (His land grant of August 1804 was subsequently gifted by him to ‘Mary Ann Ridge his daughter’ in August 1838. Mary Ann’s 1856 death certificate gives her father’s name as Richard Ridge and her eldest ‘brother by the half blood’ James Bligh Ridge of Windsor announced his intention to prepare an application to the Supreme Court for Letters of Administration over her estate.)

At the Hawkesbury Mary met up again with William O’Neal, her fellow Irishman and shipmate from the Marquis Cornwallis. Mary left Richard, taking her two infant daughters with her, and took up with O’Neal.

As soon as O’Neal was free-by-servitude Mary married him at Parramatta, on 30 December 1799, signing her name as Mary Coningham. He signed as Wm O’Neal. Witnesses were Patrick Burn, a fellow shipmate and an Irish political prisoner, who made his mark, and Burn’s new wife Sarah Best who signed. In subsequent administrative records the Mary living with William O’Neal is recorded as Mary Carroll, not Cunningham or Coningham.

Both Catherine and Mary Ann Ridge were then raised by their mother and her husband, who became a baker and publican in Sydney, with some background details included in Richard Ridge's story, because of his direct connection to Mary Ann.

In 1814 Mary Ann’s older half-sister Catherine Ridge makes her inaugural official appearance in the records, being mentioned by name for the first time. She was around eighteen years old when she witnessed a wedding in Sydney:

Henry Buckley, aged 35, Bachelor, Abode: Sydney [NSW AUS], Brazier, Signed X; & Hannah Jones, aged 30, Spinster, Abode: Sydney [NSW AUS], Signed X; married 29 Sep 1814, registered St Philips Church of England Sydney [NSW AUS] by Banns by William Cowper, Assistant Chaplain; Witness: John Kern, Signed X; Witness: Catherine Ridge, Signed.

Henry and Hannah Buckley then disappear from NSW records. The groom may have been the merchant who died in Lancashire in 1816, aged 37. John Kern may have been a soldier named John Kean.

Catherine is literate, in keeping with two literate parents. Her exact connection to the Buckley couple is unclear but the merchant and soldier connection is plausible. Catherine lived in the business heart of Sydney, close to the army barracks, and her half-sister Mary Ann Ridge will soon become the de facto wife of another merchant in Sydney, R.C. Pritchett.

Fifteen months later when she is around nineteen, Catherine witnesses another wedding in Sydney:

James Jenkins, aged 40, Bachelor, Abode: Sydney [NSW AUS], Stonemason, Signed; & Elizabeth Saunders [signed] Elizabeth Sanders, aged 21, Spinster, Abode: Sydney [NSW AUS], Signed; married 12 Dec 1815, registered St Philips Church of England Sydney [NSW AUS] by Banns by William Cowper, Assistant Chaplain; Witness: Thomas Saunders, Signed X; Witness: Catharine Ridge, Signed

This time it seems likely that Catherine is a friend of the bride. James Jenkins, recently widowed, lived at the Rocks.

Then on 9 April 1821 it’s Catherine Ridge who is married, to James McDonald at St Phillip’s Sydney. The bride was a 24 year old spinster of Sydney, able to sign her name, and the bachelor groom was an illiterate 28 year old labourer, also of Sydney. The date of this marriage and the bride's age implies she was born after 9 April 1796. To fit with the supposition that she was conceived aboard the Marquis Cornwallis, she must have been born by November 1796.

There were several James McDonalds in Sydney at this time but his choice of Arthur Little as a witness suggests James was possibly the man from Armagh in Northern Ireland who’d stolen a horse and had arrived on the Providence in 1811, along with Little. The marriage was performed after banns by William Cowper, and was witnessed by Arter (Arthur) Little and Mary Little (nee Norman). The Littles had both arrived on different ships as convicts in 1811, had met in Sydney and by now were the parents of four children. In 1828 Arthur was a dealer at King St, Sydney and he died a wealthy man at his palatial home ‘Rockwall’ in Macleay St, Darlinghurst in 1862.

James McDonald (a.k.a. MacDonald and McDonnell) had a life sentence but he’d been emancipated by Macquarie c.1818. He applied for a grant in July 1820 on the basis that he had been brought up to agriculture. He did not mention a wife at that point. However a daughter Mary A McDonald was likely born in 1820, and a son James in 1822. The land grant was approved on 22 September 1824, provided James settled on it. This appears to have been 30 acres at Long Reef, where Arthur Little also had a land grant, his being 100 acres. James, a grasscutter, employed various convict tradesmen and was occasionally in trouble for not paying for them, up until October 1824. Muster data shows James and Catherine (born colony) living together in Sydney in 1822 and 1825 but, apart from her date of birth around 1796, the research process (to date) has not uncovered any further definitive information about Catherine. 

DNA tests should help resolve the puzzle: descendants of Catherine should share DNA with the Pritchett descendants of Mary Ann Ridge but not with the descendants of the eleven children fathered by Richard Ridge with his wife Margaret Forrester.

More details of Catherine's half-sister Mary Ann Ridge will be included in the forthcoming biography of Richard Ridge, which I hope to publish later in 2023. Please email me, or contact me on Facebook or Instagram, if you'd like to be added to the waiting list for this book.