Jane Givins
Jane Givins my husband's maternal great great grandmother was born in 1833/4 in Ireland.
As an adolescent Jane lived through the well-documented hardships of the Great Famine ocurring in Ireland, hence the need for her admission to the workhouse. In the period between 1841 and 1851 Ireland's population was reduced by almost two million people, 25% of the total population. Half of this number died of starvation and disease, the others emigrated to the cities of Britain, Canada and the United States, and some like Jane came to Australia.
It is recorded in Barefoot & Pregnant? Irish Famine Orphans in Australia, volume 2, by Trevor McClaughlin that Jane Givins aged 16 years of Omagh, Tyrone (or perhaps Armagh) was of Roman Catholic faith and was hired as a servant for 3 months by Terence O'Hern of Merri Creek at the rate of £8 per annum. Jane had sailed in the Diadem carrying female orphan immigrants from Irish workhouses as part of the Earl Grey Scheme. She arrived in Melbourne on the 10th January 1850
On 20th May 1850 Jame married John Barron, a Londoner, in St Francis' Church, Melbourne. Neither John nor Jane were literate; they signed thier marriage documents with a 'mark'. They gave their address as Merri Creek. The marriage document has one witness a Margaret O'Hern of Merri Creek, presumably a relative of the man Jane was indentured to at Merri Creek.
After they married John and Jane ignored the 'gold fever' rush of the early 1850s choosing to settle and raise their family in a more stable environment north of Melbourne in the Morang, Yan Yean, Whittlesea area of Victoria.
Ten children were born to the couple between the years 1851 and 1872; Bridget, Elizabeth who died after 16 days, Mary Ann, George, unnamed twins, unnamed female, Edward, John Jnr., and William. William and Bridget were her only children to survive her.
Nothing is known about the Bridget and the family she may have had. Mary Ann lost one child when married to Lewis Goody: she subsequently married Patrick John Cronin, having three children before he also died, their youngest child but a few months old. George Henry Trowell was husband number three and they had three children, two of whom survived. Their daughter Elizabeth is our ancestor. George (Trowell) remarried and continued to care for her five children. George Barron, the unnamed twins and unnamed female and Edward all died in infancy or early childhood. When John Jnr. Barron died, he was unmarried. William Barron's family remains to be researched.
Jane, our female orphan ancestor is noted on the 1903 Morang Electoral Roll as living with her son William, and presumably his wife, Mary. By 1909 it is only Mary and William living at Morang. Jane's husband, John, had predeased her. He was buried in 1874 at Whittlesea Cemetery.
Jane lived until she was seventy years old (1904) indicating a strong woman who had survived the Irish Famine and bravely, as a sixteen year old migrated on a small 714 ton ship. a voyage of three months to an unknown land. She gave birth to ten children and suffered the grief of seven of her children predeceasing her, five in infancy and with the death of her husband, left her to care for two duaghters, two boys, the youngest child two years old.
Jane was buried at the Yan Yean Cemetery by Presbyterian rites.
Elizabeth Wright for gg grandson Don
email: donlizw[at]netspace.net.au
