Mathew Fitzpatrick's connection to Australia

The Fitzpatrick Society website states that the “Fitzpatricks in Australia since the mid-1800s trace their ancestry to the Fitzpatricks of Ballagh from the mid-1700s and back to the Baron of Upper Ossory. “

Mathew Fitzpatrick was a younger brother of John, sons of Charles and Catherine of Ballagh.  Mathew was a Captain in the 39th Regiment, which became the East Middlesex Regiment of Foot, then the Dorsetshire Regiment of Foot after 1807.  This Regiment was also in the same battles in France as the 3rd Buffs, part of the occupation army 1815 to 1818, after which it embarked for Ireland.  

Mathew married Susan Woolls in 1817, when he was a Lieutenant in the 97th Regiment of Foot.  After it was disbanded in 1818, he could have been in the 88th and 37th Regiments.  By 1823, Mathew was in the Royal Irish Constabulary in Cork and Tipperary.   He was a sub-inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary when he died in Bandon, Cork in 1843 (Irish Parish Register Burials, Ffolliott Collection and Suzanne England, 7 April 2024).

Family Tree Maker chart, 3 January 2024

Family Notices, Evening News, 14 March 1874, p.2
nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107139885, 17 November 2023

On 14 March 1874, there was a notice in the Evening News in Sydney, advising Susan Louisa had died on 16 December 1873, at 8 Lawn Terrace, Blackheath.  This was in Lewisham, County Kent, England.  She was “widow of the late Matthew John Fitzpatrick, Esq, of Queen’s County, Ireland, formerly of H.M.S. 39th Regiment” (National Library of Australia, Trove). 

Mathew did not go to New South Wales with the 39th Regiment, which was guarding convicts and establishing settlements in Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales, between 1825 and 1832.  He died in Ireland, not in Bandon near Mudgee in New South Wales.  Susan died in England, not in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.  The Mathew who died aged 30 in 1856 (NSWBMD 474/1856 registration district LA = Roman Catholic, St James’ Sydney) was not related to this family.  Thanks to Suzanne England for these corrections.

It was Mathew and Susan's son Matthew, who migrated to Australia, perhaps in the early 1850s.  He married Sabina Gadd [Sabrina Gade] in 1857 (NSWBMD 2732/1857, registered Wellington).  

On the Shearman Fitzpatrick family tree, Mathew's wife was unknown; their marriage was 1856.  Mathew, of “Ossory” Merindee, Welllingstonshire, NSW, was living in 1878.  This property was Merinda, near Mudgee.  Their children were Joseph, Mathew, Frederick, Sabina, Letitia and Gertrude.

Merinda, Google Air Photo, 3 January 2024.

Reminiscences about "Merrendee" in 1908 described events including the kangaroo hunt led by M. Fitzpatrick of Ossory.

Matthew John Fitzpatrick, parents Matthew J and Sabina, was buried at the Church of England, Randwick on 13 August 1933 (NSWBMD 16345/1933, registered Waverley).